Esme & Charlie Go Out

[Esme]

You could cut the tension with a knife. Brown eyes locked on green eyes in the dim kitchen. It sat on the edge of the table between them. Esme arched an eyebrow challengingly.

"Don't. You. Dare."

The dog's tongue lolled out the side of its mouth and cocked its head to the side, staring at the scrap of bacon dangling on the table's edge. Recently, Charlie had taken to stealing scraps off the table and counters.

"You sit... and you resist. You do nothing. You do not. Steal. The. Bacon."

The dog groaned lightly in its throat, eyes darting to the bacon then back to Esme's gaze, and to the bacon again. Finally it laid on its belly with a long deflating sigh, casting forlorn eyes upward at his mistress. Esme moved the bacon away from the edge and patted the dog on the head. "Good boy, Charlie, good boy!"

Charlie watched her leave the room and waited a moment before standing up on hind legs and placing his head and paws on the table to try to reach the bacon that was pushed to the center of the table. Esme burst back into the room from the back door shaking a jar of pebbles.

"BAD DOG BAD DOG BAD DOG!"

Charlie barked twice and scrambled in the opposite direction, disapearing into the parlour. Esme shook her head and left the jar of pebbles on the counter. He'd always been a sneaky mutt, but he had to stop stealing food off the counters. She put the scrap into the jar of bits for Charlie's dinner for now.

[Esme]

After dealing with a little aversion therapy, Esme went upstairs to her room to comb her hair and wash her face. She slipped on her doeskin slippers and went to the desk in her parents' room to get the shopping money for the day, jotting the amount she took down on the journal next to the bowl of coins.

It had become her daily habit for several years now. Wake up, break fast (and recently, try to break a bad habit of her dog's), then go about the shopping for the household. With her parents at their shop nearer the Industrial District all day, Esme had assumed the daily chores and setting up the meals. They used to have a house woman, but when Esme never married or left home, her father decided to cut costs and set Esme with chores instead. Idle hands, he would say, are the Changer's footmen. Esme was a spinster at 28.

"Charlie, to me." The coppery corgie-mix came trotting after her as she walked out the front door, picking up a basket from the hall and locking the door behind her. Her route took her north through the residential district, up through Memorial Park, and along past the Justice Hall. It was a long walk, but it gave her physical excercise. She wasn't muscular, but stayed lean and her cardio was good. Charlie kept at her heels, taking small breaks to mark trees or posts every so often. She kept her eyes downcast when guards, especially the Battlemages, passed her in the street.

From the park, she would walk around the Justice Hall to Downtown. She'd make her rounds, buying vegetables, bread, cheese and smoked meats for the meals and drop off some lunch for her parents. Sometimes she would stick around a work a couple hours if needed, otherwise she would just set about her way home.

On her return route, she would walk along the road to Temple and donate the change into the alms box with the serene young monk ringing his bell. She envied the monk's clean, fully-human existence, and she missed how the temple had looked when she was a child, with a bright-eyed Brother Ezekiel smiling and ushering them in for holidays and the temple bedecked with flowers. Her parents had taken to the fashion of setting up a small altar in their home to Teodinus, but Esme disliked it. Having the small presence at home only inspired her to spend more time out of doors, and out of His eyes. Esme could do without a daily reminder of her sins.

[Alina]

Here she was, standing outside Justice Hall. Whatever for? The one place that there definitely wasn't any crime going on (at least that someone of her pay grade could do anything about) was Justice Hall! It didn't need guard! It was full of them, all the time!

Alina knew she'd never make it very far as a guard, but she couldn't help reflecting that right at this moment, a foreign idiot whom she'd brought in for training not all that long ago was out arresting a huge man for attacking a battlemage. A battlemage. And she was here. Looking official and stern. In a few minutes, she could go look official and stern while walking about, hoping to blindly bump into some crime.

She forced down her seething resentment and resolved to just do her damn job. It wasn't the new guard's fault. It wasn't her boss' fault for thinking she was slow. It wasn't her fault for having to act that way. It was the stupid random chance of magic.

Nobody was watching. With her teeth, she pulled off one glove, making sure it wasn't inside out before pushing it into her pocket. Gloves were precious. Get an emotional imprint on the inside and it'd drive you insane. It was justifiably close to her patrol time that she could take off now. Nobody would notice.

By now, Alina knew exactly what parts of wall and fence she should trail her bare fingers across to get the best emotions. Calm. Duty. Determination. The emotions of strangers and friends alike buzzed up her arm and swamped over her, drowning her own frustration and doubt, and she began her patrol.

