And somewhere in the City, there's a spark of fire...
A sputtering trail of a tiny comet from the fingers that launched it to the puddle that caught it. And free now, gloved hands shove into woolen pockets, and the stride transforms into habitual rounds.
Being in the City, well... it's a bit like sleepwalking. The soul switches to 'automatic'. It's about getting from where you're standing to where you thought you should be going. The thousand tiny motions, well-rehearsed...
Monotonous...
But at least there's no end to available pubs...
Footsteps led to well-worn paths, streets and alleys that have heard the echoes of his steps for a hundred years. There's even a rhythm to it. The cadence of I've Been Here...
I've Seen This...
Davydd pauses, green eyes turned to darkness, a moment before crossing into Picadilly to head to parts southwest. Just a glance for traffic, but then it lingers. A rush of pricking skin, like a shiver up the spine. Something on the wind...
And he pivots...
Drancy is trapped, as it were, without really much choice or consideration in what the hell's going on get me the FUCK out of this I don't want to PLAY this goddamn game oh shit ohshitohshit - as everyone knows, the Faerie Folk have a slight weakness when it comes to Cold Steel : iron. They can survive with it, even in this modern world, but... it's a barrier. For those of mixed bloodlines, those lucky or unlucky few, who so seldom know themselves for what they are, well, it's seldom a 'real' issue.
But right about now, Drancy is learning the hard way, several rules of magic which she never previously knew existed.
There is power in blood.
Iron is a barrier to faerie magic.
Reached over as she is from the blood dripping down the tree trunk, Drancy has become a conduit - the blood, the key, and she, the vessel being unlocked, in uncomfortable proximity to the iron railing. Drancy's hair - cut to a midlength pageboy dyed fuchsia - stands on end like living snakes, a medusa style unimitable by modern gels, while she is surrounded by a dull red glow.
This is painful, to say the least; humans seldom act as living conduits for magic, and certainly not without training. Drancy is learning, the hard way. "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!" Unfortunately, her vocabulary is not very imaginative to rise to the occasion.
It's hard to confuse it with any other feeling -- when the power beneath the earth bubbles up. Suddenly. The world for that moment shimmers. A slow eye would blink and think it a momentary lapse of attention. But there's not a single bird on the branch when it happens. Aye, you look for a sudden scattering of pigeons...
And London, so rife with concrete, steel, iron and aluminum -- it just doesn't resonate like this.
Not like ...that...
Davydd turns, pivot complete upon the veering of his rounds, habit broken, and he follows shimmering air, hearing the sudden whispering from city gardens. The limited vocabulary of manicured hedges, flowers that grow in baskets...
This way, this way...
And the monosyllabic translations of stunted roses. No. Yes. No. Yes. Yes...
Their voices, crowded whispers, go faint and then silent, drowned out by taxis. Cars. The sounding of horns, even at three in the morning, singing to the cadence: sod off!
Well, fuck me...
Who set off the beacon of the faerie 'Get It Here' neon sign? In this dead, old Village -- it was the last thing he expected to feel...
Not a happy camper is probably a good, descriptive way which sums up how Drancy's feeling right about now. She's stopped screaming, mainly because she's run out of air - and somehow, that's appropriate, because the filling is similiar to drowning, only without anything -peaceful- about it. Images, unbidden, unfamiliar, fragments of memory, surface in her mind, but memories she never was alive to have.
Quirks of genetic can be unkind. A tattoo may be an image, or a sigil, as Davydd could have told her, or even more, but to Drancy, well, it's just pure bad luck that for the past centuries of passing, and all the rolls of the cosmic dice, it's on her turn that things fell into place. The blood, the fire, the unknown, singing along her skin and eating her alive.
Until, anyway, gravity overwhelms balance, and she falls onto her rear, breaking contact. Promptly, Darcy falls over on her side, wheezing and panting. It's the same quirk of genetics which has provided her with a face - a pair of eyes - which will be immediately familiar to those who Were There. Dimly, she senses things, and as she looks around, the shadows are more alive than they were, and the more dangerous. "What ... what the hell?"
