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It's odd, if not entirely unexpected, how everything just seems to go back to normal as if nothing ever happened. That often tends to be the way of things around here, Therese has found, Darrow's residents bouncing back from the latest trauma startlingly fast. Usually, though, it isn't nearly everyone having been gone for weeks that they all have to recover from. Those who were gone don't seem to think they ever went anywhere. Those who are left — well, she can't speak for anyone else, and she can't say she liked all that quiet, but she's still thrown by the sudden shift, the return back to normalcy.

Mostly, and more unexpectedly, she's found herself with a barely noticeable discontent. It's strange in its own right, really, when usually she's fine just to carry on as things are, not looking for much or attempting any big changes. And she's lucky, she knows, to have a job doing what she loves. Lately, though, going back to taking pictures for the paper, she keeps thinking about the weeks she wasn't doing that, her photography on her own time and her own terms. She's always felt a bit too daunted to try to do anything of her own, but it was nice, not having that structure.

Something to think about. She wouldn't be able to stop if she tried.

As usual, she's spending her day off out with her camera, taking pictures in the park, newly filled with people again. In that regard, at least, it's nice to have things go back to normal, and nice, too, to have the freedom she did a few weeks ago. Smiling faintly to herself as she lines up a shot, she then suppresses a wince when someone walks into the frame.

"Sorry," she says, as if she's the one in the way, which she very well might be, really. "I was just trying to —"

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Stopping short, I turned towards the familiar voice, smiling ruefully as I realized my mistake. These last few weeks, I found myself drifting into daydream more often than usual, walking the streets in a kind of dazed autopilot.

"No, this one's on me," I said of her apology as I stepped out of frame.

A little sheepish, Therese smiles appreciatively as he steps out of the frame, checking her shot again briefly before she takes the picture she'd intended to. As ever, after the fact, she doesn't think that much of it, but having been interrupted leaves her more prone to overthinking anyway, and it isn't like she's taking these for anyone but herself. Later, she'll probably be more pleased with it again.

For now, lowering her camera from the strap around her neck, she says, "Thanks." She feels a little silly — and a little strange, too, the way she has every time she's run into Oliver since he showed up again, though that's hardly his fault — but at least it isn't as if it's something that took her very long. "All clear now."

"I hope I didn't throw you off your rhythm," I said, knowing that photography could be like any art— like music, like writing; you got into a groove, and any little thing could snap you out of it. Once that happened, good luck finding it again.

I'd struggled with it, when writing my book, allowing distractions to pull me away when what I'd needed was total immersion. Looking back on it, not even a year later, and I struggled to remember if my heart had ever been truly in it.

Edited 2021-08-10 02:33 (UTC)

"Not at all," Therese says, shaking her head. If she has a tendency to be too much up in her head, too prone to second-guessing herself, to have much success with this sort of thing, that's entirely on her, not anyone else. Interruptions are par for the course out here, anyway, a hazard of taking pictures in a public place. The same reasons she likes taking pictures here are the same reasons it can sometimes be difficult.

In this case, she doesn't mind anyway, despite the inherent awkwardness she still feels. Her smile is friendly all the same. "I'm really just out here for fun. These aren't pictures I'll do anything with."

"It's a nice day for it," I said, pushing through the urge to make an excuse and leave. Despite our mutual politeness, something told me that she might find it as much a relief as I would.

"I think you've had that camera on you, every time I've seen you. It has to be more than a hobby."

"It's my job, actually," Therese answers, smiling a little sheepishly. Even now, she has to push back against the part of herself that thinks he should know this. He did once before, and he doesn't now, and that's all there is to it. She knows she'll get used to it gradually. It's just not a situation she's ever been in before, and one she couldn't have foreseen, either, despite what she knows about this place.

"I take pictures for the paper. But that can be a bit... dry, so today I'm just taking pictures for me."

Nodding, I smiled back. "I think I might've seen some of your work." It was an admission. An apology.

"We knew each other, didn't we?" I asked, with a friendly wince. "Elio showed me his engagement photos."

