2020-01-13 - Background Noise

It's a brisk winter morning, the sunlight weak and watery through high, grayish white clouds. August has just finished his mid-morning chores, which includes clearing off both decks and letting the animals out to putter post-feeding. The geese and ducks hop in and out of their respective pools, the chickens strut about, the goats munch thoughtfully.

He's relaxing out on the front deck, bundled up against the cold in a shearling coat, green and bronze knit cap and matching scarf with a silvery tree of life embroidered into them, denim jeans, and work boots. A steaming mug of tea sits in front of him on the wrought iron table, and in his hands is a blueline copy of his next book. This is his last chance to change anything, so he's going over it with a fine-toothed comb.

Surprisingly, she didn't get August's address from Alexander, but Javier, given his new position as August's neighbor. So as the Combat Botanist relaxes on his front deck, he'd be able to spot a cherry-red Jeep just on the very bottom of the trail leading to his cabin, and driving up. It would look familiar, but then again, only one person in his lengthy list of acquaintances drives such a vehicle.

When Isabella parks and clambers out of it, she has regained most of her mobility from the same ordeal Ignacio and Finch have suffered through, bright-eyed and alert. She is still dressed like an arctic explorer, though as her injuries heal, so, too, does that unnatural chill abate; she looks less like a penguin now than she did in the last couple of weeks, jackets with insulating padding exchanged for sleeker wear, and pulled over thermal leggings tucked into snowboots. There is still a scarf, and a knit cap pulled low over her eyes, dark hair tumbling free over her shoulders and back. Her moonstone pendant is nowhere in sight - something that would identify the young woman even if she was transformed in any strange way, folded as it is within layers of clothing, though the Sunday morning's light glints off the dandelion bracelet she had received from Alexander during Christmas, the simple, but elegant affair having found a permanent home on her left wrist.

"Hey August," she greets, saluting him with a rolled up manuscript as she moseys up the path. "Sorry for the sudden stop-by, I was in the neighborhood. How are you doing?" Eyes gravitate with interest towards the book in his hands, lifting her brows in a silently inquiring fashion.

The jeep is familiar to August, but not to the guard geese, which means it's time to freak the fuck out. All four of them start honking and waving their wings. ATTACKERS! DEFEND THE HOMESTEAD! ...luckily, they're in a double-fenced pen, so all this bluster is delivered from the far end of the cleared property, and mostly just serves to make the ducks mutter in concern. A couple of goats baaa in response to the noise as well.

August sighs at his geese, muttering, "Ladies," casts a look over his shoulder at them. He projects a mix of fond annoyance and calm, and one by one they quiet down (though a particular Chinese goose gives Isabella the evil eye even as she walks up towards the cabin, goes so far as to hiss at her). August smiles, sets his proof down at gets up. The cover is a stark woodcut in white and black depicting sitka spruce and mountain hemlock draped in moss and lichen along a fern-lined trail, the title in a bold, rough print: A Botanist's Guide to Hoh Rainforest. His own chill, taken from Finch when he healed her, is gone, so it's just the usual aches of old age and long-standing scars. "Hey you. How's things?" He nods at the cabin behind him. "Want some tea?"

There's a pause when the animal noises remind her quickly that August actually keeps them, and green-gold eyes fall curiously on the pen when the geese are protesting her arrival, and so vociferously that it's difficult not to register the wafting threads of simpler emotions tangling over her already overloaded senses. "Aw, August, they're protective," she says with a faint wince, though there is good humor on her expression. Until she gets hissed at anyway, and she eyes the Chinese goose sidelong - for a second or two there's a battle of wills, before she continues on her way.

She doesn't even hide the way she peers at his book curiously. "A Botanist's Guide to Hoh Rainforest, August Roen, ph.D.," she reads out loud before interest takes over her face. "One of yours? When is it getting released?" she asks, before she hands him the manuscript. Should he unroll and take a look at the cover, it bears its own title - Ancient Roman Commerce and And Aristocratic Markets in the Eastern Mediterranean: A Case Study of Second Century Amphora Vessels Discovered In The Aegean Islands. "You said you wanted a copy, I don't know what Oxford will demand with respect to revisions, but from my end, it's pretty much finished. And I'm doing alright, recovering. I don't know if you heard from Alexander about the...supernatural hypothermia. I've almost recovered my hearing." She turns her head to show him the hearing aid wedged on her left ear.

The invitation to tea gets a nod. "Tea would be great," she tells him and proceeds to follow him within, curious eyes taking in the cabin. "It's beautiful out here," she confides to him softly. "I would never give up seaside living but this is almost enough to change my mind."

"Guard geese," August explains with a note of apology. "I didn't think it through, when I got them, but they lay just fine, so." He shrugs; what can you do, really. He's not going to eat them just for being noisier than expected, though most farmers wouldn't blame him.

He pushes the book across the table for her to have a look in exchange for the manuscript. It appears to be a mix of trail/hiking guide and a detailed description to the flora of that area. Plenty of color plates and detailed drawings. A few stickies mark typos and changes, but for the most part it looks to be all done.

