WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS, [HAYLEY]

[LARK AUGUSTINE]

It wasn't like her to take sudden detours without a good reason.

Lark didn't make it out to California that often...she didn't really travel much outside of South Dakota's state lines unless she was needed. The only exception to that rule, a newer one, was in regards to her part-time college work. Despite taking distance courses from DeVry, at the end of each class she was required to make the trip and take the exam on campus in sunny California. She only had a small handful of general courses on her plate at the moment, just enough that she could safely afford while still keeping food on the table, figuratively speaking -- but it still worked out to about three or four trips to the west coast per year. And really, it broke up the monotony to some extent. Lark would never say that working at the diner was dull, because it wasn't, and she was not ungrateful to Penny for providing her with a job, a goal, and a steady if small source of income. Suffice to say however that the sunny weather and sandy beaches were a refreshing change from South Dakota's mugginess and wilderness, if only briefly.

Yet Lark hadn't expected to dawdle. She headed to campus, managed her way through an English exam, and made just a brief stop in one of the campus' main student hubs to find some little trinket she could bring back for Penny and a postcard to add to her collection, when she passed something posted on a wall that made her stop, blink, and turn. It was a poster. That was it -- just another poster out of many, this one advertising an art show in San Diego going on that weekend. But besides the necessary information about the event, the entire backdrop of the poster was what Lark could only assume to be a picture of one of the works of art to be displayed at the show.

The brunette wasn't a critic or a connoisseur of visual arts by any stretch of the imagination; she was colourblind, to start, and that usually meant that she couldn't appreciate the beauty of an artist's work like any other person would. She didn't know a lot about paints; oils versus acrylics, or about perspective, or brushstrokes, or anything like that. But Lark looked at the painting displayed in this poster, and she thought, a little quizzically, this is beautiful.

Before she knew it, Lark had ripped the poster from the wall, headed for her truck, and was on her way to San Diego. What am I doing? she wondered incredulously even as she pulled onto the I-5 Northbound and merged with the highway traffic. She wasn't the sort of person to up and head to some art show just because she felt like it. Lark was nothing if not strict on herself. She should be heading back to Rapid City. She'd got her postcards, she's got a stupid bobblehead for Penny to put on her car dashboard. She should not be wasting energy on a five hour trip to San Diego -- she wasn't even that artsy. But even as Lark continued to provide in her head a number of perfectly rational reasons why she should be turning this beat up black truck around and driving back to South Dakota before she got lazy and forgot to pay attention to stoplights, she found herself pulling into the parking lot of a very modern, out-of-Lark's-league arts museum. And the brunette sat there, truck idling in her parking space for a second, in a last ditch attempt to convince herself that she was being stupid. Then she took another glance at the slightly manhandled art show poster sitting in the passenger seat, and she finally turned off the ignition and got out of the truck.

As Lark headed towards the front doors, she could see streams of other people doing the same. Other, well dressed, rich-looking people. Lark glanced down at her blue jeans and green jacket. What am I doing? But then she was greeted by the hosts at the door, and ushered in with the crowd. Fine. If she was going to do this, she just had to be as quick and painless about it as possible. Find that picture, look at some other pictures, appreciate some art, get out. With that game plan in mind, Lark stepped in to the brightly lit main hall and took a look at her surroundings.

[HAYLEY DEVEROUX]

Hayley was excited for the art show today. Most of the benefits were going to go to a local charity to help underprivileged kids. She also knew there were some college students who would be coming around. Sure there were more expensive art collectors about, but there were also a few kids from group homes working as ushers. There were people dressed in expensive clothes, but Hayley herself had chosen a loose gypsy skirt, with an off the shoulder top, her hair up with a flower in it. She enjoyed dressing up, but more so she enjoyed being herself.

The young artist was speaking with a few people about one of her pieces, when she noticed the brunette woman, lingering at the door. She looked uncomfortable being here. Hayley thought it might not be something she was used to. Perhaps she was one of the students that Hayley knew was coming to the show. With a smile, she politely excused herself from present company and walked over to the brunette.

