His mother suspects it, his father would kill him if he stopped to think of it and for one minute thought it true, that his visits to London have not exactly been infrequent. His study of mortal culture, and the connections between his world and theirs in the eddies of the dreaming seas and rivers, led him here on more than one occasion.
If one looks at a pint of Guinness in the right light, one can quite clearly see the Irish Sea in it. Or maybe that's just him. Iowerth kept to the pubs after his brother's departure from the last club with two lovelies, one on each arm. For all of mother's horror stories, flirting remains the same between the two worlds. He found the girls no less willing than the nymphs whose orisons are so often heard coming from his brother's chamber.
Iowerth hasn't lacked for company either. He has a few cards in his wallet. Young and enterprising women in some of the better establishments in town. Women in nice skirts, suits, with fine perfume and direct gazes. Maybe his brother was right. When he falls in, he'll fall in hard.
Iowerth is sure there are worse ways of drowning...
He slips the last card in the inside pocket of his grey blazer, the upper arms adorned with the military markings, the lapels with the insignia of his own ship and the bars and clusters of a captain. The jeans, the boots, the fashion-forward t-shirt gives him an Indie poet look. The longish copper hair only accentuates that.
Iowerth heads out of Q Lounge, one of the newer, hipper establishments in Kensington, the door closing behind him. He removes a pocket watch, flipping it open to note the time. It's only nine o'clock. Jesus. There's no finding Gwilym now. His mouth twists as he glances around and considers his next destination.
"You look," the voice is clear and easy and unafraid, "as if you've misplaced your ship. I should warn you, the late fees on docking this time of night are murder. Though it's crows that travel in murders, isn't it? I never do remember."
You could pick her up and put her in your pocket, just about. Under five feet and peering out at the world through one eye blue and one eye hazel-green, her strawberry-blonde hair's been allowed to grow from its haphazard chop. Which isn't to say that Audi's any the less haphazard, no; now her hair's long, almost to her waist, and still a riot of curls pulled back on the sides with an indigo kerchief adorned with silver stars. Ringlets spill out the back in an almost gypsyish fashion, though she's fair too fair and a bit freckled for a gypsy girl.
"It's that or you're a white rabbit," Audi adds cheerfully, bending to roll up the hem of her jeans. Her sneakers are as mismatched as her eyes - one orange, one blue - and her shirt is an oversized white poet's shirt that wasn't ever meant for someone as short as she is. She looks like a chick hatching from an egg, the strap of some sort of tank top or maybe a camisole peeking out in pink. "But I don't think you worry about being late. You have too much of an air of being ahead. If anything, Time waits for you; you don't chase after it, or murder it, or anything else. May I draw you?"
He, like all men you have encountered, first and foremost wears the expression: What? It lingers there, hovering like a falcon waiting upon the dart of a field mouse, and then he cocks back his head and looks at you with bland amusement.
"Draw me?" Iowerth smiles oddly. Odd, for your question is odd. Who just comes up to a person and asks for a portrait? "Sure... I suppose... mind if we get out of the street, or is this part of an adventure in busking," street theatre in your case.
With his smile tilting, Iowerth turns to head toward a cafe. This street in Kensington's lined with cafes and shops, pubs and bars. The trendy bits of London, for those with both class and money. Or at least money. "I haven't misplaced my ship. I remember where I parked it. And, yes, a flock of crows is called a murder. Ravens. Crows. They feed on dead things, scavengers."
White rabbit. That's a bit of an odd thing to say to someone. "What's the rabbit reference?" Is he new to town, new to literature, perhaps new to reading period, that he did not catch an Alice In Wonderland reference?
"Oh, I'm not a performer," Audi says candidly, "just someone who wants to be an artist. I'm just me. I'm lost, that's all, and you looked like you mightn't mind if I asked - or, if you minded, not enough to push me down or something of the sort." She shakes her head so that the wild curls ripple and rattle silently, offering a grin as she moves to follow your longer legs. Her backpack's shouldered up higher. It's a patchwork thing, less out of a desire on her part to be artsy and more just to keep the poor thing together.
"There's nothing wrong with scavengers, really. I've never met one yet which tried to eat me, after all. Even when." Audi settles her footsteps, peering at your back, then hurrying to catch up to you to peer at your profile instead. "Rabbit - the White Rabbit. Do you really not know? If you're making fun of me, it's alright, of course. But I won't go into a full answer if you do know. Do you want to sit inside or out?"
