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It's been kind of an exhausting day for Naika, and so, she's sitting in the aboretum, practising her sacred gardening. Right now, she's in the middle of creating a spiral path of tiny stones, walking slowly out the spiral and placing pebble after pebble after pebble, neatly, one after the other. She's wearing a pair of cut-off jean shorts and that's it, exposing her torso. There's a huge Tree of Life tattoo which takes up her entire back, and an image of an old coin on the left side of her chest.
Exhausting is one way to put it. Liezel's reserves- mentally speaking, anyway- are drained, and as things often happen, she's come full circle, back to the Arboretum. She enters quietly, leaving her satchel by the entrance- there's enchanted objects inside and she's not going to risk the Tree's Resonance with her own- but she hadn't expected to find herself anything but alone this late at night.
"Oh."
Mild surprise colors her voice. It's about as emotive as she gets outside of her singing.
"Am I intruding?"
It's very obvious when another Awakened is undertaking an oblation, but fortunately for Liezel, Fox was just finishing up her work, and she stops, offering a little smile to the other woman. "You're not. I was just finishing. Today was pretty draining, and I had to replenish my potentia. Lots of things to spend it on, lots of good reasons to drain my reserves."
"How are you?" The little spiral of rocks is left in place, and she props her hands on her hips.
"Not great."
Liezel shrugs. She doesn't bother trying to dissemble. She's an awful liar. "Today was draining. Before we got to the hospital even." She folds to the ground, clearly comfortable with finding respite where she can. "Stayed long as I could at the mall. Got some people out that were having trouble walking. And the hospital was..." She presses her lips together, the plush shapes narrowing in an unflattering grimace.
"You did good. They both liked you. I'm glad they have someone on their side."
She tips her head to the side, squints, and then closes the distance between herself and the other Awakened. "Independence Mall was a fucking clusterfuck," she spits out from between her sharp little teeth. "We're lucky that no one died. But! And I want to be very clear here: no one died. And that was a pretty close call."
She hooks her thumbs into the belt loops of her cutoff jeans, squinting up at Liezel. "What happened at the hospital that I didn't notice or understand?"
"That's because of you, I think. Nobody dying." Liezel points out. "I've seen people take beatings like that. Haven't seen many survive. None unscathed. Likely saved Ibrahim, too. Our luck was you."
Liezel makes another face and shakes her head when Fox ferrets at what's bothering her. "I'm bad at people. I'm better reading about old myths or writing songs or on overwatch. I don't-" She falls quiet. She's looking around, but not at Fox's face. The ground to either side, Fox's tattoo, the air above her hair, all gets its share of attention. "I probably just misunderstood something."
"I knew where he was and was able to get to him because of the rest of you. I'm short, and it was really crowded, and I can't easily just ... take off and fly yet without leaving my pants behind, so... " A little flutter of her hands, and then she hooks her thumbs again. "Our luck was working together. Being a tribe."
"We all have different talents and gifts, Liezel," she reassures quietly. "What do you think you saw that hurt your feelings?"
"That's... fair." Liezel allows. "It wasn't until we got there that I realized we forgot to take stock of where they were. I-" Another flatline grimace. "... I looked for Aaron's yarmulke. There wasn't any other bloodstained rainbow yarn there. Easy to find."
"We do. I don't think I'm useless. Far from it. I know I'm not." A moment of quiet. "When we left, I thought I was coming because they wanted someone else from our Path present. And then we got there, and everything I was going to say, Kay and Ripeka said. While I was still getting the words for it." She shakes her head. "It's more important that they got the information than who said it. And Ripeka's just as qualified to talk about our path as I am. I just thought I was there to support them. Not- logistics."
She raises her eyebrows at that. "Oh, that's clever! I'm not sure I would have thought to look for him using the Matter in his yarmulke." Little Fox peers up at Liezel, smiling encouragingly. "But see, I knew which direction to look because of you, then."
Little Fox reaches out her hands in offering, then. "Well, that's partially on me, I think. I was pushing so much for everyone to go go go that we didn't define who would have what roles. I didn't want us to wait any longer. I apologize."
