ArchivedLogs:Waiting for Delivery

Waiting for Delivery
Dramatis Personae Isra, Micah
In Absentia	2014-12-30 '
Location <NYC> {Lighthaus} - Harbor Commons - Lower East Side
Bright and sunny-light, this house lives up to its name. With a plethora of enormous windows flooding the place with light and an open layout, the ground floor feels more spacious than it is. The small entryway has a closet space for shoes and coats, and doors at either side leading to the neighboring apartments. Past this it opens straight into the living room, a wide expanse of space bordered on one side by a curved set of stairs leading up (with colourful glass tiling on the risers between each stair) and next to these, the half-wall into the kitchen. Cool pale tile underfoot and many dark cabinets with a small walk-in pantry, plentiful custom granite countertops, black and speckled faintly with rainbowy flecks, lots of hanging space overhead for cookware, a large double-oven. There's a strip of rather detailed mosaic-work in the kitchen backsplash, colourful glass tiling depicting strange fantastical herbs and small faeries and firelizards darting among them. In back of the kitchen, a door opens up to a small sunroom, wide and two-stories high with a balcony overlook from the second floor; two of the windows here have cushioned windowseats, and there's a wealth of herbs growing in hanging pots and small window-boxes. The back wall of the living room is nearly entirely dominated by windows, huge and allowing a view of the river beyond with bench windowseats lining the sills. There are plentiful paintings on the wall, surreal and fantasy-inspired, mostly in shades of blacks greys with bright bursts of colour that are mirrored in the decor -- monochrome upholstery on the couch and armchair but colourful throw-pillows, black and white huge corduroy beanbags (and one large red doggie-bed,) soft throw rugs also in mostly black and white with splashes of rainbow woven in. The hand-built furniture -- tall chairs by the kitchen/living room counter, dining table and chairs in the kitchen, low coffeetable in the living room -- has been hand-painted as well, black with bursts of colourful abstract designs. Along the living room's other wall, doors branch off to a full bathroom -- in white and deep blue with one wall of the shower done in colourful intricate mosaic too, an underwater scene full of strange mythical water-creatures; tiny water-sprites have been interspersed at random points in the rest of the wall tiles, as well. There's a small studio space beside the bathroom, large windows as well and a gratuitous amount of shelving and cabinets along the walls; this room has very /little/ colour in it, just white walls and black furnishing. Things have taken a turn for the /colder/ in the city once more, the unseasonable warmth retreating into a more winter-like just above freezing temperature. The skies are crisp and clear, however, lending bright late-morning light to shine through the plentiful windows in Lighthaus. Micah is home /early/ for lunch, encouraged both by an abundance of patient cancellations and some particularly /itchy/ pink fibreglass casting material that sneaked into the sleeve of his undershirt. A quick costume change into a matching pale blue henley under the same TARDIS-blue polo and khakis later, and he is back in the kitchen to poke through the refrigerator for leftovers. Food time! The door from Geekhaus opens to admit one gargoyle, wrapped in an amethyst shawl and long hunter green dress. Isra's skin, dark blue and purple with silver highlights, bears still healing marks, probably earned at Fight Club, but she does not seem bothered by them. She carries a steaming black mug with a multi-spectrum image of the Milky Way Galaxy wrapped around it--new, possibly a recent gift--and a cookie shaped like a rocket, covered with blue frosting and sparkling pink and purple sugar. There's a drooping quality to her wings and ears, which, together with the shadows under her eyes, suggests she has not slept much or well of late. She stops just outside the kitchen and offers a raising of the mug by way of salute. "I must thank you for the sweets." Though enormous, the cookie looks appropriately scaled in her long-fingered hand. "They're keeping me alive while I wait for delivery." Micah pulls back from the refrigerator with a Tupperware of leftover black bean and kale stew, dumping the lot of it into a smallish pot to reheat on the stove. There is a cheerful click-click-click that precedes the burner lighting under the pot. He twists about from fishing through a drawer for a spoon to stir the leftovers with when the door opens, a smile curling his lips upward as he sees the cookie. "Oh, don't thank me. Thank Spence. He's the artist. Or…well…Jax, for makin' the dough an' doin' the bakin'. I just got t'supervise the fun part." The levity melts just a little into concern, eyebrows dipping as he waves Isra closer into the warmth of the