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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"Well, if we're putting things simply, then yep, well put." LEaning back in hsi chair the way he is, he looks like someone well at ease and relaxed.

"I used to stress a lot but wise up sometime after college. Though to myself that free time is something to enjoy and not spend on working even more. So. And I think that spending some time on being lazy is just healthy."

"I must learn some of the techniques that used to destress." Saying and doing it are two very different things.

What did you stress about?" She is curious, she would have thought he would be more stressed out know helping people with their dark secrets and carrying them around with him.

"Just the usual that everyone stresses about, I suppose. School and grades, then work and money being tight, relationships and what-not." He shrugs and pauses for another sip of coffee. His cup is emptying rather fast. "I think the key thing is to realize that stressing about it doesn't make it any better."

She signal for two more cups of coffee to be brought to them and nods. Once you start to stress about one, you stress about the rest. "But not stressing and caring can make them worse." She smiles wryly. "In some ways the army was easy. Orders. Food. Fighting. I didn't have to worry about people and how to get on with them."

"Not caring, sure. Not stressing, though?" He pulls a bit of a disagreeing face. "Though I suppose there's the whole good stress and bad stress thing."

Ah, more coffee. Ever since his high school days, coffee had been his addiction of choice.

"Can't say I know what that's like. I never had so much as a thought to join the army, myself."

"It is not always easy to control."

And coffee is what she uses to keep herself on her feet when she gets up early in the morning for a long flight. It is utterly worth it, and as a bonus, she does enjoy the taste a lot.

"I would not recommend it. What you see.... I think it might break someone who cares about people."

For the first time his smile fades and he looks a bit sad. "So do some of the things you might see as a social worker, I'll admit." He sighs. "But that's comparing apples to oranges, I think. I doubt it's really comparable."

"I can only imagine," she says gently and reaches over the table to touch his arm. She wonders and hopes that he has someone to go home to, someone who can take his mind off what he listens to. "I would think it worse for you. My ghosts are only my own."

He glances down at her hand on his arm, and for a moment his comes to cover hers, giving it a light squeeze before pulling back again.

"I don't think it's better or worse. Just different. Apples and oranges. What hurts here is that it's all somehow... Every day, you know. Every day type stuff, even when it shouldn't be. And that it doesn't ever really end."

She draws her hand back abashed and places it on the new mug of coffee. It is not often that she reaches out and makes physical contact without being in some form of relationship. "But you must bring some comfort to them," she says softly. "Hope is powerful."

She ducks her head. "I hope your partner reminds you of the good you do."

"Partner?" For just a moment he blinks, looking somewhat confused. "Oh. Uh, I don't have one. Not for a long time now."

"Oh." And for a moment she becomes very busy stirring sugar that she doesn't strictly need into her coffee. "I thought....never mind." Her eyebrows furrow a little and she bites her lip. It had been a rather personal assumption she had made. It is only polite to give him some honesty back.

"I pose as a girlfriend for a friend at the circus sometimes. But that is all."

He watches that stirring, and that little frown, and he wonders. He wonders if it would be best if he bid her good night and took his leave. But no. Not yet.

"Really? I guess there's a story there?"

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.

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