Private Resurfacing

[Eenia Vahn]

Objective - Resupplying

TAG: @
Wearing: [X]

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It had been a long road that brought everything to this point of survival. So many different lives that had been led and then left behind. So many people that had been helped, saved, healed both inside and out. Minds that had been mended, wounds that were pulled together as if there had never been an injury in the first place - save for the occasional scar left behind on severe injuries. And yet none of that had ever offered a place of permanent solitude for Eenia. More than once she found herself without a home to return to, without a clan or family to lean on. She didn't even know where her own sister was. It had been enough to make her step back and disappear for a while, the need to recollect herself, refind herself having become too loud to ignore.

The person she had become at one point was a person she did not like, and while Eenia had gotten far from it once, she had been afraid that it would surface again. Solitude had been the only answer that really called to her, and months isolated and alone had seemed to work wonders.

Now Nia had re-emerged, and she felt more like herself than she had in years. Enough so that she had gone for supplies, getting everything that she was able to in order to get back into the swing of healing others. Even in her darkest times, healing had been her calling...it hadn't worked in said times, but she had still had the drive to do so. Now, she was answering that calling again, or wanted to at least. She would need some place to take her skills again, a cause to lend a hand to.

But for now, she and her supplies were holed up in a little side street diner. Nothing fancy, nothing too crowded, but the food was good and the drinks were fresh no matter what you ordered from the menu. Plus, it was one of those places where the tables were put together, encouraging socialization. Nia sighed as she waited for her meal to come, content with what she had accomplished for the day, even though she knew she still had a long ways to go in the long run.

 

[Niijima Izumi]

Niijima Izumi slipped into the diner with the quiet grace of someone accustomed to entering unnoticed. The black-and-red silk of her kimono caught the muted glow of the overhead lights, the fabric patterned with faint chrysanthemums that revealed themselves only when the cloth shifted in motion. A wide-brimmed straw hat, still dusted with the day's travel, was set carefully at her side. Her hair was drawn into a loose knot at the back of her head, a few strands slipping free to frame her face, softening her features. Painted lips, a deep lacquered red, contrasted against the porcelain smoothness of her complexion, their polish catching faintly in the lamplight when she moved.

Her posture was composed but unassuming, the line of her shoulders straight yet lacking the stiffness of authority. She carried no visible steel at her side, no ornament to suggest she was anything more than a refined traveler. Only the faint bulge of her sleeve—easily overlooked—hinted at a small dagger concealed within.

She ordered nothing more than a small carafe of hot sake, her voice as smooth and light as silk brushing across wood. When the cup was placed before her, she lingered, porcelain resting between her palms. The warmth seeped into her skin as though reminding her body of its own quiet hum beneath the layers of silk.

The first sip was deliberate. Heat brushed her lips before spilling over her tongue—sharp at first, then softening into something supple, silk-like. A faint sweetness lingered, chased by a hushed dryness that settled into her throat like a coal glowing just beneath ash. The warmth unfurled through her chest, steady and patient, soothing the ache of long travel. She breathed out slowly, the faint taste clinging to her lips, while the tendrils of steam rose before her face as if carrying whispers no one else could hear.

When she set the cup down, Izumi's eyes lifted. At the long table sat another—Eenia, her solitude palpable even amid the comfort of the room. Their gazes caught, held for a heartbeat longer than a passing glance. Izumi's eyes, dark and calm as still water, carried no demand, only acknowledgment. The faintest smile traced her lips, restrained but warm, before she turned back to her sake, letting the steam veil the space between them; thin enough to invite crossing, thick enough to preserve mystery.
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[Eenia Vahn]

Socialize

TAG: Niijima Izumi
Wearing: [X]

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In a place such as this, an easy going diner with nothing threatening about it, people making their way in and out was hardly uncommon. For as long as Eenia had been sitting in her seat she had stopped counting the numbers that had come an gone and instead had turned her focus to the warmth of the hot, lightly sweetened tea she had ordered. Yet even still her head lifted when the door came open again and yet another new body made way through the entrance. The table Nia was sat at had been chosen, and curiosity stemmed through the blonde as she observed this other - not rudely so, but in the way one would assess a stranger who sat nearby.