kitchen. "Y'want some stew t'fill out the sugar? You're lookin' a little rough--no offense intended." Finally finding the deeper-bowled spoon he wanted, he dips it into the pot and prods the stew about. "Deliv'ry s'kind of a loaded word. Which're y'meanin' in this case?" "Chinese--an obscene amount of it, though I do not know if it is actually coming." Isra takes a long pull of her coffee. "I have noticed a certain hit-or-miss quality to deliveries here, and I usually try not to order out when I haven't anyone human-looking at hand to accept the delivery." She shrugs, a gesture more wings than shoulders on her. The movement exposes a long, gleaming welt in one wing membrane, slicing through the pattern of silver feathers. "But I was hungry, and mediocre Chinese food has become oddly comforting to me. Never you worry, though. I spoke hyperbolically, and as bad as I know I look, shan't actually starve." A frown creases her hairless purple brow. "In this particular instance, at least." She nibbles on the sugar cookie daintily, as if to demonstrate her non-starving status. "How goes your day?" "Ah, food deliv'ry. That's at least a simpler kind. Well, you're welcome t'use me as your humanoid puppet t'sign for the food if an' when it gets here. Meanwhile, you're also welcome t'the stew." Micah goes so far as to collect /two/ handled ceramic soup mug-bowl hybrids to wait on the counter for the food to finish heating through. He winces visibly at the exposed welt. "Mmn. Wing injuries always seem worse'n usual t'me. Y'got any wounds as still need tendin'? Or are they all pretty well on the mend since Friday?" Nabbing his spoon back of its rest, he returns to twirling it lazily through the soup. "Slow. Ain't a lotta folks lookin' t'bother themselves with the medical profession 'round holidays, 'less it's emergent. An' I'm usually the /post/-emergency guy, 'least in m'/official/ jobs." Hesitating, he tugs at his lip between his teeth before adding, "How's Egg? I'm…here for more'n just after it hatches, y'know. If y'have…appointments or anythin'. That y'want someone along for at all. Just…anythin'. I know it's harder even, now. With Dusk." Isra smiles a slow and un-fangy smile when Micah brings out two bowls. "I'll not refuse if you have enough to share. Starving or no, I /am/ ravenous. It will probably please the delivery person better for you to accept it, and you are also welcome to share, if it ever gets here. I've a habit of ordering huge quantities, but lately..." Another shrug, and this time she glances at the wound. "It hurts, but is well on its way to healed. I have no great enthusiasm to go flying at the moment regardless." She take a much bigger bite of the cookie, perhaps as much for the time to mull over the question as for caloric intake. "It's still in the pups' care, and Horus's, intermittently, but I have a follow-up in January with a team of imaging experts. Might give us a better idea of its development. I would appreciate the company, if you wished to come along, or Jax. For that matter, if you wanted to take it yourselves?" Her wings fold in and retract under the shawl as if cold--not that it can cover more than a fifth of their surface area. "Sorry, this is all still such unfamiliar ground, and Dusk..." For a moment, she sounds like she might stop right there even as Micah did. "...well, he wasn't dealing with it any better than I, but it was easier with him than without." "S'always enough t'share 'round here. Don't do nothin' by halves here when it comes t'food," Micah replies, his own smile returning to mirror Isra's (and equally un-fangy, as it turns out). "S'cold as anythin' out. Imagin' you'd turn into an icicle sure as Dusk does when he goes flyin' in the cold." Switching the heat off on the burner, he portions the soup out into the bowls and moves these to the table along with a pair of soup spoons. He also pulls a stool that is kept around primarily for /winged/ visitor purposes and switches it out for one of the chairs for Isra. "The pups...mmn. How /did/ they come t'be takin' care of Egg, anyhow? They was…less than pleased with me'n Jax when we told 'em we were plannin' the adoption." He nods along with Isra's descriptions of appointments. "Of course I'd go. Just send me a message with the details in it. I can ask Jax if he's wantin' to an' able to, as well. Seems like havin' ev'rybody there's most expedient for gettin' questions answered, at least." Settling into his own seat, he's back to stirring soup again, though this time on a smaller scale. "S'anybody had any luck locatin' where Dusk got put this time?" Isra finishes the cookie and washes it down with coffee. "The cold does not bother me as much as it does he, as far as I can tell, though I cannot say I find it /pleasant/ to expose that much skin to the biting wind--even when said skin is whole and undamaged. Thank you." This last as Micah switches out the chair, into which she sinks heavily. "Shane dropped by one night and took it. Without