It is almost unfair to you, these few clues I have to leave you. I have so little identity in this world, and so little identity which I can compromise in this world without it coming home to roost not upon me, but upon those whom I am sworn to protect. I swear very few oaths, but those that I swear, I keep. Still, as we crisscross this globe and the Shadow Road, I have found a few ways to let you in; as we stitch these worlds more tightly together, whether you realize it or not, by our passages...
     Tit for tat. You left a card, hovering upon darkness; you woke the next evening to find a glittering spiderweb on your brownstone's stoop with a card dangling with morning-spangled dew. A white stag rampant upon a field of red. It seems a strange design for a thief or assassin, no? Bold. Fearless. Standing proudly. But there it is. Nothing but the design, upon the front; upon the back, in black block capitals, G.L.(m)
     Maybe it means something. Maybe it doesn't. He let you catch sight of him, then, black-clothed figure that he is. You know now that he is tall; taller than you by some inches. Slenderly built, but strongly built all the same, and fast, lord, fast. It seems unfair that someone can be both tall and fast. It seems unfair how well he can disappear when you close in on his heels, too; sidestepping from shadow to - where? Nowhere that you can find.
     Gwilym ap Rhodri is enjoying the chase. Once, he watched you in fox shape after you came through in a muddy little park in the middle of London, grey-furred with black-tipped ears, tongue lolling as he silently laughed at you from between rocks no human could squeeze through. But he let you catch up to him again a little later; a flash of blurred black movement, and you knew he was passing. And you followed...
     Like Alice down the rabbit-hole this could be for both of us; if you pull me into your secrets, or if I pull you into mine. I am curious as to your secrets, Iovis Marinelli. As curious as you are as to mine. It seems unfair that I know your name, but you don't know mine...
     Another clue dropped; a guitar pick, bearing a London stamp. The alley behind the coffee shop is used as a blind - the pick falling almost onto your head before he vanishes from the fire escape above you. Tours, Paris, London, you chase him, he chases you. It's like a colossal game of tag, where the stakes could become deadly at a moment's notice. From London, he loops back to another part of London; and there, you find a note.
     His handwriting is impressive; almost archaic, each stroke of the pen marking the ink. It's his impatience which saves him from being a scribe. The note is brief; to the point. Your reply will be marked, but what answer he hopes for, even he does not know.
     Fancy a pint?
     And, concealed in shadows of shadows, Gwilym waits with bated breath and catfish grin, peering through one world's darkness to see what reply you might give. Continue the chase, or no?

     A guitar pick rolls and flips, finger to finger, leaping, effortlessly leaping, faster. And faster. It is a blur of motion, faster and faster until it becomes a streak of red and blue hovering above his hand like an aura. The pick, a guitar. Are you playing me, shadow-lord?
     Am I to be strummed? If you pick me, do I not sing? Ha.
     The guitar pick stops suddenly, upright against the finger where it all began, planned, and Iovis looks up from his perch on a fire escape. It is not his fire escape but he sits on it as if it were, and London rain is falling down...
     ...falling down...
     ...falling down...
     For the past week, he has dodged, parried, leapt, crept, stolen and struck. He left his calling card, and received one in return. Not one he expected. What did it even mean, the white stag? He ventured to the Stag and Snake, the White Stag Inn -- countless pubs and countless pints. Nothing. And then he began to think it was a decoy, a red herring to disguise something else, and so his pathways became more obscure, darker. He saw you once. He did not recognize you. If you were a sabbat you would have had chosen a different route after the Genoan insignia....
     The guitar pick moves in his fingers again, slowly rolling over and between each one, and then he clenches it in his fist as he rises and then swings down the iron stairs to the alley below. I could use a drink, come to think of it...
     While the pick is stowed carefully away, tucked in an inside pocket of that leather coat, a stiletto comes to his hand from some hidden place. In the brick of the alley, he scrapes his answer: 'Only if you are buying. South London. Dock 19.' He licks the note you left and sticks it against the markings, letting it absorb the carved words.
     His handwriting is not so fine. It would not be even if it hadn't been made with the point of a blade. He was illiterate when he was alive, and in some ways he is barely literate now.
     Stiletto finding its home once more, Iovis Macarelli slips out of the alley onto London's Strand. It is good that it is here. I do not need my fellows knowing I could not steal something, catch something. What would they say? You are not as fast as you used to be. And then those jackals would rip my throat. Dogs, all of them.
     Dock 19 is not an actual dock but a bar. It is a small, dark, smoky bar frequented by men who work at the docks and the rougher working class men that the rest of London would rather not see. Sitting in the back of that small (and crowded) bar, is Iovis Macarelli. He neither drinks nor smokes, but tonight he will have a glass of something. Only if you do.
     The low light of the bar does everyone a favor. He benefits from it as well. His black, curly hair, feral as it is, is all the darker, as are his eyes. They are as black as his hair seemingly. His swarthy complexion is blue and red beneath the lights. His black leather coat, the black leather pants, the black tee shirt all take on an inky hue and quality, as if the color would remain on your fingers if you touched him. He looks like a cherub -- on a three-day bender. His features are angelic but the look is anything but.
     Dark eyes are focused on the door (his back is to the back of the pub, naturally), and the guitar pick rolls from finger to finger to finger again.

