Astoria felt heavy today. She decided a walk through the park for lunch was in order. She sat on a park bench and just watched everyone who passed by, her mind still heavy on what had been done to Marcus as far as the Liberi were concerned. The more she learned from them, the angrier she became on his behalf. They could not do this to him. She would not let them.

She was also thinking about how lovely this weekend and seeing Angelina was. Astoria knew she should be fair and choose, but she couldn't. Not really. She needed their balance. She wondered who had sent the scones. It had to be one of the two of them. Astoria was betting on Angelina simply because it did not seem the sort of thing Marcus would do. Also, she could not really picture him walking into the Happy Hearth.

Her skin prickled, so Astoria turned. It took her a moment to find what she was looking for. It was the blonde. Astoria watched her. She didn't know why she was supposed to, but she knew she should.

Reese had only brought a small canvas to the park today. She hadn't been able to breathe at home and London was generally too dark, too heavy anymore, for her to actually paint anything where grays and blacks didn't try creep in.

The park had given her marigolds last time though, a small sunshine for a nice woman and her somebody. Reese had been hoping for a bit of the same. She was generally unsettled more often than not anymore, but her hand positively itched to smear color across a blank canvas.

She'd not been able to though. The darkness was starting to press in even here, and Reese had done nothing but mix paint on her pallet for most of the afternoon.

Something like a rushing wind though, scented like warm flowers, had Reese's gaze lifting from her brush smearing paints together on the wood. Her gaze went a bit distant and all she could see was the loveliest pure purples; a color she had only ever seen on herself, though hers had always been muted, lighter.

Hand almost moving of it's own accord, she began to smear the canvas with royal purples, hints of forest green so dark it was almost black, but not at all - something deep and pure. She wished she had a larger canvas.

Astoria rose slowly. She felt like she was being nudged. She walked towards the woman painting. She did not ask. She removed her shoes when she was upon the grass and sat next to her. The colors, she knew them. She'd seen something like that before. Astoria was trying to decide what to say. What she said should be the right thing. It was important.

"May I," Astoria asked, holding a hand to touch the other woman's arm.

Just a little startled, Reese's breath caught when she heard a voice so near. All she'd been able to hear was the rush of the wind, though not even a leaf rustled in the trees. The woman's voice had stilled the flower-scented storm though, and for the moment it was just ... waiting.

Blinking a few times, the dark purples dissolving from her gaze until the woman's features were distinct, Reese just nodded.

Astoria put a hand on the arm not attached to the hand holding the brush. It was like hearing the melody of a song someone else was humming that you were trying to place. This one was in danger of slipping into being lost.

"No," Astoria whispered. "You have to stay."

"I'm trying," Reese breathed. "All the different kinds of 'here', but even the land is sick now and winds with voices are louder because they can."

Her brush slipped from her fingers and she reached out to touch the other woman, hand fluttering from her hair, down her arm until she clasped her hand, eyes distant and focused at the same time. "It's you ... you're purple, but deeper ... you see, too, but further." Her eyes drifted shut. "Did you know your color covers everything, I can even hear it, and smell it too," she whispered. "That's never happened before."

"The same," Astoria whispered, a sense of knowing filling her. "We're the same."

The only other person she had ever met like this had been Parvati. This woman was different. She could be as ungrounded in her gifts as Astoria could. She understood. Astoria wanted to hold her, tell her it would be all right, but she was not sure if it would be.

"I have my calm and my protection. They keep me here. I got lost once," Astoria offered. "Take comfort in the knowledge that even if you are lost, you may return. I did. Your anchor just needs a change. Like mine did."

Astoria opened her eyes. "My name is Astoria."

Taking a breath full of the flower-scented wind still swirling around her, Reese opened her eyes to meet the pale ones looking at her. "I'm Reese," she replied, her own pure green eyes flicking over Astoria's features quickly.

"What's your protection, your anchor? How did you find it?" she asked in quick succession not a moment later, somewhat feeling like she was on a precipice, her fate hanging in the balance. "I lost all of mine a long time ago and I can't stay too much longer, but I am trying."

"I happened upon them. Always have more than one. I have both the calm and the storm." Astoria sighed. "I wasn't even... then there they were. Who or what soothes you? You hold that, you keep it, you seek it out. You let it calm you or fill you with life."

Astoria tucked some hair behind Reese's ear.

Reese's nodded, turning over everything Astoria had told her - things to think hard on, things to paint into being to make them more real.

"I worry for you already. Is that funny? I don't know what I could do, but should you need help, ever, I think I am supposed to offer. I don't know why. I don't even know how I would help. It's just... we're the same."

Then Astoria laughed, realizing what had been said earlier. "My aura has a smell. That's interesting. I fall into your head like a tunnel. It's warm there. Your mind is warm."

