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Lev has always been a homebody. Being so far from the center of Philly made it easy, but even beyond that, he's always been most comfortable on the farm.
And today is a day just like any other - morning chores completed hours ago, not quite time for evening ones, so Lev has his lap loom set up at the kitchen table, weaving the colorful drink coasters that seem to be a best-seller at the markets he vends at. He's got headphones on, his head moving gently to whatever music he's listening to. (edited)
She taptaps on the side door before stepping in. She lived here for decades, but it isn't -- technically -- her home anymore, so she announces her entry, but softly. The dogs which aren't out with the sheep today start to ramble in alongside her, before Yael shoos them back out into the yard, "Shoo!" quite literally, and then she's carrying in groceries and setting them down on the table. She doesn't interrupt him, naturally. He's working. He'll chat when he's ready, and in the meantime, she's putting away the groceries.
He looks up, briefly, almost a flinch of surprise at the opening door. Even with a few people he's hired to help with the farm, he's really had the house mostly to himself. Yael's reaction to the dogs makes a smile quirk onto his lips, which vanishes back into his concentration face as his attention returns to his work.
But now that there's someone else there, even with his headphones on, he's aware, no longer hyperfocused, and as she closes the freezer he sets the headphones aside and stretches his back over the seatback of his chair.
"Want help?" A small nod to the groceries still on the table.
"If you're not busy," Yael answers over her shoulder, unpacking boxes of pasta and jars of sauce -- easy dinners for long days, the sort of thing where Lev can make himself a portion and stick the rest of the jar in the fridge. "I can handle it on my own if you're still working." She flashes him a brief, comfortable smile. "I didn't break your focus too much, did I?" It's like she knows him or something.
The fridge opens and away goes the butter and the half-and-half (she hates artificial creamers and always makes sure there's a small bottle of the real stuff handy, even if she doesn't live here anymore), the milk and some cheese, the latter two in a glass bottle and brown paper wrapper. Guess she went by the co-op. "Murray says hi." The kosher butcher. "He says he's gonna have good pastrami in next week, I told him to hold a couple pounds for you, and a couple for me, sliced real thin."
"I probably should at least get up and stretch, anyway," he admits, and does so, absently scratching his stomach once his arms come town from where he's raised them to the ceiling.
"...And eat something, maybe." He squints at the floor for a few moments, regaining his balance and waiting for the dizziness for Forgot To Eat For Too Long to go away before padding towards the cupboards in his stocking feet (wool from his sheep, hand knit by him) to grab a plate.
"Damn, I could go for some pastrami now..." He peers at the brown wrapper. "What's the cheese?"
She reaches back into the bag and comes out with another brown-paper-wrapped lump. "I got Swiss and a New York white cheddar," Yael answers, and takes a loaf of bread out of the second bag, setting it on the counter where Lev can come and grab it for sandwich purposes. "When was the last time you ate, kiddo?"
He will be kiddo until the day one or the other one of them gets packed into a plain pine box for final delivery. The look she gives him out of the corner of her eyes has asked similar questions as long as he can remember.
"..." He does give the question thought, as he always does, rhetorical questions tend to be lost on him. His hands are busy as he thinks, putting together a deconstructed cheese and tomato sandwich.
That is, a hunk of cheddar sliced haphazardly off, an equally sized piece of bread, and a tomato from this week's Sunday farmer's market. Greenhouse grown, but better than the grocery store.
"I had a pop tart for breakfast?" A beat pause.
"...before chores?" (edited)
She doesn't actually say anything, just takes a step back and pulls her head back, crossing her arms across her chest. "There are days that I regret not giving you several additional middle names just so I have a longer name to call you when you don't eat." There's affection there but also genuine exasperation. "Gonna end up making me move back in just so you eat."
"It's -" a futile gesture to the loom, his mouth already full of food. "I got distracted." And then he stops talking to focus on eating. And to grab a jar from one of the cupboards to fill with water. It will join the half-full jar of water next to the loom, surely, once he gets back to work.
"I mean you spend enough time here - and buy me food, even -" he grins. "May as well live her part-time. All the dogs get all excited when you show up."
"It's -" a futile gesture to the loom, his mouth already full of food. "I got distracted." And then he stops talking to focus on eating. And to grab a jar from one of the cupboards to fill with water. It will join the half-full jar of water next to the loom, surely, once he gets back to work. "I mean you spend enough time here - and buy me food, even -" he grins. "May as well live her part-time. All the dogs get all excited when you show up."
There's a lopsided smile, affectionate, mildly frustrated (with love) and distracted all at once. "Well, I could, but uh."
