Who: Zerachiel (command_me) & Duma (duma) What: Operation surprise sneak attack dinner park bench picnic is go. Where: NYC. When: July 23nd, early evening (if that's all right with you, Catone!) Warnings: Doubtful. Will update if needed.
No one would ever know that it had taken Duma a few days to get used to being back in New York City. She was, after all, nothing more than quiet, peace, the measured untread of justice's footsteps and the sweet slip of the garrote that follows. Counterpoint to the hustle and bustle and buzz she was indeed, but a very small one for all her infinite depth, and it is easy for a breath's worth of silence to be lost in cacophony. Not that she was lost, precisely. Just slightly internally off-kilter, not that anyone would know it to look at her. For that first span of days Duma avoided anyone who might be able to see her instead of looking, all her kin and all her closest.
It was an unseemly thing, this internal imbalance, and it was a strict point of internal principle that she not appear before her fellows as anything less than a whole, cohesive, anchoring object. Duma's standards for herself were subtle, but stringent. Her brethren were busy enough without an uncharacteristic upset in her own serenity causing responsive ripples in theirs. And so she offered her unrest up to her Creator, and walked New York's busiest streets without pause until every breath was once again nothing but peace and silence, until every movement was another graceful living utterance in the perpetual wordless prayer that was her being. Only then did she return to her apartment and sleep within her own peace. And only then did she hop out of bed and greet the day with intent to encounter familiar faces. And only then did she deliberately and of her own free will exercise not only culinary skills but also... blatant favoritism.
By late afternoon her kitchen was once again as spotless as it had been when she awoke, and by early evening the apartment had once again achieved the sterile sort of feel that the Silence's deceptively diminutive presence drove away with ease. The little button-boots from Duma's judgement walk had worn themselves out with their trotting, but another nifty little pair appeared from her closet to take their place. Her dress tonight was one of the few shades of green her redheaded self could wear without turning a charming shade of yellow (and that wasn't vanity speaking, it was simply not liking to look jaundiced, which Duma felt was a completely understandable emotion), and bustled soundlessly around her knees as usual. A simple cross glinted at her neckline. All in all, she painted a pretty little picture for anyone keen-eyed enough to pick her unobtrusive self out of the crowd. As the neighborhood became less hospitable to little redheads carrying mysterious picnic baskets nearly too large for them to handle without awkwardness (though she, of course, appeared only slightly burdened by its weight), Duma somehow became less noticeable, quiet as a church mouse and creeping as a cat about to pounce upon the same.
Zerachiel was inside a particular building: she could not hear the distinct unsound the Silence made when his voice, movements, aura, entire self pushed against it quite clearly. Duma waited outside with the patience of stone and the cheerfulness of a butterfly, hair wafting gently in the breeze and picnic basket at her feet as she held a silent considering conversation with a cat across the street who was sunning herself in the last of the day's light.