Britannia, NY

Tiernay has settled in for the long haul at a little table by the window of the Round Table with her laptop and a legal pad.

She's working, but she's smiling, and glances up readily enough when someone comes near.

Because Nathan honestly believed that keyboards were invented by the devil (he was the king of the one-fingered typing, when he was forced around the demon machines) and didn't even remotely know how to work email, when he decided it was time to reach out to certain key players, he turned to an old-fashioned form of communication.

Some letters, then, written in a slightly shaky left-handed scrawl on parchment and sealed with wax (the Lady thrilled in that little touch; so much of the old elegance was lost, now, in the age of electronic ones and zeros and soulless typed correspondence) in what might be a familiar symbol. The water lily, after all, had once covered the Lady's lake. It was fitting that it should now seal Nathan's letters.

---

( Letter to Mike )

---

( Letter to Arthur )

---

( Letter to Cecilia )

---

And the last letter had no address. No real way Nathan could expect it to reach the intended party. But Nathan put it in the mailbox, stamp placed firmly on with more than a little bit of optimistic hope, believing absolutely in fate to have it find its way.

( Letter to Morgan le Fay )

It's been almost twenty years since Jim's gotten stinking drunk for no good reason (good reasons, like Amanda's being born, don't count). But somewhere in between Nathan's getting shot and Mike throwing him aside like that at the school, and this damned strange person inside him who he keeps trying to press back into a memory--

He's had a few shots of Jack Daniels before he stopped at the liquor store, and now he's at the park, sitting on one of the empty swings with his bottle of Southern Comfort in the brown paper bag. At least it's Friday; and it's late enough that most decent people in Britannia are seriously considering bed. If the police do drive by, they should give him a little leeway for at least being of the legal drinking age.

Actually, he hasn't thought it out that far. He isn't really even that drunk. He's jostling the swing a little, morosely, feeling confused and sad and mostly very, very sorry for himself.

Larry's posted some fliers in public places: the grocery, of course, the library. Maybe a few others here and there. He doesn't know why he feels nervous, as this isn't the first concert he's played in Britannia, and it won't be the last. At least, he isn't planning it to be, right now.

Maybe it's just that this is the first time he's played with the full knowledge of who he was, then. With the knowledge of why he writes about the things he writes about. And the first time he's played in front of audience who he's certain will know when and if he gets things wrong.

Still. He feels like it's something he has to do.


[Feel free to approach Larry after the show, or use as a post for running into other people at the concert.]

Cecilia had called in to work -- taking a personal day, she said. She didn't want to say she was sick, because then she'd feel strange about being seen out around town. But she needed to walk. She needed to listen. She needed to know where the rest of her sons were.

For the first time in months, Cecilia had found herself sleepless. But it wasn't the dreaming, keeping her awake. It was Morgause's unsettling, cold anger. When Cecilia had met Enfys a second time, with full knowledge of who Enfys was, Morgause had stirred within her. But when Nathan had interrupted them, Morgause had surged forward. Cecilia was used to that give and take, by now; usually, she felt that who she was in this life tempered the ambition, desire, the anger that Morgause had carried. She wanted to believe that this time was different, people changed, this was a fresh start. Cecilia wanted that desperately; even Morgause knew that she wasn't who everyone thought she was. (She loved people. She longed for things. She'd been hobbled by who she was, then. Not now. Not here.)

So today she's on her own time, walking. Listening, in Morgause's way, for a hint that will point her to the people she needs to know. She knows Gary. She felt something about Clara. But Mordred? The others? Still mysteries to her. So she walks; she looks, most likely, determined, almost angry.

"I am going to destroy you," Nathan had said, "You and your bastard son."

Not if Cecilia had anything to say about it.

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.

( Ask every person if he's heard the story, and tell it loud and clear if he has not )


_{OOC: Drop-in sessions with the newly-illuminated Merlin, even if she is just a tad distracted and off-form. Get 'em while they're hot. She's anywhere you need her to be, except obviously at Of The Lake.}

Cecilia's good mood seems to be something of a permanent fixture. She's been downright chipper at the library, which seems to befuddle some of her co-workers, but the patrons don't seem to mind it.

Every now and then, she slips off to hide in the stacks and poke around anything she can find that might give her a better handle on Arthurian lore. While she has a solid enough foundation, she was never really the sort who read Arthuriana for its own sake. Some of what she's read has brought the things she does remember (or that Morgause remembers, rather) into clearer focus. And while still other things by all rights ought to distress her, they don't. She feels, somehow, more solid. More herself, in spite of the fact that she clearly isn't who she once thought she was.