"Ah, thank you, excellent." He has a look at the abstract and executive summary, nods, gestures at her with it. "A little reading tonight in front of the stove." He leans to look at the hearing aid, pulls a face. "'Supernatural hypothermia', that's a good name for it. Finch was in a bad way, so I healed her up some, wound up with a case of it myself. I can't count how many log soaks in a hot tub I took."

He fetches his mug, allowing her to look through the proof of the book as they head in. The woodstove is burning cheerfully, so it's cozy and warm inside. "Yeah, the coast is maybe the only other place I'd want to be. Small, beach house in Oregon? I could go for that." He could, except, here he is.

"Honestly? Probably better than dogs," Isabella quips as she follows August into the warmer confines of his cabin, tension from the cold unwinding subtly from her shoulders. She brushes her fingers over the proof, turning it to look at the summary at the back, before she flips the cover and takes a look at the acknowledgment - most people skip reading it, electing to dive into the meat of the text right away, but not her. It is the best way to get into the mind of the author before she tackles the rest. "I can't wait to read this when it goes out to print, it'd be useful if I ever ended up in that area." She travels, it's not beyond the realm of possibility. "I'll need to have you sign my copy when I buy a proper one."

Mention of Finch has her nodding. "Yeah, she had it as bad as me, if not a little worse. I guess the person she was with was a boyfriend?" She doesn't know much about Ignacio de Santos, just that he writes an amazing column in the Gazette. "Javier told me recently that she's his daughter. Is she doing better?"

She gravitates to the stove immediately, though, leeching off more heat and takes a seat close to it, the book proof still in her hand as she skims the first few pages - she types and reads quickly, it seems. "My viva voce's scheduled in the first week of March," she tells him. "But I was thinking of doing some other things while I'm up there, too. Heard some rumors that there might be a thin point in Wales, and Yule wanted me to take a gander on the geological collection in the Natural History Museum in London. If nothing else, I'll have plenty to do." She grins at the manuscript in his hand. "Hope you find it interesting, though, and a small beach house in Oregon sounds amazing. Maybe when you decide to retire?"

The book is laid out scientifically by biome (river, valley, rainforest) and from there by plant type (tree, shrub, groundcover, and so on). August's writing style is more journalistic than dry and factual; anecdotes both personal and historical pepper the information, as do references and summaries of relevant articles.

At the front is a short and simple dedication, with another woodcut style print, beneath it like a stamp, this one of a river cutting through a similar landscape as depicted on the front. The text reads:

For Eliza, Rachel, and Gabrielle. May the river wash away life's grime and the trees provide shelter from life's storms.

The back summary is simple and straight forward, the sort of thing a publisher writes and the author signs off on.

"Yeah, Ignacio's her guy. And," he bobs his eyebrows, "turns out she is. She's a lot better now; used a packet of that soup." His eyes flit to his kitchen pantry where his own packets remain. "Retiring to the Oregon coast would be nice," he says, thoughtful. There's a 'but' lurking in there somewhere which he doesn't get into.

Instead, he nods in regards to her defense, sets the thesis on his kitchen counter and sheds his coat. Under it are a UW hoodie in black over a plain purple slub tee. "Sounds like a good idea. What was he hoping you'd find in the collection?"

Journals make for good reading, no matter how factual, and there's a hint of a smile when she realizes this is how August has chosen to lay out his book. "Taking a page out of the handbook of our explorer forebears, huh?" Isabella teases him, looking up with mirth dancing in those green-gold depths. "Every adventurer we study now kept journals. Are you sure you don't miss field work just a little?" Her grin widens. "Who are Eliza, Rachel and Gabrielle?" She knew August had sisters and that is her first assumption - the names do not look familiar to her, nor does she recall encountering any one of those names in all of her time with the Combat Botanist, and while she is no Itzhak or Alexander, she has had cause to interact and spend time with him more and more these days. She would be the first to admit that she can be somewhat of an academic elitist.

Reply about the soup does remind her, and she frowns quietly. "Yule wanted me to see if there would be naturally occurring minerals that might enhance or nullify the effects of our abilities," she tells him. "It's not unheard of, Alexander has possession of an artifact that can nullify the effects of an object from the Veil, and he gave me the room and means to examine it in depth. The Natural History Museum in London happens to have one of, if not the, most comprehensive collections of minerals in the world and since my visit coincides with his present interest, he asked me if I would be up for it. I'm helping him out already on a few things anyway, which....reminds me to talk to you about a few things also. Like the soup and..." She inclines her head at him curiously. "Alexander told me that he visited you about one of the books we managed to collect from the Asylum and that you took...an MRI recently? You wanted to compare them with ours?"

"It made their work readable," August points out as he goes around the counter into the kitchen. He gets the kettle on the stovetop, pulls down his box of teas and a mug. The former is a simple bamboo box, plain and unornamented; the later is large, white, and ceramic, with a trio of simple line-drawings of three ripped men running about, and the word HUNKS written under them. "And the point is for the books to sell. The trail guide does pretty well, and so does the conifers book, but I wanted something a little more cosmopolitan. Sort of like Emperor of All Maladies is for cancer, just, with less depressing topic. And I miss it, but these old bones absolutely do not."