That's a good question. "Out," he answers easily. "Hmmm... here, I think." He stops under a cafe sign, lit by the neon blues and reds (the Pen & Ink Cafe). "That White Rabbit. I am not he, no. I am more Cheshire Cat than White Rabbit."
Iowerth folds his arms against his chest and he leans back against the body of the building. "Will this do?" he asks politely. "And who would you be? Are you lost like Alice, hoping to find a friend in the wilderness who'll point you the direction home?" An illuminated eyebrow lifts, his face awash in red and blue. His shoulder-blade length hair is streaked with the violet that the two colors create.
High cheekbones, a small nose, Brythonic features that put his origin somewhere out west. Way out west, as it turns out. These are striking within the colored glow. "Am I to call you Alice? Or do you have your own name?"
"I assume everyone I meet is a friend. If someone isn't a friend, they'll correct me, of course." She pulls the kerchief out of her hair, stuffing it haphazardly into her back pocket, turning delicate features peppered lightly with caramel freckles across her own tip-tilted nose upwards - peering at the sign, then at you. "I prefer Cheshire Cats to White Rabbits. But the world has more White Rabbits in it than Cheshire Cats. Always running after something because they're afraid if they slow down, they'll miss it - and usually, I don't think they even know what 'it' is. Look."
One small hand lifts, the soft white cuff of her shirt flopping against her knuckles as she points to a double-decker bus that's going down the street. Japanese tourists line the top, their cameras clicking in rapid-fire rattling of shutters. "They come, they make a faithful record, but they never really stop and see things, do they? Though I suppose they do see things. I like to think that when they get home and get their pictures developed, some of them at least might see something magic in there. More than layers of paper and emulsifier and preservative."
Her tone never stops being cheerful, lilting upwards with a spreading sunrise grin that appears suddenly. "I'm sorry. I got lost again," Audi admits. "Is this a wilderness? I suppose it must be. You're quite wild, aren't you? Not tame at all. I'm Audi. Not Alice at all." She peers up at you quizzically, then offers her hand. "Who're you, Captain Cheshire? I like how you look in this light."
"What makes you think I am wild? Those who know me would laugh to hear you say that." His lips make a twist as he holds still -- all but his mouth and eyebrows. You'll have to forgive him that much expression at least. "Edward Drago," Iowerth adds, anglicizing his name. "Or Captain Drago if you prefer."
The thought of someone calling him Captain Drago in London amuses him. In fact, he may keep it. It has a nice ring to it. "How do I look in this light? Hail Britannia?" Britannia rules the waves, after all.
Iowerth grins suddenly, the periwinkle in his eyes shining blue with the aid of the neon. "I make it a habit never to run. If one's well prepared, one does not have to hurry." Rather serious for an eighteen year old, but the City sees all kinds.
"Tame ... I don't know. I suppose you could be, but you don't seem it. You don't smell tame." Audi lifts her hand to push back her hair, as it hasn't been taken. "For one thing, tame people tend not to like me, and while you're probably reserving judgment, you're not running away, are you? But that's good. I like you."
And that's settled, then. She repeats the name silently. "Edward," she then says aloud, as if trying it on for size. "But never Ed or Eddie. You're not that. Really, more properly I'm Audrey, but my younger siblings couldn't pronounce it, they called me Audi, and it stuck. I like it better than Audrey, anyway, and it's the closest I'll ever get to a sportscar, so."
She laughs without sound, the laugh showing in her eyes and in her smile. "I run, sometimes. But because I feel like it, not because of other things. There's things worth running for - sunrises. Sunsets. Rain and puddles. Chasing leaves the wind drives down the sidewalk. Down hills with bare feet in the grass. It feels good, so - why not? Besides, I always hope if I run fast enough, I might get to see a unicorn."
Ah, there's a table. Quick as a wink, Audi squeezes between two fashionably posing bored people, grabbing hold of a chair and announcing, "Mine." She turns to look over her shoulder at you, giving you a mischievous grin. "Coming, Captain Edward? You don't look Hail Britannia, by the way. You look ... otherworldly. As if I could see you with a sword on your hip, your coat trailing behind you as with your hair, standing in the prow of a ship with a spyglass to your eye," she adds contemplatively. "But of course, women are said to be bad luck on boats, aren't they?"