A smile touched Reese's lips as Astoria laughed and she caught the other woman's hand and laid her cheek against her palm. "You're the loveliest of purples in a whirling storm of wind that smells like flowers in a meadow that's been warmed by sunshine."

Reese's gaze focused more on Astoria, pulling away from the colors she could see. "You've already helped me, you know," she said. "Just by being ... still being here at all. Maybe I can do it too," she added softly. "There is a lot of black that wants, and graying mists that reach everywhere, though. It likes people like us, especially. It wants to ... make sure it gets us because we know it's there."

Astoria shivered. She knew it didn't make any sense, or it shouldn't, but she understood exactly what Reese had just said. The words did not make sense so much as the tone in which they were said did.

"Glad to be of service," Astoria replied almost casually. "I get lost again. I've seen it, but I also come back. They come after me. They make me found again."

Astoria sighed. "The black. I know. It thinks it has me. It has never been more wrong. I love a good shadow, but the light will always call me. You can stay. I know it, and if you do get lost, there are those that will find you. Like me. The black wants us, but there are other things that want us more. We hold to that, I think."

Astoria knew she was the younger of them, but something about Reese made her feel wise and sage, older. She also felt protective and that Reese was 'her kind'. She just wanted to hug her and tell her that it was always darkest before the dawn; that it might seem bad, but it would be all right. The problem was Astoria was not certain it actually would be all right. There were too many factors and none of them were entwined with the sort of fate that was set in stone.

Reese watched Astoria's face intently, processing all that the other women had said. It was a very long moment before she finally nodded, slowly. "There are other things that want us more, and we need to hold on to those things," she repeated, letting the words out of her own mouth to become a real thing.

A genuine smile lit Reese's face then, and she leaned forward to wrap Astoria up in a tight hug, the other woman's hair tickling her nose. "Can I keep you?" she whispered.

"I think my, what do you call them, oh," Astoria said with a smile. "My shinies might have something to say about that. But I think I can be borrowed. I do like to share. I think there's enough of me to go around."

Astoria did not break the hug like she should. She was reluctant to. She had a vast desire to be greedy, but that was not to be. She was not that sort. Two was quite enough, and they would be a difficult task as it was.

She finally pulled back, but keep her hands on Reese's arms. "Yes, I think you can borrow me."

"For sometime keep things," Reese nodded solemnly. "I'm glad you have shinies for your own. They are the best kind for staying here."

Titling her head as she studied the other woman, Reese asked, "you'll let me paint you sometime, maybe? I think I may need to make your paint though ... it has to smell right, too. Your painting will always smell like a breeze has blown through a field of lavender."

"Of course, you can paint me," Astoria said, digging in her handbag for a spare bit of parchment and her self-inking quill. "This is where I live. You owl me or come by when you feel like it. Don't come to me at work. If you need me during work times, owl and I'll leave. I'll come to you. It's not safe. There will come a time when even I won't be able to be there."

Peering down at the bit of parchment in her hands, Reese nodded at everything Astoria told her, doing her best to file it away as best she could to remember later.

Stirring into movement then, Reese snatched up the brush she'd dropped sometime before and quickly streaked bits of navy, purple and white together on her palette, quickly, until she had a good bit of Astoria's color, and smeared her Apparation points on the blank canvas.

A small smile twitched at her lips. This was the first time she'd put her brush to an empty space in weeks. Letting herself loose for just a moment, Reese quickly smeared a dark purple starburst on the corner of the canvas before sitting back.

"Now you have mine, too."

Astoria looked at the painting for a moment. She would hang this. No one save herself and Reese would understand it, so it was not as if she were giving anything away by displaying it. She had told Angelina that she had no friends to speak of, but perhaps she did. She and Reese spoke the same language. Other people didn't quite understand what Reese said or did at times, but Astoria was startled to find herself getting it. Reese was her kind. They were miles apart yet the same. It would be strange to anyone else.

"If your Slytherin needs to inspect the place before you visit, I do understand. Of course Alfred is welcome."

Reese nodded. "He likes to do those kinds of things, lately." She smiled a moment later. "I'll bring Al, but I think Alfred will hear you, too."

Astoria looked at her.

"Do I need to see you home or will you be all right here? I can if you need me to. I wouldn't mind."

"Want to come see all the colors?" Reese asked, holding out her hand. "I've almost got one wall done and there's lots of canvases to see."

"I'd like that," Astoria said. I wanted a long lunch anyhow.

Also if she knew where Reese stayed, she could check on her. It was strange. Astoria did not know she had any mothering instincts at all. Apparently she did.

"Me too," Reese grinned.


{SUMMARY} Astoria and Reese find one another in the park. They recognize "like" traits.