He moves to lean against the counter while the water heats, folds his arms. "Those are my nieces--my sister's daughters. First book was for my parents, second was my sisters, so this one's for them." And after that, well, he'll see. (Let's be honest, he knows who he's dedicating it to.)

"Huh," he says, of Yule's interest in the minerals. "That's...an interesting thought. I've been thinking about if we could do something like that--the soup. It heals, so, there's a way to put the shaping power into something, obviously." He scratches his beard. "Yeah, though, not to compare to yours, but to my own. I have MRIs from 95, when I was discharged. Thought we could compare them to a current set post-trip." The trip none of them can damned well remember. "I got it done on Friday, should have the results some time next week."

"It sure did," Isabella replies. "I've been thinking of doing the same if I get my doctorate - if I was ever going to publish something that's going on the shelf. I suspect that won't be for years yet, it's not as if a baby phD could just leap into that right after. I suspect I'll probably teach and keep on doing field work for a few years." She glances down at the book, smiling ruefully. "I have a few decisions to make if Oxford decides to grant me the privilege of obtaining a doctorate from their ancient institution. Honestly, I don't even know how to start weighing them." Carefully, she sets the proof on a table near her, and as far away from the stove as she can within reach.

"Anyway, come on, August, you talk like you're sixty. You're still a spry, handsome guy in your forties." She winks at him.

She watches him as he leans on the counter and she grins faintly, her old mischief rising, as irrepressible as the rest of her. "So who's going to be in the next one? Eleanor? You better be careful, Doctor Roen, nerds like Ellie and me might look at that as a marriage proposal."

Leaning back on her seat, she burrows into her jacket as much as she can allow, her arms curling around herself. "Yeah, I thought the same, so I gave up one of my soup packets to him so he could analyze it. I have one left, in case of emergencies, but considering the fact that the company that produced the chicken soup seems to have commandeered my blood sample and Yule's when he collected them for some genetic testing, I figured it couldn't hurt." What? "Same company produced my strange coin, also. I don't know what it does yet, so I've been carrying it around with me to see what could trigger any effects." Mention of his MRIs has her nodding. "Alexander says he'll give them to Yule as soon as he can," she tells him quietly. "I hope that proves fruitful. He's a little paranoid now that our blood samples are with some shady company interested in remarkable individuals...at least, according to the note he received."

"An archaeology book about trade routes done in a journal style by a sailor would get read," August says. "At least be me." His tone and expression turn rueful. "And I am forty-five and full of titanium. As good as the implants have held up, they still ache in the cold a lot more than they did when I was thirty." Her comment about Eleanor considering that a marriage proposal just has him clearing his throat and looking away, all faux innocence. He totally hadn't thought of any such thing, really, how dare you.

He groans, though, about someone getting hold of Isabella and Yule's blood samples. "God, you're kidding." He runs a hand over his face, sighs. "Well, on the one hand, I guess it confirms there's interest out there in us. In what we can do." He winces, sympathetic. "Sorry that's how you fund out, though. Did he find anything when he looked into the soup? I've been thinking about doing some plant experiments in the Veil--try some grafting and cross pollination, that kind of thing." His brows gather. "Your coin--that you got at the Christmas parade?" He licks his lips. "Hang on." He moves back into the kitchen, pulls open a drawer, the uqiquitous Stuff Drawer. From it he fetches a pair of 'disguise glasses', the classic sort with a mustache and fake nose. "I got these that same day. I'm not sure what they do." And thus, he puts them on.

...and turns into someone else. But not really; Isabella knows it's August. Out of the corner of her eye, though, she can see that to other people he might look...different, somehow. "How do I look?" His voice is a touch higher, a little husky, and with, of all the things, a British accent.

"There's always a fine line between reality and sensationalism though, as far as that goes. It's always a good idea to strike a balance. When I started dating Alexander, I read a book on forensic anthropology called Dead Men Do Tell Tales, and the doctor who wrote it...well, it wasn't really in journal form but he outlined concepts based on his more interesting stories on the job. I suppose that's a good method, too." Isabella taps her fingers thoughtfully on her knee, before she sets those contemplations aside; a little too soon to think about that, from her perspective, especially when she doesn't even have her doctorate yet.

It's August's reaction to her throwaway comment on a book dedication as a marriage proposal that has her pausing for a very long moment, but despite his calm and reserved demeanor, it seems to strike a chord, and as realization sinks in, the archaeologist's eyes go wide. "...oh my god, you thought of it," she says, very, very quietly. And after a moment, an absolutely brilliant grin plays on her mouth. "August! You old dog! I didn't know it was that serious!" She stands up from her seat, and almost looks like she's about to hug him - only he hasn't actually done any of the sort yet, so she stays right where she is, but that shit eating grin. It's there. It's not going away.

