Logs:Guiding Light

Guiding Light
Dramatis Personae DJ, Polaris
In Absentia	2021-02-20 "Miracles can happen through us."
Location <NYC> Riverdale - The Bronx
This prosperous residential neighborhood has seen some changes these past few months, at least in the immediate vicinity of the Brotherhood's innovative group squat. Most of the houses on this block are decorated with a mishmash of holiday cheer, ranging from leftover Christmas lights to red paper lanterns and auspicious Chinese calligraphy for Spring Festival to big pink heart clings in front windows. Though the temperature has finally ventured above freezing today--if only just--and the sun has peeked out from behind the gray clouds, the city is still blanketed in snow. Up here it's not yet degraded wholly to the filthy, slushy mess that it has in more heavily trafficked areas, though even in front of these stately homes the snow is much trampled, remnants of snow forts and drooping snowpeople (among other, more creative sculptures) dotting the yards. It's been a long trip back up from the Lower East Side, but Polaris doesn't seem ready to go inside just yet. She's perched atop one of the more in-tact snow ruins, phone in hand, though her head is currently tipped back toward the wan sunlight as if to absorb as much of it as she can. That's presumably not much given her attire: hooded black coat, heavy black jeans, gray slush from the street still clinging to black snow boots. The bright red scarf draped around her neck strikes a brilliant contrast with her emerald green hair, both fluttering whenever the breeze picks up. One of the doors of the nearby houses, still brightly hung with lights and a glimmering frosted Christmas wreath, swings open to disgorge an energetic goat into the frozen outdoors. She's quick to scarper off behind the house; the man who follows out the door behind her, dressed comfortable but not overly bundled in jeans, green-grey plaid flannel, leather jacket, sturdy boots, moves at a more deliberate pace. DJ glances after Ophelia but it's Polaris and her fluttering hair that his gaze actually freezes on. He swallows, looks away to the backyard fence. Turns aside, moves aside to close the gate behind the goat. "Why pick Polaris? If that's -- not too personal." Polaris turns at the appearance of Goat, her smile easy and bemused. At the sight of DJ her smile wavers, but so minutely, so rapidly that it would take a quick eye or tremendous familiarity to recognize it. She turns more fully when the man speaks, folding one leg up to sit more securely sidewise on the crumbling snow wall. "As my name?" she asks, though this is evidently rhetorical, since she continues without waiting for a reply. "It was...well, when my power first manifested it was pretty weak, but the Earth's magnetic field--I mean, it's really strong." Her words come out faster and more intense, her fingertips tracing a great curve across the bowl of the sky from south to north. "I could always feel it--can always feel it, deep, like it's a part of me, you know?" She pauses, takes a breath, and slows the pace of her speech with obvious difficulty. "I just knew in my bones which way was north, and it was like...I mean it sounds cheesy now but twelve-year-old me felt like I was carrying the North Star inside." She blushes, setting her hand back down, primly, in her lap. "Sorry, that's...probably more explanation than you wanted." "Please. I'm a Saint we eat sleep and breathe cheese." DJ leans against the fence, his palm pressing into the snow still crusted on its top rail. "But -- I don't know. It mostly sounds --" He's still turned away toward the yard where Ophelia is climbing up a tarp-covered pile of firewood, but the bow of his head can be seen. "-- kinda enviable. Always knowing where you're headed." Polaris laughs, a brief, bright sound. "I didn't have that excuse, just a dramatic kid. It would have been more accurate if I called myself Compass, or something." Her smile is oddly faint. "Magnetic north isn't true north. And anyway, my power isn't like some kinda--Jack Sparrow compass." She stops short, eyes going a little wide. "Did you guys have Pirates of the Caribbean in your world?" "Uh -- is that a TV show? I don't know if I know that one." DJ brushes snow off of the fence, and pulls himself up to sit atop it. He's turned back around now, facing out towards Polaris once again. "Yeah, I guess a clear path is a lot to ask from life. Still -- seems like it could come in handy." He brushes his hand against the side of his jeans, leaving a faint damp streak on the denim. "Just -- kind of an interesting coincidence, if you're looking to be baptized and take upon yourself the name of Jesus Christ." Polaris's eyes go very wide and very eager. "Oh. My. Gosh. You haven't seen--" She breaks off, brows wrinkling. "It's--a series of Disney movies about pirates. I'm not sure you'd like it if you didn't grow up with it? Won't help you find your path, but there is swashbuckling." She pulls her other foot up and sits cross-legged in what looks like a rather precarious balancing act atop the wall. "Coincidence?" she echoes, her expression blank. "With what? I was planning on it. Baptism. But I've been...I don't know. Having a crisis of faith? Maybe I'm also not sure about my way forward. And I don't know if that's a good or bad argument for going ahead with it." "I do like swashbuckling." DJ rests his heels on the next bar of the fence, dislodging shards of crusted snow to fall with a soft patter to the ground below. "Oh! Just --" A faint pink flush dusts his cheeks, and he tilts his head back to look up at the sky. "Polaris. The star. There are some theories among some LDS scholars that Polaris is where Kolob is. If you ever get to the temple out in Salt Lake --" He hesitates, shakes his head. "I guess that's a way in the future question if you're not really settled on where you belong. It's a big decision." His teeth catch momentarily at the inside of his cheek. "I don't know if this is a good or bad argument either, but I've had -- several of those. Some bigger than others. Still pretty sure I'm where I need to be." For just an instant Polaris looks as though she might launch herself off of the snowfort, but she conquers the impulse, and then is quite derailed from that impetus. "Wait really?" She leans forward slightly. "Oh frak, is that a sign? I picked that name like 15 years ago." She sighs, slipping a silver ring from her finger and fidgeting with it. "Guess I'm kinda new to the concept, unless you count my Catholic apostasy, and this definitely feels bigger. I think...that's a good argument." She sounds a little uncertain. "How