I'm a King and You're a Lionheart. /South

Their arms, they reach
They branch like they're trying to catch me
They stand so tirelessly
Outgrown, the sides of roads are mixed in gold
The summer has me, the summer has me sold

When Kiera sings, she transcends the feeble bonds of humanity that hold her down to the dark planes of the world. It's something she's never quite been able to explain, something she only ever seemed to share with a long-gone cousin that left her with an inherent knowledge of the world and a legacy to fulfill, but whenever she can lose herself in the runs of smooth alto that flow over her lips like a creek that knows its bed, she shrugs off the mortal weight that sits heavy on her shoulders most of the time and becomes something more.

She knows that there are better places to share this gift then the smoky interior of a darkened bar teeming with the kind of depravity that would have made Kaelen's proverbial trigger finger itch in less than a second (that's why she shares it where it matters too, words of absolution blooming into still night air, elbow-deep in water as she washes away the sins that people will never be able to cleanse themselves of), but it's good enough for now, adequate money to provide enough money for necessities that she and Aurora won't have to take any more tesserae that they already carry, omnipresent and heavy in the backs of their minds. Besides, Kiera is similar to her infamous cousin in more ways than one. This is her hunting ground, this is where she finds people whose world-weary gazes and whiskey-sweet breath beg for her to save them without ever saying a word.

I see the hints, just picture it
Craving to witness
But we blinked and missed it
Beg to the sky, long days and all night
Beg to the sky, long days and all night

She smiles in a way she rarely does as the microphone presses cool and metallic against her lips, the lean form next to her curled around a guitar, lost in the lulling tide of the music and the cocktail of substances that she knows are coursing through his veins. Despite the sins that would have made him one of the top contenders on Kaelen's hit list, Kiera knows that Ender is a good person beneath it all despite the fact that he doesn't believe it of himself. Does he need to be saved? Certainly. Will she be the one to cleanse his soul someday? Definitely. But not yet. Not while he's still a necessity, not while she still needs him as a ticket to her livelihood. Getting into bars even though she's underage and singing to put food on the table is a good exchange for a few hookups a week. She smiles low and reassuring at her companion as their voices blend into an ethereal harmony, soft and placating as the song draws to a close. All in a night's work.

From her perch on the ramshackle stage, Kiera can spot at least three people who need to be saved. There's a girl in the corner, tear-stained eyes and fresh bruises gracing her cheekbones that speak of a home that she doesn't want to return to. A man with a tan line where his wedding ring should be hitting on a girl that can't be much older than herself (although his kind is more what Kaelen would go for, so lost in their sin that there's not much good left to salvage). A woman swaying on her barstool whose expression is so vacant that it's easy to tell that she hasn't been sober for a month. All of them look so lost and desperate for absolution that Kiera's heart aches quietly for them, a heady blend of pity and remorse that tonight isn't a good night, a busy weekend with too many people on the streets and too high a likelihood of discovery. She can bide her time, though. She's good at that.

Here we are
Rooted deep, looking up
So sun-sweet
Until the fall, we lose it all
Here we are

"You... are so gorgeous," Ender giggle-slurs as they leave the bar's smoke-filled embrace, the last ones out as the lights flicker off, an arm wrapping languidly around her waist.

"And you are so drunk," Kiera counters with a smirk, batting him away good-naturedly. "Maybe when you sober up a bit, Winters. I need to get home anyway."

Kiera is used to walking home alone. Years of Career training and a deadly grace in her movements seem to act as a repellant for trouble as her high-tops slap against the pavement, the sound of it echoing through the empty streets. Three in the morning on a Sunday, the bars are closed and the law-abiding citizens are all home in bed. It's almost deceptively peaceful. She inhales deeply and smiles at the humidity dragging along with her breath, cool and close on the summer night. It smells like rain. As if on cue, thunder rumbles warningly above Kiera's head, a single drop falling on a pale shoulder exposed by a worn old tank top.

"Hello," she whispers, swiping the droplet up with the pad of her index finger, and the water whispers back, all mysterious, divine unspoken language of purity and new beginnings. The thunder grumbles out a bass harmony, louder than before, and suddenly the heavens seem to open. Kiera laughs as the rain begins to pour.