[Esme]

Today, Esme stopped in Memorial Park. At the bottom of her basket, hidden under a towel, was a old glove for her right hand and a leather ball.

As soon as she slipped the glove on, for leather balls with dog slobber on them are disgusting things, Charlie went nuts. He bounced around her and barked loudly until she picked up the ball and hurled it across the park as far as she could, which admittedly was not across the park. The dog sped on stubby Corgie legs. His tail was swinging in a near perfect circle as he collided with the ball and snatched it up. Proudly, the canine trotted back to his mistress, eyes shining with an eagerness to have it thrown again.

No canine pride was ever damaged by a piece of grass sticking out of his nose from the collision with the ball and earth. Esme cheered Charlie onward, removing the ball (and the grass) and launching the next round.

[Alina]

Alina drifted in a dizzy haze to the park.

Here, the trees were mottled with the joy and sorrow of children, the contentment and grief of the elderly. Her fingers darted from happy spot to happy spot in a pattern that had long ago become habit. There were slight changes every now and then, but today she felt nothing unusual. She smiled as a young woman's joyful thought, "I'm getiing married!" echoed through her brain, and didn't even notice as the glove slipped out of her pocket.

At that stage, a mugging could be happening right next to Alina and she wouldn't have noticed. So it wasn't surprising that the dog was under her feet and she was already falling before she realised it was there. Alina threw out her hands to catch herself, rolled onto her knees in a training-ingrained reflex, and looked into the big eyes of a slobbering, far-too-enthusiastic dog with a ball in its mouth.

"Um... good doggy. Just... stay there."

[Esme]

"Oh no..." Esme watched the ball soar further than she had meant it to, sending the dog right into the path of a guard that wasn't looking where she was walking. She cringed at the collision and ran over, pulling off the glove and stuffing it in her skirt pocket.

"Um... good doggy. Just... stay there." To his great joy, Charlie realized the person was talking to him instead of yelling, so he dropped his ball and began licking Alina's face.


"Charlie, to me! Come here!" she called, and the dog reluctantly backed off of Alina and walked to Esme. She reached out her hand to help the guard up. "I'm so sorry, I didn't see you! Are you ok?"

[Alina]

Alina took Esme's hand, forgetting that her own hand was ungloved. The unexpected onslought of emotions almost cost her her footing again; she gritted her teeth against it and let go of Esme's gloved hand as soon as she was up.

Yearning. Resentment at... something. Ambition and frustration at... some kind of potential she couldn't (or wouldn't) utilise to its best extent. She pushed the emotions away before she had a proper feel for them, ignoring the couple of stray thoughts still whispering at the back of her mind. She didn't like that emotional sample.

They were too much like her own.

"Yeah, I'm, uh, I'm fine." Alina put her guard face on and gave Esme a friendly, alert servant-of-the-people smile. "So sorry about that, I wasn't looking where I was going." She gave the dog a friendly scratch behind the ears. "How are you today, ma'am?"

[Esme]

Something was odd in the guard's expression, and her first thought was that she could tell something was off about Esme. For a moment her heart lurched that she might be fined or arrested for assaulting a guard.

"Yeah, I'm, uh, I'm fine........ How are you today, ma'am?"

"Oh, I'm well. Just on my usual walk with Charlie here." She smiled, but her heart was beating rapidly. She nervously tucked her hair back behind her ears. When Esme bent down to pick up the ball and put into her basket the glove fell from her pocket. She walked back from the guard. "I'm glad you're ok. Well, come Charlie, we need to finish our rounds..."

[Alina]

Alina nodded giddily, still forcing away the effects of foreign emotions. "Have a nice day, ma'am." She reached into her pocket for her glove. She'd had enough confusing emotional changes for one day.

It wasn't there. Alina glanced down to see the glove sitting on the ground, picked it up with her still-gloved hand (the inside of her gloves were a blank slate but who knew what sort of things the outside had collected), rubbed dog drool off her face and headed towards the nearest bar, where she could clean herself up.

If only she wasn't on duty, she could have had a drink or three, too.

[Esme]

Smelling the scent of the guard again, Charlie spotted a glove on the walkway as he and Esme left Memorial Park. He picked it up and carried it like a prize. Esme didn't realize he was carrying a glove until they reached her parents' shop.

"Charlie, drop that."

Charlie laid down and set the glove next to him, looking up at Esme. Esme picked up the glove and turned it over. "This isn't mine... hmm..."

I could see who's it is if I use it for dreaming...

[Alina]

Alina exchanged good-natured greetings with the pub owner, made sure there weren't any recent disturbances that required her attention, and went to wash up. She then slipped her gloves back on to continue her patrol.