Today, she's just wrapped up her shift, and headed out to the park to enjoy the tail end of summer. She's got a book in her bag (more fluff, no doubt) and tentative plans to find a sunny spot and read it.

Things with Mum have been strained of late; Fizz can't really understand where that's come from. She thinks the woman ought to be pleased that she's sticking around in Britannia rather than dashing off to college like she'd always planned on doing - and could, with her record - but apparently it's made her 'directionless'. Which is a fun thing to be called.

She's not directionless, though... she knows this for a fact. Arthur's speculations have, if not confirmed, then at least reinforced this. Something's keeping her here, some greater purpose.

At times she wonders if she's going nuts, because the old Fizz would have scoffed at the idea.

Taking a break from stalking Arthur, and commandeering Ken's wall, she's set up shop outside the coffee shop where Mum works and is trying to figure out exactly what that purpose is. She's had four coffees and no luck yet.

Hmmph.

Cecilia had been lying low for a few weeks. Just going to work, and keeping otherwise to herself. She'd decided to give Larry his space -- she was starting to worry that she was going to do that thing she does, with the jealousy and the clinging, and so she'd backed off. But the longer she went without calling him, or going to see him, the more she felt his absence.

And every night this week, there he was. In her dreaming. In her arms, somewhere else. As he was, not as he is.

Though her dreams have been clear enough, she'd taken them in stride. Somehow the familiar faces and the knowledge a few of them had brought her felt almost comforting. She'd felt it all as a kind of power; it hadn't scared her, even when she started seeing blood in her dreams. Even when she knew how it ended.

She'd woken up this morning wanting him with her. Not sure of what that meant, or where it led. And she felt a little guilty, too. Like a jerk. So she's done her best to figure out when he gets off work today, and she's managed to find herself outside the grocery store, nervously waiting for him.

Mid-summer at the library, and things have, for the most part, been calm and quiet. Cecilia has helped a few of the high school students with college application information, and she's done her usual summertime routines of helping monitor the few public computer terminals (middle schoolers, mostly, in the afternoons) as well as her usual, more mundane, reference desk tasks.

Today, she's at the public desk, working on building a few orders for replacement books, keeping an eye on the section, and answering whatever questions come her way. She looks calm, accessible, and relatively well-rested.

Cecilia is wrapping up her shift -- she's stayed later than she would've liked, but at least she doesn't have plans to be late to this evening. She's managed to get everything squared away; she's the last one at the library so she shuts out most of the lights, and heads to the door to lock up. It's mid-evening (the library has a short schedule on Wednesdays and Thursdays this summer, to help out with the budget) and it's still warm enough to be pleasant.

Once the library is settled, she decides to leave her car in the lot and walk home instead. So she's setting out for home at a leisurely pace, mulling over her day, thinking of Larry, and plotting her dinner for one.

Cecilia would have liked to pretend that she'd been able to focus on anything else but her date with Larry. She would also like to be one of those women who is leisurely and relaxed about preparing for such a date.

Instead, she's been ready since 5:15, for a date at six. She's standing in her kitchen, triple-checking her makeup in a little hand mirror. She's in the kitchen because it's just about the furthest room from the front door, and she doesn't want to pounce when the doorbell rings. She takes a few deep breaths, checks her face again.

She really hopes she isn't about to make an idiot of herself.

A slightly annoying string of morning shifts has left Cecilia with something resembling a regular schedule for the first time since she started at this library. She's not a morning person, but she could get used to the idea of all those free evenings stretching out before her.

This evening, she's back at the coffee shop. It's nice enough that she's sitting at a sidewalk table instead of inside, with a steaming cup of chai and a somewhat embarrassing novel of the kind that's commonly called "chick lit". (She doesn't look particularly engrossed in the novel.)

“‘And happy is the man who does not find me a stumbling-block,’” Nissa reads out loud – barely out loud, just loud enough it can’t be said to be under her breath. “‘Happy is the man who does not find me a stumbling-block.’”

She’s sitting at a small table with a chessboard set into it in a park, her Bible lying in front of her, open to Luke chapter seven. The table is under an apple tree, and she must not have moved, nor turned the page, for a long while – there are petals on the page, petals in her hair. Her hands are in her lap, clenched against the fabric of her skirt. She is not quite shaking.

It’s getting late. She knows she should get up, go back to the manse, eat something, but she’s still seeing white hospital walls, a heart monitor, a bustle of confused doctors, a puzzle print of a Thomas Kinkade painting, painstakingly assembled, preserved under glass.