asking, though perhaps from his perspective he /had/ asked, considering how much he says with biting." She picks up the spoon and does a bit of her own soup-stirring, not seeming particularly concerned either about egg-theft or biting. "I went to check in on them, but ultimately...I think they needed to process, in their own way and their own time. If it's to be their sibling, they must make their own peace with it." Whether intentionally or not, her lower vocal chords engaged then, making the last clause sound ominous. "I will send you the calendar entry--I can't even remember what day it was, to be honest." To the last question she shakes her head. "I'm sure Eric is working on it, but it's wading through red tape at the best of times, which the holidays are not." "'Welcome, sugar." Micah finally switches out stirring to spooning stew into his mouth, chewing at it slowly, pensively. "S'pose they do need t'…bond, maybe. Not sure 'xactly what it is they're doin'. I apologise if Shane was intrudin' on you. He tends not t'stand much on ceremony. Or tact, for that matter. Really, I wanna talk to 'em 'bout this again. S'just hard t'know when an' how. When we was tellin' 'em at first, B left the room an' then Shane threw us out, so. That's not 'xactly invitin' conversation. I know it was a lot. An' they need t'process. But as t'/when/ s'been enough processin'? Less certain territory. Kinda been hopin' maybe they'd come t'/us/. So I'd know I'm not forcin' things again." He shivers a bit at that ominous rumbling, but chooses not to comment on it. "Thank you, that'd suit well. I'm hopin' he can find somethin', but hadn't been overly optimistic. 'Least I know he was fed pretty soon b'fore they took 'im this time." He doesn't quite manage to avoid a faint blush dusting his cheeks with that last. "I have never minded--indeed, I might have had more a mind he was up to something if climbing on and biting me were not his usual mode of greeting. I admit, though, I initially found his making off with the egg..." Isra cocks her head. "...alarming." Somehow this sounds like an understatement coming from her. "But I do not mean to be a slave to my instincts, protective or otherwise. The struggle they're going through, I understand at least in part, but I do not think I can tell any better than you what the right time is." She starts in on her stew, purring low and appreciative. After a moment, she adds. "Most likely, it will happen when it must. We'll need to ask for the egg's return for the appointment, at any rate." Her ears flatten back against her skull. "I'm glad of it. May it sustain him long enough." "He does like chewin' on folks. 'Specially if y'got parts as can handle it. M'leg looks enough like we've got /actual/ pups in the house by now." Despite all the /other/ conversation, Micah grins fondly at that thought, chuckling a bit under his breath. "Could see where that'd be alarmin' without a clear declaration of intent, yeah. Mmn. I was hopin' maybe one of 'em might've talked t'you at least. I know y'have a sort of mentorin' role with 'em, so they might've. But they might just need more time still." The hint of a grin pulls into a broader one now, a little lopsided-playful. "We'll hafta get Egg a calendar set up. Eggshare." He covers the grin falling with another spoonful of soup. "I hope so." "Frankly, /I/ wasn't even ready to talk about it then." Isra smiles ruefully. "In this matter, at least, I cannot think myself any kind of mentor. Just a poleaxed, unprepared...whatever I am." She shakes her head. "Though, in any event, I feel like the pups and I say as much with no words as we do with, depending on the topic. Whenever I get too far along thinking about all of this, I just want to go fight someone. Not," she adds quickly, "to imply that I wish to fight /you./ It's...a part of how /I/ process, I guess." The soup disappears rapidly from her bowl, and the coffee from her cup. "I miss him," she admits at last. The expression on her face remains placid, but the wing she stretches out to touch Micah's arm trembles a little. "I miss him, I am furious and I am terrified." Micah nods, working slowly through his soup as Isra talks. "I get that. It's been hard. I've just been…tryin' not t'talk about it too much at folks when it's too much for 'em. But eventually that approach isn't gonna work anymore." He can do rueful smiles with the best of 'em. "Don't imagine you'd find fightin' me very rewardin'. Over too quick." There are no illusions here, at least. "S'lettin' off steam, if nothin' else. Lettin' a dif'rent part of your brain engage for a while. I think it's kinda the same thing I do when I just…make m'self incredibly busy. Stick the brain on another track. 'Cept I imagine there's also some fuzzier neurotransmitters goin' on with the fightin' part." He pushes the last remnants of his soup aside, scooting his chair closer to Isra's to wrap an arm around her shoulders. "It's…yeah. All of those things. Love 'im an' /hate/ this."