themidnightson | (no subject)

The Back Door opens and closes.

Two people leave, one dressed for the weather and one decidedly not.

The snow is still covering the ground except for well worn paths that have turned slushy and gray-brown. But it isn't falling right now. And Edward paused, while the door swung closed, to look across the expanse. Would anything feel far enough here to him? Was it just another distraction from?

Except he could not chance these things;
And he did not trust the Front Door after all the things it had thrown at them.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

noteful

Meg assumes it's royalty in the tradition of absolute monarchs and the like than we-put-her-picture-on-the-postage-stamps.

Meg has a queen. Most days, HM doesn't matter all that much.

"You don't like them, do you?"

It's an inane thing to say, but she's human, and though she knows rationally that she's contributing to this conversation whether she says anything or not . . . she still feels like she needs to say something out loud.

From:

themidnightson

Her queen doesn't snap necks for one out of place glance.
Or ransom eternities for entertainment.

"I came into this life with good reasons to hate them."

Edited Date: 2010-02-01 01:14 pm (UTC)

From:

noteful

Meg looks down at her hands and then back up at him.

Should I ask what those are?

From:

themidnightson

It isn't his to give.

Just like it wasn't his to take.

He knows more than anyone in his family.

More than Esme has been told. More than Emmett or Rose would put forth the effort to know. More than Jasper and Alice have seen even after Milliways bathed them in it.

That boy was put here to mock me.

"In all the ways they could, barring execution, they abused someone," there is a discernible pause between the two words. "-of paramount importance to me."

From:

noteful

She could guess who he is talking about.

Not with absolute certainity, but most people consider very few people to be of paramount importance.

(Well, all right, most people don't use the phrase paramount importance for anyone, but the sentiment is applied to very few people.)

"More than reason enough."

From:

themidnightson

Edward looked back to Meg, at her response, something blankly gauging in his features studying her face.

From:

noteful

Meg looks back at him.

"To dislike someone.

"If they hurt someone you care about.

"That's more than reason enough."

From:

themidnightson

Dislike was very tame in comparison. As was care.

He would have said it had tempered in the passing decades.
Until the events that transpired here; before he went to Volterra.

Edward looked back at the diamond covered in snow.
Even in agreement, Carlisle wouldn't approve.

From:

noteful

It's not her place, really, to ascribe stronger words than those that have been used.

Though they certainly wouldn't surprise her.

She turns to look at the diamond, too.

She's not sure what either of them is expecting to see.

Maybe it's just a place to look.

From:

themidnightson

It's a quiet pause. The wind stirring the snow around them, but with none falling except what is disturbed by that breeze. An inert place covered in white. Other people have called it magical.

He can see what it's done in facts.

One of them is sitting behind him to his right.

From:

noteful

Baseball is an odd game, if you compare it to the other major team sports.

The offensive team doesn't control the field.

The defensive team has no way to score.

And there is no clock. Things take as long as they take. A game could, in theory, go on forever.

There are rushes of activity, and then there are pauses. There's even a pause scheduled right into the game.

Meg waits.

Edward, she assumes, will begin the conversation again when it is time to do so.

Edited Date: 2010-02-01 02:35 pm (UTC)

From:

themidnightson

It doesn't take too long, but it does take some time.
To calm sensations that were not ripped open, but perused.

To go through too many words that might relate back to her last ones, whether grateful or dismissive, or even a combination of both to her and to the topic. But those words come and form and fade with the swirling snow.

She can't sit as long as he can stand there, but she's better at waiting than he'd given her credit for previous to now even. A plan-less and design-less acceptance of waiting for him.

Eventually he came over and sat dusted the snow off the bench next to her. A graceful settle, hands settling, criss-crossed on one thigh. "I don't always know what to make of you."

The connotation of the words is lost in the vagueness of its tone.

From:

noteful

It's one of those comments it's hard to know how to respond to.

I don't always know what to make of you, either?

I don't always know what to make of me, either?

I'm sorry?

Thank you?

You heard all that so I guess I just made all those responses, didn't I?

From:

themidnightson

One side of Edward's lips twitched faintly outward and upward.

Edited Date: 2010-02-01 03:05 pm (UTC)

From:

noteful

He gets an ever-so-prim (if completely put on) look in reply.

"And now I suspect you are laughing at me."

From:

themidnightson

There's a small tip of his head outward that might be the only sign of an agreement. Like it should accompany a shrug or a wider smile, but his golden eyes are focused on her and it is only that smallest movement.

"The answer is, not unless you want them to be. I haven't been at this such a short time that I take instantaneous reactions for them every time."

Though he did take them for the honest, unfettered, unguarded things they were and represented at times.

From:

noteful

"I think a lot of things that I don't say," Meg says.

Call her crazy, but she suspects Edward has noticed.

"And I don't always like the things I think. There's a reason I don't say them.

"It's . . . it's really strange that you've heard them all."

From:

themidnightson

Not for him.

But he says, "Understandably."

From:

noteful

She's very new to it all. And new is often strange.

(But strange is not always bad.)

"Do you all -- your father, your family -- do you all hear what people are thinking?"

From:

themidnightson

Edward shook his head. "It's only me."

There was a singularity that wasn't-quiet nor-wasn't-quiet-not solemnness. He is used to his life-- and his separateness. "Among them, and in the known histories of even the oldest of our kind we've come into contact with."

From:

noteful

And that surprises her.

She's not sure why, or at least, why is surprises her as much as it does. It's hardly odd for different people to have different abilities.

(Even within families. Kim, after all, is a Seer. And Meg most decidedly is not.)

"Why?"

And then immediately, "Sorry. That was . . ."

Too much to ask, maybe.

At the very least, too rudely phrased.

From:

themidnightson

Edward shook his head, short and tight, more as a point than rebuff.

"It's fine. It isn't a science," No one cares enough on this side, outside of wanting to collect them like cards, or use them like toys. "But the prevailing theory is that the strongest gifts people have during their human life is amplified when they are changed."

Alice would be another note in the truth of that.
Especially since James and the video tape.

From:

noteful

"So in your human life, you were . . . what gift manifests as hearing people's minds?"

From:

themidnightson

"It's a good question. I could have been empathetic to people, or" Edward's expression slips the seriousness, splitting for a wryness. "-perhaps I was very nosy."

Though he thinks of a memory that isn't his, while being him and not;

It's not your fault.