Hayley slipped up behind her, and whispered, "First time?"

Perhaps it wasn't the best way, but Hayley could sometimes be impish. Perhaps it was the creativity in her, but she just smiled warmly at the brunette and continued. "It's okay. I remember my first time at an art show." Gently she entwined their arms and led the girl over to a painting. It had vibrant colors and hard angles. An abstract piece that had already been sold, but wouldn't be delivered until the show was over.

"It can be overwhelming, with the people, and the culture shock." She smiled at the woman again. "But if you take a breath, and let go of all that, you can take in the art and hopefully see the beauty with in it."

[LARK AUGUSTINE]

There were a large number of people milling about, moving past Lark and around her even when she moved to what she thought was a more out-of-the-way area just next to the entryway to drink in her surroundings. Despite her misgivings about coming here, she was impressed with the breadth of the art show itself and the number of paintings set up for display despite her inability to be very appreciative of most of it. She was sure there were colours and shades missing from her perception of them, but they nonetheless looked good to her even as she just stood there, studying things from a distance. The brunette held in a sneeze as a taller woman brushed passed heavily doused in something that was probably supposed to be perfume, and too a step back in order to find some clean air. It was about that moment Lark heard a soft but unfamiliar voice just behind her, distinct form the white noise filling the hall. "First time?"

Lark, surprised that someone seemed to be addressing her in this throng of people, turned to regard a girl around her age. As opposed to some of the more formally dressed patrons milling about the art show, she was dressed casually and seemed quite comfortable and at home -- next to her, Lark probably looked more out of place than ever. "I guess it's obvious," the South Dakota native responded, hands sliding into the pockets of her jeans as she observed the stranger. Soft features; the other girl was all soft features and big blue eyes. "It's okay. I remember my first time at an art show." Lark didn't read any judgement in her expression or body language, which was just as well; Lark was doing a perfectly good job herself, the question ringing about her head -- 'what am I doing here?

But she didn't leave. And, surprising herself a little, she didn't mind even when the strange brunette took her arm; indeed, she obediently let herself be led about the hall. Lark wasn't uncomfortable being touched generally, of course, but even for her it was odd not to feel the need to untwine her arm from that of a complete stranger. Yet she didn't, and simply followed the other girl as she steered them to stand before a painting. The painting from the advertisement, Lark realized after a moment, and for a second could only stand and absorb it. The same bewildered feeling grasped her from before. This is beautiful, she said to herself again, confusedly. Art never really spoke to her like this.

"It can be overwhelming, with the people, and the culture shock," the girl was saying. Lark listened closely, despite keeping her gaze fixed on the painting. She tilted her head slowly, looking at the artwork from a slightly different perspective. "But if you take a breath, and let go of all that, you can take in the art and hopefully see the beauty with in it."

Lark squinted at the painting. "I'm not really into this sort of thing," she said absently. "Usually." And even now, she wondered if she was really seeing it properly at all, as the artist intended, or if the colours she saw were different to other people -- just like the red stop light other people saw as they drove was entirely different to Lark, and required her to instead memorize which glowing light was stop, which as go, and which was yield in order to drive safely. Lark decided it didn't matter. She saw beauty either way. "This one was on the ad," she said, by way of a poor explanation. As usual she probably failed to articulate herself properly, but wasn't paying close enough attention to care so much. Instead she found herself peering at the bottom of the painting -- that's where people usually put their names, right? But if something was there, she was having trouble making it out. Instead she moved her eyes to the brunette beside her. "Who's the artist?"

[HAYLEY DEVEROUX]

Hayley noted a lot of people weren't usually into art. Most of the time it seemed to be the people who never had a chance to be around art weren't into art. At the end of the day there were so many different types that even if people didn't realize it, they were most definitely into some type of art. Whether it be paintings, photo's, sculptures, sketches, everyone liked something. They just maybe didn't realize it at the time, as it seemed this woman didn't.