Drowning. Absorbtion. Whether by water or by wood -- or by earth -- it is the same. Enfolding, hardling comforting. When the earth swallows you, she swallows you whole...
Genetic Predisposition. That's what they call Fate and Destiny these days. The gambles made by ancestors locked in the blood and passed from hand to hand, generation to generation. Heredity. Fate. What is the difference. Some are marked, perhaps, more obviously than others. Some are painted blue.
The shadows are alive. They even have a voice, sometimes collective, sometimes a legion. And metal and stone each have a resonance, a voice -- just such low registers, seldom heard by the multitude living around them. But Davydd hears the whispers -- he can even whisper back.
He just doesn't take the time...
His feet were not what guided him, but ears and blood, the shimmering of shadows leading toward what caused first caused the ripple. Street signs, roundabouts -- ignored, he didn't need them as a guide. He wondered how many others felt it and, like he did, forget their earlier paths and turn toward it. This doesn't happen every night...
Shadows are more alive than they were, and among them he moves, appearing somewhere in the god-foresaken east...
Drancy is literally flat on her ass, as she would say herself, staring in stunned silence at the world around her. Things unknown to her make brief appearances, weaving in and out of shadow and light. She doesn't even have the breath to say 'fuck' again, and slowly, gingerly, she pushes herself up to her feet, turning around as she looks with her 'new' eyes. Which means when you step out of shadows, she sees you do so, and her eyes widen in shock and wary paranoia. "Who the hell're you?"
What you see, of course, is nothing terribly prepossessing - maybe five-eight, a shock of fuchsia-dyed hair cut in an untidy pageboy, a ring in her eyebrow and multiple rings in both ears, all along the edges. Torn jeans, a black t-shirt which has seen better days, glow in the dark orange sneakers, and on the back of her hand, a tattoo of a spider. Suddenly, her attention diverts from you for a moment, and the spider on her hand peeeels itself up and off, becoming three-dimensional and real.
This time, she doesn't even curse. "Aaaah!" Drancy shakes her hand frantically, and the spider falls to the ground, and starts scurrying away. The woman looks from it to you and back quickly, eyes wide and alarmed.
Non-plussed, as he can be after some eight-hundred years in this world. He's had his bit of shock, only back in the Old Days, one wasn't really surprised if one saw a pig fly. In God's Grand Universe there was a slot and a sphere for everything. And if something were amiss or awry, well... you could explain it all away with magic and miracle.
Convenient, aye?
So, he stands, the casual spectator, gloved hands in the pockets of his woolen overcoat. Black turtleneck, grey woolen overcoat, grey trousers. Maybe you're good with judging distance and space and those who take up space -- who knows what the evening conceals or reveals in that way -- but a good guess would place him around five-ten. A very solid five-ten. And a shock of bronze-red hair, shorn short to tame the curls -- it's the only thing that works, really. Obliteration. And who knows, maybe you can see that well in the darkness to notice the color of his eyes -- forest green. Or if not, it's just a paler bit of darkness, then, lit with a bit of curious wonder.
My god, don't you seem...well, apart from twitchy and a bit high-strung...familiar? And I'm not just thinking that because it's dark out and I'm a bit moody, you know. A bit bored even. Hands come out of his pockets and arms fold at his chest, fiery eyebrows cocking up. "So, did it give you a toss or the other way around?"
His voice has a warmth to it, with a throaty quality, and a lilt that colors the English un-English.
Drancy is staring at the spider, then the tree, and well, then you, trembling ever so slightly and trying like hell not to show it. While to you, it'd be a relief if she were blessedly unfamiliar, with her, it's the other way round - the unfamiliar is what's dangerous. Mugger, rapist, whatever - and here she is, on overload. It's just as well some wisp of cloud's covered that troublesome moon which was making the blood flow from the tree, though to those with eyes to see, faint traces of power still linger. But even the tree doesn't glow brighter than she is, right now, to that otherworldly sight. Drancy is diverted, though, from any 'sight', by your words, which, judging by her stare, are entirely unintelligible to her, in what they mean, anyway. And so, her response is predictable :
"What?"