They weren't our engagement photos, despite showcasing a face that was undoubtedly my own. It couldn't have been me. I knew that, despite all my attempts, I'd never looked so genuinely happy in my life.

Therese nearly mirrors his wince, her nose wrinkling slightly as she nods, sheepish. "We were friends," she replies, light, if a touch guilty. She's never been sure how best to handle a situation like this, and she's not sure she did so particularly well. At first, though, she held off for Elio's sake, when he hadn't wanted anyone else to tell Oliver about his having been here before, and then as they kept running into each other, it simply seemed too awkward to mention it.

"I should've said something," she adds, an implicit apology. "But I wasn't sure how to bring something like that up."

"No, it's... Well, I don't know if fine is the right word, but I do understand," I admitted. Whatever resentment I might've felt wasn't directed at her, personally, but it was undeniably exhausting to be reminded every day that I'd been robbed of the chance at making a first impression.

Perhaps that should've been a relief.

"I wouldn't have known how to bring it up, either."

"It's... not really a situation there are any guidelines for," Therese says, part explanation and part agreement. Knowing things are possible doesn't make them any easier to handle when they actually happen. Besides, she can only imagine how uncomfortable she would be, finding out that a stranger knows her quite well, actually. Between that and how much else she knows he's had to deal with, she could never quite bring herself just to say it and add to any awkwardness.

"And I'm sure it's strange either way, to say the least."

Time has made Miyoung clumsy. She feels wary, even paranoid, in the face of Darrow's citizens reappearing, and yet it's as if she's been dulled by it, lost in a fog of thought. Usually she's so aware of her surroundings, but being out in public like this, seeing strangers who maybe didn't exist for a few weeks there, it distracts her. She wanders down the path, not noticing the woman until she speaks, and Miyoung glances over to see her, holding her camera in position for a shot — which Miyoung is standing directly in the middle of.

Executing a small, apologetic half-bow, still her instinct after all this time, she steps aside. "Sorry," she says. "I was distracted." Her feet only carry her to the edge of the walkway, though, and she turns to look, curious, wondering what the woman wants to photograph.

Of course, now that she's had to implicitly ask someone to move, it all seems a bit ridiculous. It's a thought Therese tries to push back against, something she's gotten slowly but steadily better at doing these past few years, but it rises up now all the same, maybe because of the rest of what's been on her mind anyway. Taking pictures for work is one thing; that's her job, and she's more clearly taking them of something. This side of it, when it's just a hobby, is a little harder to justify, even if it's also the side she enjoys more.

At least it doesn't seem to be a problem. There's never any telling who might get unwarrantedly fussy about having to step aside for the moment. Offering the girl a grateful, apologetic smile, Therese looks back at her camera again and the shot she was about to take — a view of the park, the lake in the distance framed by the bright green of the trees, a few children playing between here and there.

Picture taken, she lowers her camera again. "It's alright," she says. "I was, too. Looking more out there than..." Trailing off, she gestures absently to the path. It's not uncommon for her, but she still feels a little bad for it.

Daisy had stopped a few feet away, comfortably out of frame, but she sees that not everyone has they same decency. The woman behind the camera actually apologizes to the person in her way, like she's the one doing something wrong, and the person doesn't even react.

In fact, they stop entirely in frame, looking at their phone.

"Oi!" Daisy shouts at them. "Move your arse, you're in the shot."

Therese is in the process of biting back a frustrated sigh, about to give up on her intended shot and keep moving, when a woman's voice cuts through the faint chatter of the park. Startled, her head jerks up, but once she pieces it together — whom the woman is yelling at and why — she has to bite back a laugh, equal parts flustered and amused. That the person who'd been in her way glances up from their phone, seemingly clueless, before apparently deciding it would be too much trouble to protest and going on their way, only heightens both.

"Thank you," she says to the woman, reaching for her camera again. "That was very effective."