"That's okay. You don't have to be into it to enjoy it." She let go of the other woman's arm and smiled warmly at her. "Though more often than not, when people usually aren't into something it's usually because they haven't had the chance to experience it. Keep your eyes open and you might find something new to appreciate." Hayley winked.

When the girl asked who the artist one, Hayley just smiled a little more. "Oh I'm sure she'll be around at some point tonight. She tends to make an appearance now and again."

Hayley started walking through the crowd, gesturing for the girl to follow her. "I'm Hayley by the way."

When it came to art, Hayley only ever used her last name, Deveroux. That was her signature, that was the name of the gallery, and unless you actually knew who she was, not many people knew the artists first name was Hayley. That was exactly the way she liked it. Hayley enjoyed spreading the beauty, but she could stand not to be in the lime light all the time.

She lead the woman over to the photo area. There were several picture blown up of of people laughing, some more so macabre with darker themes. All of them were captured moments in time, no one had been posing. Hayley hated making people pose.

"What do you think of photography?"

[LARK AUGUSTINE]

"That's okay. You don't have to be into it to enjoy it." Lark glanced at the girl briefly, before she tilted her head at the painting again. Well, that was a good point. It had been ages since Lark had paid attention to art of any sort; the last time she'd stepped foot in a museum had probably been on a grade school field trip. Not because she didn't like art, but because all the kids and students knew she was colourblind, and they would always drop hits -- usually not on purpose -- that it was a pity she couldn't really appreciate how beautiful that sketch was, or that drawing, or that flower arrangement. Lark had gotten tired of all that fairly quickly and stopped bothering to pay attention to things like artwork. They never believed her anyways, when she said that some of those artworks were beautiful to her, even if she couldn't see what they saw. it'd been ages, since she'd bothered trying to even form an opinion about something like a painting or a picture.

But she did truly like this one. It was odd to consider. The girl next to her mentioned that the artist would be about tonight, which surprised Lark a bit; she didn't really need to meet the artist, or anything like that. She'd been planning on Googling the guy, or something like that. Maybe joining an email list, if she got really excited. Now that she thought about it, though, considering she had literally dropped everything to come to this art show some hundred miles out of her way, it might be nice just to see the person responsible for making this thing. If only to match a face to the style.

Again, Lark was surprised when the other woman gestured for her to follow as she moved through the crowd again, but she followed anyways. I'm Hayley by the way," she mentioned as she navigated her way through the crowd. Lark sidestepped a portly man laughing a little too heartily and stretched her gait to match up with Hayley's. "Lark," the brunette responded automatically, before remembering to elaborate. That was the problem with having an animal's name. "My name is Lark." They ended up stopping infront of a bunch of blown up photographs, which Lark inspected with the same cocked head she had used staring at the first painting.

"What do you think of photography?" Hayley asked her. She wasn't sure how to respond; she really only ever saw photographs in old family photo albums, and in frames on the walls of Penny's shop. Lark was fairly ignorant to photography as an art form. But as she looked between two pictures side by side, one cheerful and the other more like a horror story, Lark found she liked them. Liked looking at them, anyways. People, human beings. She was always absently watching people when she went places, wondering about them, content to pay witness to their lives even for the short second they were in her view. This was something similar to that; catching humans at various instances, in various emotions. Hell if Lark could properly put those thoughts into words. Instead, "They're nice," is what came out of her mouth. Lark mentally huffed, tried again. "They're...real," she struggled to explain what she enjoyed about them, and gave up after that lame attempt.

She was attracted to both the macabre and the joyful picture, equally. Both were real. One made her happy, and one displayed unabashedly what humans were also capable of. A lot of pain. Lark looked at both in turn. "Does the same person do all of this stuff?" she asked of Hayley next to her.

[HAYLEY DEVEROUX]

Lark seemed to be more into the photography than the paintings. That made Hayley smile. She had been about to reply about the artist, when the world was pushed back and away. A distant look came over her face as the voices of angels filled her head. To anyone who wasn't attuned or wasn't a fallen, the voices would be shrill and piercing, enough to blow out their ear drums. To other fallen - the ones who didn't know what they were - it would make them think they were going insane.

