if one day is good, is a day sufficient?

[cestrumnocturnum]

Who: Benji Ryans and You!
What: The city is rebuilding itself, and as does everyone else. Benji about town.
Where: Various places!
When: Many times!
Notes: An open log! Refer to the post content for starter ideas. Hit me up if you'd like me to set up anything! Otherwise, go for gold. Suggestions: daylit Mafaton, Aspic, Badside, Brock Marsh, but you know, wherever is clever, Trevor, ask if you're unsure. (Also dream things are welcome, if you are keen, but let me know first in plurk or PM.)
Warnings: Dead eye stares, and teal deers below. Will add as they occur.

There is a morning where she brings her violin with her. The case gets laid out on the street, and her first attempt at playing levels off into obscurity; that no one wants to listen to mediocre musicianship for long at least saves her from the agony of completing the piece. She never necessarily performs; she sits on the stone steps of some building that's being advertised for lease, lanky legs together and aside, ankles crossed, a demure shape in black and grey and an aura of unkemptness that speaks more of habit than it does being windswept and interesting. She thinks of Victorian literature with unusually talented orphans busking for bread, and remembers her cousin playing the piano with her to an audience of three to five, cigarette smoke in the air and then slightly condescending applause, and quietly attempts to play again.

She won't earn much even then, but at least this time, the music winds complete over the cobble stones, mewling out its stilted melody.

Her errands take her to different reaches of the city. She has an allowance for cab fare and train rides, but likes to walk; it's a good way to get to know the city, even if it means setting aside a couple of hours for slower travel. Since signing up with the Personification Initiative, she's been able to earn wages for the first time in her life. Frivolous forays into playing music on the street corners have been exactly that: frivolous. She teaches literacy to adults, those who arrive in Baedal without the necessary skills to survive. She hears about the Spatters, as well, and the House that offers similar services, and occasionally winds up walking those streets, attempting to avoid the ones where it seems like the Fog is thicker than usual.

Food is bought in outdoor markets in early mornings, contributing a little to what she takes from Njoki's pantry. Sometimes she will even sit down somewhere and buy some tea and a muffin and feel incredibly indulgent for it. Clothing is primarily bought from second hand places, judged by its practicality and comfort and whatever aesthetics she's feeling that day. Books are usually borrowed from the Library, dependent on their availability, and usually not for herself, but those she tries to teach. She is not an expert, but knows that people will only do things if they want to do things, and she selects nonfictions of vivid interest, slim short story compilations, things she thinks those she tutors would find interesting.

At night, she sleeps. Sometimes she dreams.

Comments

» In Dreams

[whattigerscanchange]

The entire world is engaged in a superpowered war, with portions of the eastern seaboard already considered a loss, and yet a person can still make their way into a hole-in-the-wall convenience store in a run-down neighbourhood and buy a stack of dirty magazines. A robotic spider crawls a brick wall and sweeps its cybernetic gaze over the woman making her way home with her purchases in a brown paper sack. They aren't for her. N...ot that she ever made any attempt to convince anyone that they aren't.

And if she thought about it much, she might feel a little odd about the fact that if she squinted, and - she supposes - covered one eye, the blonde woman in the centrefold could be her. A younger version of her, anyway. Her partner likes to remind her every so often that she isn't as young as she once was. But the curves of her body were similar once, and she still wears those spiked heels. Okay, so she has thought about it some, but she chooses not to think anything of it beyond that. That would require exercising more forethought and care than she's willing to spare these days. Evading the scrutiny of the government she works for is a second full-time job in and of itself.

Odessa has to turn her head to spare a glance for the mechanical arachnid. Though she hasn't quite gotten over her fear of what they represent to her, and to everyone like her, she's long since made her peace with the fact that Big Brother isn't going to be turning a blind eye (ha) any time soon. She lights up a cigarette that she has a prescription for, thanks to aforementioned partner, and carries on.

If they come for her, it won't be in the streets anyway.

[cestrumnocturnum]

It's a beautiful city, really.

This part of it.

And it's still being built around them. Odessa has to cross the street at one point where the pavement is blocked off by scaffolding and plastic sheets and men in orange vests and hard hats. A truck backs out of a side street, the traffic faltering, before continuing again. It's been years and it's always been like this, between little bursts of civil unrest, the slowdown of funding due to war, and, you know. Rome wasn't built in a day.

Everyone blends in with everyone else, not because of a similar dress, economic status, race, or what have you, but because they tend to walk and move and interact in the allotted spaces; cares are on the road, people moving in contained chaos on the sidewalk, people wing through the doorways of vehicles and buildings alike.

So Benji is a little eye catching. She sits on metal scaffolding, a heavy black skirt of far too much fanciness hanging heavy for the pavement just below, he legs folded primly, hands only lightly keeping herself balanced. A fitted jacket hugs her narrow frame, glimmering with beadwork on the cuffs and collar, and although she is almost entirely a shape of simple black and white, she still seems a little more stark and real in the sea of New Yorkers going about their day.

Also, she is watching Odessa, unashamedly.

[whattigerscanchange]

You don't live as long as Odessa has with as many enemies as she's made without having learned to recognise when she's being watched. Some day it's a prickling of the skin - the hairs on the back of one's neck standing on end. Odessa wouldn't describe it that way, but she hasn't got any better explanation for it, either. Other than the fact that she tends to feel it more in her stomach than anything else. A gut feeling may be appropriately applied here.

Of course, Odessa knows she's always being watched, but this is different. She stops. People behind her have to dodge around her, and she really couldn't care less about their annoyance. She looks around, and it isn't as though she knows where to focus on immediately, but it's as if she can't be bothered to take note of any of the faces in the crowd around her. (Well, it's a dream.) Benji's presence isn't so much jarring as it is-- No, it is jarring, but it isn't frightening.

Disconcerting, Odessa decides is the right word for it. There's something familiar about her, and at once nothing at all. It means she's worth it, the effort it takes to fight back through the crowd the way she came. So-casually, Odessa makes her way toward the scaffolding, and the (seemingly) delicate form perched there, agitatedly taking a drag from her smoke.