open → you can leave me; i cannot leave myself.

[rhinemaid]

Who: Ilde Decima & OPEN.
What: Ilde has errands.
Where: Various places!
When: Coardi, various times!
Notes: Obligatory polyvore. I am not posting thread starters because I am lazy, but you can take your pick from the mentioned locations in the post. Have lunch with her! Catch her on her way out of the hospital! I HEARD YOU LIKE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS? Etc. She mostly avoids the trains but is not opposed to sharing cabs! Feel free to drop me a line if you want to work out something in particular.
Warnings: Generalized 'Ilde is in this log' warnings; I'll edit if anything specific crops up.

Coardi this week means no work means 'everything else Ilde has to get done this week', which is how she thinks of it and a slight exaggeration of the truth; some things are easier to do if you tear them off quickly like bandaids or wax strips or bad news, so her appointments at the Glory Shada are in the morning. That way, she reasons, she can't spend the rest of the day dreading it - it'll be done, she can get it out of the way, and then she's got a dozen other things to do that can occupy the space it was taking up in her head. Quitting smoking is making her insane, she's pretty sure; she's irritable and her hands never have enough to do and there is all this time she doesn't remember having that now she has to fill up with other things. Other things that aren't putting out Ivan's cigarettes in his thigh or something similarly irrational and unhelpful. Not drinking is easier, although it complicates her social life in unforeseen ways - it isn't that she isn't willing to go out, or even that it's difficult to turn down a drink and order something nonalcoholic, it's that she likes people en masse so much less when she's sober.

On the upside, it's a problem that can be solved by not being around people, which is increasingly less difficult as they keep disappearing on her. Katherine, now Cindy; she keeps herself sane through the clinic appointment imagining Cindy's running commentary on the medical staff, which is easier than wondering what Cindy would make of what she's actually doing.

(She thinks maybe she'd like it, but she isn't sure, and anyway, it's not anybody's business at all for months yet.)

The lunch crowd at Umibōzu isn't too much on a Coardi; she lingers longer than she'd planned to before her afternoon's activities take her back further into the city proper. She makes stops at her bank, a music shop and a beauty salon; there's an architect in Brock Marsh who can give her a quote and some advice on the kind of renovations that they're thinking about for the basement (the short version of that encounter is 'Jesus, my bank balance', but they have time, which is in and of itself a strange and untrustworthy feeling). By the time she's just at the edge of the river, carrying her heels in one hand, the only things she has left to do are an evening viewing of a piano she might buy and the groceries, which she can do last and then pack into the cab going home and maybe con the driver into helping her carry them in. With a little time to kill, then, it's all right that it's beginning to get dark. She's more comfortable that way.

Comments

Outside Umibōzu? /throws at

[buildindreemz]

Ariadne's feeling relatively good about this situation. Okay, so her agreement with the Admiral is - who know what the hell is going on with that, and who the hell knows what's going on back home, with Cobb and the Fischer job and if she'll ever make it back to finish the job -

But hey, she's stuck here for now, Arthur is in the city, too, so she at least has a friendly, familiar face, and she's already got a few job prospects.

Not to mention, Baedal has some really interesting architectural landmarks.

She ate cheap food from a street vendor for lunch, but she finds herself enthralled and simultaneously appalled by what looks like a great big... sea monster.

Which is also apparently a sushi restaurant.

Which is why she's sitting outside, perched on a low wall, sketchbook in hand. She has to draw this place, because what the hell, and hey, you never know when a giant sea creature building might come in handy. In a dream, maybe. Not that she's sure she'll ever do dream architecture again.

i love it

[rhinemaid]

“It's surreal going in and out,” Ilde observes, conversationally, having paused by Ariadne once realizing what the other woman is up to; there's something reserved about her, but it's evidently got nothing to do with shyness as she hasn't got the slightest compunction about striking up conversation with a stranger on the street sans even the briefest introduction or preamble. “You forget from the inside that it isn't just shape.”

--in fairness that may just be Ilde, as there are probably people out there who would remain acutely aware of the experience of eating sushi inside a dead sea beast.

[buildindreemz]

Ariadne rather appreciates the forwardness, truth be told. She's not exactly shy, herself, and she likes meeting new people.

Besides, in a place like this, you just never know when the person you meet will lead to new information - about a job, or something else just as interesting.

She smiles up at the woman, pushing the hair out of her face to reveal the scarf she put on this morning. "Is it... actually what it looks like?" she asks, her curiosity voracious, as always.