     Well, why not? Every chase must come to an end, sooner or later. We can't maintain this breakneck pace forever - sooner or later, one of us will slip. And both of us prefer it not be ourselves, oes? Gwilym laughs to himself, soundlessly; nothing to give himself away. You depart, and he emerges, taking back his note and reading the message you've left for him. Dock 19. Strangely (or not), he knows it...
     Only because of my brother do I know such places. Like it or not, it is as much my job to keep an eye on him as it is his to keep an eye on me. And when he bought a boat, well. My pursuit of answers led me stranger places than this.
     He can look the part of the laborer, when he has to. Many disguises in many times. Harder by far, though, to turn off the brilliance that draws eyes to him, no matter what he is wearing; to fade into the backdrop. His father did so by creating dramatis personae; individual personalities whose qualities could be so expected, so accepted, that even his mother was for a long time taken in; fooled into her gaze going over him instead of to him, much to his own eventual chagrin.
     This is something Gwilym still must work on. Difficult, oes, for a prince to stop being a prince, to fall back into the rank of file of men. His light is subdued but not extinguished. And when he walks in, it is with some small transformation rendered.
     Well, he could hardly walk in wearing what amounts to Renaissance festival garb, now could he? No; he's smarter than that...
     He walks in, red and gold hair worn brightly, chopped short. It's been allowed to creep longer bit by bit in front, but the back has been relentlessly kept shorn, nothing to tickle the nape of his neck. It's worn a bit ruffled now; less artistically than as if for clubbing though, and more as if he simply doesn't give enough of a damn about mirrors. The emerald eyes are bright, the suggestion of a private joke held between them and the faint curve of his mouth.
     Is it him? Can you tell already? He wears jeans and heavy workboots, a thick-rolled cable-knit sweater in steel grey pulled on over his chest. Paired with it, a brown bomber jacket; scarred half to death, made to look exactly like his grandfather's. No jewelry; no 'bling'. He makes his way to the bar and orders a pint, then turns as naturally as anything, carrying his drink to the back. To, in fact, you.
     "Nos dda," comes the amiable Welsh as Gwilym looks you up and down and takes his seat. "Nice weather for it, innit?"

     "Nose what?" The voice that you hear is unsurprisingly Italian, wretchedly wry. No, he doesn't know that strange language your are speaking. "Your accent is even worse than mine." And his on English is very thick. It is not his native tongue, as you know. It is not one he has been speaking very long. He looks at you, the guitar pick stopping and he leans forward to shake your hand.
     His hand is smaller than yours, very fine. He should have been a musician if not a thief. He is looking at you as if out of the corner of his eyes, peering at you. "I will have a lager," he smiles suddenly, wickedly. Yes, you are buying, remember? He motions you to sit (even as you are already doing so) across from him in the ratty booth. Yes, please sit. Stop looming over me! "Sotto voce, eh?" Iovis reminds, a slight motion back and forth. Quietly, just between us. Us and these drunk old bastards.
     He has been in the rain, his hair is as inky black as the rest of him as he leans in to speak to you quietly. He is studying you. His gaze is as sharp as those knives of his. "It was a good chase. We will drink to this, si? Where is my beer?" He laughs suddenly at that. You are going to get it aren't you? He's starting to look offended -- but it is impossible to take it seriously with that grin.