"There is a saying," Davydd adds, arms unfolding as he slowly moves toward you and tree, "...whether the pitcher meets the stone, or the stone meets the pitcher, it's going to be bad for the pitcher."
Riot! Classic...
There is a sudden grin. It streaks across his expression like a comet, warming features handsome enough. As much as he ever gives thought to that. Leaning in toward the tree, Davydd tilts his head, eyes searching against the bark as if he were going to be able to see through the bark and to the soul of it. "Noswaith dda," a whisper of Welsh good evening, a bit of a moment taken for the dryad -- if that's what it is -- and then he half-pivots to you again, fiery eyebrows lifted.
And he stares...
The face, where have I seen that face...
And he has to thumb through a lot of mental cards, images, photos, paintings, sketches...
Who...
When...
Where...
"You alright then?" he wonders after, and his voice has gone a bit sing-song in trying to place you. Did I hit on you at Black Jack Davy's and then never call you? God, if I weren't such an ass, it'd be easier to recall...
Drancy stares right back, in the sort of incomprehension that comes from staring at a perfect stranger who is, by all normal standards, acting very oddly. "I have mace, y'know..." Actually, she doesn't, not even carrying a purse, but as a bluff goes, it's not so bad. Or it wouldn't be, if the resurfacing of the dying dryad didn't similiarly spark a slight tremor, miniscule convulsion of magical muscles which have never before been used - and with it, a spate of memory she's seeing for the first time. She sinks down to one knee. "Nnnngh."
Teeth gritted, Drancy manages to force her gaze upwards again. Between the dryad and, well, you, the 'memories' are becoming quite inconvenient. "Who the fuck are you?", she manages to get out past her teeth and tongue. Handsome is as handsome does, and while she'll never be in Vogue, she's not bad looking, but she'd look better cleaned up. And with long, silky, almost asian quality hair, the colour of rich wood, all brown with red tones to it. And - boy, I don't know why, but this is familiar. Her eyes narrow in vague recognition which never was hers, the question taking on new relevance. "All right? No, I'm not fucking all right, just answer the damn question!"
Fingers reach up to scritch at the bronze goatee and green eyes narrow, fixed on you. Dammit, this is going to bother me all night. Finger and thumb capture his bottom lip and give a thoughtful tug for a moment. Fuck it, I was never good with names. Your face though. See, there's something there, lass. In the eyes.
I think the pink hair is throwing me off...
"Mace?" Davydd says suddenly, hands lowering and eyebrows cocking up. "Now, is that any way to be to the one who went out of his way when he heard a young woman screaming out in the middle of the night." He doesn't really answer the question of who he is, he's already in the process of reaching into his overcoat for a cell phone...
Flippant quipping doesn't last and to end the mystery -- or certainly in hopes of it -- the red-head murmurs, "Davydd Llewelyn, just passing by and heading home from the last pub of the night. And you..." A pause. "I'll call you a cab..."
And he waits for a name. And he wonders on the face. He gets caught looking at your eyes. I should know your name.
"Drancy." Well, that does no good at all, the name muttered almost like a curse as she pulls herself upright again, skin still tingling, and her eyes are changeable - a mix of blues and greys and greens which refract the light in different shades depending on the angle. And you mention your own name, and the name sinks in gradually. "Davydd... Llewelyn." And for a moment, there's a lilt to her own voice, echoing a voice that died in a particularly ugly way some centuries ago.
Memory flash behind Drancy's eyes, almost visibly, of being held underwater, struggling against hands doing so, until struggles cease as life flees. She shakes herself violently, to snap herself out of it. "What the hell is going on?" It's a plaintive question, but more quietly asked than before. "Uhh, yeah. Maybe a cab... but what... ah, shite."
