Ships in the Night

Étaín
It's late afternoon on a Monday, and thus Étaín is done with work for the day and on her way home by way of one of her favorite neighborhoods.  There's a certain coffee shop, arguably one of the best in Denver, on which a mural is painted - and it's on the patio outside of such that she sits now, basking up the heat and sun while it lasts.  Her Earl Grey latte (a long-time favorite) and muffin sit beside her.

It's a good day for her.  She may have grown up in Colorado, but like so many she perks up when the weather takes a turn for the nice.

BlackIt's warmer, so Black has shed layers of clothing. Dickie black shorts, knee length, and a white tshirt. His socks are low cut and barely noticeable against the tennis shoes he's wearing. He's sporting a mustache, his hair cut close to the scalp all around and the top left long, flopping to one side and untouched by anything but his fingers when he woke up at wherever he slept.

He almost passes up the coffee shop and the kin, but something catches his eye (maybe it's the mural) and he stops, noticing Etain, and alters his direction to head toward her.

" 'ey." He says in greeting.

Étaín
It's been a few months, perhaps a year, but for whatever reason it's unlikely to have been longer than that; since those first meetings in Scotland and New York, Étaín has changed quite a bit and not at all.  Ciarán has seen her at home in 'your Fort Collins', in California, in any number of places and spaces, but none were quite like this.  Today, his kinswoman is dressed like a 'responsible adult' in a smart-cute skirt suit as if she's just come from work . . .

. . . which she has, quite frankly.  She still smells like the office, like other people and animals layered over and under and through her own scent, her own Breeding.

She's given up on being surprised when Ciarán appears in her life, and instead turns towards the familiar voice, already twinkling with pleasure.  "Hey.  How're you?"

BlackHe smiles at her, rests the palm of his hand on the top of her head, letting it drift away as he takes the seat opposite her and sprawls out on it, elbows pushed out and propped on the arms of the chair, the fingers of both hands lazily threaded together over the flat of his stomach. Black just stairs at the kin for a solid minute before he smiles and nods at her.

"Guid, hoo hae ye bin? Whit ur those clase yoo've gotten yerself in?" He asks casually.

Étaín
It's amusing, perhaps, that while Ciarán has grown more likely to touch, Étaín has grown less so; it's not propriety or anything ridiculous like that, but 'growing up' . . . which, really, is both more and less ridiculous than propriety.  The Garou across from her has seen her ecstatically happy and in love, and he's seen her in the wake of it ending - it was that that sped and cemented the change.  She's still tactile, still prone to random physical contact, but there's less obvious affection.  Even with as open as she is, Étaín gives less of herself away these days.

"I've been alright," she answers, "busy, you know.  These clothes?  Just work stuff."  It's given with a shrug, that last.  "It's gorgeous out.  Maybe spring's finally here for real."

BlackHe doesn't comment on her lack of outward affection. Just watches her with that dark eyed stare that gleams with both violence and mischief - a lethal combination of things to be bound up in one man. "Reit, yoo're workin' wi' th' animals." He clarifies for himself. A woman skirts past them, a waitress, and he waves her off with one hand. He doesn't bother smiling, it only sets them on edge worse.

"Sprin' will come when she's guid an' ready an' nae afair." Etain is reminded. He nudges her with the toe of his tennis shoe. "Yoo're aff tae haem 'en?"

Étaín
"Hush, you.  We used to light Beltane fires on the farm, sometimes do rites, when Mom was still there.  Maybe I'll find some to go to this year, to help urge things along."

It's a little teasing, that, and given how he's come to know her over the handful of years since their first meeting, it's not at all difficult to imagine her celebrating the coming of spring in the Old Ways in any number of capacities.  Since the beginning, she's seemed to have ties to that sort of mythos.

"I'll be on my way home after my tea and muffin, yeah.  Where are you headed?  Are you in town for long?"

BlackHe shrugs at her, non-committal as always. Just as quickly as he sat though he's standing, gathering feet beneath him and bending at the waist to press his mouth to the top of her head.

"Th' Carey's hae a Beltane celebration. it's a fin time. i've got tae be aff noo, we'll spick suin hen."

And just as easily as he drifted into her afternoon, he drifts out.