circumstances measures && persons -- [lark]

[FABIAN ZACHARIAH XYLANDER]

He waited outside the restaurant, hands in the pockets of his suit jacket. Of course he'd dressed up. You didn't go to Northern Lights and not dress up. It was like a cardinal rule, implied by the dirty looks the waitresses gave you if you didn't, by the prices that weren't even on the menu they were so high, and maybe even by the dim lighting, if you had a thing for reading into the details. Of course, the food was worth the whole process, and Fabian tended to dress up anyway.

Suits were his norm, when he wasn't working on his motorcycle. Suits were safe anyway--they came in gray, white, blue, navy, and black, and those were difficult to mismatch when you couldn't tell apart colors. He just had to match something dark with something like, or go dark all the way, though he supposed blue and black might look odd together--not that he would know. He'd been color blind from day one. He couldn't differentiate green from red from blue from purple, as long as they weren't clearly labelled and the same shade of gray in his head. He'd learned to live with it.

What else could he do? Nothing. Exactly.

So he waited for his niece, who had so kindly informed him of the open position here, which had sort of saved his sanity. That's why he was willing to pay the big bucks--it was a big thank you, and she deserved it anyway. He figured that, fresh into college and living on her own, she wouldn't have much money to spare, so he was hoping this would be a treat. It would give them a chance to catch up, too, since the wait staff here weren't exactly rushing to get customers out. They could take their time, enjoy their dinner and their conversation, reconnect. It would be nice.

When he saw the girl, he lifted his arms in the air like he was presenting something (or waiting for a hug, which he would accept if given) and grinned at her. "How's this for dinner?" he asked as soon as she was in earshot. God, she'd grown. He really should have come home sooner, but... well, things hadn't gone downhill until about two years ago, and he figured she wouldn't have changed much in that time period. It was just that she'd been much younger when he'd left--as he'd done so straight out of college. Maybe he had left too quickly. Maybe they should have stayed home. Maybe the doctors here wouldn't have--

He cut himself off. It was no use thinking about such things now, when it was years past and he was supposed to be enjoying the evening. He smiled at his niece instead, remembering not the circumstances of the change but the fact that it had happened and that he was genuinely happy to see her again. When she got closer, so he wasn't yelling to make himself heard on the street with cars passing by, he added, voice warm, "It's good to see you again, Lark. It's been a while." He hoped she wouldn't ask about Aurora, but he couldn't remember (or perhaps didn't want to think about) whether they had been particularly close or not.

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[LARK MARIE HARPER]

The music in the car was as loud as possible, the beat a dull thrum throughout the speakers and up through her feet as they rested on the floor board. Even when she felt at ease the music was usually present unless she had a lot on her mind, a time to reminisce and absorb the silence for a while. Tonight was not one of those times and she had the windows rolled down to enjoy the nice weather.

Tonight, Lark was to eat a nice dinner with her uncle. An uncle that she did not even associate with for a long while for one reason or another. She did not connect well with most of her relatives to begin with so Fabian naturally found himself among the shunned and neglected for a short time. It was not of his doing, though; she simply resented a good portion of her family members. However, when they did manage to reconnect and she had received news of Aurora's untimely passing, she sought out a way to help him get away from the dark spiral of depression that might have caused some serious damage to his person. Upon finding the opening at the Academy, the girl contacted him about it in hopes that he would at least give it a shot. Now, a while later, Fabian was in the Hollow and working at the school. She still did not talk to him often. The guilt did not even have time to register with how busy life tended to be. At least tonight gave them a chance to catch up on things. Hopefully.

Lark parked the car and walked towards the building in her dress slacks and a nice, loose black shirt that allowed a portion of her shoulder tattoo to peek below the sleeve. Only after taking a few steps did she catch sight of her uncle when his hands were up in the air. She twitched a smile of amusement and nodded, not feeling up for shouting across the parking lot. As much as Ashton had opened her up to being more social, there were times when it was not necessary. She did not think he had changed all that much, a handsome man that knew how to dress nice and seemed to carry himself rather well. The smile became more permanent as she approached and offered him a hug. "It's good to see you too," Lark replied happily, pulling away from him and straightening her shirt. "And it's been far too long. You look the same as you did when I was ten." And there was the guilt now, gently prodding at her stomach and conscience simultaneously. How she hated feeling like that. Nothing to do about it now but act like it did not exist. She gestured to the restaurant with an open hand and walked inside with him, glancing around briefly. This place always managed to make her feel ten levels of broke.

"Did you make reservations or are we just going to use our good looks to get us in?" Lark asked with a small smirk, amused at the thought of them wiggling their eyebrows and trying to get in on suavity alone.