Pulling out the other chair, Iowerth takes a seat. Amusement lingers on his face as he glances to watch other people coming and going. But you're the one sharing his table, so he quickly remembers his manners. "Otherworldly?" Interesting. Is it that noticeable. "How so?"
He seems genuinely curious on the topic as he settles back in the chair, hands lacing at his stomach and legs relaxed wide. "And, no," Iowerth chuckles, "... it isn't that they are bad luck, it's that they're a distraction from the work that has to be done. It's not easy, sailing a ship. Less easy when there's something distracting for sailors to look at."
You like me. You don't know me. Such an odd girl. Apparently, mum wasn't lying.
He tilts his head somewhat, as if to study you, what you'll be drawing. His eyes flash. Eddie? I don't fucking think so. "Definitely not an Ed or ... Eddie. What do you do, Audi, when you are not fetching men in the street for the sake of art..."
"Most people I meet don't have violet hair or red and blue skin. Not without being in costume, anyway. Though I suppose you could say we're both in costume." Audi is serenely unaware of anything under the surface - but then, she's a sunny creature, isn't she? Or she seems to be. Is there anyone she dislikes? Her liking you may not mean much.
She unpacks her pad and her pencils, laying them out neatly - despite the disorganized riot of colours and clothing, her art supplies are orderly, neatly arranged, neatly composed. "I do whatever it takes to keep a roof over my head," Audi answers with that self-same serenity. "Right now, I'm between jobs and looking. I'm taking tomorrow off from looking, or at least, I'm going to try to. I have horrible luck with jobs. I've had eighty seven jobs since I moved out of my mother's home." She pauses, then adds, "and one half. I've applied for a position with a local bank, but something tells me I shan't be getting it."
"It's the lighting," Iowerth rolls upon his smirk. "My hair is red. My skin is fair. But... hmm... it is true, there is a little touch of blue." The smile winds slowly, beneath the colored lights looking fantastic. Captain Fantastic. He does not explain what these blue marks are or could be, where they are or might be. He simply smiles, otherwise not moving.
"What is it you like to do, apart from picking up blokes and drawing them? Perhaps that is what you should do for a living. They say if you do what you love, fortune will follow. Whoever 'They' are. But maybe they have a point."
Iowerth's eyes drift slowly from you, a brief survey of the surrounding room. He lifts his pint of Guinness for a sip. "Maybe it isn't your luck that's the problem..."
"What do I look doing? Hmm... that's a good question. There's not too much I don't like doing, honestly." Audi props her chin on both hands, oblivious to the pencil-line resulting on one cheek - just the merest smudge of blue, under one green eye. "I try to face the world with courage. It's life, right? There's no telling how long it lasts, and well, if I start explaining any more than that, you're going to think me either goth, an affected artist, or crazy. Crazier." She smiles.
The pencil's lowered, and her eyes are lowered too, to the paper stretched in front of her. "What do you think the problem is, then? You've narrowed it down to just one?" And Audi looks up again, expression brimming with mirth. Beneath it, there's a faint streak of - something else; a glimmer of pain, of something. It's gone again, like light reflecting off the scales of a fish beneath the ripple of a wave. "What I do is look at the world sideways, mostly. And I didn't pick you up, exactly. Picking you up implies I intend to - I don't know, take you to bed, or something like that."
"Bravery is always good. A remarkable quality. I try to do the same. Nothing crazy about that. I call it intelligence." He sets the pint down again, his hands folding back at his stomach. It's a relaxed pose, one older than it should be. He looks young, but confidence rolls off him in waves.
"I have no idea, I barely know you. But... it's never just one, is it?" Iowerth grins, straight-toothed, shiny grin. "So... do you want to take me to bed?" He chuckles, eyebrows quirking skyward. "You say that like it would be the furthest thing from your mind. I'm not handsome enough for you?"
The idea seems to really tickle him...
"Oh, you're handsome enough. But there's a few things stopping me from being quite that forward." Audi looks up, a sudden puckish slant to her eyebrows paired with equally sudden mirth; it's as if she's suddenly having to do all she can to fight from laughing out loud. "You know perfectly well you're handsome! You don't need /me/ stroking your ego. And, well, there you go, then." She lifts her pencil to gesture in his general direction. "Why would a man like you have anything to do with a girl like me? Other than for a quick romp, and I'm looking for something which'll stick to my ribs a little more. Well... if I were looking, I would be."