Thin and bare, stuck in the stiff stare
I wait up in the air
That makes it all fair
We stop and grow and stop and grow
We co-exist, flourished and sun-kissed

Her mother always warned that she'd catch her death of cold doing this, dancing in the rain with her head thrown back and her arms stretched skyward in a plea for enlightenment. It goes back as far as Kiera can remember, the water speaking to her like this. From those early days of barefoot puddle-jumping to her more recent ventures, she's always been able to hear the tales of righteousness that the cool droplets murmur to her among the pattering of rain hitting the ground. She writes about it sometimes, weaves it into pretty prose and song that is wasted in the metal cage of a microphone but far more valuable when it pours from her lips as she cleanses the soul of yet another of the world's countless sinners.

It soaks through the thin secondhand fabric of her clothes, drips from the ends of her hair and sends a bone-deep cold all through her, but Kiera remains stock-still in the abandoned back street, sharp-featured face tilted up towards the rain-blurred moon and grinning wide and feral and satisfied as the downpour successfully washes all remnants of the bar and its depravity from the surface of her skin. It starts as a hum, lilting and serene in the back of her throat, but soon it builds, the smooth alto timbre giving way to lyrical melodies of water-music that flow in and out between the soft shhhh, shhhh or rain on the pavement and the thunder that roars ever louder overhead.

Maybe Kiera can't save anyone tonight, but this is good enough.

Anything you'd like
Your back road eyes
They're getting dry and unnatural smile
You're lost in this place, I see it in your face
Lost in this place, I see it in your face

Summer storms are fleeting, fickle. Vicious downpours that can flood a street but are over as quickly as they came, leaving behind nothing in their wake but puddles and the comforting scent of damp earth. The flow ceases almost as if someone Above has turned a tap and with the absence of rain, Kiera's song dies as well, petering off into silence that seems much bigger and less intimate than sound in the cavernous hold of the darkened street. She blinks once, twice, coming down from her trance-like state and feeling the cold far more acutely than she had at first, her petite, waterlogged frame shivering violently as she reaches up and wrings out her more-than-damp hair. It's purely by chance that the movement allows her to spot a shadow on the corner that is moving quite distinctly.

Her mind kicks into defensive overdrive, training instincts whispering to her consciousness in Kaelen's voice. Kill first, ask questions later. Go for weak points - eyes, throat, solar plexus. Don't show fear. Don't show fear. Don't show fear.

time it took us to where the water was
that's what the water gave me
and time goes quickly between the two of us
oh, my love, don't forsake me
take what the water gave me

Kiera’s musculature tenses as the shadowed form ambles into the guttering light of the dysfunctional street lamp, but something inherent in its movement allows her to relax without entirely letting her guard down. She knows people, Kaelen taught her how to read someone’s intention in the flicker of an eye or a curvature of posture, and whoever it is, there’s no malice in the way they hold themselves, merely a piqued curiosity and stoic observation. Her eyes squint through the dim light to find the source of the voice, a male form, slender, much taller than her, not terribly unlike someone she knows and remembers fondly in build and demeanor. However, there are other marked differences.

“Wandering the slums at three in the morning, no one else around, down a dark alley? Yeah, you’re following me,” she offers as a response, an eyebrow rising in challenge. “And that’s not all. Expensive, albeit tacky clothes, new shoes, unbearably foppish bowtie. No one that lives around here could afford those, so you weren’t on your way home. How quiet you were that I didn’t notice you until now, how well you concealed yourself, you’ve had training. Add that to the fact that you’ve tailed me out of the bar I work at despite being underage, only one conclusion.”

Kiera doesn’t know whether to smirk or roll her eyes, so she settles for both, crossing her arms tightly to mask the shivering from the cold that could be seen as weakness. “You’re a cop.” Her eyebrow drifts even closer to her hairline as her eyes are drawn back to the bowtie and the immaculate hair and odd, tawdry mannerisms. “…a strange, fruity cop.”

“Why were you talking to the rain?” he asks, and Kiera is a bit taken aback by it, having prepared for a barrage of scolding for being somewhere she wasn’t supposed to and a pompous assertion that she would be escorted home and fined appropriately. There isn’t any of the doubt in his voice that she’s heard when others ask the same question (she knows to be patient with those who aren’t enlightened like her but sometimes its so hard to think that the water’s wisdom goes unnoticed by so many), only a vague sort of curiosity. “Does it answer back?”

And that’s a question she’s never heard before.

“Yes!” She grins in spite of herself, elated at the prospect that she isn’t alone in her greater knowledge of the world and its intricacies. “Did you hear it, too? It’s beautiful.”