2025-06-20 - Water Chatter

It's a recreational pool, Silver Brook's. Not even deep enough to dive in, never mind swim laps, but... someone's trying. A long, lean individual with rugged arms and lightly tattooed shoulders, dark hair slicked back wet as he glides half the length of the inground pool in just a few strokes of a front crawl. From the deep end to the shallow, it's not all that far, but the four-and-a-half feet or so at the midpoint are just enough for him to flip himself underwater and emerge in the other direction like a torpedo shot from a sub.

This process repeats, one abridged lap at a time. The swimmer is, for now, oblivious to the handful of other folk out and about on the patio at this hour, intent on his work.

Faye did try swimming on the beach, she always does and she always learns she probably should not. The alcohol and pride often makes a ginger forget about sunshine being such a mortal enemy. So here she is, wandering into the pool and patio area of an apartment building, looking for some lovely shade.

The pergolas have it. She's kitted up in a white bikini with a bag and flipflops, which makes her look a little bit tan in comparison, but... she's not. She is, however, marked with some uneven lines of sun marking that look like fading pieces of too much exposure, the kind that goes tan on other people while she just... toughs it out. Liam no doubt knows why when he sees her, but she sees him first.

Throwing her things down, she comes to stand on the edge of the pool looking down with her hands on her hips waiting for the man to emerge for a breath.

"This is the lap pool for short people, dummy."

As it turns out, despite the water and his light exertions, Liam does realize he's being addressed, pulling up to the edge of the pool beneath Faye with a wan, ironic smile on his lips, that luxuriously full head of hair slicked back by the pool to look far longer than it ever does on a dry, normal day.

"Is it? Someone ought to tell that lake of yours, then," comes the riposte, a dry chuckle following it before he adds, "but forgive me. The truth is, I simply haven't the time to squeeze this in at the beach today." A nod, as his eyes travel up Faye's legs, over the bikini and everything it covers-- or in the case of the attempt at tanning, doesn't-- before his gaze meets hers.

"You were there last time, though. With the wine?"

"On fire? Yes, that was me."

Faye makes a noise in her throat that's a little bit like a laugh after her deadpan delivery of confirmation down at Liam, her mouth turning up somewhat sideways a few seconds afterwards, "Your name is Liam. I only remember that because you look like a Liam and when people have names that suit, they stick. This is why people should STOP naming their kids things that are ridiculous, they'll get stuck at the point of ridiculous and it won't even be their fault..."

Here, she huffs out a sigh, like she's mourning for all the kids with stupid names in the world, but her smile comes back and her hands move to start gathering up her hair, "I have hard liquor this time, wine is too much to transport. I imagine that's not good for your, uh..."

Here she looks at the pool critically with humor before finishing, "Training."

"You'd be surprised at things I've had to do under the influence," Liam replies dryly, still up to his shoulders in the pool, still looking up at the woman from well below knee-level. There's the barest hint of a smirk to his tone when he says that, even if it never visibly reaches his lips. "But you're right, it's hardly a regular requirement. I'm sorry to say I don't recall your name--"

"--just a number of other things," he explains with another chuckle. "If you'd be so kind as to remind me?"

"If I'm going to be surprised, you should start making a list. I want to laugh at someone's drunken shenanigans, not roll around in them myself."

Something about the way Faye says it, she either wants to be impressed or a bit of misery loves company... or both! There's a tiny shift of her body in subtle posing when Liam mentions he remembers things other than her name to note familiar, humor gracing her features, but then she's stepping back away to go dig in her bag for a moment, sunglasses taking perch onto her head, "I'm Faye. Faye Winters. I've not been out of training hereabouts very long, I'm an actress in the Pirate Cove. I used to be a real actress, but mm. That's a silly word for it."

She self corrects with a squint and comes up with a flask in hand to waggle Liam's way, "A set actress, not a stage actress. Do you think I'm short enough to jump in?"

"Charmed, Faye Winters," comes the acknowledgement, and the way Liam says it-- the deep voice, the cultured accent-- it might even be true. Or just a casual expression. One never can tell, certainly not when he doesn't smile any differently, for better or for worse, and only answers the final question with a laugh and the words, "Of course! The water's lovely-- and you're right, not at all suited for training."

He kicks off the wall to give her space, should she indeed decide to slip in, treading water easily... almost lazily, at home in the element. "As far as a list, you might need a sip or three of that to keep awake. In my line of work, performance under duress was a non-negotiable. I've been dosed with quite a number of things and then forced to operate like a normal human being. Sort of takes the joy out of recreational drugs," he admits with a snorted laugh.