She starts picking up the sandwich stuff, clearing it away, and shrugs within her oversized sweater, "It wouldn't be just me."
There's a lopsided smile, affectionate, mildly frustrated (with love) and distracted all at once. "Well, I could, but uh." She starts picking up the sandwich stuff, clearing it away, and shrugs within her oversized sweater, "It wouldn't be just me."
"I mean." He flaps his hand in the direction of the rest of the sprawling farmhouse. "There's technically room. Add water to the soup and all that." He speaks between bites, taking care to swallow and not talk with his mouth full, and after a few moments sets his plate aside so he can hop up to sit on the counter, heels knocking gently against the lower cabinet doors.
There's a moment where she stands there at the sink, hands on its edge, after she puts everything away and tidies up, all the crumbs dusted away in a series of habitual little motions she probably couldn't stop if she tried. "Uh."
"It's complicated. But uh." Yael turns and leans her hip against the sink in a sort of casual gesture, but she's making herself do that, and he can tell.
"Her name is Tsara." Trouble. The name literally means trouble. "She's a -- " there's a pause there. "She's my Apprentice. For now. By wizard laws, I'm responsible for her."
"But before you say yes -- "
Here her hand comes up to cover her eyes, the way she does when she's thinking. "Zoey."
A beat's pause. "Zoey was here. Earlier today. She's."
Back.
Lev had, indeed, indeed, taken a breath to say yes about Tsara, and his mouth hangs slightly open as Yael continues to speak.
And doesn't close, when she's done, for a long moment.
"Zoey." The name hangs heavy in the air, Lev repeating it as if to make sure it holds the weight it holds. Zoey Zoey, not...some other other the thousands of people who must share the name.
His legs still against the cabinets. "She was here?"
"I met her," Yael explains, her hand still covering her eyes, "at a bar." Of course she did. "It's -- an unfortunate, or maybe a fortunate, side effect of what I am now. Things kind of ... happen. Around me. Whether or not I'm making them happen."
Wait until she tells him about the nine-thousand-year-old woman who almost literally fell into her lap.
"So I asked her to come here, so I could talk to her. Make sure everything was ... right." She's still reflexively protecting him. "It's really her."
"She was here," he repeats. The remains of his lunch sit forgotten on the counter as he scans the room, as if there's somehow some new trace of this person, this...myth.
"How d'you know it's her?"
"She was here," affirms Yael, dropping her hand to rest on the counter. "Ahh... " and here things sort of stall for a moment.
"I can see that it's her?" It's sort of an uncertain vocalization, her voice rising into a subtle semi question. "I can see the way that she connects to me. To this place. I can see that it's real."
"...Can you see what connects me here? Or - to you? Is it just things that are connected to you?" He leans forward, eyes wide with interest. And then there's a pause.
"What..." His shoulders curl inward. "What happens to...here? Now?"
A little nod of her head. "I can see, uh, all the connections, if I want to. Some are easier to see than others. But I know it's her because I can see the Oath." Yael's smile is a soft, lopsided thing. "It's like a golden wire full of electricity, crackling across space, and I know what it looks like because I've seen it tied to you."
Her shoulders square when his curl inward. "It's your home," Yael says firmly. "Whatever else happens, this farm is your home. You know Leah wouldn't want anything to happen to that, and Zoey won't, either."
"I'll let her explain the rest of herself to you, kiddo. But ... she's still gonna need you."
"I...should talk to her. Yeah." Yael's reassurance can only do so much, and his cabinet kicking gets a touch more staccato.
"It's...it'll make it...real?" It's unclear how he feels about that. "Not just...all the stories, you know?"
She takes a step away from the counter, then, and wraps her arms around him, pulling him a step back from the counters, too. He's taller than her now, but this is still the same old gesture, the same way she used to wrap him up protectively after nightmares, after lambs came too early or got too sick to help, after dogs got too old or hurt too badly, when he was overstimulated or got bullied at school. Her arms have the sort of corded muscle which comes from working hard her whole life, but she doesn't hold on to him if he pulls away. Yael just cradles the back of his head with one hand and rocks back and forth a little.
"It will be real. It will be a little scary. Things will change. But she's... she's really nice."
A beat and Yael adds, "I see why Leah loved her."
A moment later: "The dogs like her. Daisy likes her."
He sinks into her arms, trying and failing to keep himself from shuddering. It's so easy to fall into old habits, old patterns, and sometimes it's because it works.
Tight hugs from Yael work.
The assertion that the dogs like her makes him let out a tearly laugh. "I still don't let anyone in the house if the dogs don't like them."
"Good." Yael turns her head to kiss the side of his head - a gentle, familial gesture.