Arthur's encounter with Gaheris... that is, with Gary, has left him shaken. He didn't expect anyone he knew to be alive, in any form. Maybe Merlin, if his luck was exceedingly great, but he hadn't counted on it. He'd appeared without a history, in the wrong country, and had assumed that something had gone wrong in his return.

But now he had to wonder. Perhaps it hadn't.

It was possible, of course, that poor Gaheris had been a special case, because of what happened. If someone were to believe in the idea of unfinished business for a soul, Gaheris would certainly be a reliable candidate. But then again, there were the dreams. He'd heard quite a few people mention odd dreams; he'd observed that even more people looked tired.

Perhaps, after all, he'd returned just as he was meant to.

Which, of course, raised the question of what it was that he was supposed to be doing, now that he was here. It had seemed so obvious, last time. Difficult, certainly, but clear. He wished...

But wishing never got him anywhere, then or now. But he's sitting on a bench, outside Adia's apartment, thinking. He's free for the approaching, however.

The books for Mr. Madison's class have been slowly piling up at the circulation desk over the last couple of days. Once they're all accounted for, Cecilia -- in an unusual display of both helpfulness and good humor -- takes it upon herself to load them all into a box and load said box into her car.

She arrives at the high school just around the time classes are letting out. She's never been to the school, but she figures if she has trouble, she can pop into the administration office and they'll show her the way.

So at present, she's hauling a box full of mismatched copies of White across the parking lot and into the building.

Molly doesn't get angry very often, but she and her father had another fight, over much the same thing as usual, and this time she snapped and yelled something about it being what he taught her to do, and if he didn't want it he shouldn't have taught her and Melehan to do it, and then clapped both hands over her mouth and fled out the screen door in tears.

Now she's halfway through town, still crying, but in smaller gasping little breaths of tears now, the air coming out of her throat shaky. She's wishing she hadn't run, she's wishing she hadn't shouted, and she slows down and picks a handful of hyacinth out of someone's garden, guiltily, twisting the stems in her fingers. The knees of her skirt are muddy and her eyes are puffy. She shouldn't have shouted and she doesn't know what the name Melehan means or means to her and she wishes she were in somebody's arms (somebody gentle). And James is still in Chicago with his relatives, there's nobody to talk to.

Molly sniffles and wipes her arm across her eyes.

Tiernay is sitting on a large memorial stone in the front garden of Britannia First Presbyterian Church, her long, slacks encased legs partly obscuring the brass plate with the dates of the chapel’s restoration and the names of the primary donors. She has a small, heavy stoneware mug of coffee held casually in her hands, her elbows braced on her knees. The plate that held her coffeecake has been abandoned on the grass, fork crossed across it, and she is watching the church’s young minister play London Bridge with a bunch of kids, further out on the lawn.

Off to her right, at the line of tables set out for refreshments, someone is saying, “Edna, we need more coffee,” and someone else is saying, “It’s a shame we didn’t have a cantata this year,” and someone else is saying, “When are you and James going to baptize that baby of yours, Amanda? It’s been three months already!”

Tiernay smiles over her folded hands. Her shoulder is aching, but she shook the minister’s hand after the service, and something in her lightened up, loosened. She feels as young as the spring.

She hums a bar and sing songs to herself, “…The strength to build the city that has stood too long a dream…”

OOC: Nissa is also more than taggable on this post - provided, of course, a body is willing to deal with disgruntled kidlets deprived of their playmate.

It's Tuesday evening and Cecilia is working, somehow managing to drag herself through her evening shift with something like grace. The last several days have been strange, to say the least, and Cecilia hasn't been sleeping well at all. But it hasn't been all bad -- she is feeling strangely calm and centered for all of the poor sleep and bad dreams. She's tired and energized at the same time, and she doesn't really know what to make of that.

Right now, she's deep in the stacks, weeding out reference books and pulling a few that could be repaired. She appears to be working intently, in part to keep her mind off of the interpersonal events of the last few days. The less she thinks about that at work, the better. She's hoping the library assistant and circulation girls will wrangle most of the simple questions so that she can get a bit of time to focus.

Though it's true, too, that she can't keep her mind turned away from that growing sense of a second self. And it's true that she's having trouble sorting through which self is which. And the names that are idling in her mind won't quite go away. (And she keeps hearing herself say the things she said to Gaheris, knowing that she said them, and somehow feeling they needed to be said.) She's sorting over all of this while trying to look busy.