Britannia, NY

Arthur is looking for a few people, though he's open to talking to others. As always, he gives off an air of calm authority, but he's approachable enough.

He looks driven, today, however. He's made up his mind, at least on a small scale, and he doesn't seem to be in the mood to brook opposition.

Gary's having an iffy week; he's slept badly and it's as though his skin is more sensitive than usual, being touched feels like being shocked, and he's worn out without having done much of anything.

He's trying to do the errands anyway, while Mike is at school. He wants to pretend nothing is wrong, especially for Mike, because every bad day feels like he's betraying him, or failing him.

He stops in at the Round Table for bread, running his hand through his hair, looking stressed.

For the last two weeks Jim has been on leave from his job, leaving the students newly returned to school with a substitute teacher. Canine Companions has a fourteen-day training period where prospective dog owners take an obedience course with their service dogs and get to know them. It's over now, but the upshot is he's home with a black lab that has to wear one of those half-jackets with SERVICE ANIMAL printed on it in big black letters, and she knows when he's feeling sick or strained, can sense even the small changes in his gait when there's pain in his legs.

And Nathan's managed to coax him out on a walk (Sheila does need to be walked) to the bakery. He grips the leash fiercely, still unused to it, but he's getting the idea.

In general he's content these days. He gave up cigarettes for a pipe, he doesn't expect Amanda to call, he pushes away all thoughts of Mike as anything more than a friend. It's just that somehow he still feels unfulfilled; his body still feels emptied out and he's always hungry but never for food. In this regard Sheila is more helpful than for his CP. She's undemanding and solid under his hands, and when she's out of her harness she likes to be scratched and petted. (He wishes this had come to him when he was still a boy, uncertain of himself and shaking, aware of the disappointed eyes of his parents.)

But the walk, at least, is pleasant. He draws his coat a little tighter against the wind, and she looks back over her shoulder at him for a moment.

( Now I'm held hostage in my head/With every word you said/God, all those lessons in my past/I spit them out so fast/I see myself with you, I act so small/I see myself with you, I always crawl/So someone leave a raft for me/The water's getting deep/At the turn of the tide/I feel this part of me die/Am I washed on your shore and barely alive? )

There's been no letup in the nightmares for Adia--the night before was the worst in a long time, and she woke feeling as though her whole body was burning, and had to take an ice-cold shower to get the heat out of her skin. She can't even look at Arthur afterwards, not because he's responsible, but because he feels the responsibility.

She's trying to get away from the house to-day, to distance herself from it. The cold air helps, the grounding smells of snow and bread from the bakery anchor her in this place. She doesn't have to admit anything here. She doesn't have to be Guenever, or even know the name.

( I'm searching rumors with my hollow plans/when all I wanted is what's mine/I'm lost and lonely in this foreign land/I'm left too far behind the lines )

Sagramore doesn't get out much, mostly because Jim does a good job of squashing him down and keeping him out of his life. But the recent events with Nathan and the fact that Jim's been exhausted lately have his guard down, and Sagramore is the one who woke up this morning and spent half an hour working out modern plumbing, got his body dressed and headed out into town.

It's Sagramore, and for some people it might be obvious in the way he carries himself, the way his smile is relaxed and easy and his movement has a grace about it that Jim never has, a beautiful deer-like grace. He's exploring the shops that he hasn't ever been in, grinning freely at the lovely and unlovely alike, using the full extent of his charm to make everyone feel like the most special person in the world.

( I'll draw three figures on your heart... )

Arthur is tired. Adia not sleeping well means he's not been sleeping very well either, for one. For another, he still doesn't know what he's back here to achieve, and he somehow feels like there's a duty he's shirking. Something obvious that's missing.

He decides to pick up some pie on the way home. He and Adia could both use some comfort food, and he hasn't seen Lexi in awhile. These small steps, at least, he can take. For now.

( 'The time has come,' the Walrus said,/'To talk of many things:/Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--/Of cabbages--and kings--/And why the sea is boiling hot--/And whether pigs have wings.' )

Buddy had tried to move on after he found out that the old truck was never going to run again. Not a good idea to stay in one place too long. But something kept nagging at him all the way to Rhode Island.

And then the dreams started up again.

And suddenly, against all good sense, he's back in Britannia. A little cleaner and better shaven than last time, but with the same old army jacket and duffle bag. And a copy of Tennyson's Idylls folded over and stuffed in the pocket of his jeans. And an almost manic glint in his eyes.

He's either figured it all out, or finally gone all the way off the deep end. And damn does he need a drink.

It's Friday afternoon, and Mike is cautiously optimistic. The kids haven't been giving much trouble lately; Gary's been to the doctor and back again, and begun to loosen up a little on the subject; and any week in which Nathan minds his own business, he feels, can be counted as a net gain. So he's reasonably cheerful as he heads back to the apartment building, ankle deep in dead leaves. It's good walking weather.

The dreams have not exactly gotten easier - they're more frequent than ever, which is draining (Enfys is getting used to waking up feeling more tired than when she went to bed), and more oblique and surreal, which is irksome – but the aftermath is less pea-soup Exorcist and more worst gravewalker ever. She presumes this is because she's getting used to them, which is both mildly terrifying and – which is the side she decides to concentrate on – hopefully an indication that her strength is growing, or something. Not exactly the fireworks she's hoping for, because she's going to need a hell of a lot more than sporadic foresight to go up against Morgan, but a step in the right direction. Maybe.