"Hopefully they'll like Tsara." She pats his back comfortingly.
"This will be a change, but we've handled a lot of changes."
"We'll figure it out. We always do." Another one of her little mantras. She's got tons of them. "You wanna hear something that's gonna really blow your mind?" That in her raspy voice with a little laughter afterwards.
"I'm still gonna need my own space - and everything is kind of everywhere upstairs." He's always expanded to fit whatever space he's given.
"I don't know if I can take more mind blowing today..." but it's a joke, really, and he gently pulls away from her so he can return to eating his sandwich.
She takes a step back, patting him on the shoulder. "I'm living in a hotel right now. Someone else comes and vaccuums my floor and changes the sheets. I don't need to move back here," she points out with one of her raspy little laughs.
And she waits until he won't choke on his sandwich bite before saying, "Tsara is nine thousand years old."
Lev goes to take a bite of cheese, but manages to stop himself before he sprays it all over the floor. He sets it aside again, eyebrows drawn together.
"...How?"
"How is she nine thousand, not how does someone do all the chores in your hotel," he clarifies, whether he needs to or not.
"I figured," Yael answers wryly. She leans back against the counter and tucks her hands into the front pockets of her jeans.
"So, uhh. It's not easy to explain, but. Ah. When someone... becomes someone like me, when we Awaken, sometimes the... the energy... from that event? Can change the whole world." She stops, pulling a hand from her pocket and scratching her frizzy curls. "Sometimes people's bodies change. I know more than one person who ... had a limb grow back. Some people have changes happen that were then always that way."
"And some people get flung through time. Usually it's... days, maybe weeks? I've heard of years. But she... is. She is in her mid thirties and she's also nine thousand years old."
"Oof." thud, thud, thud go his heels against the cabinet doors.
"How long has she been here? Is - are you 'responsible' for her because..." He lets the sentence trail off, but the question hangs. Was it Yael's doing, her Awakening that changed the world that much?
"Couple of -- " Yael stops in mid-sentence and squints at Lev. "You know, I'm not responsible for everything weird that happens concerning time." Hmph.
"No, I took responsibility for her, as her, uh. Master." She quickly adds, "like master and apprentice. Tsara is considered a, uh, a baby Mage, essentially. So until she's ready to be on her own, I'm responsible for her."
"Huh. Didn't you say - don't you still say - that you don't want responsibilities like that anymore?" He's teasing, gently.
"Do you think the dogs will like her?"
She cuts her gaze aside at him, staring at him out of the corners of her eyes. "I didn't. But... " Yael waves one hand in the air in a gesture which says, very precisely and very eloquently, that all the forces of Fate and Destiny are allied against her in such a way as to make the end result inevitable.
"I think so. I hope so. I like her."
"Mm." A nod, an acceptance. He knows, even if he doesn't completely understand, how her world works. Their world, as much as he's on the edge of it, on a different fucking continent sometimes.
"So that's...three people...? Who could possibly move in?" Moving onto logistics. He can do those. He picks up his plate again, chewing thoughtfully.
Fate and destiny cross both their worlds, though differently. "Two," she answers reflexively, before pausing and clearing her throat. "Oh, right, three." Beat. "Yeah, three. Maybe." She hadn't been counting herself, clearly.
"Tsara wrote a book," she offers. (edited)
"Mm?" His mouth is full of food, but he cocks his head in interest, and swallows before continuing. "About being nine thousand, or moving into old farmhouses?" The corner of his lips turn up into a smile, teasing her.
She snorts, but the little smile that follows names that snort as amusement. "Set 9000 years ago, yes. She has to be careful, though, so she doesn't break any Big Rules. But... the reviews have been really good."
"Fiction? Cool. Sounds like a niche she could capitalize on, I can't imagine there's too many books written about that period of time, right?"
She digs around in her pockets and comes out with her phone, tapping and scrolling until she comes up with a review. "Apparently," Yael agrees, "it's going well."
Her heel hits absently against the floor, scuffing. "I get the feeling that her long-dead husband wasn't someone who, uh, supported much of what she wanted to do."
"Well good riddance to him, then," Lev huffs in amusement, and squints slightly at the phone as he reads. "Shit, I wonder if the library has...the audiobook? Does it exist?" He hops off the counter to rinse his dish off at the sink and stick it in the nearly full dish rack. "Who do I have to bother to get it to exist?"
"She has a good agent," answers Yael, one of her lazy smiles wreathing her face as she watches Lev's amusement and apparent approval. Her phone gets tucked away again. "I'll ask her. Speaking of which -- I should get back. I told her we could walk up to the food carts for dinner."
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