[Sodium_noir] St Bridgets

[Jennie Teakle]

St Bridgets

Christine lies curled on a pew, wrapped in a thick blanket lent her  
by Father Bellamy. The priest has retired to his own much needed  
sleep but she is not alone - at least a dozen others sleep under the  
kind auspices of St Bridget's tonight. The homeless. The  
dispossessed. This thought winds round Christine's tired brain  
reminding her, depressingly, that now she too is homeless, jobless  
and if not actually penniless, not far off. She thinks of Market  
Street and of Mara; of all the hopes and plans and dreams and, too  
tired to fend off these reflections any more, she grieves silently.

Time has been passing strangely all day for Christine - folded and  
stretched into bizarre shapes like surreal origami.  It feels like  
she has lain here for hours, her tears seeping into her hair, soaking  
into the coarse blanket. Her blurred gaze falls upon the candles  
burning steadily before a statue of the Virgin and Child set in a  
small wall niche close by. The candles are not noticeably shorter.  
Christine finds her weary, depressed attention caught by the golden  
glow of the flames which, refracted through a film of tears, shimmer  
with a delicate rainbow corona. Christine lies still and quiet,  
absorbed in the candlelight and the way this illuminates the faces of  
the madonna and her infant . She doesn't really note it consciously -  
too tired and disoriented - but some of her cares do shift and slide  
away as she stares at the candle flames; the pain eases, the sense of  
loss and loneliness becomes less acute.  Enough for her to slip into  
a soundless, dreamless sleep.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

St Bridget's
Friday 10 am

Christine sits on the edge of a pew and drinks coffee and chats with  
Blue-Eyed Pete and Marjory Dawes, the last of the night's refugees  
still at St Bridget's. She woke amazingly refreshed, weirdly calm,  
inexplicably hopeful and optimistic. This is the first time she has  
sat down, having made herself as useful as possible to Father Bellamy  
and St Bridget's shelter in part payment for a night's sanctuary. She  
has sorted and folded blankets; she has helped prepare and serve  
oatmeal and coffee; she has washed up. She has also met one or two of  
the regular volunteers as well as some of the regular shelter  
denizens. Father Bellamy has been called away, last rites for an  
elderly parishioner and when Pete and Marjory amble off into the weak  
and moody Cardboard City sunshine, Christine will write the priest a  
thankyou note, pin it to his desk in the vestry, leave the remaining  
volunteer (Mrs Kalwolski, devout Catholic, formidably Polish, more  
reliable and even grimmer than either death or taxes) to lock up.  
Christine has a few bits of unfinished business to attend to this  
morning. This afternoon, there is someone she promised to meet at the  
Temple of the Five Dragons.


TBC




[OOC: Prime 1  - Meditate at Node  - I've never been sure if  
Quintessence can be absorbed into a Mage's pattern at Prime 1 or if  
Prime 3 is actually required here  - I always found the the level  
descriptions a  bit  ambiguous and I never looked into the matter  
properly. However, I really only wanted to rp Christine's first  
experience of Prime magic/Sense Prime energy so it don't actually  
matter in this particular case- altho fellow player/Mage ST/ST  
opinion on this issue most welcome :-) ]







		
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