The pencil's lowered to the paper again, dragged along in a lazy whorl that becomes a line, all the attention of her mismatched eyes back on that. "Besides, it's - what? Ten at night? We'd have to be done in less than two hours. And that's not even counting the time that getting to a bed would take, and I'm not awfully convinced I'd want my first time to be up against a wall or to even take that short a while - and I wouldn't do that to you. Spring things on you, I mean. See, here's where we're teetering on the edge of crazy talk again." Audi glances up, smile blooming, and she brushes her hair back from her eyes. "What I'm /good/ at ... is believing in impossible things. They're commonplace in /my/ world, really. But I don't really want those taken from me. Would you?"
"I am an impossible thing," Iowerth counters with a slant of a smile. "So... what happens at midnight? Are you ..." he lets that linger there, hovering as he lifts an eyebrow, "...caught in a fairytale?" It makes his jade eyes sparkle, something likely missed in the lighting of the bar.
"Everything happens at midnight, they say," again with They, "... and nothing. So what is your story. You want to tell me. But you don't want me to laugh at you. But since I've already laughed at you, what are you afraid of? More laughter?" Chuckling, Iowerth unlaces his fingers and takes up the Guinness again. He takes a long frothy drink of it then studies you over the quickly disappearing drink.
He folds his arms against his chest as he settles back again, one leg relaxed long and straight, the other bent. He looks like his father minus a few hundred years. "I don't really ... romp," comes the drawled reply. "I study. But... yes... not prone to long, emotional entanglements," or any emotional entanglements. "I do a lot of traveling. I don't have time for that sort of thing."
"Oh, I can face laughter," Audi says with that brutal candor. "I can face almost anything, at least in theory. There's almost nothing I'm afraid of, and I don't really think you'd be one of the things I am afraid of. I'm not afraid of spiders, or trolls, or muggers, or fire, or drowning. I'm not afraid of heights, or flying, or knives, or guns, or open spaces, or enclosed spaces. And I'm definitely not afraid of men." She pauses. "Or women. Not generally."
The blue pencil is slid back into its home with immaculate care, a red one taken out in its place. "Midnight ... well, around midnight, I suppose. I don't know for sure. But I don't think it's much of a fairytale. There's no godmother, no prince, no woodcutter, no wolf. Just me, and you can't have a fairy tale without there being at least a hero and a villain. Someone other than the protagonist." The sketch which is taking form is certainly of you, but a fantastic rendition. Standing in a courtyard, some tumble-down stones behind and underfoot, the weeds growing between the rocks with a spray of Queen Anne's lace; instead of a pint glass in hand, there's a sword. Not one of those swishy little epees, but a grand, curved affair, something between scimitar and battleaxe. The edge is broken, bits of metal dripping from it in rusty disuse. The clothing is serviceable denim and leather in combination; the expression is something of almost comical irritation. And the page is turned in favour of a new page.
"At midnight, I die, that's all." No build-up whatsoever. Audi seems more interested in the new sketch of you that she's begun than her own admission. "I come back, but - rather off-putting to a would-be lover, don't you agree?"
Iowerth shrugs a little. "Depends on where the man is when it happens. There's a time and a place. Some might be ... shall we say...sensitive? Should a woman die when he's simply trying to get her to orgasm. Then again, others might take that as a badge of honor and quite the ego stroke. I should think you'd be better not lumping all men into the same pile. Or women either."
Life and Death. The waves of his father's seas. "Perhaps it is a matter of perspective. You find this to be a negative thing. But what if it, instead, were the doorway of possibilities for you? Could it not equally be a gift as much as a curse? Death is not a negative. It is simply the cessation of one life... for another."
Perhaps you were right when you said Otherworldly. But it's not for his hair or the quality of his skin. It is that reason, those words, from that mouth set upon a youthful face.
"True, but it's not the sort of thing to spring on a man. I'm not into women that way, thanks for offering, but mm, nah, thanks anyway." Audi scrunches her face up, then grins again, eyebrows interrogatively raised. "Most people don't believe me, you know; I say it, they think I'm kidding, I'm joking, or otherwise they think that I'm insane. And maybe I am, a little; I mean, I'm told normal people don't look at suspension bridges and think of giant spiders weaving it into being, or," she waves her pencil again, for punctuation, "or wondering where merry-go-rounds go. The same 'they' you mention, I guess, but they say it isn't normal. I say, so who wants to settle for normal, anyway?"
