For Claire

[1stwitness]

Being around people isn't a bad thing. But for Ichabod, from time to time, it starts to get wearing, and that's when he takes himself off into the nearest patch of wilderness for a while.

The nearest patch of wilderness today happens to be the Milliways woods.

Comments

[1stwitness]

Ichabod looks at her quickly.

"Bees? No, I don't hear anything..."

[an_outlander]

Now she just looks surprised. "You don't? But it's getting louder..." Claire trails off as she checks again for a nest as they stand in the center of the circle, then shakes her head in puzzlement.

She tries to ignore the sound while commenting, a bit distracted by the sound still, "They're beautiful, in a way. Not particularly well decorated, of course, but it's..." She pauses before finishing, a bit of embarrassment coloring her words as she glances at Crane, "Well, it's almost as if you can feel how this place must have mattered to someone--likely many someones--a great deal, once. Does that make any sense?"

[1stwitness]

"And they may have been better decorated once", he agrees, "in ways that are lost. Paint, flowers... and yes, one does get that sense."

[an_outlander]

"Even carvings would have worn away over time," she murmurs, her face and voice both distracted.

She's not really doing anything more than studying the stones a bit more when she puts her hand on one, and then the buzzing--

Oh, it's louder, but there's so much more than that. There are sensations she has no words for, except maybe it's the moon moving backwards and the sun going west to east, and everything that means must be happening as well, over and over and all at once.

To look at her, suddenly still, it's nothing that happens instantaneously. There's somehow the impression that she's going somewhere without moving, and then something almost like her fading.

And then Claire Randall isn't there--to be precise, she isn't then--any more.

[1stwitness]

"Claire?!" Ichabod stares at the stones, and looks around with little hope of seeing her there - but she's not, and she doesn't answer his call.

He waits a while, just in case. And then he starts walking back the way they came, and finds himself back in the Milliways woods.