A hand came out by force of habit -- again with the habit -- to steady the shake. What the hell is she on? It's a natural question, you understand. Heroin? Acid? Maybe meth. That'd explain all the twitching. The predeliction toward violence. But he doesn't even think about it, the hand going outward, the great paw of a former warrior's hand that it is...
And he didn't expect it...
The sudden waking of dragons...
The swirl of blue against his skin that comes with fire on the blood and electricity that dances on the spine. Yogis call it 'kundalini' -- snake energy. Davydd calls it a damned nuisance when it happens in the street for no ... apparent... reason...
But the dragons know now as they knew Then. The art recognizes the artist's hand...
Wrists. Biceps. Shoulders. Chest. Back. Groin. The dragons scrawled there move against the skin, and he feels... blown... away...
What was that he said? Something in a tangle of language that sits lightly upon the tip of the tongue and thickly at the throat. Lyrical and primal in the same instant. Like water of a river tumbling over grey stones. A cascade of vowels. A tumbling of consonants. Davydd steps back -- actually, it was more like a leap what you may have caught of it -- and right hand is to left wrist, holding. As if he had been stung...
Bitten...
And green eyes flash. Holy shite. Now... that was peculiar...
Davydd narrows his eyes, and his mouth, agape, doesn't let loose any more of those vowels. He closes his mouth -- the guppy look dispelled -- and stares at you. "You know who I am, who the hell are you... really."
Drancy's reaction, perhaps predictably, is not to be a happy camper. And, of course, while memory isn't exactly a huge help under the circumstances, being as dijointed and, well, Someone Else's as it is, it doesn't stop images from rising without her willing them, without her recognition, before her eyes. The touch... the crawling of marks... energy that flares up, all the way to the eyes. "What the hell do you mean, I know who you are? I told you who I am!" She backs away a few steps herself, sea-change eyes widening and one step away from panic. And fear? Well, fear makes her angry.
I don't remember the nights that any of these were made on me...
I only have hindsight, a few scattered dreams. Now, really scattered -- bits and pieces disjointed not only by the events but by Time. Long, stretching time that has come between their origin and This Moment. My fingers rub the skin where dragons swirl...
Quiet. Quiet...
Risen blood, old blood. Magic, old magic, shifting. The resonance and the resplendence come on their own. A glow he cannot help. Something almost golden. Beautiful. For that time it makes him beautiful. "Look... look," he murmurs, voice softtening, hands coming out, making the universal moment for 'hold it down'. "Maybe we should start.... over. How about a cup of coffee, let's get out of the street..." Green eyes suddenly aware, skirting for on-lookers. Eyes suddenly tuning in from shadows before unseen. "Drancy..." he tries the name on for size, fiery brows cocking up, "... it's the least I could do, aye. Shite," he rubs his eyes. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you...it's been a long night of bad scotch."
Not really. It's all been relatively uneventful until Now.
Well, and why should you follow me anywhere? This should be interesting. "I didn't mean to spook ya," the London Eastside making itself known in accent for the first time. Habit. "Come on..." Davydd says quietly again, his aspect still... well, damn near giving off light really.
Drancy settles slowly, warily, not relaxed but not quite ready for 'fight or flight', either. Coffee is something she can relate to. That glow, though...
"Awright." It comes out somewhat grudgingly, but it does come out. What good, she reasons to herself, is being a punk, of being someone who pushes the boundaries, if when the boundaries push -back-, one promptly sits back and lazes around on her butt? She takes a step or three forward, wary and cautious, running a hand through her bangs and very definite to avoid coming into physical contact again. Her eyes jump round to the still too-active shadows.
"On one condition," Drancy amends. "You tell me in advance where the... where we're going, and how we're getting there. I don't have an auto."
You're not the only one, lass. There is a space, a boundary if you will, that he respects between Your Space and His Space. A gulf of air that he's no sooner going to breach than he is to strip naked and sing God Save The Queen in front of The Snake and Weasel Inn, Cheapside...
Not that you'd know that, of course...
