Who Gryff & Em What: Trying to resolve Haven When: Tonight Where: Haven, Gryff's office. Warnings: It's unfinished, so no idea.
Haven was never other than quiet; the forced serenity of wide stone walls and placid survival of all the years had within them to hold, all the horror meted out by magicians twisted and reworked, broken over the ever-spinning wheel of what magic offered (oh seductive, siren-like in its call from old books and tightly-lettered script, in the promise of possibilities to those who were uninitiated but here within were only tired ciphers, those who had learned the secrets with blood, sweat, dust and bone and were all but consumed by them) was weathered, foundations stood solid-deep and Haven herself conveyed peaceful hush over all those that clung to her substance and solidity. Stone walls and flagged floors swallowed sound -- grateful, Gryff might have been and often was when work was forever figures that wouldn’t add up, timid knocks at the door, occasional calamity beyond when part of the roof began to leak, a window shattered, the forever-hungry wolf of pieced-together poverty began licking greedily at the accounts, but unsettling it could be when destruction and division could be washed away and leave the place unmarked, when the last dread incident could be forgotten and absorbed by Haven who had seen greater abomination and stood silent, sentinel forever with finger to lips, and survived. Haven was never other than quiet, but what peace permutated through the halls was absence of rather than quiescent place calm amidst storm. The lack of those fragile things slotted neatly into cells to be counted up and considered at each turn was added lead weight to mind, column in the ledger of ghosts always to be thought on and never dealt with. Haven had spun herself out, the web-thin strands of what she was spread wide and delicate, and he -- Leo Gryffiths, head-heart-hands given back to himself, sat in the centre of her (that small office space, that place carved out amidst the whole and shored up against the other residents -- now the door ajar when no step within the hall to guard against, now the chair shoved sharply back from desk as the papers drifted in sum-tide of years past seen out, fell softly in snowy tide of record-keeping gone amok to the carpet, dredged over books and wastepaper basket over-filled with frustrated efforts to outline plan ahead) and mapped out method back to Haven as she ought to be -- and Haven herself held soft breath within hollow rooms and waited.
The man then -- gone on without sleep, the slow slide of light into dusk and the play of day outside smeared glass window long ceased to engender meaning or even meander close to marking time (sleep a thing of limp cushion crammed in half and wedged beneath his head as Gryff stretched over-long frame uncomfortably along the length of the couch in the office and let the buzzing black and white fade into over-thought grey for just a little while) and now that thin part of night-made-morning, the world beyond quiet and unexpectant and velvet-dark, thankfully undemanding. Coffee table drawn close enough up to elbow for the ever-present soporific to stand ready at hand, glints of chased glass and amber in the lopsided light of a lamp whose shade hung drunkenly, Gryff sat with back to bookcase (empty of files, what few there were still on shelves like occasional teeth in sad-gaping mouth) and perused what lay in kaleidoscope spread of occultists past and present in records massed across the floor. What was plain on paper (first notebooks and then files, typed and hand written mingled together like fish and birds bumping neatly along) were byplay-memories reeling out vivid in mind’s eye-- this occultist had hummed discordant note forever whilst working, a sound that had lodged hard and sharp against the back of his skull and resonated there uncomfortably as Haven itself seemed to shiver with displeasure and the wards flaring scarlet as they faded against the stone, that one had smiled as she’d worked, lit candles and gasped when the knife slid a little too deep against her palm as though unexpectant of the pain -- and he tossed each page aside, impatient to reach the next to care for order and reconsideration later. This man then, this man who was so careful to be stone gargoyle and forever-stoic presence, Haven’s hearth if not home to the people that needed it -- this man that if you looked more closely (and he distracted enough with papers and with the glass lifted to lips in interim now and again to permit it) the lines fanning at eye-corners, the downturn grim note of mouth were deeper carved, the silvering of temples, the coarse grey across the chin and jaw -- this man tired in dull-dead fashion but twitching gamely on -- for Haven could not slip-slow out of grasp, collapse with dying grace and he, captain with one hand on reeling wheel, course uncharted, was not yet certain if it could be as yet steered back. Doubt had crept in, curled itself neatly up in the corner of the room and sat there, wide-eyed silent and curious as to when it could fasten teeth to life-blood pulse and shake -- doubt that was kind enough to stay in shadows as yet, but doubt remaining all the same and Leo Gryffiths (who palmed one warm hand across eyes and nose and mouth, wiped away the gritty traces of what was night-day-time-insensible and yawned out exhaustion) was capillary-connected, host to such a parasite despite grim lack of intention.