[FABIAN ZACHARIAH XYLANDER]

He hugged her in return, breathing more easily for a moment. He’d missed hugs. He missed hugging Aurora. He wasn’t trying to replace her, but hugging Lark was nice, even it was brief so as not to become creepy or bothersome. They hadn’t seen each other in a rather long time. Not since she was ten, and that was what… ten years ago? Lord, that was indeed a long time ago. He was still sort of amazed she’d found him the job here, back at home. Amazed, but also eternally grateful. He was now in a familiar city. Admittedly, there were painful memories attached to it, memories of the woman he had no longer, but there was a comfort to the familiarity. He could breathe somewhat evenly here, with the sense that he wasn’t about to be taken down by a wrecking ball. There was no wrecking ball in his future, nothing to tear apart the life he was getting for himself here after entirely too long and too short a time.

But he could smile at her now, be sweet to her because he honestly had missed being with family. She was family. And she was the good sort of family, so he was even more glad to see her today—and one of the reasons he was willing to splurge in order to feed her. He grinned at the thought. “Really? I don’t look any different? I would have thought I’d have new bags under my eyes and countless wrinkles from laughing and stressing.” He shook his head to himself, making light of the situation as well as he could. There was nothing wrong with all the time that had passed except that they hadn’t spent it together, that they’d completely missed out on each other. He shook his head again, studying her now that she was much closer, much easier to see. “You’ve grown up to be quite the knock-out, you know. It’s weird trying to reconcile the little awkward 10-year-old with this beautiful grown woman in front of me now.” He was teasing her, because he felt that they were at an appropriate stage for such a thing. They got along fairly well, after all.

“While I think we could get several tables freed with our good looks, I think we’d get in less trouble with the reservation I made,” he replied, smiling back at her, and lead her inside. Niceties came first, right? So there would be niceties. “How have you been lately? Other than busy, of course.” He imagined that living on her own and dealing with a boyfriend on top of school and work was pretty much sucking up any life left in her. She’d be fifty before she turned thirty. Life sort of sucked like that. Of course, life hadn’t exactly tried to save his face from wrinkles either. The stress of living with Aurora straight out of college while paying for college and then going with a librarian’s salary… he wasn’t making things easy for himself. But the fighters were the ones who made it through.

They were both fighters.

The waitress led them to their table, one by the window with little twinkle lights around the pain that reminded him of Christmas. He pulled the chair out for his niece and moved to seat himself. “Don’t look at the prices. This is all on me,” he informed her, smiling and trying to look as sincere as he was. He was so grateful for her. And they really needed to reconnect. Hopefully she’d be more comfortable knowing she wouldn’t have to worry about paying for her meal.

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[LARK MARIE HARPER]

Almost ten years. That was a decade of very few phone calls and even fewer chats about the weather and how life was truly going behind the whole 'I found you a job' ordeal. That was what encouraged Lark to contact him in the first place, though she knew that that was not a good basis for initiating their connection again. It should have been inquiries about life and saying that she missed the family that cared, the one that didn't send her into a spiral of bitterness and rage just at hearing his name. The hug did not seem too appealing at first but as soon as she embraced him it was hard not to feel safe and comfortable. How she missed having her family love her, despite how often she tried to claim she didn't need them to function in life.

"Nah, I don't see any," Lark replied with a smile, peering at him closely to search for said wrinkles and bags. Finding none--well, none that weren't expected--she pulled back. "I think you're just seeing things. Hallucinating. Maybe you need to get a new mirror." She teased him lightly, offering a nudge in the arm. Age was nothing new, no surprises. You gained wrinkles and gray hair as time moved forward and it was completely inevitable. For Fabian this was no different, though she figured that a few of them had been added after his wife's death. She couldn't imagine losing someone so near and dear. The one person who was held above all else. The thought of losing Ashton caused her insides to lurch. She didn't want to think about it, so instead trained her full attention on their conversation. At her uncle's complement, she wondered if maybe focusing on the conversation was a good idea; she hid her unease by batting her eyelashes and acting unperturbed. "I try, y'know. My last plastic surgery session is next week."

There was no way Lark would ever resort to plastic surgery, even if she had the looks of a dead fish. Fixing yourself in such a dramatic way seemed a bit unnecessary in her opinion. "Alright fine, take the easy way out," She replied with a shrug, smiling. "I've been alright. Balancing work, school, and boyfriend can be a bit stressful at times but it's not unmanageable." Whenever she talked about her life she felt like there was little to discuss. There were friends around, sure, and sometimes she went out to get a drink or go on a date with Ashton, but those were fewer and farther in between now. Growing up could be such a pain and a major buzz kill in the socialization department. "What about you? Other than work and stuff." She hoped he was coping well here and had at least a few distractions to keep him occupied when not working.

How did one cope after such a traumatic experience? She didn't know.

Lark thanked her uncle before taking a seat, adjusting the menu before her and staring at the picture on the front before opening it. The food looked so appetizing and all of the descriptions made her mouth water. Just as her eyes drifted towards the prices on the right hand side, Fabian spoke up and caused her to look up at him with raised eyebrows. "If you say so. Thank you." It didn't take much for her to notice that most of the people she associated with didn't mind treating her to things, even if it was expensive. She had wonderful people in her life. "So is the job going okay? Do you like your co-workers?" That was important to enjoying a job, even if it wasn't exactly a life long career choice.