Noting that Liam is not likely wanting to partake in a nip at the moment, Faye wanders back to the waters edge while taking a quick swig and adjusting her sunglasses more securely on her head of twisted up hair. There's no real point in putting them back proper if she plans on making a splash, it leaves her face and eyes clear for the long moment of curiosity shot Liam's way.

"I don't need to keep 'awake' if it's all interesting. I'll only fall asleep if you're a boring sod, and even then I'd have to be very tired-- it's easy to shut people up, otherwise."

Faye points that bit out with a sudden laugh at herself before jumping into the water. It is not impressive. It is a lot like watching a kid who just wants to jump into water decide to... jump.

It also splashes the hell out of everything because she doesn't go under, it's just one of those water ambushes that makes her start fixing her hair from falling immediately once she's standing in the water depth, "Shit, I didn't wanna get my hair wet, ughhh-- wait. What do you do for work that notes such particular duress as part of the process?"

The water hits the Englishman full in the face, and he blinks and laughs, enjoying the distraction of the jump but otherwise nonplussed. Once Faye's settled into the pool and asks him about his work, he's more than willing to answer... even if the answer is vague.

"More what I did than what I do," Liam explains, drifting a little closer and keeping his voice, low, conversational. Words carry better over water than air alone, and he knows it. These might not be secrets, but it's still private conversation, not public. "Only recently mustered out of His Majesty's service. I'd still be serving," he explains--

Then Liam rolls his lean, muscled right arm forward, once, in a circle above and then beneath the water. His shoulder makes a distinct popping sound, and his face winces a touch. "Except for that. Dodgy, post-surgical shoulders are a bit of a liability in the job... or at least the parts I enjoyed."

Faye stops fussing with her hair and drops the sunglasses back onto her face with a tick of finger to make them fall. Melting down to tread water with bend of knees, she ambles in place here and there until it's time for the private confessing of work history. Her neatly kept auburn brows go up a touch before she follows the conversation down to the pop under the water. After staring at Liam and his shoulder in turns she decides to make very simple commentary.

"Ew. Do it again."

Considering he looked like it HURT and this isn't a parlor trick...

Ah. She's grinning and fucking with him.

The simple instruction to do it again is met with a raised eyebrow that manages to convey, in all its subtlety, a certain disbelief that is rewarded when Faye breaks into a grin soon after.

“No,” Liam replies in that same mild, knowing tone, a hint of mischief in his own eyes entirely visible there—no shades for this guy. “If you want to hear that again, you have to earn it.”

Oh…. Now he’s teasing her.

"Don't tempt me. You know gingers are absolutely soulless and exist solely to thrive on wicked glee."

Faye clicks her tongue a few times at Liam while tipping her face to slide her sunglasses down some, a full 'no-no' look for play, despite the spoken temptation. She's smiling all the while, though, and after adjusting her shades, she lunges herself backwards a small amount into lazy backwards glide in the water, "I'll also know you're into very rough play if you go tempting me. I'll have to charge you dominatrix fare."

Suddenly curious, she wonders of the man, "It doesn't bother you now? What do you do here in the park?"

Faye’s note about fares and charges brings a lazy smirk to the Englishman’s lips, and a sharp glint of laughter to his eyes.

“Oh, I’ve never understood gents who paid for that sort of thing,” Liam remarks, taking up the baton from Faye as she floats on her back. “Or paying at all, really. I imagine knowing you’re in with a shot without even trying takes the fun out of just about anything.”

The second question—about the park— receives a shrug, and a noncommittal, “As for this? It’s a means to an end.”

"Oh. I get that. But I meant..."

Faye is amused with Liam when she looks over at his commentary and match of gliding position to laze around the water with company, "I more meant... what do you do now? Nothing to put out the ol' shoulder, mehopes."

She couldn't help but mimick a little bit of accent there at the end of her inquiry, but it's way more cockney-bent.

The attempt at a working-class accent amuses the well-heeled Englishman.

“I sit at a desk,” Liam deadpans, “and watch a bank of monitors. When a tourist does something foolish, I dispatch a security officer to address the foolishness.”

He essays an idle splash of water in Faye’s direction. Nothing much, just a playful flicker of crystal liquid toward her floating torso.

“It’s all terribly boring. No, the point of being here is the potential of adventure after hours.”