As it is, she's taken to writing down the visions and trying to make some sort of sense of them. In her conversations with Nimue the future's always seemed like some big loom where she can see the weaving and correct the threads, but it's not like that in practice. Or, well, it is, except that the threads don't look like threads but like snakes and dragons and things, and the final pattern is muddied and not the neat tapestry she's expecting. But hey, every little helps.

So she's holding court at The Round Table, because it amuses her to do so (not because it's next door to Of the Lake, or because it feels like she's meant to be there, or anything... really, she's just heard favourable reviews and decided to check the place out), and has pulled up a table somewhere in the corner with her laptop out, trying to google the hell out of last night's drama. Unfortunately it seems that the internet isn't up to making any sort of sense out of 'A golden-headed serpent will lure the leopard away and corrupt his heart, and that is how the great dragon will die' beyond that she - he, the Other – said it in the previous lifetime.

The entirety of the prophecy doesn't illuminate anything much beyond giving her a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach, so she really hopes this place is as good as she's expecting it to be.

As things go this meeting is not only inevitable but almost necessary--Adia would like to live in her little world where everything is fine as long as Arthur's there and no one pushes on her dreams, but there are so many new arrivals to this town in so short a time and even she, out on the fringes of all of it, can't avoid them.

Besides, it's a new bakery, and it smells fantastic.

The morning paper, tucked under her arm, is the Albany paper--which Britannia gets for anybody who wants to know what's actually going on in the world, because the weekly Britannia periodical is a very this-small-town oriented paper. The Albany paper and the people who edit it have never appeared even to know of Britannia's existence, but this morning is a little different; it's not on the front page, but there is a feature story on B2 headlined SMALL-TOWN CARPENTER SHOT IN UNSUCCESSFUL ROBBERY; Thief fired and ran, according to man's roommate.

Adia stops just in inside the Round Table and looks around, closes her eyes briefly and breathes in. Something here is reminiscent of something else. She just doesn't know what or why.

Elaine, oblivious to any bad timing the visit may suffer from, is heading toward the Round Table (the bakery, not the actual table, though the two are near one another). She told Lexi she would come, after all, and she intends to pursue this as far as the other woman will allow. Elaine feels like the two parts of her, past and present, are blurring, and the modern, younger part is a little worried. But she's not letting that drag her down just now. She'll ride the high of current events until she has no choice.

But for the first time in months, she's been looking happy pretty regularly.

((This is basically just a starter for any kind of gathering you'd like to have at The Round Table. Don't feel the need to involve Lexi at all - in fact, I've turned off email notifications on the post, so if you do need her, just give me a nudge. Basically, it's just an open forum for anyone who might wander in and have a cuppa or a cookie or just see what the commotion is about. Thread hopping within is encouraged; it's a good way to have your char meet people they might not normally. In short, yeah, just feel free to use this thread for whatever you like. :D Have fun. :D))

( Everybody loves cake! )

The Round Table

Cafe and Fresh Baked Goods

~*~

Now Open!

Free cookies!

In her dream, Clara (though not Clara) stands as still as if she's rooted to the ground. There are people all around her, but that seems unimportant. At the start of the dream, she is confident; it doesn't matter that she cannot move, because why would she ever want or need to? But before long, the people begin to move in closer and closer and there is chaos and shouting, and someone is bearing down on her, but she cannot move, cannot move-- and when she wakes, she is shaking all over and sobbing, her face buried in her pillow, and the only clear thought she can register is that she wants to see Lexi. She knows that seeing her will make it better, that even if they don't (and she hopes they don't) talk about the dream, Lexi's mere presence will make her feel calm and secure. Clara can't tell if the impulse is Gareth's or her own, and as she pulls on a pair of jeans and a shirt, still in a half-asleep blur between herself and him, she decides she doesn't care.

Despite having a room on the first floor, despite having a mother who set, in Clara's opinion, a ridiculously early curfew, despite being a teenager, she has never sneaked out through her window before. She's surprised at how easy it is. The sky is the warm gray that comes just before dawn and the air is chilly, and once she's across the lawn she realizes she forgot to put on shoes. She presses on, and it's only when she gets close to the lake that any kind of practical considerations enter her mind. Why would Lexi be up this early? Bakers do get up early. But why would she be in her shop? What if she doesn't want to see Clara?

With an uncharacteristic lack of worry, she answers her own questions silently as she starts for the door of the bakery: if Lexi doesn't want to see her, she'll tell her to go. If Lexi isn't there yet, she'll wait.

Arthur is out and about in Britannia, not going anywhere in particular. And though he's not looking for anyone in particular either, the list he and Enfys made is still in the forefront of his mind. He's not sure what he's recruiting people to, at this point, but awakening people... and determining who they are. That is certainly important.

And failing that, he may just enjoy the afternoon. Sure. Right.

( What will you look like when you're old? / What will I do if I don't know you? / I guess that I decided not to ask the day I took the road / Down to the city as it called / Sun making silhouettes of gauze / I don't remember you at all )

( Invisible kid/ Never see what he did/ Got stuck where he hid/ Fallen through the grid/ Invisible kid/ Got a place of his own/ Where he'll never be known/ Inward he's grown/ Invisible kid/ Locked away in his brain/ From the shame and the pain/ World down the drain. )