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Who: Helen Magnus, Arthur Kirkland/England
What: Dinner
When: Early April?
Where: Starting at his place? We’ll see from there.

Helen had spent nearly four months on the island by now, a relatively short while considering her longevity but long enough to start thinking she might truly be stranded here. That in mind, she had decided to focus her energy on accepting this new path her life had taken rather than trying to figure out how this place worked. And that had led her to furthering her acquaintance with one Arthur Kirkland, physical embodiment of the nation of England.

Admittedly, she’d known him for only a short time, but she found herself drawn to him. Perhaps it was because he had known her once before. Or perhaps it was because few understood what it meant to live so long and he’d been alive even longer than she had. Whatever the case, when the opportunity presented itself, she hadn’t hesitated to ask his company. He still had the advantage of knowing her better than she knew him, but she’d always liked a challenge.

Reaching his door, she lifted a hand to knock.

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England didn't tend to get that many visitors. He was quiet, kept mostly to himself and mostly away from mortals save for the classes he taught thanks to a long-standing awareness that befriending individuals with such relatively short lives only led to one conclusion.

Helen, though, was different. Though she wouldn't have a lifespan like his she definitely understood, to a degree, what it was like. If nothing else that gave the sort of connection that he rarely managed to find in others outside of his own kin.

He was quick in answering the knock when it came, a bright - and slightly surprised - smile on his face as he opened the door.

"Helen. What a pleasure."

She'd always been rather forward, if somewhat less so in more recent years. There was a certain reluctance to form attachments when you knew they would eventually be lost. But with him, she didn't have to weigh the benefits of his friendship against the pain of the inevitable loss. That made this relationship one worth pursuing, even if it meant initiating their encounters herself.

Still, it was something of a relief to see that her presence didn't seem to be unwelcome.

"May I come in?"

"May you-- Yes! Yes, of course, come in."

It seemed the flustered edge whenever he interacted with her hadn't dulled any as he stepped back to usher her inside, smiling warmly. "Welcome. It's just you and I at the moment."

He did have a room mate, but the Doctor was flighty at best and besides, he had the TARDIS.

She'd be lying if she said she didn't enjoy this effect she seemed to have on him. One learned to take pleasure in the little things.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything. I had the time, and I thought perhaps we could both use some company. While the world isn't changing around us."

She still wasn't very fond of the quiet. If she were going to be staying, it might benefit her to find work, something to occupy her mind when the island wasn't playing tricks on them.

"No more than usual, in any case," he replied as he closed the door behind her and moved through the flat, to put the kettle on first of all. Tea was something that didn't need to be asked for.

"I can always use good company. The Doctor is a marvellous conversationalist but flighty at the best of times."

And troubled, of late. Arthur might have a key to the TARDIS, but he wasn't going to intrude on the man when he had so much on his mind.

"I don't believe I've made his acquaintance." Actually, she was quite certain of it. She would think she would remember someone who referred to himself as The Doctor. That, of course, was no guarantee he didn't know her, considering she had no recollection of her previous stay on the island.

"Do you often find it," she pauses a moment, looking for the right word, "unsettling, when our lives aren't being turned upside down?"

"... 'Unsettling'."

Now, there's a word for it. He pauses to think about that, hand resting on top of a box of loose leaf tea. The word comes out quiet, contemplative, as he slides the lid off the box and sets it down.

"At times. The anticipation of an event can often be worse than the event itself."

"I never had quite so much time to sit around waiting. I had my work. And rarely did anything ever go according to plan." Which is to say she misses it, she misses the excitement, the rush.

"It's too quiet here, too ordinary in those moments when we aren't being toyed with. I find that difficult to trust."

"Peace isn't a natural state," he muses, turning his back to the counter and leaning against it. "Not for humans, or for my kind. It's something we aspire to but never find comfort in, don't you think?"

He understands it to a degree, and yet he doesn't. You would think after so long a life that the answers to such questions would come with experience, but they don't.

"What else would we aspire to if we ever truly found peace? Can you imagine how dull life would be?" No. She'll keep her chaos, thank you. "It's terribly overrated, much like happiness. We're so focused on chasing after it, we fail to realize when we've already found it."

Arthur has never enjoyed war, but he's lived long enough to know that peace is always an impossibility. It isn't in the nature of humans, or the nature of anything to find peace. It's entropy, and life fights against it.

"You know, those kinds of things are often said, but I think it takes far more than the span of a normal human life to truly realise it."

That's a part of the problem, she thinks. It's easy to see the world in extremes, black or white, right or wrong, war or peace. The shades of grey are more difficult to accept, the reality that those extremes must coexist for progress to continue.

"Then it's fortunate we've had that kind of time. Can you imagine a life so limiting, forever struggling toward something which cannot be attained?"

Not that her longevity doesn't have it's downfall. It's often more a curse than a blessing. But it is the life she has to lead.

"I.. very much can, unfortunately."

Even with as long as he's lived, even being what he is he still has his own individual wants. Things he won't ever be able to reach, or things he had once and then lost through his own foolishness or overreaching.

"Realising that something is unattainable.. I don't believe that it keeps us from attempting to find it."

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