Most might think that the longer one stayed in a certain place, the more it would begin to feel like home, like one never really left the place that they once missed so dearly and yearned for with such heartache. However, this had yet to be the case for Maera. Perhaps it was simply because she had yet to truly try and befriend another. Maybe she was trying to hang on too tightly to her homeland that she had been near driven away from all out of a mother and father's want to see that their child was safe and given the proper chance at a full life when they would surely insist that they themselves already have had. Whatever the reason or the cause, Sacrosanct still felt no more like home than it did the first day she had arrived within its confines. Yes, the street names and large majority of the stores and restaurants were easily recognized by the young witch, but that didn't make them familiar. To her, there was a vast difference as gaping and dividing as the sea separating her from Ireland between being something recognizable and something else being familiar. For Maera, familiarity meant striking to life a warmth and a comfort within the soul. It was knowing that everything else could change or shift and yet there would always be that one person, place, or thing capable of easing the mind easily driven to wandering or soothing the restlessness of a spirit grown weary and lost. Even her own house that she had been lucky enough to rent and strike up with the owner a sort of payment plan to eventually allow for her to have paid him the price of the comfortable home after a while didn't truly feel like a home should. The furnishings were pleasant and pretty enough, and in truth she had been rather excited when she first saw the small chicken coop and gardening areas in the relatively large backyard, the idea of being able to bring back into her life at least a fraction of what she had left behind offering a balm for her homesickness... but still she would go about her daily life of cooking and cleaning without feeling the warmth or contentment she remembers all too well from when she had lived on that small farm in the rich, green hills of Ireland.

Even with working two part-time jobs, one with a florist in the heart of downtown and the other at one of the few markets that strictly sold produce grown or raised by the farmlands that surely had to be out there somewhere beyond the city limits she had yet to really feel a curiosity to explore, there still seemed to be plenty of time at some point within each twenty-four hour span that she would find herself lost in remembering better and brighter times in her past. Like the first time she had been able to ride Nóra. The beautiful mare of red-russet hue and splashes of ivory had been gentle and kind, one of her favorite companions when she had been younger and before she'd found Eurostar. She had been thirteen when her father brought the mare onto the small farm to replace the old gelding that they'd retired and sold to a nearby family when he had grown too tired for the work of pulling the plows and carrying out the duties expected of him. It had been love at first sight for Maera, and she had begged countless times for permission to ride the sweet mare who, at that time, and very well dwarfed the young girl in every meaning of the word. It wasn't until she had become older that her father had finally given in to the unrelenting pleas, although not without reminding Maera that Nóra was not just some pleasure pony to be ridden around on the property and that her responsibility to help him keep the land groomed and healthy for the vegetables, wheat, and hay would always need to come first before any degree of fun could be had. Happily agreeing while also understanding the vital part that the clydesdale mare played in the welfare of her family, it wasn't but a few weeks that she had almost naturally taken to the feeling of what it was like to ride. Nothing had compared to the countless evenings where she would ride Nóra to the furthest hills of the farm and sit beneath a tree to watch the sun disappear somewhere beyond the horizon. This was but one thing that she missed about home that it almost caused tears to fall from those deep ocean eyes on those nights when she was alone in that house, staring out the bedroom window and allowing her spirit to run far away from here and back to the little farm that would always be her one true home.

It was this ever-looming sense of being lost, a wandering soul unable to find something to anchor itself to, that had been why Maera impulsively purchased the acoustic guitar without truly knowing a single thing about how to play the instrument. It was something that helped keep her busy when there was nothing left in the house to clean, when she was not needed at either job and left to try and figure out a way to keep herself busy at that she did not become overwhelmed by the memories and heartache that always seemed to be waiting just around the metaphorical corner when things would get too quiet and her mind had too much time to wander. And, little by little, it was becoming the escape that she had so desperately needed. It was her way of taking the emotions that would swirl wildly beneath the surface and give them a channel to move through so that they did not climb ever higher until they would burst forth with a force like the stormy sea as it would crash ragefully against the chiseled face of a jagged cliff. She had come to relish in the way that slender fingers could carefully pluck at those taught stings and create a beautiful melody that resonated within her otherwise lonely home. She would play for hours until her fingers grew sore, and quickly found that it was the easiest way to help her find sleep at the end of another practically empty day. It especially helped when Eutostar seemed to enjoy the tune that she play, the bird often strutting across the back of the couch or perhaps at the foot of her bed with his magnificent tailfeathers spread and dragging behind him as he bellowed his own cooing voice like he were singing along even when Maera knew he wasn't. And oh, how she would smile and laugh and feel a warmth wash over her as she watched her feathered companion and only friend in this world so far away from the only one she ever wanted to exist in. Without him and his often silly or bold antics, there was little doubt in her mind that she would be nothing but a shell of the being she was before and still fought to remain as.