It takes Liezel a moment to decide what to do about the little hands on offer. She's not used to touching people. Being touched? That happens, its fine. But she reaches out after a moment and closes rough fingers around Little Fox's, and nods faintly. "I think I saved us some trouble. I have zero doubt that we would have been able to find them either way- we had Amity's ties to follow, it would have been alright- but it would have been slower and probably a little more frustrating." She pauses, considering. "... though... I'm not sure we would have known we needed to trick the lines back."
"It isn't your fault, Fox. Like I said. I misunderstood. Everyone just wanted to do what was best and give them information to ponder. I- just... wasn't quick enough." Her hands are still, around Fox's fingers. She doesn't really know what to do with them.
"Your input and your actions were absolutely required. We would not have done as well without you there." The little Thyrsus holds on to her hands for a moment or five, then lets them go. "Well, I think part of that is probably that there were so many people in one room, too. Everyone's trying to talk quickly and be heard. Ripeka was having to translate for me, too, so I'm sure she was working fast so she could get her words out and mine as well."
"Do you think perhaps you should ... work on being better with people?"
"Yeah. It was easier because I was there." Her hands fall back to her sides once Fox takes her own back. "And it was crowded. You're probably right."
"It's- hard, Fox. I don't get people. I understand some things- I understand habits and movements and reactions, how someone is likely to do a certain thing, things like that, but when it comes to conversation, to relating and emotions and- it's... tangled. All of it. I can't follow one strand to the next because they're knotted. I probably should try to get better, but... my time feels better spent elsewhere."
She tips her head to the side, listening to the things the other Awakened says, and frowns a little. "Why do you think your time is better spent elsewhere?"
Liezel looks a little puzzled. "I mean, it makes more sense to build up what's gonna have better returns. Like, there's lots of people who'd be garbage behind a gun. That's not a good enough reason to stop developing things they're good at, things they like, just because they're a bad shot."
"But if you're not good at communicating what you're working on, are you being most efficient? If you're feeling bad about, like... not being able to contribute because you're not good with social interactions, isn't that like a weak spot in crystal? Strike it in that spot and it doesn't matter how strong you've made the rest, the whole thing comes apart."
"Feeling bad happens, though," Liezel points out. "I'm good at reporting what I'm working on- our problem today wasn't that I wasn't able to contribute, but that someone else contributed more effectively. It hurt my feelings, but the effort wasn't diminished for it."
"Does that make sense?"
"Sure," answers Fox, and she wanders over to the spiral she built out of rocks, slowly walking back in toward the center, following the line. "But it bothered you enough to bring it up to an almost-complete-stranger." Beat. "Why did you bring it up to me, of all people? Don't I look like some wild thing?"
"You asked."
Liezel explains that simply. "I don't lie well. So my options are "explain what's going on" or "leave me alone."" She shrugs. "I didn't want you to leave me alone."
"What should it matter what you look like?"
Laughter rolls out of Little Fox then. "I asked because you were clearly bothered. Which is how social interaction works." She continues to walk in the spiral. "If it doesn't bother you that much, and you don't think you should change it, then don't."
The laughter is reassuring, and Liezel smiles a little. "I think most of what bothers me wouldn't bother other people. And it's not super frequent, so." She shrugs. "If I ever feel like I need somewhere new to develop, I'll start looking at that."
"Is it okay if I ask about your tattoo? I recognize the tree, but the coin is-" She shakes her head briefly. "The writing looks Russian, but I can't place the symbology."
Her stubby-fingered hand rises, resting over the tattoo. The gesture makes her look a little like she's about to say the Pledge of Allegiance, her hand resting over her heart just so. "It's okay that you ask," Little Fox answers, "but I'm not going to tell you. Not because I'm upset with you for asking, but because some things are secret, or at least secret enough that I'm not sharing them right now."
Liezel nods, unoffended. "Okay. Maybe a different time. And maybe not." She smiles a little. "I'm still happy we talked. And that you asked what was bothering me. You made some good points. It's easier to stop being upset once I can see the reasons things happened." Her eyes drift over to her satchel, near the door, and she rises to her feet, nodding at the little Thyrsus. "I'm going to go home and sing some songs. I'll talk to you another time. Thank you for your company tonight, Fox. I appreciate you."
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