featherborn | Returning to Land

Returning to Land

The eagle circles one final time over the trees, wings stretched to their full. Freedom at its best. There is a slow spiralling dissent onto a tree in the middle of the forest. Moments later the eagle vanishes, and there is blond woman sitting in its place. Katya settles down on the study branch, swinging her legs while she reaches for the backpack she left there earlier.

She ties her hair back and slides the old faithful baseball down shading her face. Well, back to be landlocked for another day or so. She rips open a Mars bar with her teeth and toasts the skies and spits the wrapper to the ground cursing her employers at the circus.

If she could have her way, she would live in the forest where she could fly every day and ignore the rest of the world.

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Katya nods, "A story that is not fully mine to tell. He is scared someone will find out about his real relationship. I help until he overcomes that fear." She glances up, "He comes from a strict upbringing. Someday it will be easier for him."

She smiles a little. "It is no hardship to be taken for dinner once in awhile."

So a relationship that would be frowned upon, then? Casper has never understood why some people do that. Love is love, isn't it?

"No, I'd guess not." His grin is back now, with a conspiratorial hint to it. While he would wish that no-one would ever feel a need to hide their relationship, he approves of Katya helping out.

He has that sort of grin that makes you want to grin right back. Katya gets the feeling that one could tell Casper anything and he would not betray them. "I even let him pay occasionally." She will not all of the time, she does not wish him to think that she needs paid to help and keep her mouth shut.

She laughs softly. "I think I would frustrate anyone I was with for long with my independent ways."

"That would depend a lot on the one you were with, wouldn't it? For some, independence would only be a good thing." The right person would surely understand, right.

"Though, in posing as a girlfriend for your friend, don't you ever worry you'll miss out?"

"In Russia no." Her eyes dim for a moment, she knows she will never return there. She is too wild and free for that. An uncontrollable shape shifter. "Here," her lips crinkle up, "I am waiting for someone who can keep up with me and understand the need to fly." She rests her hands on her chin.

"I do not know what I would do about the arrangement....but a solution will reveal itself some day. For now I do not need to worry about that."

The need to fly... Oh he understands that. He understands it so well.

"I'm sure someone will turn up. Probably when you least expect it, isn't that how things goes? I do believe that there's someone for everybody."

"True love?" There is nothing mocking in her tone. She smiles softly, "My mother always believed in that, as do I." Though she does believe it is possible to love more than one in a lifetime. "It is beautiful to see two people walking together oblivious to everything, it could be raining and they would not care or notice."

"True love, yeah." He smiles, a touch wistfully but genuinely nevertheless. "I was engaged once. A long time ago, now. Regretfully - well, for me at least - she ended up falling in love with someone else. But they're happy. They have a four year-old daughter, and another child on the way. So it sort of worked out well enough in the end, anyway."

Her eyes fill with sympathy. "That must have been hard to forgive, and to be happy for them." She drains half of the cup of coffee. "You have much empathy. Do you remains friends?"

"Yeah, it was. Of course it was. But, I loved her for a reason, I figured eventually. I wanted to make her happy, and even if I couldn't, there was apparently someone else who could. So that was good." That second cup of coffee si starting to run low as well, now, and even he doesn't feel a need for a third. Though he is enjoying the very wandering conversation they're having.

"We're friends still, yeah. I make a point to come by whenever I come by the ol' hometown."

"You are a rare kind of person," she says softly and reaches for her bag. "You will find someone again. You certainly deserve to." She draw out a pen and writes her number on a napkin and slides it across. "I would like to continue this friendship." It is growing late, and her body is reminding her that its been through a performance and coffee can only dull the tiredness from that for so long.

"This is the nicest end to a night in awhile. It is better than a hot bath with scented candles and an early night."

He smiles and pockets that napkin. "Well, you did say that you wanted to go flying. Though I still say that you will be flying circles around me."

As they get up to leave, he asks her to wait a second and then goes over to the counter where he buys a large coffee to go as well as a big sandwich.

"If you just give me a minute I can walk you back," he asks as they step out, and then wanders off down the street. There, by the other corner of the building, sits and old man, begging on the street. Casper crouches down by him and gives him the sandwich and coffee. They seem to talk just briefly, and after a handshake Casper stands back up and goes to join up with Katya again.

This sort of gesture could have seemed artificial or forced, like it was made to impress. But with Casper, it comes off and genuine.

Sweetheart. The thought crosses her mind as he walks back towards her. While she has seen the man more than once, she would be ashamed to admit that she has barely spared him a thought. Her eyes are warm as she touches his arm.

"I will always give you a minute," she says gently. "That was...probably worth more than he gets from asking for money."

Casper gives a gentle shrug in response. "It's not about the money, that's not the real worth. It's the time, and more than anything about being seen and acknowledged as an actual human being. WE forget that a lot of the time, I think."

"I know I forget," she says with complete honesty. She glances over her shoulder at the old man. It could have been her fate in this country. Colour rises on her cheeks as she thinks how casually she walks past people thinking that she cannot help them all.

"It is too easy to get caught up in my own life." She glances up at him. "Thank you. I feel guilty enough to try and remember to help a few people."

"Ah, hey now, it's not about guilt. Don't feel guilty." He bumps his shoulder to hers, flashing her a quick smile even with the gentle chiding. "A want to help will get you way further than guilt would."

He is very companionable, it is hard to feel a negative emotion around him or very long at all. Katya feels comfortable letting him walk with her to where she lives. "I will use the guilt to spur action, then I cannot feel guilt."

She bumps her shoulder back against his. "With anyone else, I would have thought they were trying to impress me."

He looks honestly surprised at this. "Should I have been?"

When he thinks about it, then true; before he might have felt a bit of a need to impress, though not in that way. But now... Now, he doesn't think quite the same way as he did, once. There are things he has almost forgotten, or things he doesn't need.

"No," she says emphatically. "It is good you didn't try. I might have slapped you if you had." She does not need men trying to catch her attention that way.

She laughs merrily. "Most men try to impress me, five minutes after they meet me."

He laughs. He can easily imagine her annoyance as such men, though he somehow doubts that she would actually resort to physical corrections.

"Oh dear, I hope you aren't leaving too wide a trail of knocked-out guys in your wake."

"If you see a trail leaving from the circus you know it was me." He is right about her though, she has seen enough violence. Though her glare she has been told is weapon enough.

"Though I do pity some of them. People must be very lonely."

"A lot of people are," he agrees, stuffing his hands in his pockets as they walk on. "Needlessly in many cases, I think. It's like we've forgotten how to reach out or how to let people in."

Katya turns her eyes up to the sky. It is her place of comfort when her thoughts become uncomfortable. "Perhaps because we think others have enough to deal with already." That is her own personal reason anyway.

He hums softly in agreement. "That would be one reason for a fair few." He smiles at her. "Though it's probably less accurate than you think."

Her fingers disappear deeper into her pockets where she can twiddle her fingers and she looks at him puzzled. "How do you mean less accurate?"

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