She drops the pencil abruptly, folding her hands together on the paper, peering at you as intently as if you'd said something wrong; though she doesn't look upset about it, if so. "But you see, when I die, I come right back here. It doesn't really bother me; for the longest time, I thought everyone did but that it was just - one of those things that was agreed upon, that you don't talk about - like admitting that women burp, or that anyone picks their nose other than grubby twelve-year old boys, or that brides who wear white aren't pure and chaste and virginal. So to me, it's mostly just ... something that /is/, it happens; it's not really a curse except in that most people will want to lock me up for study if they find out, either in an institution of higher learning or an institution of psychiatric evaluation. What do you think I ought to do, then?"
Here, then, is someone with opinions. And that, in her world, is unusual...
"There are worse places to go," Iowerth replies blandly. "Madagascar, for instance, can be a rather wretched place to wake up, I hear. The hissing cockroaches aren't known for their hospitality." Again, he shrugs. Again, it seems to be of no consequence either way to him.
And as he's not of kin to you or have any emotional ties what-so-ever, it is very true that there is no consequence to him...
"Normal." His fiery eyebrows pull at that, knitting in something like concentration. It is as if he does not know the word. Or that you sprouted some strange second head -- well, in truth, any second head would be, by definition, strange.
Iowerth sits forward with an intent look. "I suggest that the heart of your difficulty lie not in your condition, nor in Death... or Life, but in your comparison of your condition to that of others. Or what you may suppose may be, in fact, the condition of others. But for all you know, I die at midnight too. For all you know... that is, in fact, normal."
"Well, I always thought that other people did." Audi tilts her head at you, curiously, inquisitively. "Do you die at midnight, then? The thing is, we all have to have something to compare to. Even if it's only an intellectual ideal, something to which we aspire. It's a beginning, not an ending."
And then she turns her gaze back to the drawing; it's been taking shape almost without her paying attention, really. "If it isn't normal - well, I want to know why I do, that's all. If it's normal and just something everyone does, it's still interesting, but a little less so; it's just then part of the human condition. But haven't you ever wanted a quixotic quest? Something to which you can point your lance and set off on horseback at, even if it's only a windmill and not a dragon? I'd like a dragon... even if it's not a real dragon." A pause. "Though," Audi says gravely, "a real dragon would be preferable. Accept no substitutions and all that."
The smile is a quirk of his mouth. "I am Death's favorite son." But not his only son. "Whether it is normal or not," that tone, all that is missing are the fingers making quote signs, "... the point is the same. You die. You don't know why. Well... you're not likely to figure it out sitting in bars and drawing people."
He finishes the Guinness with a single swallow and he sets it down with a thudding reply. "To know a thing, or the reasons behind things, one must face it, quest after it, and seek to know it. To pick it clean as a rabbit's carcass at the foot of a crow."
Iowerth rises after that speech, however anachronistic. He is a thing of symbols. And impossible thing on an improbably planet. "You want to know... you have to seek it." He reaches into his blazer pocket, the breast inside pocket. He removes a card and in his grasp, there are words there in inky blue-blackness that are written. Iowerth Rhudd Draig. There is no phone number, nothing but that.
Fingers press it to the table, and pressing move it. "I have business that calls me away. But in three weeks' time, we will meet again. Hold onto this."
"Maybe not, but people haven't figured it out in seminaries and libraries either," Audi answers tranquilly, though her gaze follows you as you rise. "Figuring it out isn't about where I am, is it? It's about who and what I am."
She tilts her head to one side in that questioning way of hers, curiosity sparkling behind her mismatched eyes. Her hand comes down onto the card lightly, without hesitation. "Good luck with your business. But not too much luck," Audi answers gravely. "Things are too easy for you, and as a result, they don't matter to you very much. But have a good evening." She slides the card slowly up into her grasp, head turning to watch you go as unblinkingly as any cat or bird.
"You are wrong in that," Iowerth smiles, turning to look at you as he goes. "My business is anything but easy. And I... in my toil... am grateful..."
It is a centuries old being that speaks, it would seem, from the mouth of an eighteen year old boy. But such is the way of London. City of strange creatures, this...
Girls that die at midnight...
Young men who sail tall ships...
Posted by rowan at April 07, 2006 01:32 AM
