ringing in the new year

[beastkeeper]

For the most part, the beginning of every new year on the block is the same. There's the party, held down in the common room (barely distinguishable from the lobby, but hey, who cares), and the reminders that go up in the week prior, telling people to bring food to share (not that everyone does — the witch provides more than enough, anyhow). There are, of course, smaller parties, held in the apartments upstairs or on the grounds, and the combinations of creatures always rotates (more or less), but the overall air remains the same. The end of one year and the ushering in of another is cause to celebrate.

Comments

[flutterings]

[ the smile darla offers up is wary. even after a year here, she still shys away from just about everyone. jordan is one of the few who has managed to wiggle his way into something of a familiarity, enough that she doesn't politely excuse herself from the conversation after a few pleasantries have been exchanged. ]

Hello, quetzal. I thought you'd be inside.

[ with the paralyzing crush of bodies that darla had so diligently been avoiding. ]

[faunas]

Respects paid, rounds made. All that's missing is the big three, two, one, sister, and that's it for another year, over and done. [ Jordan bobs his head some more and then replaces his hat back onto his head. It seems incapable of doing anything but sitting at a jaunty angle, the brim of it tipped forward and down to as to partially obscure his dark eyes.

He has large hands with long, spindly fingers. Jordan uses them to fix fractures, bumps and bruises, sprains. Once, rumor has it, he used to bring a woman back from the dead and had almost killed himself in the process, but Jordan knows that that's exaggeration. She hadn't been nearly as dead as everyone claimed, though she had jumped from her fifth floor balcony in an attempt to escape the blood and Circe's tightening noose. (He'd saved her, of course, but that hardly matter. The woman had disappeared the day after and no one ever really mentioned her again.) Those hands are digging through his pockets idly, pulling out a lighter (silver, antique, burnished and with curlique letters engraved on the side) to light a cigarette.

Eventually: ] Ready for the sis-boom-bah?

[flutterings]

As ready as I'll ever be.

[ her smile looses a little of the stiffness as he speaks. darla likes the way jordan talks, all flash-bang and lyrical. it's like poetry, which she supposes is probably the point. after a moment, she smoothes her skirt down over her knees and tips her head up to look at him. ]

You could sit with me a little while, if you'd like.

[ a pause. ]

I'd like the company.

[ this is rare. but it's new years, and darla feels like making exceptions, perhaps. ]

[faunas]

[ It is poetry and it is the point and, whether or not Darla ever expresses acknowledgment of that to Jordan, he's still able to pick up bits and pieces of it here and there (the way her smile loosens, the way her hands smooth out her skirt). They're all signs, signs of good things and Jordan is nothing if not an optimist. You have to be when life and death are both there, seated in the palm of both hands. Give and take and Jordan likes to give. Too much sometimes, arguably; not enough, Jordan would reply.

He smiles at her, easy as anything, at her offer, then pulls the hat of his head a second time and accompanies it this time with a flourishing bow at the waist. ]

Would like, would love, turtledove. [ Jordan winks, knowing full well she's no dove. ] No better way for the year to ring rang rung than with a brace of birds.

[ He drops himself graciously down onto the bench beside her, careful not to crowd her or take up too much room. When Jordan smokes, he makes sure to exhale in a different direction, downwind of her so as not to get the smell in her hair. ] Resolutions, little sister: got the gist, have a list?

[flutterings]

[ it sets her at ease, the flourishes and the poetry. darla is ever drawn to things she finds beautiful, to people who are full of love and beauty. wary and cautious as she is, she still hovers at arm's length, gradually drawing closer.

she turns her head, a spill of blond tumbling down her shoulders at the movement, momentarily hiding her face. resolutions. darla's only real resolution was to learn, to harness her power and make it work properly, to turn on and off when she wished, not just give her visions willy-nilly.

but she wasn't sure how to phrase that for jordan. ]

A short one. Resolutions are harder to make here.

[ she twists the bracelet on her wrist in a circle, over and over again. nervous gesture. ]

Did you make a list?

[faunas]

Harder to make and harder to keep. One and one make two but two is one too many. I feel ya, sister, I do.

[ Jordan nods in a way that seems more like he's keeping time to unheard music as opposed to listening to anything she has to say, his attention wandering around the perimeter of the courtyard, allowing his mind to continue doing the laps that his body has taken a rest from. ] This year, last year, so on and so forth. Same as always — was, is, will — my verbs are subject to the same agreement, no matter what the tense, ya follow? [ Jordan lifts a hand and places it roughly over his heart, patting the lapel of his jacket with a syncopated rhytymn. He smiles at Darla in a soft, caring way, his eyes dreamy (or maybe just sleepy). ] Give to get and get to give. A little more soul, that's all.

[flutterings]

[ sometimes talking to jordan is like speaking another language, something beautiful and lyrical of his own creation. but he smiles at her and she smiles back, because he is one of the very few who she can ease into conversation with. normally she'd have flitted away by now, made an excuse, and slipped off to find another uninhabited nook to sit in. ]

I think I'd like to see less. But that's a wish and not a resolution.

[faunas]

[ Jordan pauses and lapses into silence nodding, first at Darla and then up at the sky at nothing in particular. ] But wishes, upon wishing, can be resolved, ya dig? And resolutions wished, without resolutions' resolve.

[ Many of the residents' powers were difficult things to master, but few came with more dire consequences than Jordan's and so it's a wish he understands well. Luckily for him there was something about his temperament that lent itself to understanding the ebb and flow of life, the giving and taking of that vital breath. He could wither a houseplant in less than a minute but use that death to fix a sprained ankle, a broken arm, a bleeding wound (it's happened in the past).

Lazily he waves a hand through the air, it moving around the smoke that he's been exhaling. ] It can happen.

[flutterings]

You're so optimistic.

[ her tone is quietly incredulous. how did he manage to stay like that, so upbeat? darla had never quite managed it herself, not unless there was someone who needed her to be.

darla was always better at being what others needed her to be, a better nurse than a person, if such a comparison could be made. she was not good at doing things for herself. ]