She was completely unprepared for the emotional onslaught from the inside of her glove, but recognised its flavour immediately. There was a stew of emotions there, a patchwork collection from different times and different situations, but right in the fingertips was the exact flavour she'd felt from that woman. She ripped the glove off and looked at it.

It wasn't her glove. It was dirtier, tattered. Alina swore. She'd need to go glove shopping again, spend hours trying on identical cloth gloves, looking for one without any imprints on the insides. That sort of thing did not help impressions that she was touched in the head.

Alina went back on patrol. She'd survive gloveless until tomorrow.

[Esme]

The glove sat on her nightstand, set aside for the rest of the evening. Esme quietly went about preparing dinner for her family. Her mother noticed she looked bothered, and hoping Esme had met a man asked her about it, but she shrugged it off.

"I must be having some allergies, just feeling a bit lightheaded."

She spent an evening in the parlor with her parents reading a book she wasn't paying any attention to until she could escape to her room.

She closed the door behind her and let out a long slow breath.

Esme sat on her bed, and picked up the glove. She turned it over, studying it. It was nicely made, someone had taste. She gave it a sniff. Whoever owned it kept their gloves clean and neat. For a moment decided she was a weird person to sniff a glove, but she didn't want to put it under her pillow if it smelled badly.

Glove-sniffer.

Since it seemed clean enough, Esme slipped the glove onto her hand. It felt a little big. She settled into bed and closed her eyes.

It took some time, but Esme quieted her mind and focused on her physical body and contact with the glove.

***

The colors were a shock, and then came the hum and voices. Everything seemed to shout and clamor at once. Esme faltered at first, but regained her sense of self and awareness. She was surprised to look at her hand and see the glove. Usually, the item she used to make a connection didn't appear on her in the dream.

It looked like the residential district, but the houses seemed oddly shaped and out of sorts, doors were not where they should be and windows were too opaque.

Esme couldn't shut out the chatter, but couldn't decipher it either. It was a constant auditory assault on her nerves. She closed her eyes and breathed in and out slowly, counting breathes, and squeezed her gloved hand. Somewhere she would spot the glove owner. With all this sensory overload, she couldn't decide if it would be harder or easier to hide.

She began walking toward what felt like was the route to the Memorial Park, however the roads veered in strange circles and u-turns with intersections she didn't recognize. Squeezing the glove, she strained to find the matching energy. It wasn't close, she had to into a different district.

[Alina]

Alina walked through the streets of her town.

She barely looked at the buildings she passed; sight wasn't important. Thousands of feelings washed through her, a new feeling with every step, and she thought it was odd that she could feel them through her boots like that, but the question quickly slipped from her mind. The streets were deserted, leaving strands of tangled, living feeling crisscrossing everywhere with no people to carry them. The assault of the bodiless not-quite-voices of an absent crowd was a pleasant if distracting accompaniment. Not pleasant, perhaps, but right; the sound streets were supposed to make. She turned a corner.

A woman stood on her street, clutching a glove. Her street. Her glove! And alina knew that she wasn't supposed to be there, she wasn't part of the scene. She didn't respond to Alina's thoughts the way everything else did.

"Hello?"

[Esme]

"Hello?"

Esme froze. She lost her nerve. She stared at Alina, and pretended to be staring past her. Typically, if she didn't respond, then turned and walk away, she would still be forgotten. After a moment, she turned and walked calmly down the road, with it suddenly becoming the temple district.

Without turning to see if Alina's consciousness was following her, she walked into the temple and toward the altar, then took a seat in the front pew. The colors were golden and shimmering within the temple. Esme began to feel safer.

"Forgive me, Teodinus, for I have sinned." she whispered to the statue upon the altar.

[Alina]

The woman turned and walked away, as if to fade back into the streets, a temporary mirage. But Alina could feel her and she was just a hole, giving off less feeling than the stone and wood around her. If Alina was a bit more introspective she might stop to reflect on the possible significance of feeling life from the streets instead of its people like this, but the woman was vaguely recognisable and the glove she held was one of Alina's things, so she forgot philosophy and followed her.

It was the woman from the park. Why was she here? They'd barely met. She headed for the temple, and Alina hesitated. The temple was the same as any other building, with smatterings of happiness, irritation and boredom contaminating various surfaces, but there were a few hotspots of pure, burning faith, a faith that seemed to condemn her for touching it with her blasphemous power. She tended to avoid the building when she could.

Today, she walked in, trying not to touch anything. The woman was praying; she looked like emotion should pour off her. Faith, or fear, or something. But she was blank, with the normal emotion sweeping around her intensified by the importance of the building.

Alina stood in the doorway, unsure of what to do now.