His long-suffering groan earns him a rueful look in turn. "Yeah, Alexander wasn't all that happy about it either. And now Yule's paranoid and we're trying to figure out a way to secure the equipment he needs so he can do his own testing, because clearly nothing can be trusted around here." She looks faintly irritated at that, gesticulating sideways with a hand. "We'll deal with it when the time comes, I suppose. And no, not yet. I just gave it to him yesterday, but hopefully he'll come up with something. If not, I'll help him out. Minerva and I were kind of recruited to do some tests, which is good enough I guess - I'm a mover, she's a reader and he's a healer. We've got all three covered in those attempts. But yeah, that coin." She digs it out and shows it to him, with its eagle decal on one side with FCN clutched in the talons. "I honestly have no idea what it does, yet."

She blinks when the man digs something out of his junk drawer and...

...he turns into someone else. She takes a step back, surprised.

"....holy shit," she murmurs, taking several steps closer, and quick ones. "You...you look like....Rufus Sewell. A Knight's Tale." She reaches out, and hesitates, and if allowed, fingers will extend further to...well, tweak his nose, and see if the illusion shifts or he has actually transformed into a Rufus Sewell doppleganger.

August shrugs about the sensationalism angle. "To that extent, you can be a voice for avoiding that. Something to think about." He licks his lips and glances away at her reaction, suddenly uncomfortable. "I..." He stops, has to stop so he can properly think about what he wants to say. He sighs, rubs at his eyes. "I don't know how good of an idea it is, anyone...settling in with me. Not with," he gestures, flicking his fingers, "the Art, and all of that. I'm a walking target. I probably always will be." He shrugs, helpless. He's too old to be denying what he is.

Speaking of which... "Well, if you all need any help, let me know. I'm happy to pass on any notes about how my botany attempts go, if they'd be useful." Assuming it's not outright disastrous. He might keep that to himself.

He leans over to eye the coin as, well, Rufus Sewell, apparently, straightens and stares at her when Isabella says that. The second she touches his nose, she can feel and even see the fake glasses. But the suggestion is there, the hint that if she didn't pay enough attention, she might mistake August for this other face: green eyes, high cheekbones in a sharp, angular face, black, curly hair and beard shot through with white and gray.

He walks to the bathroom to check his reflection, but for him, there's nothing to see but a comical pair of goofy glasses. He pulls them off, and the illusion vanishes. "Huh," he says, turning the glasses over in his hands. His voice is back to normal too.

The ebullient smile fades at August's uncertainty, Isabella's expression flattening for just a moment, before a rare gentleness takes over. If nothing else, she looks faintly awkward but that has never actually stopped her from forming, and communicating, an opinion. "Anyone would tell you I'm probably one of the last people in the world who would be able to opine on the matter with any expertise," she begins quietly. "But I'm not wholly unfamiliar with regret." Her hands slide in the pockets of her jacket, her jaw working in an attempt to determine which words she is inclined to say, and settles with, "...when it comes to that equation, I think only two variables matter, really. What you want." She stresses the last word subtly. "And what she wants. If they coincide, I don't see any good reasons why not - and if we did fuck up over the summer and killed more lights than we intended, then it's our responsibility to come up with more - celebrate whatever love and happiness we can until the day we die. You wouldn't have stuck with Ellie this long if she couldn't handle what you bring to the table, and from what I've seen of her, she's definitely not one to be underestimated. And considering what was in the note Yule received from the FCN guys, we're all targets. If anything, I think that's even more of a reason to pair or group up, not less."

She smiles, however, when he offers his help. "I was already going to send him your way," she says. "Chances are the two of you will probably be talking more, soon. I think you'll like him, he's very intelligent. And he specializes in people, not plants. He could probably stand to know another expert in a biological field."

The archaeologist lowers her hand, unable to completely hide her awe once she makes contact. She waits for August to return to the bathroom. "Okay," she says. "So we have healing abilities in the chicken soup, and illusory abilities in your glasses." She pauses. "If you're not all that opposed to it, I think maybe you should give that to Yule to test it also. Maybe it'll help his research if he gets to examine items with a function from each aspect in it. And then maybe he can reverse engineer the methodology. Just need to find something imbued with a mover's talents. What did Ellie get in the parade?"

August watches Isabella as she speaks, toying with the glasses. His eyes flit to the floor. "Yeah," he says, tone absent. "Just, I'm sure she wants kids, and after the war, and with the Art...I don't know if I'd be any good as a father." He sighs, runs a hand over his face. And the thing where living in a city was still so incredibly stressful. Easier than it ever had been, but after a few days he found himself back here, in the woods, unwinding.

He's glad for a topic shift, because the question of whether or not he's marriage material makes him nervous. "Totally fine," he says, of her sending Yule to him. "And I'm happy to hand these off to him." The kettle whistles, and he sets the glasses on the counter, goes to pour out the hot water and bring over the mug and tea box. "Not sure how much I need to walk around looking like Rufus Sewell anyways, and I'm always happy to talk shop." And it's not like he has the first idea where to start looking for how these would work. Maybe something of the mind Art? Who knew.