Hayley had learned what she was, knew who she was, and luckily for her, Hayley knew how to hide well. The angels whispered in hushed, rushed voices inside her head. They spoke quickly, and honestly Hayley had no idea why they were saying what they were saying. Then again she wasn't sure if the angels could control what the fallen could hear or what they couldn't. She imagined that was why there were suddenly bursts of white noise that fill her head. The angels way of keeping their words from being heard.

"The fallen have been located. Our soldier approaches. They must die so they can not be used against heaven."

Hayley gasped, taking a step back. Now, she wasn't the only fallen in the world. There were plenty of them, and the angels weren't being specific. Had her cover been blown? Had heaven found out who she really is? How though? She had been so careful to keep a low profile.

Without even realizing she was speaking aloud, Hayley said, "The angels are coming for me."

[LARK AUGUSTINE]

Lark slowly canted her head from the left side to the right, taking in the artwork from an alternative perspective and squinting a bit, as if by doing so she would see something entirely different about the works which the brunette had failed to notice earlier. Lark didn't bother paying attention when another stranger jostled her shoulder a bit as he moved past; Lark didn't know what the typical expected crowd was for a function like this, but for her standards at least, it was busy. The mix of voices, loud and quiet, was almost entirely ignorable given that it was very similar to the white noise which seemed to always sit like a constant, quiet murmur at the back of her head. The only different from the white noise filling the art gallery and that in Lark's head was that the humans were speaking English and the angels, of course, went on in Enochian. This was probably why Lark failed to notice at first that the angel's voices were growing louder, sharper, given the cacophony of sounds echoing through the vast space in which she stood, but it seemed like all at once Lark was frowning at the more macabre photo, hands pushed into her pockets, while the angels' strong tones rang loud and clear in her ears.

The fallen have been located. Our soldier approaches. They must die so they can not be used against heaven.

Lark's frown deepened at the photography, no longer really seeing it. Already her head was throbbing a bit even though the voices had quieted just as quickly as they'd grown in volume, leaving her standing there trying to remember exactly what she'd been doing or thinking before her siblings' voices had jumped to the fore. Of course she couldn't. Instead she could only focus on the message that she had just overhead. What an irritatingly vague thing to say. Lark couldn't helped but feel both tense and somewhat annoyed at the same time, even while her hands closed to fists in her pockets and her jaw clenched. "The fallen" -- that could be referring to any fallen, it didn't necessarily mean Maion, specifically. But then were her siblings referring to more than one fallen, as in, plural? Even as the brunette considered these questions, she started turning her head this way and that, eye roving over the crowd as if expecting to see -- what? A vessel coming towards her with the angel blade held up so that she'd know it was one of her brothers or sisters? She really didn't like being so paranoid. But she also knew that she was vulnerable. Hell, most of the people in this room were vulnerable, if it was one of her more bloodthirsty brothers. Including the girl -- Hayley -- who'd --

"The angels are coming for me," Hayley blurted next to her. Lark blinked, and turned from unconsciously glaring at an elderly man to give Hayley a sort of half-frown. She hadn't heard that properly, had she? She couldn't have, because that would be way, way too much of a coincidence. Still, Lark found herself scrutinizing the girl she had originally took for a human much more closely than before, even as her eyes dashed briefly around the room to relocate the exit and their distance from it.

"Angels?" Lark repeated slowly. "You heard them?" She stepped closer to Hayley, because she could replay the girl's words a thousand times in her head and yes, she'd heard them right. And if an angel did decide to try to ambush them in this crowd, Lark wasn't going to waste time clarifying -- she wanted to be close enough that she could just grab Hayley and make a break for the door if need be. However terribly that would probably end. Lark pulled her hands out of her pocket, one of them curled around the swiss army knife she always kept in her jacket. She didn't know how Hayley knew the angels were after her specifically, if she was one of the fallen, but all of that was secondary to Lark current primary concern. "We need to leave. Now," she said firmly. Getting caught in an enclosed space wouldn't do anything for anybody. So Lark reached for Hayley's arm, intending to drag her quickly towards the door.