"If you say so. I'm only here for the mid-life crisis."

Faye is dramatic and hard to pin an age on, which means she's either kidding or not kidding with no context to be had. It almost feels like she's putting him into one of those 'positions' where laughing at the joke is the only answer, because if he AGREES she's old enough for such a thing...

Either way, she glides along, "Have you found the adventures you seek thus far into the voyage?"

Discreetly and politely, perhaps-- or maybe it's just down to an uncertainty around the woman's indeterminate age, Hollywood being what it is-- Liam non-answers the remark about a midlife crisis, choosing instead to tread along beside Faye as she floats. Again, with the plink of a finger, he splashes the ginger beauty with a gently-traced arc of water across her chest.

"Not yet," he admits aloud, answering her question about adventures. "But then again, I'm only just getting started. I suspect this place has far more secrets than I'll find answers in the short term... wouldn't you agree?"

"Oh, no doubt. But you're so damned hopeful about it, it's adorable. You'll find exactly that. Keep thinking just so..."

She's not being adverse, Faye is seriously giving advice with another tick of her sunglasses down her face, leaning into 'old and wise' mode. That or she's just had a healthy dose of bullshit in life because after another push off lunge from the bottom pool floor to speed her glide through the water, she says, "I'm suddenly very aware I might be slightly bitter, but honestly, it's because the older you get, the less fucks you give."

Maybe true. Maybe not. She sounds like she knows what she's talking about and covers it up with a sudden squint at Liam with curiosity, "How old are you?"

Liam laughs at the question. Oh, he’s listened attentively enough to her before that, but he’s clearly been wondering the same thing about Faye. His answer, when it comes, is cheekily noncommittal, delivered with a knowing grin.

“I don’t know,” he says, pleasantly. “How old do you want me to be?”

He lets the line settle for a beat, then adds with an insouciant smile, “Honestly. Giving fucks isn’t an issue for me, it’s people wanting to keep them that complicates life, you know?”

Faye breathes out a quiet huff of laughter at Liam's response and makes a noise that is very similar to 'touche' without the actual word-version. Maybe men don't like to be asked about their age either! Turnabout is fair play! Also, it's cute, so there's that. She angles herself with one arm sweep and swish and turn toward the edge of the pool where she left her flask, complaining over her shoulder in brief,

"You should know the flask isn't my philosophy juice, that's the wine. I'm very apt to just get distracted and call you pretty to shut you up if I get bored."

This woman might not actually need alcohol for that part, but... she turns to gesture toward him with the flask before drinking.

"As for age, I want you to be a hundred and twenty-two-year-old vampire born at the turn of the century. Do they have those here?"

The question, as so many before it, earns a wry, amused look from the Englishman. Lean and hard-muscled he might be, but his eyes aren’t hard. Those eyes sparkle with laughter.

“If they do, they’re well-hidden,” he quips of any ancient bloodsuckers. “I’d likely have orders to take them down if we had that sort of intel… and though it seems I’m regularly mistaken for one, sadly, I will reflect in your mirror.”

Again, that tight-lipped smirk. It’s impossible to say if he’s serious.

“What’s that you’re drinking again?”

"Mm. Right now, it's brandy in the flask. Strange 'casual' flask choice, I know, people tease me about it, but honestly..."

Faye wags the flask into a little shake next to one of her ears so she can maybe gauge how much, if any, is left inside. Seems fine, she stops it off and continues, "I think it's just because they didn't think of it first. It seems posh as hell for a woman to carry around nips of brandy for wits or giggles like Scarlett O'Hara."

Sinking down into the water, she plays a fingertip absently around the engraving patterns on the silvery little flask. Posh may not quite be the word for the flask or brandy, really, but the vessel is pretty.

"It seemed like a strong Hollywood woman drink when I first started. My head is dramatic. Now it's a bit of habit."

The talk of Scarlett O’Hara goes right over the head of the young British officer, or former officer as the case may be. Or not. He’s been somewhat cagey on that point.

“A habit,” he repeats blandly. The question that follows comes as he continues to tread water, never really seeming to tire of the pool. “Do you call it that because you’re tired of it and want to be done? Or from a certain fondness?”

"It was cute at first. Then less so. Then it was a lifesaver, sometimes I hardly use it at all, but..."

Faye's fingernail ticks the silvery surface a few times before shooting a vaguely lopsided smile over Liam's way. She puts the flask back poolside with a little shrug, more thoughtful than anything. After pulling her glasses from her face to put aside with the drink, she starts to let her hair down from twisted up dry state. It was already struggling to stay up and fully out of the water anyway, the way she was gliding around and splashing/getting splashed.

