Who: Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald. Where: Outside the grocery When: Thursday morning What: An unanticipated reunion; or, an introduction Status/Rating: Complete, low
It was positively oppressive, as if his lungs were tragically too small for his chest. Magic was something Albus was accustomed to feel constantly, thoughtlessly, and with his perception of it now almost entirely muted, the ensuing white noise was deafening to his senses. It hummed in the world around them, to be sure, but that was not the same as having it resonating, radiating from the core of his being. But Albus was quite certain that if he permitted himself to dwell on it too much, he'd drive himself quite mad.
Keeping his mind busy wasn't much of a challenge. Fascinating though the design of this odd coastal arrangement was, Albus's thoughts fixated on pondering who or what was responsible. Were it not for their careful ushering into this place, it was not conceivable that some rift or tear in the fabric of time and space was haphazardly snatching up individuals-- actually, if such a rift had occurred, it was quite possible that the universe itself was attempting to collapse in on itself, and who was to say that such an eventuality wouldn't entail a bit of temporal distortion. Being assigned a residence and an occupation, however, rather flew in the face of entropy and chaos.
So if existence itself wasn't crashing to a screeching halt, there was no reason to forgo the small pleasantries that made muddling through the quagmire of it all a good deal more tolerable. Albus had been on his way to the grocery, because every particularly challenging puzzle seemed simpler when juxtaposed with something tart and sweet, when his senses snagged. When Albus would play this moment over and over in his mind later that day, he would be certain that he heard, first. A cadence to footsteps that had Albus's own immediately drawing to a halt. It still gave him pause, sometimes, when he'd catch sight of honeyed curls in a crowd, or when a voice from across the Great Hall held its vowels just a little too softly-- but this was different. And unthinkable, if unsurprising.
With a turn of his head, Gellert slid into view. Devastatingly vibrant, in ways the phantoms the sometimes still haunted the corners of his eyes never were, there was Gellert. If there were another wizard capable of achieving all this, with a team of others in his service or perhaps even on his own, it was Gellert. Something in him wanted to snap, to rip open the parts of himself that were still furious, still bleeding and poorly healing. Years, now, of practice, made quick work of burying the majority of his feelings beneath a thick, cool buffer. His emotions had gotten him into enough trouble in his life already. If they persisted, and of course they would, he would sort them out later, when he was alone, and they posed little threat. Right now, there more important things to concern himself with-- chief among them, the obscene sort of shackle that still seemed to constrict his breath.
Catching up to Gellert proved no trouble, but no rushed task of Albus's longer gait. And for his part, Gellert didn't appear to notice him, but Albus had little desire for some boisterous confrontation. So he simply fell into step alongside Gellert.
"What you have you done?" It might have been a demand, but for the civil veneer that coated his tone.