multiversallogs | i am hung with graveyard flowers;

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i am hung with graveyard flowers;

Who: Ilde Decima and Hasi; OPEN
What: The water helps her.
Where: The Gross Tar; initially near her waterfall territory in Raven's Gate, after that various areas.
When: Givdi with Hasi; open after that through Shundi.
Notes: Specify time/place (if not Raven's Gate) if you tag in, please!
Warnings: Descriptions of LM:A-related horrors to follow in the thread with Hasi; discussion of rape & related fall out in thread with Jae.

When she finally goes down to the water, it feels so good that she hates herself for a moment sliding in, her clothes on the bank under an illusion. It soaks into her skin like she belongs there and she's glad that she got there first, that Hasi isn't there yet, because sinking into it hurts a little and it's-- not anybody's business what internal conflicts she's having. She just died. She's allowed to feel...whatever this is that she's feeling, and whatever it is she's going to feel it at the bottom of the river for a while, her tail catching light as it flicks up before she dives.

She'll surface, eventually.

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Let them never have to speak of Smiling More Often, his mother's constant lament when he was still living under her roof. 'You just need to meet a nice girl,' she'd say, and then pause. 'Or a nice boy,' hint hint. His family.

"Buildings, really? How deep is it?" He'll never have the opportunity to find out because he is thankfully not dumb enough to dive in there. ... okay maybe he's dumb enough but only if it would serve some practical purpose.

"Deep enough." The smaller, more lingering smile that happens here is actually a little worrying, like a light coming on in an otherwise dark building, the flare of a match and teeth behind it. "Someplaces deeper than others."

A moment later, "My parts are near the waterfalls. The pools before. Not as deep."

Ilde is always vaguely (or not so vaguely) unsettling; possibly this should bother him a lot more than it does, but in the ringing in his ears when he's somewhere totally silent, he still hears a child screaming, lately her voice always blending into one that he feels like he should know and doesn't.

He'll take unsettled, over that.

"By the harbour? I've never been up there, I think." Once or twice he's been close to the area for work, but -- that's all. It should bother him more that he hasn't been able to work his way out of this part of the city. He looks so painfully out of place here -- not because he's beautiful (he's hardly the only one) but because he looks like such a soft target.

"We live there." Maybe it should be 'I'; Sonja isn't back yet and Ilde doesn't know if she will be. It isn't, though, it is we and it will be we no matter how long she is or is not the only one responsible for the house, because it's their house. Sonja's house. And words matter, words mean things, and 'I' means acceptance and 'we' means waiting and she will wait for as long as it takes. "Raven's Gate."

They've moved once since arrival, but not far from where they started and always near the river. She likes the idea of living in Mafaton, but doing so indefinitely would probably make her sick - it's just not close enough.

"Do you live here?"

He pulls a bit of a face and then does some strange, half-shrug gesture like he's not entirely sure. "Ah -- well, for now, I guess. I'm sort of between places." That sounds much nicer than 'homeless,' which is occasionally as literal as people assume it to be; he's finding himself having to make choices between food, shelter, and medication, and, well, two of those are more vital than the other.

He would like for things to at least sound nice right now if they can't just be that way.

Edited (typossss) 2012-01-13 14:57 (UTC)

"Do you want to talk about it?" Or, and this is more what Ilde intends to ask, does he not want to talk about it? She's not very good at the former (she's willing to try, but she's really inept with anyone's emotional drama, including her own), but she's excellent at respecting someone else's lack of interest in discussing what's upsetting them. 'Not asking' is a knack of hers.

He props his chin in his hands and does his best to look amused instead of upset, or frightened, or angry -- all of which he has every right to be, but they're all emotions that demand too much energy from him, right now or ever. Maybe in a few days when he's got everything else sorted, he'll be up to feeling anger. "I see you haven't heard that I'm a dangerous, unpredictable criminal. You should watch out." The brand on his left hand is still sore; it shines plainly through his gloves. They could have just used the magic and that would have been enough.

Ilde raises an eyebrow, which would look more arch if she actually lifted her head off her arm to do it in the first place. As it is, she just looks like a tired fairy child with an attitude problem, which-- actually isn't always so far off the mark.

"I was away for a few days," she says, a little vaguely. "That sounds absurd."

But she's been living in Baedal long enough to have a fair idea of what it probably means.

"I would never dream of suggesting the Militia could ever make a mistake," he deadpans, with enough gravity so that no one can exactly accuse him of mocking if he's overheard but enough of a flat monotone for it to be clear that, well, yes. "The Great and Glorious City of Baedal is fair and just to all its citizens."

... so, no, he doesn't want to talk about it, not really.

"Shit happens, is that the saying?"