She speaks while working the auburn twist of layered waves down, then dunks herself when finished.

"Everything changes. It's a constant that still feels like me. You keep those."

For his part, Liam nods along noncommittally. It’s impossible to say if he’s encouraging the actress or simply being polite. He does pay attention as she lets her hair down, though, then dips under the water.

When she emerges, he nods again, but with what seems more finality.

“You’ve seen more change lately than you’d like,” he guesses, though he puts it as a statement. It’s a heavy thought… so he livens it with a following, teasing quip:

“Are you quite sure that you are not the hundred-year-old vampire in the youthful body?”

"Mhm."

Faye uses that droning noise from her throat as an answer to both supposition and question from Liam, her mouth turning a lopsided grin. She busies herself with wringing out some hair over a shoulder, eyes squinting over the man's way.

"You're perceptive. I like to think I'm not transparent. Were you always able to listen to people and piece them out, or did it come over time on the job?"

The curiosity from the wet, auburn-haired woman is suddenly genuine, the compliment turns inquiry while she watches him and fusses with her wet hair.

Liam’s answering smile is calm and unruffled, accepting the compliment and the curiosity alike in their turn. He kicks out a few feet to where his feet can touch the floor of the pool, closer to her again where he can lower his voice and still be heard.

“I’ve had… certain training, to be fair,” he admits, eyes meeting her perceptive gaze. “But what you’re observing is more due to my upbringing.”

“Does that surprise you?”

"Not really, not based on what you've told me. And you've the way about you, the way you listen and pick out the meat of what's being said or implied. I'm not always serious, but I suppose I hide a lot in that too, so."

For a moment, Faye tilts her head and sudden flashes a grin over at Liam, "I am wearing a white bikini, though, so the fact that I'm wet in a pool might make me harder to listen to. Kudos."

There's a pause, then a bounce back to curious, "Do you miss it?"

Again, the kind words are taken in stride, a mannered dip of his head and a faint smile the silently communicated language of gratitude. Noblesse oblige, indeed.

It’s the blunt calling-out of her own attire that gets him grinning crookedly.

“Oh, trust me, I haven’t missed a moment of that,” Liam says of the white, wet bikini. “You’re a delight to look at, Ms. Winters. I’d be a fool to pretend otherwise. But it’s very similar—you ask if I miss the world I grew up in. I can’t. I can return to it whenever I like.”

He shrugs his shoulders, smiling still. “All things in moderation, yes?”

"For smart people? Yes."

Faye breathes out a quiet spill of laughter before leaning against the edge of the pool with her back and reaching for another nip from the flask. It's offered his way, whether he wants to partake or not, but there's none of that 'I am drinking so you drink' pressure about it. Maybe she's just proving a witty little point with the extra drink. She doesn't seem drunk, just a little flushed from that or sun or both.

Thankfully, a lot of the pool is shaded with the sun angle and building/comfort obstructions around at the moment.

"There is such a thing as overstaying welcome in life, I suppose. That and I keep telling myself I was fucking bored, even though I can still swear my life was fabulous."

This time, the younger man accepts the flask. He is younger, that much is clear, though he hasn’t said how much—and the faint network of scars around the muscles of his right shoulder and upper pectoral hint at perhaps having seen more years than his comparatively youthful face does.

“So this, then? Is it exciting enough? A response to boredom?”

He takes a swig of the brandy, a healthy swallow, before offering it back to her rather daintier hand. An unspoken addendum to the question hangs in the air.

"Oh no. This is money and a much smaller stage for dress up. I've ended up here, there's certainly no adventure quest."

Also if he means the booze, it's clearly not enough-- she just kind of looks at the flask with mild amusement before taking her own mini-swig on return. Set aside, Faye forgets about the flask and her head moves into a tiny, decisive shake while answering, her brows knit into a mild frown, "I mean, it's certainly not what I expected in life, but there's definitely worse places to be."

The redhead never really looks uncomfortable in natural context, but suddenly she adds, "... and it's different here. Didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing."

That part is hesitant, like she doesn't have words for the weird parts of the park yet.

"Quite right," Liam asserts in an approving response, his own take on the difference of Spellbound delivered subtly. The very ambivalence of his expression gives it away even before he expands on the thought. "I've yet to develop any... personal 'powers', or afflictions as the case may be. Heaven save me if I sprout a tail like some of these poor sods."