Of what Eleanor got, he says, "Some bath bombs." It occurs to him, then, that they've been soaking in something which does who knows what. Oh well. He clears his throat. "They seem to just, calm us down. You know, make it easier to deal with things. I feel a lot more relaxed after a bath with one. There's one left." He rubs his chin. "Lilith got some kind of box. And Joe Cavanaugh got a nutcracker."

"Oh, August." Isabella's expression twists faintly at that, and she's unable to help herself, reaching out and, if he permits her, to close her fingers around his nearest shoulder to squeeze warmly. "I don't know what it is about the best men I know thinking that they'd be terrible parents." It's an aggrieved observance, but one that isn't wholly unexpected. Her father had raised her to go after what she wants, and it's a principle that she has followed her entire life. "And you are. One of the best I know." Her lips quirk upwards, faintly. "You'll figure it out. You always do."

She reaches out when the tea things are set out, cradling the cup between her fingers once she's fixed one herself and feeling the warm ceramic bleed into her skin. "I'll let him know and you can take them to him yourself," she says, if not just for the excuse to push two men whose intelligence she values together. "Between the three of us, Anne and Alexander, we ought to form some kind of official brain trust at the rate this is going. I know Yule's already asked Anne about the best ways to archive and secure his findings. He's also thinking about a cabin, for himself, but maybe to build out a cellar of some kind for a private lab. I don't know much about building, or how a cabin can be fortified to support scientific research....I do know someone who might be competent in that area, though." It's a teasing hint, brows lifting upwards to her hairline as she regards him.

There's a nod about the other items, pursing her lips quietly. "Maybe have him take a look at the bath bomb, also. I took a look at Lilith's box, but not...take a really good look. And a nutcracker? I met Joe Cavanaugh recently, he helped me when this was at its worst." She wiggles her left leg. "I ought to text him and ask about it." She makes a mental note. "He's the one who told me about how memories of the Asylum can be corrosive. As in...they can corrupt other memories, in some way."

August smiles at the reassurance, a little grateful, a little pained. "Thanks," he says, meeting her eyes a moment, then looking back out over the cabin. "I just worry... I've done a lot, to get over what happened to be out there," in Bosnia, he means, "but I'm afraid it'll never be enough. Not to raise kids." He's thinking of broken dishes in Eleanor's kitchen, of cracked plaster in the funeral home, of Itzhak's burned hand. He sighs, sets that aside. Why get ahead of himself. He hasn't even worked up the courage to actually decide to do something like propose.

He rests a hand on Isabella's for a second in a wordless thank you, moves to sit himself down with his own mug of tea. "More than happy to go find him. I can drop off my MRIs once I've got them." A more sincere smile for the comment about a cabin, followed by a thoughtful look. "There should be some empty lots around here. Most of those left are bigger--the more expensive ones--but our land values here aren't exactly astronomical. Depending on how much he wants to spend, could work out a lot cheaper to get a basement built and a small A-frame on top. Nice and private. I forget how far out the dataline was put in though, and a lot of the land up here is solar only." He raises his eyebrows. It's something to discuss with Yule, though.

He gives her leg a critical look, but in a sign Alexander is rubbing off on him, makes no offer to finish healing it. "Yeah, he was the one who got me thinking, maybe we shouldn't...try to remember things too hard. That it might hurt more than it helps. Decent guy, shame that place happened to him."

"I know you do. Worry. You wouldn't be such a good guy if you didn't fret over your adequacy to take care of another human being," Isabella says, giving his shoulder another squeeze, and a warm smile flashed at him when he touches her hand, before letting go. She wanders over so she could sit near him. "...if it makes you feel any better, I don't think anybody actually knows how to parent when the first comes along, I figured it'd be one of those things that would just come with experience, and if you and Ellie decide to ever do that, the two of you can flail about it together." There's a quiet sigh. "I had this talk with Alexander recently - he really likes kids, wanted them when he was younger and I've seen him with my twin cousins, they're both eight, and he was very good with them. But he doesn't think so, either, despite that. The two of you've been through a lot, you out there in Bosnia and him with...his life, here and outside of it, and it's not like I don't see where that doubt's coming from. I guess...what I'm trying to say..." And she lets out a breathless laugh. "Very clumsily, and inarticulately, is that I don't think the world expects either of you to be perfect on that front. Honestly, I think it's a good start in general to just be people who care about other people. And the two of you do. Care. A lot. And people love you guys for it on top of your other admirable traits."

She listens quietly to August's very detailed and educated thinking about private laboratories under A-frame cabins, before she grins. "Sounds like I'm sending him to the right person, then, and the two of you can talk about it more. I think having him equipped to parse all of this out would be good, since none of us really have the knowledge base to even get into all of it. I occasionally have a good idea, but as far as these endeavors are concerned, I'm not really..." She gestures vaguely to one side. "...anything like an expert." Ideas are all she's good for, these days; the occasional, ridiculous burst of epiphany and imagination, but she's no Combat Botanist, nor is she a super-detective like Alexander, or even Byron Thorne, who's so smooth and charming he has literally swayed an entire congregation to turn against a murderous preacher who's kept them under his thrall for god knows how long.