Davydd pivots in place, bearings gathered and directions known in the turning of his head this way and that. Hmm... good question. "Ah well now... the one I was thinking of is probably closed, but we can give it a go. I know the owner. Ah, south of here, it's at Coventry and Regent, tucked into a gallery called The Abbey..." One of London's more well-known art galleries, modern and progressive art...
"How's that sound," he breathes, and with a following breath, held-in, attempting to settle back down to ... well... to normal. Whatever. And Davydd, the mountain that he is in bearing, turns toward the south and starts walking. The stride of Mars. The energy of Mercury. He turns his head, a glance tossed back over a broad shoulder. "It's not far..."
Drancy hesitates. Following a complete stranger - is she mad? But then, with a glance at the all-consuming shadows, and something which seems to shift in them, restlessly, hungrily, it's easy to come to the decision that maybe madness is the way to go. If one wants to remain whole and hale.
A few trailing sparks of something or other drift from the palms of her hands, the soles of her feet, to fizzle and fade out against the cement as Drancy pulls herself up and away from the iron railing. Shoving her hands mutinously into her jeans pockets, she begins to follow, breaking into a jog. "Art galleries?" She doesn't get out to those terribly often, but for some reason, she makes a face. "I prefer the National, m'self." Things are not always what they appear.
"I'll put up with it, though," she adds, grudgingly. "If they've got a hot cuppa." Her accent is the accent associated with the working class, but it slips at times - either she is the product of a better education than she admits, or something once again is moving in her throat and eyes, from somewhere and sometime else. Either way, she clears her throat self-accusingly, and moves to catch up.
"Aye well, I'm not much of a one for art, but," Davydd stops and turns with a grin, "... I know what I like. And coffee suits me, no matter what shite is on the walls." You would not know the customary, humorous growl of the one known affectionately by his friends as the old dragon -- they have a few not-so-affectionate terms for him as well.
He starts up again, the long stride something of a natural march. He covers earth, and his grey woolen overcoat, hem at his ankles, is reminiscent of a cloak of an old king. Were it foggy, the smoky clouds would pool and swirl in that stride of his, sent into spirals by the motion of the coat. Maybe from the coat itself.
And now you're in Poshville. Well, at the borders of Poshville. Clubs and pubs have transformed into galleries and shops closed hours ago. There's only one bit of neon left. The sign marking said 'Abbey'. Davydd crosses the street and heads toward the old building.
Drancy stands out here, though not so much as if in Poshville proper - that's the upside to the edges of places, they're where one thing and another meet and meld and mesh together. So while she might look just vaguely out of place, noone's too likely to look oddly at the fuchsia-haired woman tagging after you.
She leaves her hands in her pockets, and it's an effort not to gawk around her as if seeing it for the first time - which on some level, well, on some level... Warily, she turns round in semi-circles to examine all about herself, jumping slightly at a cab that comes too close to the curb for her liking. "On edge," she mutters. "Must be turning daft."
She hurries to catch up once again, heading for the pool of neon light which marks something which if not doubling as sanctuary, then at least masquerades as it. "Coffee sounds good."
The Abbey...
In constant illumination. Black, modern lettering is backlit by violet, red and blue. Words that straddle two metal doors. And at night... beneath the subtle glow of violet, red and blue, the metal doors catch the light and shine.
It creates an odd, modern facade for such an old building...
The building was once a six-story townhouse, and despite its ecclesiastical name never served as a church. It has undergone several restorations since the war, and now stands as solid as ever. Up from the ashes, as they say, the phoenix was reborn...
Up the stairs to metal doors...
They're bronze...
He gives them a tug and surprisingly they're still open. Or maybe it would be surprising to someone who didn't hang out with creatures who hung out Til All Hours of the Evening. Or counted himself among them. Past the doors of bronze there is an iron and stained glass gate, already open...
Not much light from inside... but there is the smell of coffee, the low sound of music, signs of life...
You step beneath the glowing letters and reach through violet, red and blue to open the doors to The Abbey. A tug of metal doors, a push upon bronze and stained glass gates on the other side, and you're within...