Shaking his head with a smirk, strands of unruly brown hair begin to fall down into his eyes. Unconsciously, he pushes them out of his face again as he tells Faye, "I can't think of a better reason than that to go seek adventure elsewhere... but to each his own, I suppose. Or hers."

His eyes focus on hers now with a certain intensity. "Have you been touched by it yet?"

Faye has seen so many people in costume, it never seemed to occur to her some might actually have tails, not at this point. Now she realizes it might just be so with a widen of her eyes at Liam the moment he says it, breathing out a weak half-laugh at his joke. Distracted, she lifts a hand from the water to arrange some of her own damp hair strands from sticking to her cheek and neck, "I suppose there's a market for actual tails on Amazon, it might damn well be someone's fetish or dream..."

She adds to the quip before sitting and dropping her hand back into water once more, watching it swirl beneath the surface. Faye has to consider Liam's question seriously, and she's not in a rush to do so. After a moment, she speaks with head shake, explaining, "I don't think so. I don't really how to..." Her bare shoulders lift and drop as she eyes company sidelong.

Needlessly, she explains, "I don't have a tail."

Liam does listen well. Faye was right about that. He doesn't interrupt, nor offer any further opinions while she speaks. Only when she's made her own point quite clear-- and that grin of his broadens in response-- does he speak in turn.

"I've noticed," the Englishman dryly observes, with a meaningful lowering of his glance indicating the half of the redhead that remains beneath the water of the pool. Then, as his eyes drift back up to meet hers, he adds, "And far better for you, I think, that you don't. You don't require anything else to draw attention, Ms. Winters, allow me to assure you." There's a pause to let that gentle tease breathe, before he adds more conversationally, "They told us in training that certain things would manifest. I've had an inkling, but it's not something I dare try in water."

Faye does look very like herself again in the moment where she's preening prettily for Liam's compliment her way, smile flashing with momentary pose. Of course, she's not vain enough for it to derail subject change, it's more charming show of appreciation than anything. Her eyes roam over the water thoughtfully after the man mentions an 'inkling'. Her bottom lip is worked between her teeth, she seems uncertain how to phrase what she's wondering. Eventually, after the thick pause, she wonders,

"How do you get an inkling?"

Her curiosity is pretty intense, she's not uncomfortably distracted by her own thoughts now. She's very keen on how Liam thinks he feels.

Something about the prettily polished redhead biting her lip and waiting for his answer... curious, intense, looking at him like that... it wears down Liam's defenses for the moment. It's quite difficult not to simply spill everything, but somehow, SAS training manages to keep his answer just circumspect enough to not give the entire game away.

"I get... tingles," he admits, wiggling the fingers of his right hand in the air between them. "The air feels charged, sometimes. Especially near generators, or the power lines."

"I think it's to do with electricity," he freely admits, even though he probably didn't want to.

"Oh..."

Faye breathes outward in response to Liam's answer and cuts her eyes aside to think for a visible moment. When her gaze comes back to company, she looks at his eyes for a moment, then at the water before knitting her brows. It's unclear if she's confused or what, at least at first, "I get it. I do. About the air? It's ah..." Her teeth kind of set on edge for a tick, as if she's stuck in trying to explain.

Finally, she works something out, "I smoke when I drink, I've been drinking a lot-- I don't always go out on the balcony to smoke. Sometimes, I just blow it out of the window and fan it around, you know...?"

"It's alright," Liam says in what's surely meant to be a reassuring tone, setting a hand on her arm with a light touch. "I won't let... whatever this electric energy is... make itself present when I'm waist-deep in a pool," he chuckles, then gives Faye a frank and curious look of his own. "Now what's this about air? I know you Yanks are so much more fastidious about smoking than we are, you needn't--"

He pauses, then, as if something clicks midsentence.

"Wait. You're speaking about the air. Relative to my own sensations around electrical power sources. Do you think that's your thing?"

"I really didn't think about it, but now..."

Faye shifts in the water with a small turn toward Liam, lifting her hands up to flick water from. She starts to demonstrate, "When I wave the smoke out, I play with it, and it does... exactly what I want it to do. Generally, because I'm drinking, it doesn't register much. But now, it's... shhh."

Okay, Liam just got shushed for not talking at all, she's the one carrying on trying to explain. Instead of continuing with the hand demonstration, she looks out over the water for a speculative moment, then beckons with a finger for the man to watch.