"Sure," she says. She waits for the woman to take the photo she wants, however many of them she wants, before she continues. "You'd think most people would at least notice when someone talks to them," she says, referring to the way the woman had apologized to try to get their attention.

"You would think," Therese echoes, nodding in agreement, a touch sheepish. Sometimes, when she's actually taking pictures, she manages to think that she's alright at it, even good. In the moments in between, though, especially like this, having been interrupted in the middle of it, she finds that it feels silly, like something she shouldn't be taking so seriously, too frivolous to be worthwhile.

That's nothing to dwell on now, though. "It's amazing how many people just don't pay attention."

"Sometimes people don't like what they see if they look too close," Daisy says with a shrug. She steps closer, until she can see what it was this woman was looking at. "Sometimes, what they're looking at just reminds them of something they're missing. Literally or figuratively." She glances at the woman, then ahead of them again. "D'you mind if I ask, what about this particular view made you want to capture it?"

It's a simple question, but Therese gives it a moment's consideration all the same, expression thoughtful. Even though she doesn't think it's anything more than idle curiosity, there's a part of her that always feels a bit like a fraud — decent enough at what she does, but certainly not any kind of artist. She doesn't want to answer in any way that would make herself sound ridiculous. "The colors," she decides, to start. The trees are bright green, everything in bloom, and it won't be long at all, just a couple of months, before that's not the case anymore. "And the people in the background. Everything was so empty for a while, it's nice to see this place full of people again."

She nods, taking the words at face value. It seems fair enough; the colors are eye-catching, here, and so they clearly caught her eye, as well. Daisy isn't much of a photographer, herself. She might not be good at determining what constitutes art from a creative aspect, but she can appreciate when other people do it.

"Fair enough," she says. "It is sort of nice to see people about again." She jerks her chin in the direction the person had gone after Daisy'd shouted at them. "Except when they get in the way, anyway."

"Except then," Therese agrees with a quiet laugh. She likes seeing the city full of life again, but it does pose the occasional inconvenience. It's probably strange, when she's never exactly been social, more uncomfortable around large groups of people than on her own, but then, she was living in a city before she got here, too. She got used to that, and the anonymity of it. Even without her photography coming into play at all, Darrow being so empty was just unnerving.

"Mostly they don't, at least. Not like that, anyway."

She's pretty, when she laughs, Daisy thinks. She looks out towards the view again, taking in the sight of people walking against the backdrop of the park, and, sure. She supposes she can see the artistic draw, here. A moment captured in time, a snapshot — literally — of city life in a city park. She turns to the young woman again, this time with her hand outstretched.

"Daisy," she says. "Glad I could help you get the shot you wanted, at least."

"Therese," she replies, reaching out to shake Daisy's offered hand. "And I really appreciate it." Telling off strangers is very much not her strong suit, but she suspects that's fairly self-explanatory. She knows that she's quiet at best, perhaps awkward at worst, not very good at speaking up for herself. That's even truer with something like this, when it's easy to tell herself that it's pointless to pursue anything artistic.

"Well, now that you know all about my taking pictures," she adds, a bit self-deprecating, "what do you do?"

"Research," she says. "Sort of. I work at the Archive. We sort of... collect information about all us immigrants, and look into weird stuff that happens to keep a record of it." She shrugs. It sounds fancier at a glance, she thinks, than it actually is."

She doesn't mention that she's also, technically, Archive security.

"Oh, I don't know it," Therese says with a shake of her head, though that's not surprising. Generally speaking, she sticks to what she knows. Work changes that, sometimes, but while keeping those records sounds interesting, it doesn't seem like the kind of thing she would usually be sent to take pictures of.

"That sounds fascinating, though. And there is a lot of weird stuff that happens here."

"So much weird stuff," she agrees with a short laugh. "Did you see the worm thing? A couple summers ago?" Honestly, looking at Therese, she doesn't seem like the type to have been at the festival that had all taken place around. Perhaps for the sales stalls, or the like. But Daisy doesn't think Therese is a 'music festival' type of person, for some reason.

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