     "You don't expect them to move as fast as we do, do y'?" Gwilym grins, a comet streak that fades as from the night sky. He lifts a hand to summon help, your order conveyed from his easygoing lips to the barmaid. She gets a glance - more from habit than anything else. No, his attention and interest are much more caught up in you.
     His legs are long; he has to fold them a bit, in order to keep on his own side of the table and not violate your ground space, as it were. "Just between us," Gwilym agrees easily. "Neither of us needs to tell anyone else - what happens in Vegas," he smirks, "stays in Vegas, oes?"
     When the barmaid returns, she's handed a few notes. Nothing over-generous; enough for her to remember there was a tip, without it standing out in her memory. And she's dismissed, as casually as if he'd bought her from an early age. "Gwilym," the red-haired thief opposite you murmurs, indicating himself with a thumb. "How do you pronounce yours?"

     "My name is Iovis, with an i. The i is like a j but pronounced like a y. It is Italian for Jove. The king of the gods," he tumbles out in English, his English sounding more Italian by the moment. "You play guitar, or do you just throw the picks at people walking down the street," comes the crooning humor. So much for sotto voce, but perhaps he did not mean it literally. His hands move as he speaks, his eyes animated.
     He flips the pick between his fingers again, a blur of motion, and then he offers it back to you. "You will need it, yes? I do not play," Iovis smirks. "The only think I know how to pick is a lock."
     He sips at the beer. He is not a drinker and he makes that plain by the way he drinks. "You are not what I pictured. I was expecting," he exhales, "...I do not know, some wraith creature from the pit of hell. What do you do, Gwilym...that is hard to say for me," he notes suddenly. "Do they call you something else not hard for me to say? What do you do... si... when you are not chasing me..."

     "I play guitar," Gwilym agrees, that smile threatening to spread even as he sprawls in his seat. He does not sit; he owns it, with a regal and casual air that defies logic as much as the front bit of his hair seems to defy gravity.
     You hold out the pick, and he reaches casually to take it between thumb and forefinger. "I can work with locks as well as strings, oes." He grins, fighting back a laugh as you describe what you expected to see. "No, I'm not a wraith. I've an appetite on me which isn't satisfied by souls; I like heartier things than that. As for name, oes, just call me Will. Will Morgan," he tacks on, "will do nicely."
     It is not a complete answer, but it is complete enough. Emeralds glint in his eyes as he grins at you. "You don't have to drink it if you don't like it," Gwilym murmurs. "Noone here is likely to pay much attention. If they notice, they'll figure you just don't care for good English beer, being 'furrin'."

     "I do not get drunk even when I drink. But I do not drink because it dulls the mind. Still, I will sip at it." No, no, now it's mine. "I have no talent for music," you are regal and he is swagger. Iovis sits back, spreading himself over what territory he can cover. His fingers move the glass around in a circuit. He is forever in motion.
     "Will Morgan," he says the name once and he says it again. Will Morgan. As if he should know it, perhaps. Or memorizing it for later. For a moment, he is completely still. The next, he is leaning back into you, across the table. "You are no wraith, maybe," he murmurs. "But you move like one. Are you from that place or this?" Leave it to the Italians to be superstitious.
     You seem solid, but you have gone where I cannot go. I do not trust it. But I am fascinated by it. He chuckles lowly as you mention appetite, black eyebrows quirking. "Yes?" Dark eyes delight in it, and his darker nature. "I am nothing but appetite," he waves. "Appetite and speed." His hand waves in his boast, his mouth cutting sideways like a knife blade. He can understand and appreciate a healthy appetite. Especially an voracious one.
     "Why were you following me?" Iovis wonders quietly. He looks into your face to see if he can root out the answer for himself, expecting to find that you are too guarded.