Only now that she was so close to the man on that bench did she realize how tall he was. While he was sitting as opposed to her own standing position, she could tell by the fleeting glance she gave him as her voice seemed to draw him from wherever his mind had been more than enough to give away at least that much. She almost inwardly braces herself for some sort of cold stare or for him to tell her to go and find another place in the park, but neither is what happens in the next moment. Instead, he shifts in his seat upon the wooden bench and turns to face her, a gentle smile etched into his strong - and admittedly handsome - features. The sunlight touched immaculately groomed dark hair in a soft golden glow, but what stood out most about the man were his deep emerald ey eyes that rested upon her as he spoke in a language she did not know. In that moment, she felt something altogether unexpected and unable to be named. Comradry? Kinship? She didn't know what to call it really, but there was an unusual easiness that settled her once uncertain thoughts simply in knowing how that he was not from here. Or at least, it didn't seem like it. His tenor tones were far from anything like what she was still growing accustomed to hearing from the men in Sacrosanct. It made her all that much more curious about him. He looks back to the still water of the small pond for a moment before looking back to her, his foreign voice offering her a reply to her. She smiles back at the man, but it is a little sweeter this time in comparison to the simply kind smile she'd first given him."It's especially beautiful on mostly clear mornings like this one. Or so I think", she replies warmly before they are suddenly interrupted by the feathered creature whose manners seem to have been left back in Dupont Circle today.

Practically appearing out of thin air, the smokey silver-blue pigeon dives out of the sky and down towards the man without the slightest hesitation as a normal pigeon or bird in general ought to have. It was this sudden and unexpected occurrence that has Maera moving closer to the man and carefully grabbing Eurostar from his knee. A new wave of uncertainty finds her then as she pulls the bird to her protectively, hardly knowing how the stranger should react. She'd moved so quickly and without thinking that she doesn't realize until it's too late that she'd sat herself on the edge of the empty space on the bench beside the stranger. Not everyone likes animals, after all, and she was not about to let her feathered companion get hurt out of some reaction however reflexive or fearful or angry. And yet, no such thing happens, the man instead giving her a wider smile as a smooth chuckle falls from him. There is a quizzical expression that fills her blue-green eyes and causes a single brow to lift in curiosity as the man shifts in his seat and extends his hand out to Eurostar. A subtle bewilderment flickers across her gaze as the man coos softly to the bird, who immediately puffs out his chest and bellows his own deep cooing notes in answer, head bobbing slightly as pearl eyes watch the stranger curiously, content to allow for those fingers to brush against the florescent purple-tinged feathers. She tries not to look as surprised as she feels when he tells her that it was okay and then continues to ask after the bold avian creature who seemed to know he was being given praise and stands a little taller on Maera's shoulder. Her surprise eases into that usual warmth and kindness as she smiles to the man once more."I try not to tell him such things too often so he doesn't get too arrogant", the young woman says in light-heartedly before reached up to gently stroke the bird's wing."His name is Eurostar", she answers before turning her gaze to the pigeon that is still staring at the man beside her inquisitively. She looks back to the man then, that gentle smile of her own still dancing across her lips."I'm Maera", she says in soft accented words before extending her own hand across the small space between them in polite greeting. It wasn't every day that she came across someone that didn't see Eurostar as a pest, and for that Maera was grateful. As unorthodox of an icebreaker as the whole incident might prove to be, this was the first time in quite a while that she felt herself wanting to know more about the stranger beside her.