— the dove, she promised land, as she laid the branch right into my hand | OPEN.

[extramuralise]

Who: John Irving (extramuralise) + OPEN!
What: Catch-all for various threads (event-adjacent or otherwise), and everything else in between!
When: Throughout March
Where: Milton & surrounding areas.
Content Warnings: Repression, religion, repentance etc... you know, the usual. Will update as needed!




( closed & open starters! feel free to PM / plurk me @ reggiemantle for plotting. )

Comments

[extramuralise]

[ Actually, the question does make Irving wonder if he should head upstairs shortly just to check and make sure Little is still safe — because after all, if he's down here, then how can he know for certain one way or another? — but then he quickly tries tamping down on that concern again, at least for now, because . ]

I'm sure that she would have told Edward, yes, [ he confirms, after a slightly awkward momentary silence. ] though he'd be under no obligation to further share her confidences with me, such as it is... I'm happy enough to honour a young lady's privacy, so long as she has someone to share her troubles with.

[ Even if that 'someone' simply happened to, of course, be God, but Irving does know Kate just a bit better than that, at least, to also know she could still do a lot worse than having both God and Edward Little in her corner.

Kate and Irving, on the other hand, are significantly less close— not that he's particularly close with anyone, really.

And as for Fitzjames's question... ]

W-well, I— [ He clears his throat, face flushing slightly pinker. ] I-I suppose I've just... still been recovering from our ordeal with the— you know, I'm not even sure of quite what to call them; the invisible string lights, on our fingers? In any case, I found it very disorienting.

[gildedlife]

[James is expecting perhaps a little hesitation in answering--as many things that might be keeping someone up might be a bit personal--but Irving's response indicates that there might be something even deeper there, and his mention of the strings hints at several ways that could be.

Of course he can't help but be curious, even if it suddenly feels like a slightly dangerous subject to dig into considering his own recent experiences.]

Disorienting in what manner?

[James had found using and understanding the strings to be very intuitive, but perhaps Irving had found it less so, or was simply not very enthusiastic about dealing with magic in general. Or, of course, the issue could have been in what the strings revealed, something that James has far more experience with than he wants to think about.]

[extramuralise]

[ Ah, and there it is: the million dollar question, so to speak, which also happens to be one that is potentially dangerous enough to almost make Irving regret bringing it up at all.

Then again, what else have they to talk about at this late, late hour of an otherwise fitfully sleepless night... or very early morning, really? Fitzjames may be charming and a natural conversationalist, but Irving could not so easily — or frankly, even truthfully — be described as either one of those things, and can likely at best only hope not to thoroughly humiliate himself in the process of trying.

He clears his throat again, struggling to quite find the right words to answer with; ones which may still seem relatively innocuous rather than possibly, for all he knows, far more...

—Well, and that's just it: how can he possibly know what any of it might truly mean? ]

Er, well—

[ He looks down at his fingers, which fidget and pull at themselves uneasily. ]

Did you happen to hear of anyone who had been experiencing certain... well, I-I suppose you might call them blended colorations, while, at least to my own knowledge, the majority of our number had instead commonly shown only a singular color at a time per each of their fingers?

[ Is that perhaps both the stupidest and nerdiest possible way to pose that question...? Yes, well, probably, but Irving hopes it just doesn't sound like anything more than purely curiosity for curiosity's sake, a simple and straightforwardly academic interest because, if for no other particular reason, how many of them actually have compared their notes on the experience by now?

(And never mind, of course, that Irving is not traditionally any example of such an academic, being more numerically-inclined toward logical, answerable problems — good ol' mathematics, in other words — rather than the realms of those who much prefer seeking theoretically scientific explanations via theories and hypothesis.) ]

[gildedlife]

[As roundabout a way as Irving puts his question, it's still more than clear enough for James to understand what he's asking, although perhaps that's because he has his own experience with such a thing. Perhaps it's also the same reason that causes him to immediately assume Irving has his own experience with such, rather than this being a simple question of curiosity, though then again a question of curiosity likely wouldn't be weighing seemingly so heavily on one's mind.]

It seems to be uncommon, but yes. I have heard of such.

[And considering James has more than one of his own, he also knows they comes in multiple combinations. The big question he has, now, is which colors Irving's possible threads might be.

But he doesn't ask, as least not immediately, instead allowing them to continue dancing around the topic.]

But perhaps it should not be a surprise that some relationships are too complex to be neatly categorized.