"It fits." There are a lot of relevant sayings, probably, but neither of them are feeling a strong need to untangle that reality into little words, pulled apart and laid out to examine. Ilde watches him from her rock, her tail pulling this way and that like she'll never quite be still, the black of her tattoo a shadow on her blue-pearl skin. She seems like something terribly cold, sometimes; unaffected by the chill in the air or the water, made to be a part of it. Distant.

Not so distant she isn't a part of this city as much as Wolfgang; not so far away in and of herself that she isn't woven into the same tapestry of bullshit.

"Hm." He pats himself down, realises he left his flask (full of some clear shit made in someone's bathtub, it tastes like motor oil but it's cheap) in his room, gives up. He could use another shot or two; he'll probably stop off at a bar before going home and go several glasses beyond 'a shot or two'. "I'm much better at swearing in Turkish," he says idly, steering the conversation away from anything too fucked up and awful.

"Russian," she offers, for her own part; she can swear most creatively in Italian and it is indeed the language she thinks in and the one she reaches for when she's cussing quietly alone, it being the language she grew up with, but she just likes the way Russian sounds. "And Italian, that's where I'm from, but Russian."

Explain your ridiculous accent, then, Ilde! ...no, that's fine.

"How do you tell someone to screw off in Russian? I could use that." Because it's not like he doesn't already have a catalog of cuss words in four languages, now he needs a fifth? In something only a very small minority of Baedalites speak? Okay.

"Poshel na khui," she supplies, which is admittedly more like 'fuck you'; Ilde can think of plenty of occasions in Baedal where that might be appropriate.

He flashes a brief, genuine smile -- he doesn't usually show his teeth, he's usually more demure, but right now he does, even though it kind of hurts his face. "That should come in useful."

Wolfgang is a responsible adult.

Edited 2012-01-14 08:35 (UTC)

"My godmother taught it to me," she recalls, although Prisca hadn't actually intended to in so many words; Ilde's Russian lessons were equal parts deliberately taught and a tendency to listen when Prisca was on the phone to her extended family and friends in Peter. "Sort of."

He gets the subtext, yes, and it makes him smile, but quieter, now. "I paid similar attention." He puts a hand over his chest in a gesture of mock-sincerity. "My poor mother." (Spoiler: he's not sorry at all, his sisters are way worse, and his mother is where they learned most of it, anyway.)

It's more bittersweet, now; it's not that it doesn't matter whether or not her family survived, but the truth of things is that she'll never know. That she'll never see them again, either way. Her life there is over, very literally, and in some ways it makes them easier to think about. Easier to miss.

It means she can smile, here, even though it hurts a little.

"Daddy taught me a lot that way," she says, reflectively.

Wolfgang has long accepted the idea that he will almost certainly never see his family again -- the guilt over that is the worst part, and for most people, it's enough to get them to stay. It wasn't enough for him. That has to mean something is deeply wrong with him. (That has to mean he deserves this.)

"Not on purpose?"

"Sometimes on purpose," she concedes, thinking of her father and-- almost smiling, just about. Emery defined most of Ilde's life and still does, even in his absence; he is always there and always will be, no matter how little she actually discusses him. She's always been her father's daughter, and that's always meant a lot of different things.

(You and me versus the world, that's a theme of her life.)

"He had funny ideas about what he should teach me."

Well, that's sweet. In a weird way. (Then again, "in a weird way," isn't everything, here.)

"That's what I miss the most, I think. Probably most people do but -- sorry, this is depressing." He shakes his head, in the process getting his hair everywhere. It is exceedingly hard to find things that aren't depressing and awful here; always, yes, but of late, especially.

"Isn't everything?" Lately, yes. She can't have good news without feeling guilty for it, lately; everything is too tangled up in something else and people keep asking her questions to which she can't say one thing or the other because it's yes, but, and the but is always something that feels like choking.

Wolfgang pulls another face, gnawing on his lower lip as he tends to do and looks exaggeratedly upwards, like he's thinking really hard. (He is not, actually, thinking really hard right now leaves him confused and exhausted -- that concussion didn't just go away. It is not toughness that has him pushing through it, he can't afford medical attention.) "Raindrops on roses?" he offers. "Whiskers on kittens?"

Musical theatre is the best he's got, yes.

A laugh burbles out of her, unexpected-- she looks like it startles her, for a moment, pressing her hands over her mouth. It's something out of a fairy-story, some finely detailed illustration of otherworldly mirth all done in shades of blue and mother of pearl.

Maybe she just really needed that.

"Brown paper packages, tied up with string."

"That's the only part I remember. They didn't let me perform because they don't let me dance," he says, with a tone as if he's letting her in on a big secret, although... really who's surprised, he's just shy of six and a half feet all and all uncoordinated elbows and knees, it probably looks like he's dying if he tries. A pause, he considers this, then: "Well, once, but I woke up in a train in Bat Yam dressed as Michael Flatley. Never again."

You did not, Wolfgang, stop lying.

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