Her leg is fine and at his critical look, she shoots one at his direction, in turn. "It's alright now," she says with a smile. "Promise. And I'll shoot messages to Yule and Joe about what we talked about when I leave. But speaking of fine..."

There it is; the archaeologist doesn't hesitate often, and while she is often willing to recruit people to achieve some aim or another, when it comes to her more personal conundrums, she is less than willing to be exposed. But with August being such a solid presence, and considering his level of experience and the fact that he's capable in all three aspects, in the end, he's really the only person she feels comfortable with asking. So she takes a breath.

"August, I was wondering if...how did you..." She gestures helplessly to one side. "Deal, with...the Talent. I've been...when I was younger, I was a lot like Itzhak, with the moving skill. I concentrated on that so much that I never really developed a full facility for the others. After coming back..." She closes her eyes. "I don't know. The headaches. I've been getting them more and more. Sometimes the input is too much - in the mornings I have to go to a pool, or fill a tub and treat it like a sensory deprivation tank for a few hours just so I can think. I was just wondering how you filter it out. You're the only one I know who I could ask."

Mildly amused, August says, "That's what Hanne's always telling me--no one knows what the hell they're doing." He sighs, sympathetic to Alexander's take on it. But, well, there's time, still, for Ellie to convince him. If anyone can, it's her. He smiles, less stained and more genuine this time. "Thanks."

He rolls his eyes about her not being an expert. "Please. You're getting us in touch with each other, keeping things moving. That's it's own expertise."

But then he blinks at Isabella, surprised. After a second of staring at her with a distant expression, he says, "Huh. You're a bit stronger now, with the mind Art. Sort of like de Santos." He focuses on Isabella again. "Has this been growing recently? Eleanor had a bit of a...breakthrough herself, with that one." He's treading dangerously close to a tangent, here, wondering if something is elevating the mind Art in the local population. But that's not what she asked.

He leans back, narrows his eyes and gets a thoughtful look. "This is where I admit I've known that Art for a long time. Since I was a kid. It kind of crept up on me, like the whole frog in a boiling pot of water." Those are old memories; using his own emotions to convince animals to do what he wanted, or scaring off bullies.

The ingress is another question. "I lived by the river, and the railroad tracks." He pauses to reassure her, "This isn't a digression." He looks at dinner distant point. "Anyways, it wasn't ever quiet in my life, as a kid. And when I started hearing other minds, I just, folded it into that. The trains, the frogs, the crickets, the river...the boats, even. I already knew how to let those just, fade, if I needed them to. Was like turning off the light to go to bed."

He clears his throat. "Shaping Art was different. It was a lot weaker when I was young. So was movement. Bosnia kind of...tore those open. Tore all of it open, really, but shaping especially." He stops there, raises his eyebrows at her, to see if that's more what she means.

"You're very welcome," Isabella tells him softly, and she means it - and really, she even looks relieved, and gratified in a sense. After all August has done, it feels good to do something for him, for a change, no matter how small.

But these gentler expressions fade when he asks his questions, because he needs to know. She listens quietly to his experiences, not just in an effort to learn from them, but to learn more about him - to turn over these offered bits and pieces of his life, of a Talented youth growing up in Portland. She appears surprised to hear that it was the reading talent that found him first. "I always just assumed that the dominant Talent would be the one to assert itself to start," she confesses. "That was how it was, with me and..." Her brother. "But I shouldn't have assumed in the first place that it would be the same with everyone."

When he returns to Bosnia, she becomes especially quiet there, but the searching look has her pausing - she knows what he means, and she glances down at her hands. "I wasn't aware of it, at first. With what happened in Halloween, unchaining all my potential that way to fuel whatever happened in the wedding, I think Alexander, Byron and Tobin were just concentrating on getting me back to normal - I wonder if how they did it affected me in some way, but I don't know. It could be lots of other things." Frustration slips through her mien, there. "There's so much we don't know about how all of this works."

After a moment, she continues. "Even for twins, Sid and I were somewhat unnatural. When we were growing up, we were connected. Completely connected. What hurt him, hurt me, no matter how far apart we were, and most days it felt like we didn't have any boundaries between us...we lived as if we were one person. We shared everything. When he disappeared....that was my tearing. Only I think...what happened with you in Bosnia, it made you stronger, with the Talent. It was the opposite, for me. I told you earlier I was like Itzhak, when I was younger. I'll..." Her pride smarts at the acknowledgment, but she forces it through her teeth. "....I'll never be that way again, August. There are things that I'm able to do before that I'll never be able to now. I can't even..." And this is what hurts the most, her expression reflects it. "...I can't even communicate with Alexander mind-to-mind without his help." When being able to connect in that specific way is so important to him.