[HAYLEY DEVEROUX]

When Lark asked if Hayley heard them, she couldn't help but be surprised. Her blue eyes widened in shock, her mouth opening in a little 'Oh'. The girl couldn't possibly be another fallen. What were the odds of two of them running into each other this easily? Hayley hadn't felt especially drawn to her - at least not in a supernatural way. Lark just looked like she felt out of place, and Hayley had a big heart, always wanting to make people feel comfortable.

Before Hayley could register what was happening, Lark was dragging her towards the door. This was not good. Hayley wasn't really a fighter, so much as she was a hider. She'd been doing a bang up job of it so far. Now she had to wonder if the angels had set this up - two fallens in one place. If Lark was a fallen.

"Whoah, hey," Hayley said as she was lead through the people. Her agent gave Hayley a funny look, but she just lightly shrugged, knowing that if the angels were on their way that it could potentially be a problem for all the humans inside. Waving off her agent, she went with Lark, wondering honestly just where they were going

"Whoah, wait a minute!" Hayley said once they were outside. "Of course I heard them. Did you hear them?" She stopped just outside the shop, extracting her arm from Lark's hand, and looked at the other woman curiously. Again she asked, "Did you hear them?"

[LARK AUGUSTINE]

NO SUCH THING AS COINCIDENCE  

"Whoa, hey," Hayley said as Lark pulled her across the room, ignorant of anyone she happened to bump past on the way or their offended expressions. Instead she kept scanning the crowd, a very human reflex to the knowledge that a threat may be on the premises. It really was useless for trying to locate any angel, but still the brunette couldn't help herself from doing so. Once they made it to the doors and outside, Lark's tension eased in some respects as at least there was less of a civilian crowd to deal with in case of an angel's imminent approach/attack. Lark stopped briefly, looking about the parking lot briefly -- where the hell had she parked the truck? "Who, wait a minute!" Hayley protested a second time, dragging Lark's attention away from where she had just located the black Ford ad back to the girl at her side. She'd forgotten herself for a moment, intent on finding some area of safety for them -- Lark relaxed her grip, and Hayley relaxed her arms. "Of course I heard them. Did you hear them?" Lark's lips thinned, her eyes jumping around the parking lot again. While being out in the open helped the civilians within the art shop, it definitely didn't help them. The brunette had thought the answer to that question fairly obvious given the circumstances, but then again she really hadn't said a word since dragging the girl -- the fallen? -- out of the building. She glanced at her truck again as she half-nodded, much more concerned with trying to spot this soldier that may be on their trail. "Did you hear them? Hayley asked again.

"Clearly," Lark responded, taking the opportunity now that she was no longer gipping onto Hayley's arm to pat down her jacket pockets, then her jeans. "This is too much of a coincidence," the brunette muttered. She sighed softly, figuring there was really no way to go about this delicately, not when there was possibly an angel on their heels. "If we both hear them, that doubles our chances that the soldier they sent is targeting us." Lark found what she was looking for in her right back pocket of her blue jeans, and pulled out a swiss army knife. She nodded towards her truck, which was sitting in a more empty area fo the lot, hoping that Hayley got the picture. "Get in the truck," she directed, but didn't take Hayley's arm again as she herself made her way towards the aged black pick-up. She'd managed to pull Hayley out of the show, but Lark couldn't force the woman to follow her if she didn't want to. All she could do was try to keep them both out of harm's way as much as possible. Which is what led to Lark sticking the pocket knife between her teeth to pull up her sleeve to expose her forearm. It didn't occur to her to pay attention to any passersby that might be thrown off or even scared of the sight of her digging a blade into her forearm, but the brunette didn't have time to bother over that in either case. She ended up sticking the knife back between her teeth as she covered her fingers in her own blood, approaching her truck and immediately painting across the surface of the hood. But the truck was slick, and dusty, and her blood didn't take as easily as it might to other surfaces. Lark's brow furrowed in concentration as she looked over towards Hayley again, nodding her head once more towards the cab of the truck. "Get in," she repeated.