If the man were not aware of what Faye was trying to show, he might not notice the breezing over the water-- it ripples and spreads from the reverb of tension surface when her painted fingertip touches the pool water.

"I think so."

Outwardly, it's not much, it's subtle and controlled, but maybe that's more impressive than shooting off something huge with no control. Either way, it makes her flush with subtle exhilaration.

As she flickers the water at him, Liam laughs, pleased with the light-hearted behavior though with her sudden shift of focus toward concentration, whatever he'd been about to say falls silent. He is a skilled observer, keenly aware of subtle changes in the environment most laymen would miss. Why? Well, that's not something he's likely to speak about without a great deal more alcohol (or lip-biting, at the very least)... but the bottom line is that he does, and that's enough.

Does feel the shift in the air. Does note the breeze over the water. Does note the way it echoes the tiny, concentric ripples in the pool eddying out from her painted fingertip.

"Impressive," he whispers, eyes darting from the ripples back to Faye's face.

"... I think it was, yes."

Faye seems a bit hesitant to lift her finger from the water surface, the directed breezing has stopped. She seems somewhere between afraid to move and... well, wanting to do it again. There's no real point in hiding her exhilaration; it's automatic adrenaline and surprise, even though some piece of the woman still seems awed into stillness for whatever reason. When her eyes cut to Liam, her mouth slips into a shit-eating grin, confirming

"... anyway, don't try yours in the pool. I think I just leveled up or something. Yours would hurt."

Pause, "Did you see that?"

Finally, she starts to move, but doesn't seem to know what to do, so she dunks herself to be sure she's not drunk.

His agreement that yes, trying anything electric in the pool would be unwise can be taken for granted. Liam observes Faye's awed reaction at the moment of self-discovery with a quiet, thoughtful smile.

"I did," he begins to say-- and then she slips underwater. Half amused and half concerned, he takes a puzzled step closer into her orbit, hands slipping under the water in the event she doesn't resurface immediately....

To be absolutely certain she did what she did, Faye stays under the water just long enough to be a little dramatic, in lieu of popping right back up. Besides, Liam is standing there waiting, it's not like she's in danger of drowning herself, and she's not so short as to be underwater in the long term with the pool built like it is. When she comes up, though, she takes the guy's hands nearby and part of his wrists while pulling back from the water and batting water from her eyes with a laugh.

"Okay, good. I had a very worried moment this was a weird fever dream, but I think I just got overheated and head rushed by..."

Not the flask. She doesn't look that way at all, she looks at the water surface, then all the encompassing air around them a bit slowly.

"We have to find the best way to herald yours in. The best place to let you feel and see what you can do."

Kind of sounds like a magical Bar Mitzvah being arranged, put like that, but she's so flushed and giddy at the moment, excited for future-Liam feeling what she feels now.

Liam nods among, slowly. Not quite understanding but one can sense that he wants to, at least. This woman’s hands on his wrists are grounding, and as he nods, eventually, something clicks.

“Do you think there’s a… trick to it, then? A way to focus and… make it happen?”

"Maybe. Probably. I don't know."

Faye is far from helpful while considering Liam's question, hands falling away gradually while she's thinking. After a tiny shake of her head, she makes supposition and some theory instead of actually answering with any real affirmation beyond 'just try it', all told.

"It was one of those things I've been doing here while smoking on the balcony, something I just realized was... intentional, but not? I suppose everything makes better sense in retrospect. Anyway, everything I have read or seen generally implies magic is about will and uh. Bending it. Or maybe you just need a lot of willpower and focus, I just know I wanted something to happen and I was so nonchalant about making it happen on accident, it gave me confidence. I basically told the wind to blow."

Pause, "Then it actually happened."

Still weird.

There's a long moment where Liam just considers what Faye tells him about her experience, lips pursed in thought.

"Focused will," he finally mutters, head in a different place all of a sudden-- far away and dislocated. "I can certainly manage that." A curt nod punctuates the understanding, before he seems to remember where he is and offers the redheaded woman a distracted smile.

"Thank you. It was an honor to be here for it. I should go, though," he supplies, glancing for the first time at the face of his waterproof diver's watch, a thick black band around his left wrist. "Schedules wait for no man."

The way he pronounces 'schedules'-- like 'shed-yoo-ulls'-- is prim, proper, and to American ears most likely patently ridiculous, but he's all business now. It's been a pleasant morning, but there's work to be done.