She takes a quiet sip of her tea. "Alexander thinks I'm finally letting myself heal," she continues awkwardly. "We had a conversation before Halloween and I think it helped a lot, and maybe he's right. I can pinpoint my most drastic changes psychically around that same span of time, my talk with him, and then what happened in Halloween. I've never been able to read emotionally impressions before, in my entire life, until that accident in my family's house." She had told him about that, reading her mother's murder. "And now I can even...I can look at you, and know what you're about. With the power. And I know when people are wounded - I could practically taste it when Alexander's back got ripped open recently. I didn't used to be able to do any of that before either."

"I would have thought so too," August agrees. "Which makes me wonder if I was going in one direction, and Bosnia changed that." There's no way to know, of course, so maybe it's not worth worrying at, any more than it's worth wondering what man he'd be if he'd not gone to Bosnia at all. Did it matter, what alternative worlds existed? It was done--he was who he was.

He lets out a long, slow breath at her explanation of what happened; of her twin vanishing, and taking some of her Art with him, tearing free of her like a ship ripping away from its anchor. And he winces about not being able to communicate with Alexander, not so much unlike Eleanor and her struggle with the woods, they very place August took solace in. "God Isabella, that's awful. I'm sorry." His eyebrows go up. "I think, though, that he's right. Your Art's rebuilding what it can, in its way. Maybe you won't get it all back, but, we usually don't. Not after...something like that."

He's quiet a time. Then, "With the shaping...we landed in Bosnia, and it was like landing in hell. Constant pain. Suffering. All over. But it was background, and I couldn't heal too much. It wasn't until I was trapped in a building that came down that it really," he gestures with one hand, falls quiet. "I had to help those people I had to keep them from dying, and I knew I could do it. And I had to do it."

He sighs, licks his lips. Toying with his mug, he saysm "I don't know if it made me stronger so much as it made room. Sort of like a volcano erupting. What was there before's just gone, and there's a big scar in its place. But there's also a caldera, and things can grow in there, a lake can form." He gives her a sidelong look of shared experience. "Still hurt like a motherfucker, though."

"That might be possible," Isabella replies after a moment of quiet contemplation. "From what Joe Cavanaugh tells me, his development of the Talent emerged after a year of recovery from a bad accident, so if the hypothesis is right and trauma can trigger an emerging of it, it stands to reason that trauma can also be a factor in its evolution, depending on the person." She chews faintly on her lower lip. "It's something to consider."

His sympathetic words make him hard to look at for a few minutes, her eyes fixed on the tea mug she is cradling with both hands. "It was a long time ago," she tells him, her voice low, in an effort to be reassuring, but the words ring hollow - it doesn't feel like a decade, when the loss is so persistent, when Alexander sees and senses the nothing every time he links his mind with hers. Unable to quit, but unable to let go also. Her smile flickers over the pliant line of her mouth, regardless, when she finally lifts her head to look at him. "I'm trying to view it as a good thing, that perhaps it was all for the best. Were I equipped to operate more independently in such matters, I'd be doing most of these things alone...and we already talked about how not a good idea that is, with this."

She listens to the rest of it, after that - there's always an unfailing sharpening of her attention whenever he mentions Bosnia, because he made it clear early on that it was a formative experience in his life; the catalyst of many things that have shaped August Roen into the man he is now, not unlike Alexander's tenure with Zachary's cult. "Do you think it evolved that way out of necessity?" she asks. "Your shaping Talent. Because it was do or die time, or do you think it may have been influenced by something else?"

He'd get the impression that she is considering his comparison very carefully, to add into her knowledge base for everything else. "It makes sense," she finally says. "If a dam is too full, it cracks. And while forest fires are dangerous, they're an ecological necessity - clear out the brush before it chokes out everything else." She grins faintly at him. "Sherlock Holmes didn't even know the earth revolved around the sun, because it wasn't a fact that he needed in his work and he chose not to know it because it took up too much room up here." She taps her finger against her temple. "Maybe Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was onto something."

She takes another pull of her tea, and at the sidelong glance, her smile returns, rueful as it is, about it hurting. "It did." After a moment of meeting his dark eyes, her own lower again. "It does," she adds, softly. "It felt like..." dying. A word that she could never say, but one that August can easily place.

"...so when...they opened up, how did you start filtering out? I think I'm able to turn the lights out, before bed, for the reading aspect, but did you do anything different for the healing and the moving?"

"Maybe," August says of it growing from trauma, and by necessity. "Hard to say. It could also be like anything else we can do; if you get a serious injury and can't draw anymore, maybe you learn how to sculpt or do photography instead." He lifts his eyebrows briefly. "One way gets blocked, you find or make another."

He wrinkles his nose, hitches a shoulder. "You don't have to view it as a good thing, if you don't want. It's okay to be angry about the shit you've been through. Not letting yourself feel the way you want to feel is a great way to get resentful." A rueful smile speaking to personal experience follows that. "You just need to be ready to not necessarily act on it. That was the thing the therapists were always telling us. It's okay to be scared, or anxious, or mad--but stop doing something the second you feel that way."

