[PRP] a silent beat (leila & jeremiah)

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah had not expected a text from Eve. No, that was a lie. They texted one another at least every other day (if there was not something wrong) even if it was just an image of something the other might like (or reminded them of the other). What he had not expected was to be asked over because of Leila.

Yet he realized things were far from alright when he stepped into the house and it was out of order. Not even thinking about it, he picked up a few things here and there (straightened a pile of papers, neatly organized things in the way he knew they preferred) before he was calling out. "Leila?"

cibarium

a belated start for you!

 

[cibarium]

Outside would be the next logical place to look, and that was where she was.

Leila had three of her hens crowded on and around her on the porch swing. Most of her hair was done up in a messy bun, and her eyes were red. Not crying-spell red, though. Just red all the way through, a deep dark brick color. It was obviously some brand new kind of magic s**t, but Eve wouldn't have invited someone over to reassure Leila that it didn't look weird. She turned her head to wordlessly acknowledge Jeremiah's presence and resumed staring aimlessly ahead, preoccupied.

azuedreams

shibrogne

can leila see sunny's zac-b-gone punishment? or temp's geas on him

 

[shibrogane]

cibarium

There's a strange corpsey look to Jeremiah, a blurriness to his features.  

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah raised a hand in greeting, once he caught sight of Leila outside with the hens. If he noticed her eyes, the dark brick red, he was unbothered (or, rather, would not make a big deal out of it; magic worked in ways he did not necessarily understand).

"'lo, Leila. Mind if I join you?"

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

"Sure," she answered. A bit unsettled, she glanced back to Jeremiah, dully noting his gauntly blurred appearance was there to stay for the moment. "Are you okay? You look..."

Biscuit was happily asleep in her lap and Earnest was doing the same at her feet. Ophelia was perched a bit cautiously behind Leila on the back of the bench, sidling away an inch or three as Jeremiah sat down.

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"Hm?" Jeremiah tilted his head in curiousity of the question. "Other than the usual, I'm alright?" He glanced down at his wrists, checking them and then touching his neck. No scales were there and he was not even that cold at the moment.

Except that people commenting on his appearance could also mean- "Is there something off about my appearance?"

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

Leila slowly nodded, her brow wrinkling a bit. "If you stay that way I'll get used to it," she said with a ghost of a smile. "You look half-dead, is all."

Miss Snooty-toots was idly pacing near the edge of the back porch. She looked up to Jeremiah for a second, approving of his presence.

ashdown whaler

 

[azuredreams]

"That's ... vaguely concerning," replied Jeremiah. He crouched down to be with the hens a moment, fingers flicking towards Ms Snooty-toots. "Last I checked, I believe my back was on fire but the half-dead bit is new?"

Not that he could think of a reason why he would look corpse. "Is it how I look or ... something blurring my features?" Was it the same as Aleksy's ability?

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

Toots hopped up to join Jeremiah and her flockmates (Leila included) on the bench.

"Umm," Leila squinted in thought, "No? I mean... you look... blurry and half-dead at the same time." She rubbed her eyes. They itched. It was one among several things distracting her. "I don't know why I'm seeing people like this all of a sudden."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

With Ms Snooty-toots, Jeremiah was content to settle into sitting. "That's- Well, that's a bit strange. A little like how Shun described things to me with his shadow eye, Kind of an overlay?"

Then he was frowning. "Hopefully won't mean you're going to get a headache just from looking at me." That would be unfortunate and make it where he would not want to be around to cause Leila undue pain. A glance toward her hand and then her eyes which were given a sharper focus, his own eyes glowing briefly as he looked. Mostly because he was trying to discern magic, if there was something going on, but it did not look like it.

"Anything you can do to help with the eyes?" He paused and then continued to clarify. "I don't mean their appearance," that was another change from magic, surely, and looked fitting on Leila strangely enough, "but that you look like you're trying to scratch an itch." Jeremiah was not so foolish to think that her eyes were looking the way they did because they were irritated but that there was something going on.

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

There were no headaches from the new type of magic vision, at least. Leila was already dealing with enough thanks to magic, the worst of which she couldn't even disclose. She frowned a bit when Shun came up, though, not having heard he'd acquired a magic eye. The comparison didn't seem quite the same.

"No..." she answered, to Jeremiah's offer of help. "They're just molting. It's a whole different thing." Different from suddenly seeing Jeremiah as a blurry cadaverous figure, she meant. "Or I'm pretty sure it is."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"Molting?" That certainly made his eyebrows raise upwards, both of them. "How long is that process going to take?" Leila would know, obviously, because she was an expert.

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

Leila shrugged. "It's a gift from the Multitude, and they don't really have a human sense of time. I might not have been late to the Conference otherwise."

She was just making regular conversation, trying her best to be the normal friendly neighbor, and she didn't actually want to think about the conference. Half of her mind was already following Ezra through the halls of the Court again.

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"So when it completes, your eyes are going to be different." It was not a question, simply a statement, a fact. Leila was going to be changed, a little more something special.

Still, Jeremiah thought about Eve's original text, that there was something going on. The hens were nudged gently so that he could scoot himself over on the bench closer to Leila. His motions were obvious, though Leila did seem particularly lost in thought, and nudged her lightly with his shoulder.

It was a friendly gesture, the kind that implied he was here for her whatever way she needed. Jeremiah would follow her lead.

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

"Yeah." Leila nodded. "But I started seeing people differently right after that."

The nudge made her look back up, and her expression settled into something morosely sympathetic. After her gaze drifted back ahead, and a moment had passed, she spoke again.

"I'm sorry about Zac, Jeremiah. With everything that's been going on..."

azuredreams