do you know that, though? How sure is sure enough?" Her head shakes hard, green hair swaying. "You don't have to--answer any of that, just... My soul delighteth in plainness, but I've prayed and prayed and nothing seems very plain at all lately." "A sign?" DJ's mouth opens, his cheeks flushing a little darker. "Oh, golly. I think it's -- an interesting piece of church trivia. North star's been a guiding light for -- a lot of people." He half-turns aside, slightly twisted to look back toward Ophelia investigating a bush in the distance. "But what meaning you find in these things -- that's always going to be personal, isn't it? I've been surprised sometimes by the unexpected places the Spirit chooses to strengthen my testimony. I -- can't speak to how sure sure is. I guess that's part of where faith comes in. Sure enough it's been an anchor to my soul in -- some moments when I've really needed one." His hand drops to the fence post to steady himself, fingers scraping at the ice accumulated there. "Is it the kind of crisis you want to talk about? That -- might be presumptuous. I know I'm -- I know I'm not --" His eyes lower, fingers crunching through the top frozen layer of snow. "It is very meaningful for me." Polaris blushes again, tucking an errant lock of hair back behind her ear even as the shifting wind blows another across her face. "I'm just not sure where that ends and mysticism begins." When she tips her head back this time it's not toward the Sun, but the celestial north pole. "Wish I had as good a spiritual sense of direction as physical." She looks back down at DJ, and it's a startled beat before she replies. "I don't think it's presumptuous. I do want to talk about it just--fair warning, I'm kind of a lot." This is more matter-of-fact than apologetic. She draws a deep breath. "So...the person who brought me to Christ was Dawson." The shakiness of her exhale is quiet but visible by the vapor it forms in the cold air. "The moment I believed--at the time it felt like a miracle. But now I can't shake this doubt--like maybe it was him. Or I convinced myself because of him. Or--" She runs her hand through her hair. "I don't know. I keep deciding to believe, but it just feels like I'm faking it somehow." "That's okay. I'm -- used to a lot." There's a very quick flash of smile across DJ's face, kind of tipped down towards the snow he's crumbling off the fencepost. "Do you think any of that makes it less real? If it was him. If it's you now. What does faking it mean, anyway? I don't think I really --" His brows scrunch as he looks up to Polaris. "Miracles can happen through us. People find the Lord through each other every day. We all make decisions to choose to believe in or keep working towards things we can't see or -- maybe don't feel and -- is that fake? I don't know. If you get up every day and keep -- caring for your children or going to church or --" His arm sweeps out at the neighborhood around them, "building a home for people who need one, even on days its hard and you're angry with people and you don't like anyone very much or don't feel a lot of hope for where anything is going is that faking? Or is that just love?" Polaris almost smiles. "I didn't want to assume--being used to it doesn't mean you always want to deal with it." Her head dips--not in shyness exactly, but maybe something akin to it. "I don't know. It's like. I did feel it before and it was amazing and right, and I thought that was how it was supposed to feel? I've never really experienced faith any other way." Her pale hands close around the shield-shaped ring. "But--you're right. That is love. And I know love is like that, I mean with people. Maybe I just expected it would be different with our Heavenly Parents. They don't have bad days." She stops short, drawing herself up slightly, dark green brows lifting. "Though. It sure sounds like They had some bad days in the scriptures, at least." She shakes her head as if to clear it, her words coming faster again. "Whatever, I still shouldn't be surprised it's harder to feel loving or loved through--all this." She gestures vague and frustrated in the general direction of her own head, the fevered intensity of her speech sharpening further. "Do you get that? Like you just got so many sensations and emotions and ideas inside there's no room for anything else?" "I don't really know how anything's supposed to feel," DJ admits with a faint smile. "Kind of used to my feelings being -- so all over the place I need a different barometer for what's right in life." He's nodding, affirmative, to Polaris. "Yeah." His hand rests back against the mostly-de-iced fence post, weight leaning forward against it. "Yeah, I get that. I guess that's why I always felt like faith was as much an ongoing decision as any other kind of choice. If it was about what I was feeling my relationship with God would be in as much danger of self-destructing as any other in my life, you know? I have -- well. Plenty of bad days." Something in the set of Polaris's shoulder eases, though her eyes remain feverishly bright. "I'm kind of surprised I--haven't destroyed that relationship. Maybe that's a kind of miracle, too. Small one." She slips the CTR ring back onto her finger. "But it's reassuring to hear you've had these struggles and you're still faithful after--" She cuts herself off, brows furrowed. "Well. Probably longer than..." She hesitates for a moment, eyes narrowing as she makes the mental calculations. "...five months. Je--eepers creepers, what is time?" The wind throws her hair across her face again and she brushes it out of the way. "Anyway, thank you. And I hope you're not having a particularly bad day, even if you got waylaid taking your goat--oh hey speaking of waylaid--" She hops down from the snow wall, landing deftly but nevertheless shin-deep in snow. "You wanna watch Pirates of the Caribbean? I'm about to make too many nachos and binge my favorite ones." She raises her right hand, thumb and pinky tucked in. "On my honor, I will try not to do that thing like 'wait wait you're gonna love this part'. Not even at the compass bit." She drops her hand and gives a fatalistic shrug. "Can't promise I won't make exited noises at the swashbuckling, though." DJ's eyes drop again, a slow flush creeping back into his ears. "I --" He swallows, and hops down from his perch, boots crunching down into the snow on the inside of the fence. "Pirates and nachos sounds -- like a pretty solid plan. I'm -- gonna make sure Ophelia's set on food and water and -- I'll meet you in there?" The smile he flashes back is small. "I make no promises to keep my cool over swashbuckling, either."