     That place or this. A difficult question for me to answer, changeling-child that I am - you mean am I a shadow taken flesh, I think, but the real answer is neither. I am from another place, one where you cannot go, where I dare not take you, even if it would accept you.
     And that world has a mind of its own; I do not know what would happen, if attempting it would make it spit you back, or something ... else. Not that I would do so. Not that I could even begin to explain all of this to you. The truth is that I am of this world as much as I am of any world; but will that answer suit you?
     "What do you think?" Gwilym smiles at you, and lifts his pint. The glass lifts. He swallows of the liquid it contains, and the level diminishes. The mug comes down again, and he belches. "Sorry," he grins, no real apology. Do wraiths burp? Do they apologize? He leaves the questions for you to ponder.
     There is no real guardedness on his face. "You appeared where noone was expected to appear," Gwilym says, matter of fact. "Had t' make sure you weren't someone bad, oes? Even if I'm no p'liceman." Ha. Riot, as his grandfather'd say. The delight shows in his eyes, lighting them up from behind, in his sudden quiet laughter. "There's other reasons," he admits, looking at you shrewdly. "But I'll hold those cards close to my chest for now."

     He stares at you for a moment -- and in that moment, you would not be alone in wondering: is he going to pull out one of those stiletti? -- but then Iovis laughs, a hand on the table and he leans back. Of course you are not going to say. And he is not going to tell you what he thinks.
     Taking up the pint, he actually enjoys a healthy swallow of the beer before putting the glass back down and summarily ignoring it as if it weren't there. He seems convinced that you are not a wraith, or a hell-beast, or a sabbat. What you are besides all those things, he cannot and could not say. But what remains on the list is less worrisome than those things now off of it.
     "I am fast," Iovis coils out, "...but you... you were a step ahead of me, almost always. I have not met the man who could best me." Until now? He runs his tongue along his teeth, along the sharp ones slightly distending. He is quiet suddenly and once more, his gaze looking you up, looking you down, looking to find whatever gem of information your face might hold. He knows he is staring -- he doesn't care if it's not polite. He's not polite.
     "A very worthy opponent," Iovis murmurs after many moments of silence. "I have a reason for... appearing and disappearing. They are my own... cards ...as you say...held to the chest. I have seen things in those shadows, but I still go to them. It is faster than taking a train," he notes with a wry touch.

     He laughs out loud at that. Riot. "Much faster," Gwilym agrees, a flash of white teeth showing as he nods. He is not half so casual as he appears. He is on his guard, and knows you are. But he has the gift of appearing casual, at ease, inherited from his father; along with his mother and grandfather's high strung nerves. God help him! "It is ... convenient, oes," he murmurs. "And it is quiet there."
     Quieter than anywhere else on earth. It is dangerous, that solitude. Seductive. It is so much easier to hear myself think there, I could get lost in my own thoughts and find myself in despair. Or ambushed through my love of self. I always must remember to be careful...
     "I have to be fast, to stay alive," Gwilym returns to you, gaze going from that withdrawn, indrawn, introspective place and back to you with only a flicker to admit the change. "To stay quick," he grins at the pun, "and not dead. But neither of us caught the other, oes? It doesn't mean I am faster than you - just, fast enough not to get caught, and not fast enough to catch you. You got my card?"
     He turns his glass, his hands needing something to do. He cants his head to the side - still watching you. Always watching you. Are these the eyes seen in dreams? What does this portend? It could be important. It is important, for I've revealed myself to you - unmasked, the Welsh fox sits opposite the Genovese cat. We will see...