He leans back on the couch, sighs and thinks back to how he coped with that. "Matter and movement wasn't too bad. I made it part of my life. Knowing where things were, how they're placed, their weight...I let it be a different sense. Folded it into the rest. It's just like smelling it hearing, now." He shifts uncomfortably. That was the ugly part, and in so many ways still is. "Shaping was harder. While I was recovering in the VA..." He looks down at his tea, has a drink. "It was a lot like bring under that wall in Bosnia. Hearing their pain and feeling it at the same time," he shakes his head. "One day I thought of it like a candle. I just blew it out. And it stopped." He flicks her a wry, sideways glance. "It came back on, of course. But I got better at it, as I kept at it. Practiced shutting the door. I had plenty of time for that, with all the laying in bed I had to do." Another sigh. "I lost a bit of that, out on assignment; no people around, so I lost the knack. I'm only now learning how to do it again."

"Like an amputation," Isabella remarks. "It wouldn't be the first time someone called that." Alexander had likened it to losing a limb, when she had first told him the whole story.

His words are always rational, touching on lessons that only a lifetime's worth of experiences could bring - August is older than even Alexander, and it's often difficult not to feel like a child around him especially when he draws on them in an effort to soothe or teach. But she appreciates this, too, never one to shy away from learning from her elders; these days she's more aware of her occasional bouts of emotional immaturity than she has in a long time. It's easier said and done, what he's advising, a sheepish look there - she can be reckless, and impulsive. "I'll try," she tells him, because it's the only guarantee that she can actually give.

Matter is simple, and she nods in agreement - she has treated that the same way all her life, it's the others that she has very little experience with, so when he gets to the actual difficulties of the attempt, she falls quiet and takes it in because these are things that she needs to know. Turning off the light, blowing out the candle. She attempts to visualize both - she's going to have to work on it in her own time, but for now, she tries to learn as much as she can.

"Your last field assignment, you mean?" He's told her some of it. "How are you doing on that?" she wonders. "Catching up on it?"

"In your case, yeah." August sounds a touch apologetic for putting it like that, but there it is, no two ways about it. She had something integral to herself get cut off.

"Trying is the only thing anyone can ask." He says this easily, like it's not a problem. And it's not; he knows how hard this can be, also knows that pity or stony indifference won't help. Sympathy for a shitty situation, well, that's more his speed. "It was easier for me when I thought of it as something for everyone else. My family, especially. I didn't want to take what happened to me out on them. That it helps you too, well, that's just how it should be anyways."

He nods, finishes off his tea. "Yeah, the longest one. I wasn't around anyone injured for months. So the first time, it was a big shock." He deliberately doesn't remember it, since it involved stumbling off behind a tree to be sick. "But I'm...getting there." He admits this without embarrassment. Too many people have seen how he reacts to injuries at this point to prevaricate or be self-conscious about it. "Maybe I'll never be a hundred percent okay, but really," he looks at her directly again, "who is anyways." He considers her a time, then, "Try to work on not internalizing it. Don't follow it, if you know what I mean. You feel it, like smelling something bad or touching something hot--pull back."

His apologetic look draws a shaking of Isabella's head, a smile cast his way - it is what it is.

His comparison is helpful also, and the young woman bobs her head in another nod. "I'll try it that way," she promises - and she well, never one to shrink away from any reason for self improvement. It's easy to think of others, out of the heat of the moment, but her temper gets the best of her eight times out of ten, and she's yet to find a way to actually curb those tendencies.

She, too, drains her tea and sets it aside. "Anyone who tells you they've got it all together in this town is lying," she says with a laugh, in the throes of that significant look he angles her way. "You'd know that better than I, I think. But...that's fine, I think. You being not one hundred percent alright. I think you're great, the way you are. And I'll...work on not...trying to follow." Because that's a hard sell, too, most days, unable to help herself if the prospect of learning something new is dangled right in front of her. "But I'll do my best, if not just to feel like it's difficult to get out of bed every morning." She pokes at her stomach. "Otherwise I'm going to get really fat from the lack of exercise and wetsuits are unforgiving."

With that, she rises from her seat. "Anyway, thanks...for..." She gestures, awkwardly, in an effort to demonstrate everything without actually saying it. "I mean it, August. This is really helpful. Thank you so much."

August coughs a laugh, inclines his head. "Well you're welcome," he says, and gets up as well. "And don't be too hard on yourself. As far as," he gestures, "learning how to filter it. It'll take some time." He gets a thoughtful look. "You might even think about going out somewhere away from the town now and then, to clear your head, so there's not a lot of people and things." He makes a face. "Probably no good to be sailing right now, but a hike would do. You can focus on knowing what the Art's telling you about your surroundings, learn how to identify and separate that from the rest." Emotions, pain, objects, buildings. So much to sense and be distracted by.

He moves to show her out. "You're welcome. And thank you, for listening to," he waves a hand, "all of that." He doesn't just mean the bit about Eleanor, but that definitely looms large in his mind. "Careful driving back out, I know that road's a fucking mess."