Drancy follows inside, and starts looking around, wincing a little. Too much colour, really - she might be a punk, but she has her limits. Right. Coffee first - priorities. "I need to sit down and I need something hot to drink."
"It's just upstairs..."
His voice plays off the curving walls, bouncing off the rounded stairs, echoing and disappearing into nooks and crannies. And shadows. Davydd's hands come out of his woolen pockets, and gloves are tugged off, stowed away. He doesn't say anything else or offer any condolences or consolation or pithy statements or criticisms about the art -- and he has a few unprofessional remarks. In fact, he looks up at the ceiling and the upward lifting of stairs, as if to place the last time he was here...
Something about Sandrine...
And the air feels him like sunlight. It moves over him, cresting dawn and a cresting wave. Blood and dragons stir again...
Drancy looks slightly relieved by the images here. There is something solid, she muses in silence to herself, about a London art gallery-slash-cafe. It seems to push away the strangeness, a little, helping her to almost ignore the dull pulse of blood, tide and magic that's underlying everything now.
"Do they have chocolate here?", Drancy asks abruptly.
There's one barista with jet black hair streaked with purple. Short in the back, gelled in the front, something midway between art student and anime. And not too concerned about serving you right away. You're it, actually. Other than the barista, there's not much going on here at nearly four in the morning. "I guess I should have closed a few hours ago," the accent is a Kensington drawl. Born well-to-do and slummin' it as an art gallery barista. Yeah, for some folks it's an edge. "But... I didn't have anything going on tonight so... you lucked out. Espresso? Fuck me, I'm going to have one," she finishes off in a murble. She showed up at midnight, fresh from the Phantasmagoria, and now is coming down. Coffee's a must. Brown eyes flicker over the pair of you and red-painted lips, damn near neon red, purse in expectation of an answer...
"One for me... thanks, and ..." a wave to his partner. "How about chocolate on the side. Shite, any food left?" He addresses her like he knows her. Maybe he does. Maybe everyone up at four in the morning share a kind of weird comraderie. Davydd heads to one of the 'confessionals' -- the roomy booths and starts what will become a booth-swallowing sprawl. He exhales and rakes a hand through short-shorn copper hair. Wavy bronze. If long, it'd be all tendrilly.
Plucked eyebrows painted back on twitch a little and neon lips smirk. "Yeah. The usual bakery bits. I'll have to toss 'em at the end of the night. Just...help yourself..."
Drancy looks around warily, but if anything, the barista serves to set her more at ease. Something familiar, recognizable, she can deal with this. "Uh, yeah. Espresso. Make it a triple." Like she really needs the caffeine to set her on edge, but some habits die harder than others. "Yah, and - oh, cool." Baked goods. Sugar and caffeine. Riiiiiight. Great mix, now of all times. "Ta, then." She picks out a selection of sugary things, then heads towards the direction William took - she refuses to scurry, so what would normally be a hurried skip is instead a long-legged stride, aggressive in appearance, shoulders squared.
Poking her head into the confessional, Drancy examines it as if expecting a remake of The Pit and the Pendulum to suddenly appear, and once grudgingly satisfied that it's safe, she sprawls herself into the seat with an inelegant grace that has nothing ladylike to it.
She doesn't say anything, she just starts bangin' about. The colossal noise that turns into the colossal delight known as the blood of the bean...
Gloves in coat and coat now removed, hanging on a hook just outside the confessional. Convenient, aye? And he's sheathed in the dark turtleneck like he's clothed in shadows. A warrior's build, broad shouldered and broad chested, hewn by battle since the day he could stand, like something carved of oak. Solid. Just damned solid. And at his wrists, dark but vibrant blue. Cobalt and something navy. The curved edges of painted swirls. Carved oak. Appropriate...
He could use a cigarette but William would kill him. Or at least try hard to, and it's best avoided really. Besides, who needs to hear the Norman pissing and moaning. "So, weird night..." And he caps it off like that, smirking and looking to the barista. Oh, like she's going to bring it over here. Davydd rises, burnished hair off-set by the remaining dark clothing. "Back in a moment," and the more lyrical accent has return, clipping syllables -- lilting consonants and dragging vowels.