     Those dark eyes, as black as Stygian caves, look to you upon the word solitude. Solace. Silence. I crave it. I find it only there, in the Void, and in the hush of focus when launching my stiletto at a victim. Lastly in the piercing of my own ivory stiletti into skin to taste that which now gives me life. But I am nourished by silence.
     "It is so quiet," Iovis speaks softly, "...that even the mind forgets to think. It is not peaceful, but it is silent."
     Will I be able to deny this sudden thirst, that which this beer cannot quench? I turn the glass slowly on the table. It slides loudly to my ears. Can you hear it? Do you even notice it? The sound used to distract my thoughts from wanting to tear at the throat of my opponent, this new amicable rival.
     Iovis smiles slowly. "Si... it was a draw. Your reputation is safe with me. Mine was destroyed years ago," he waves, "...do not give it a second thought." Both of you sit across from one another, your hands turning your glasses, your gazes on one another, your words ruminating on silence, but guarding all other topics fiercely lest something untoward be revealed. He realizes it is like staring into a mirror.
     "I got your card, si," Iovis says, leaning in slightly. His eyes focus on yours even as his fingers idly move, move without his comprehension even. "And I understand about the quick and the dead," he drawls. "We seem to be two of a like kind, Will Morgan."

     You have hungers; so has he. His are so very different from yours as you may well imagine, being no vampire. "Is there any such thing as peace?" Gwilym drolls it out, looking wryly amused. "I've found a little bit of it, here and there. But it is like searching for unbroken shells after a hurricane, oes?" Unbroken shells after a hurricane. That is a good one. I will have to remember to tell Io...
     Io. Ah, the possibility for confusion is endless, now. "Who would I tell? I have not gone about trumpeting your name. Nor do I intend to. I," his eyes glimmer with wry amusement, again, "can keep a secret."
     If I could keep my sexuality a secret longer even than my brother, and keep my relationship with him secret as well - oes, this secret can be kept tucked away in my breast...
     You speak again, and his hand stills on the edge of his glass, his gaze returning to your face. To your eyes, especially; he is measuring them, trying them on for size. Trying to decide. Is it you...
     Is it someone else, is it you...
     Damn it, I don't know...
     "As with any likeness," you drawl and he returns the drawl, "the interesting thing is where things differ, oes? Not where they are most alike. But oes, I agree," there is a tip of a nod, point to you, "there is a likeness. Where do we go from here, Iovis?"
     He lets the name slide across his tongue, resisting almost successfully the urge to give it the Welsh trill that sounds like the beginning to his brother's name. Brother, brother, wherefore art thou?

     His hand stills the glass, his fingertips remaining on it. He wonders: where do we go from here? It is an interesting question. Before you posed it, I should have thought...where is there to go? A chance meeting in the shadows, then you meet your opponent, shake hands and part.
     But it is not that easy...
     Not when my mind is active like a machine. Suddenly that cat-like smile appears. Just as he in the shadow realm; now you see it... now you don't? "I do not think the game must end simply because the players are known. The game... just changes. Meet me on the road... we will see what happens then..."
     Iovis lifts the pint glass, taking another good swallow. It will be his last. Sitting back, he falls back into quiet staring. Where do you go when you are not here? What do you do? I shall have to follow you to find out. What do you know about the road that I do not? This I will have to glean from you.
     Slow, the smoldering smile that follows. A cut-purse smile if ever there was one. Those black eyes do not sparkle so much as they seem to swallow light in order to hold brightness. It is a mirror held up to the sun in an eclipse.

     Not an end, then. A beginning. I yet have time to puzzle out who you are - what you are. Not so much to others, though that will have to be examined (and it will be), but to me. I will have time to identify you - to see if they are your eyes...
     And if so, what that means..
     His chair is pushed back; from a pocket, a few pound notes taken, scattered loosely on the table where you and he have sat. "On the road," Gwilym agrees easily. The words will mean so much less to the others here - but you know what is meant. "See you there, oes?"
     One eye closes in a broad wink. There is mirth in that wink. There is understanding. And, unmistakably, there is challenge. Catch me, catch me if you can!
     Gwilym (Will Morgan) turns from you, the fox smile still in place, the sparkle to his eyes. Where he goes, some of the light goes with him; he glitters of his own accord. "Safe journeys," he drawls out, making a gift of the words to the entire pub. But the look is spiraled directly to you. The smile, as well.
     And then? Then he steps out, and he is gone. Whether you follow him now, or later. Catch me, catch me if you can...

Posted by rowan at October 26, 2006 05:35 PM