I can't have a moment where you leave me with my mind

Got the windows down and my fingers crossed

The days had passed faster than they seemed they should. Each rise and fall of the sun entirely unbothered by the meaning she's placed inside them, and it's an envious thing she feels as she watches the dawnlight creep over the world, weightless in a way she can't imagine.

The decision had been made in the saddle, but she's let it temper each day since until it no longer risks bending. She tucks it into her pocket same as her matches, then pulls her jeans on with a jump afterwards and steps into each boot. One of them gets fitted with her pack of cigarettes, the bundle nestling between leg and leather before she rises into the fit of a shirt and jacket. Pulling her hair to one side over the collar, she picks up her hat, hesitating only as her gaze snags on the pale feather stuck in the band. Gently a thumb and finger coax the loose edges back into a neat line, and where there hadn't been one yet today, a smile appears. The moment is brief, and motion soon calls her back into the rhythm of things as she tilts her hat onto her head, ducking out of the room she'd been using.

A cup of coffee paired with a smoke and a visit to the market later, she's making her way to the designated meeting spot. By now the morning has lost all its gold, but the shadows are still long, and the chill lingers like it means to stay all day. A cloth bundle is transferred to her teeth as she uses her hands to haul herself up onto her favorite sunning rock, settling on the stone with her legs sprawling out in a flat V over the hide of it. She unwraps her purchase and pops a cherry in her mouth, one boot wiggling at the crisp and tart delight of the early season fruit. She waits, pretending she's done anything less than that for the past year, attempting a casual ease that like the sun this season, doesn't have the strength to pass all the way into her.

---

Colt

Just lookin' for a brand new way to get lost

I know you wanna save me but it's better if you don't

If Colt had thought him tense the last time she saw him, it’s nothing compared to the man making his way toward her now. The Refuge has taken something from him that no one else can see, and Vesper wears the absence like an injury he hasn’t yet figured out how to favour. His telepathy has gone quiet before, but only while shifted, when the world has rushed in to replace it through sharper hearing, richer scents, the tremble of the ground beneath hooves or paws. Here, there’s nothing waiting to fill the space. No minds brushing against his awareness, no emotions bleeding colour around words, no hidden current beneath the visible world.

He feels naked without it, though that word isn’t quite severe enough. Hobbled, perhaps, or shorn of something as precious and instinctive as sight. Every person he passes is suddenly a closed door, and every silence has become an uncertainty he can’t reach through. He hadn’t realized how much of himself lived in that extra sense until the Refuge cut it away, leaving him to navigate by expression and tone like everyone else. The effort has his shoulders held rigid beneath a dusty chambray shirt, while the muscle in his jaw feathers almost constantly around the sprig of peppermint bark caught between his teeth.

Only Colt could have gotten him to agree to this, but gods only know how long he’ll be able to bear it.

A coin moves restlessly through the fingers of one hand as he nears her rock, slipping over his knuckles and back into his palm before beginning again. He can see the cherries and the arrangement of her limbs, the hat and the feather tucked into its band, but none of it tells him what she’s thinking or how she feels about seeing him. Without the answer already waiting inside his skull, even the simple act of greeting her feels strangely precarious. Slowing a few paces away, he lifts his free hand with something almost wary in the motion. "Hey," he calls, the peppermint sharpening the drawl of it as the coin turns once more between his fingers.

Vesper

'cause a heavy heart is hard to keep afloat

Table ofc made by the talented Sky!

Got the windows down and my fingers crossed

The cherry pits whistle off her tongue with a sharp blow, pinging the ground somewhere in the distance. The juice of the fruit is already staining the backs of her lips a rich burgundy, so that when her attention turns over to the approach of him, the fragile smile that fits into place is darker than usual.

The first sight of him is always a thing to be survived. It pulls against her like a wind that's come out of nowhere, working to rearrange everything she'd put into order. She finds an anchor in the movement across his knuckles, gaze dropping long enough to the flashing coin for the gust to die out. A hand lifts like it's testing the air, fingers faintly spread against the stillness as she waves once in return. "Hey," she offers back, the sound so much smaller than it has any right to be given how much moves aside within her to produce it.

It's a relief to see him here. Part of her still expected she'd spend the day alone on this rock, already accustomed to the way he's chosen before. Even more so, she takes comfort in all the ways he lacks it. She finds honesty in the set of his shoulders, the sort that's been rare to come by with him, the kind she didn't think might survive the night in the meadows. That he still wears it gives her more hope than she expected to ever find with him again. Although that tight wind sits to her like a reflection of her own worries, attributing every rigid line of him to the delay in an answer instead of the way he's holding pressure on a fresh wound.

Having never known the sense that's been muted by being here, she's no understanding of the sting its absence brings, figuring only that its silence could be worth it, for the both of them. The conversation here comes with enough history behind it that she's no idea how her mind might sharpen against it. Although he might not blame her for her thoughts, and asks her to do the same, she knows it doesn't leave either of them unscathed. Ignoring a knife merely because she doesn't grip the hilt with intention doesn't dull its ability to cut.

Glancing from him to her lap, she takes on an appearance of gathering something, but what she lifts is the little red ball, held up for him to see between her finger and thumb. "I got us cherries," she extends, as if there's nothing greater between them than a mid-morning snack. It's intentional, attempting to shear away all the weight she keeps wearing around in mistake for armor. A palm pats the space on the rock next to her in clear invitation for him to try the same.

Colt

Just lookin' for a brand new way to get lost

I know you wanna save me but it's better if you don't

The world remains unnervingly flat around him, stripped of colour in a way his eyes can’t account for. He can still see the burgundy stain along Colt’s lips and the red gloss of the cherry pinched between her fingers, but neither carries the texture it should. Nothing reaches beyond itself. Her smile is only the movement of her mouth, her invitation only the pat of her palm against stone, and without the thoughts and emotions that once gave those gestures depth, everything feels like a painted imitation of the world he knows.

Vesper has never considered his telepathy separate from his other senses; it isn’t something he switches on so much as a constant current running beneath the rest, helping him judge distance and danger with an ease he’d taken for granted. Losing it feels less like silence than sudden blindness, leaving him uncertain how to move through a space he once navigated without thought. Even crossing the few remaining feet to Colt has become strangely difficult, his body awkward beneath the burden of having to consciously choose every step.

The coin slips less cleanly across his knuckles as he comes closer, catching against one finger before he folds it into his palm. His jaw tightens around the peppermint bark, and he swallows hard enough to feel the drag of it down his throat. Without the familiar colour of Colt’s feelings waiting behind her expression, he can’t tell whether the fragile curve of her smile is hope or pain, and the not knowing makes the space beside her seem impossibly exposed.

His gaze drops to the cherries when she offers them, and he gives a vague nod that acknowledges the words without quite answering them. "Yeah," he murmurs, the drawl thinner than usual as he lowers himself onto the rock with a care that borders on caution. He leaves the fruit untouched between them, one hand braced beside his thigh while the other closes around the coin, still trying to find his balance in a world that has abruptly lost one of its dimensions. "I mean...that's..nice of you."

Vesper

'cause a heavy heart is hard to keep afloat

Table ofc made by the talented Sky!