Everything about this stranger was beautiful, even the way she had moved from the entrance way to her seat was beautiful. Admittedly it made Eenia a bit self conscious, but it did not stop her from meeting and holding this woman's gaze when they locked. There was nothing that screamed at Nia to run, or to turn away. Nothing that sent her senses into overdrive or made her wish to flee. A nice change, considering how long she had spent on her own, avoiding people because of the way they had made her feel uncomfortable before.

But this, it was almost welcoming. Not enough for Nia to rise from her seat and move, but enough for her to smile softly, friendly, and cradle her cup between her hands as she finally spoke up. "Seems I'm not the only one who needed something to ward away the chill." She was soft spoken, but only in tone. Her voice carried easily enough, and she was clearly able to get loud if need be. But this was not one of those situations, and perhaps finding a kindred spirit was exactly what the Healer needed.

Hopefully...

 

[Niijima Izumi]

Niijima Izumi had long since learned that silence could say far more than words ever could. She sat with her sake, poised and still, her black-and-red kimono draping elegantly over her frame, the faint sheen of silk catching the amber light above the table. The fabric shimmered like a dying flame with each slow, deliberate movement she made, too refined for a traveler, too simple for a noblewoman.

When she noticed the woman across from her, the blonde with the gentle eyes, Izumi allowed herself a small glance, nothing overt. Her gaze lingered for only a breath longer than it should have. But there was curiosity there, quiet and measured.

The woman’s voice drew her back. Soft, warm...like someone who knew how to heal without touching.

Izumi’s lips curved, a faint and fleeting smile. “Perhaps,” she said after a pause, her tone smooth but low enough that the words barely rose above the murmur of the diner. “The cold reminds us that we’re still alive. It has a way of testing how much warmth we truly carry.”

She lifted the small cup again, fingers wrapped lightly around the porcelain. It was still hot enough to sting faintly against her skin, but she didn’t flinch. The first sip brushed against her lips with that familiar silk-smooth heat, soft at first before giving way to a subtle bitterness that lingered on the tongue. The taste was layered, clean, sharp, with a ghost of sweetness that refused to stay long.

The second sip was slower. She let it roll over her tongue, tasting the faint rice beneath the heat, feeling the warmth spread from her throat down into her chest until it settled like a slow-moving ember behind her ribs. It wasn’t just the drink, it was the ritual of it, the act of being still long enough to notice something simple.

She set the cup down gently. Steam rose in thin, ghostly ribbons between them, curling through the space like smoke from a distant fire. Her eyes lifted again to meet the other woman’s, steady, watchful, the kind of look that seemed to weigh and measure rather than simply see.

“Hot tea,” she observed, nodding faintly toward the cup in Eenia’s hands. “It suits you. Gentle things often do.”

There was no malice in her words, but her tone carried that faint edge, the kind that could have been teasing or testing, depending on how it was heard.

Her sleeve shifted as she reached again for the sake, revealing a glimpse of her wrist, pale skin marked faintly by the handle of something hidden beneath the silk. A small motion, almost unnoticeable, yet it carried with it an unspoken caution. Izumi never quite moved without purpose.

The diner around them buzzed quietly with life; forks on plates, faint laughter from another table, the sizzle of something frying behind the counter. But somehow, between the two women, the air felt different. Slower. More deliberate.

Izumi inclined her head slightly. “Niijima Izumi,” she offered at last. Her voice carried a kind of old-world calm, each syllable deliberate, precise. “And you’re right, warmth is hard to come by.”

Her eyes lingered one moment longer, as though memorizing the other woman’s face, then she looked back to her drink. Her expression didn’t shift, but something in her shoulders eased ever so slightly, the faintest trace of guardedness softening, though not enough to call it trust.

She refilled her cup from the small carafe, the liquid catching the light as it poured. “Most people,” she said quietly, almost to herself, “don’t sit long enough to notice the cold at all.”

The statement hung between them, not quite a conversation, not quite an end. just an observation, calm and distant, from someone who had spent too long alone with her thoughts. Then, as if nothing more needed to be said, she lifted her sake once again and drank, the motion as fluid and unhurried as the steam rising between them.
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