Drancy doesn't look like this is something she understands at all. "Back in a moment? - Huh? You goin' somewhere?" She turns though, glance darting to the barista. That odd feeling of deja vu is still with her, wrapping round her pervasively, like remembered perfume by where it once spilled long ago. She manages a perfunctory smile for the other woman, leaning back in her seat to make room for drinks and pastries alike, massaging her temples a little.
Insinuating familiarity...
Everywhere, on everything. You say something, and he hears it like he should know it. As if you were repeating yourself. Maybe it's him. There's sudden distance between the two of you -- it's better that way, and if he weren't so damned curious, he'd be further away. Like ... gone. Home. In bed. Where he should be, trying to coax his Lapland companion into the dragon's den. So to speak.
So much for that...
Two cups of espresso in hand, croissant in the mouth, he appears back at the booth, handing over the bit of Italian porcelian. His hands have a rough quality to them, but an underlying gentleness. Calluses on the fingertips from his guitar. Careful, studiously careful to avoid making contact. Croissant lands on the surface of the table with a thud, and he sprawls on his side of the booth, taking up room, pushing outward against Space. Face turning toward you and forest eyes just watch.
Sipping at espresso. With the lift of the cup, you might notice the rounded head of a celtic dragon, swirl of cobalt against the skin...
Familiarity breeds contempt, or so they say. The problem is, she doesn't know enough about this sudden familiarity to even begin to place it. Drancy stares at you, meeting eyes with her own changeable ones, a hint of heat behind her gaze - confusion makes her angry, and angry lends challenge to her stare. Until the motion you make to bring cup upwards draws her attention...
An involuntary twitch, a flux of the muscles : I've seen that before. I know it. Unthinkingly, she comments, "You couldn't hold still, so they had to tie your arm down."
Even as she's murmuring the words, which escape not in her own voice but in another, her hand's snaking towards the tattoo, moved not by herself but by memory in the blood, while Drancy's eyes suddenly fill again with doubt and wary confusion.
There isn't a sip. The cup freezes in motion and Davydd simply holds. A moment and a moment and a moment and then the cup is set aside. Deft motion, fluid -- he avoids the touch. But the dragons swirl at his wrists. Spell drawn by its first caster -- it knows Itself.
And how could you know...
And how could you know how it went or what was done...
I have no memories of it, just bits and pieces and who knows if it's even memory and not some fantasy concocted to fill the void. I met the Artist afterward. I knew she had done this -- even the marks I am glad I do not recall their moment of making. I knew it...
Think, Davydd. How did you know then...
How did you know...
Dark green, like earth at the heels of the forest, the leaves of English oak, or twining vines. They grasp when they gaze. You couldn't hold still, she said, they had to tie your arm down. "And what did they have to do," comes voice in sing-song softness, his accent a tangle, "...after that..."
Her hand falls to your wrist, towards the dragon's head. Mistake. Power flares up, a glow as skin contacts skin, and Drancy jerks her hand back as if stung, staring for a moment without saying anything, even one of her usual curses. It's difficult to concentrate, with images flickering just behind her eyes where she can't quite hit pause and catch them. "...It hurt." How informative.
Energy tends to travel in two ways when a circuit is made, and as that which surges against you returns to him, as the celtic dragons who mouth to mouth coil around his wrist do indeed coil, Davydd jerks back his hand, slams against the back of the booth and makes the metal of the confessional rattle.
Oh great. The barista glances up from her bored gargoylian pose at the counter, her lips twisting crimson. "If you guys are doing what I think you're doing over there, cut it out. Go get a room..."
Dark green eyes lift from you to the drolling voice of the barista he can't see unless he purposely peeks around the confessional, which he isn't by Christ going to do just now, and then back to you in quick, sparkling motion. "I don't think touching me's a good idea, Is..." The aspiration that would have become the birth of the syllables of a name you don't know and one he thought he had forgotten halts itself suddenly mid-tongue. Transforming to, "...Drancy," a half moment later. "Look," he leans in, but not that close, thinking better of it. Davydd lowers his voice to a whisper, "...I don't want you to think I'm stark raving," too late for that, "... but... this isn't just a bit of icicle meth or bad scotch. You and that tree, what happened back there. I heard you screaming... what did you see..."
Drancy is caught staring, at this. The sound of the barista's voice seems to snap her out of it, at least slightly, and she scowls, face turning slowly redder. She mutters, "Nosy parking bitch," but her heart's not really in it. Sex is the last thing on her mind right now, particularly with the edges of her consciousness alert for a name she doesn't know.
"I touched it, and... it blew up." Well, not literally, but Drancy just doesn't know how to go about explaining it, not entirely. She amends her statement, "It looked like it was bleeding or something. I leaned in to get a closer look, and, well... the world changed. Hurt like hell, too." She grimaces. "Like I was being ripped open and put back together. Only thing that kept me up was the damn iron railing around the tree... well, until I lost my balance."
She scowls again at the memory, fighting the urge to go into a blind panic. It's only belatedly, therefore, that she absorbs everything. "You wish I'd touch you." Definitely not up to her usual standards, but a requirement.
The thought had crossed his mind -- well, not seriously, of course, but out of a sudden kind of relief. Jesu, and that was just a touch to the wrist, could you imagine what sex would be like. Like having your skin peeled. The thought makes him grimace and laugh all in one instant. But he doesn't clip back a comment to yours and start a banter, far too late for that and what's more, bleeding trees have him suddenly distracted.
"Quite an introduction. Appears you made a great first impression," he rolls, English spoken but barely. "So," he sips at the espresso again, only it's gone cold, and the following scowl, while slight, is puctuated by the porcelain cup being set rather flatly aside. "...adding it up, you saw a bleeding tree, touched it, exploded, fell on the pavement, yell at me, touch me and causing us both to blast off. And not in the usual, more enjoyable way," he gets his quip in with a lift at the corners of his mouth. "Magic's a bitch."
Davydd exhales, and the quipping expression of raised eyebrows and smirking mouth falls away for something serious. "You didn't know," he murmurs, "... that you had it. Hell of a way to find out. Seems to be the way of it. I found out the hard way myself..."
"Magic?!?" The world evidently hadn't gone insane enough, there had to be an entirely new element thrown into the mix. An explosive one, at that. Drancy pushes back the idea of sex with a certain discomfort that briefly flashes visible on her face - she's in the punk scene, one can't be embarassed about sex, can one? - But with all these strange memories of incarnations that aren't her, there's entirely too many realms of possibility being thrown open to the elements.
Her espresso gets rattled down into its saucer. "Listen, mate, I don't know what you're on about, but what the hell do you mean, magic? I didn't know I had what, a loony genetic structure? I've gone mad, haven't I, and you're just a figment of my imagination, right?"
I should worm my way into her brain and agree with her that, yes, I am a figment of her imagination. I should turn into a newspaper and all of this would be some blessed hallucination. If I didn't think she'd set me on fire or lay me out as a catcher for dog excrement. That's the danger with newspaper. Being read and turned through is the absolute best you could hope for.
Nevermind. I should say nevermind, get up and go. It's obvious now, to me. It isn't to you. You're going to get hurt out there, little Drancy. In the wide and wild world that now knows you're here. And you thought the hair color would be the thing that got you noticed...
But if I go now, you'll only seem crazy or become crazy. That'd be a waste of a punk. It's not the lifestyle. So Davydd just shrugs his shoulders, a half roll, cocks up those fiery eyebrows quite innocently. I mean, all I was doing was the mathmatics of it all. "It's getting late for cabs, they'll start getting scarce here in another hour. But... there you are," a twenty-pounder tossed upon the surface of the table. "I owed you that much."
Posted by rowan at May 08, 2003 12:45 AM