[rhinemaid]

“Oh, yes.” Which is a little creepy, granted, but Ilde is the last person to object to 'a little creepy', for so many reasons. (Her attention is a little alarmingly fixed, on that note; it may or may not be clear that she's focusing on Ariadne's lips and not listening, per se, to what she's saying. Her own accent is received pronunciation with hints of a Florentine Italian accent - but she never hears anyone else's.) “I think that's supposed to be part of its mystique.”

The kind of restaurant where about half the punters are there just to say they've been. Walking through the jaws of something like that is, for some, quite an experience.

[buildindreemz]

Ariadne, ever-observant, doesn't miss the woman's focus on her lips. Either she has quite a lip fetish, or... she's lip-reading? Perhaps she's hearing-impaired. Ariadne isn't quite blunt enough to ask, though.

"That... doesn't sound very pleasant, to be quite honest," she admits with a little laugh. "I mean, I could probably design something like it that wouldn't... actually be eating a meal in an animal carcass. I hope the food is good, at least?"

[rhinemaid]

“It is, it's good- I'm biased, but it's good.” In that raw fish is what her diet is meant to be, anyway, and she's inclined to like anywhere that serves primarily seafood as long as it's edible. After a slight pause, she sits down beside Ariadne on the wall - not invasively close, but near enough to be 'sitting with' - and inquires, “So you're an architect?” Designing buildings. Well. It follows.

[buildindreemz]

"I do like good sushi. Hate bad sushi, though," Ariadne points out with a little smile.

She's okay with the woman's question - right now, she's willing to tell anybody and everybody what she does, because you never know when an architect is just the thing someone needs. With no references in Baedal, word-of-mouth is how she has to roll.

"Yeah, or, well, hopefully," she says with a self-deprecating smile. "I haven't been here long, but I've already got a few job prospects. It's kind of nice, how willing people are to take a chance on someone without references." She shows Ilde the drawing of the restaurant, which already looks a bit more like a schematic than an artist's sketch. "I'm Ariadne, by the way."

@Glory Shada

[caoineadh]

Inside the hospital is someone who also does not want to be there.

Exposure therapy, it's called, and Clio knows it's a fairly effective treatment of PTSD. Normally she'd know better to self-diagnose and try to treat herself, but the other options are incredibly limited. Ironic, perhaps, that she's too scared of doctors to ask them to help her get over her fear of doctors. So instead, she forced herself to walk into the building, her panic thrumming under her skin, barely controlled by careful, slow breaths and the constant mantra in her head that she's safe here. She doesn't try anything drastic yet, simply walks through the hallways like she has a reason to be there and tries to convince herself everything's going to be fine.

What's most noticeable is that whenever people might accidentally bump into her, they distincly don't. Rather, their shoulders or arms brush through hers like she's not actually there, despite the fact she looks solid. Maybe it's the fact they're in Baedal, and this isn't all that weird here, but so far no one has actually called her on it.

[rhinemaid]

Fae of her own world (or its variants, she supposes) feel different than others; not a common thread, almost an aftertaste, just that familiarity that as a child she'd never realized she was feeling. It's a sensation that she's not expecting on her way out of the Glory Shada (she hates these places, she hates the smell of them; on the bad days, antiseptic makes her nauseous and anxious) and her sharp focus on getting out of the building without coming untethered leaves her unprepared for distractions, wrenched more sharply off-course than she might've been anywhere else.

It doesn't help - either of them, probably - how uniquely, differently familiar is Clio's response to the space that they're in. Their mirroring tension heightens hers and her expression-- doesn't change, because it's an illusion, because that makes life a lot easier sometimes, but there's a bathroom on the other side of the corridor and she detours abruptly towards it. It's a compromise, the kind she's constantly making with herself; it's still in the hospital, but it's also more private, and she doesn't want to burst out of the front of the building looking like a fucking lunatic or end up being sick out there where people can see her, so she can just take a moment. Here. And then she'll be fine, out there.

It necessitates crossing Clio's path fairly sharply, but needs must.

[caoineadh]

While Clio can tell another faerie a mile away (maybe even further, she hasn't exactly tested it), she hasn't quite worked up to parsing the differences between universes. But she can feel Ilde, and she can feel Ilde's anxiety in a way she can neither understand nor articulate. Her gaze snaps to Ilde as soon as she feels it, her eyes widening with fear and something like confusion.

On a normal day, Clio might have been able to step out of Ilde's path quick enough to present the facade of avoiding a collusion. Right now, though, it's too sudden and like Ilde, she's too focused on things like not freaking out in the middle of a hospital. And so all she can do is make herself even less there; she can't go entirely invisible, but she's suddenly no more than a pale ghost standing in the corridor, rooted to the spot with fear.

If Ilde goes through her, it will feel like walking through nothing more than air, though there might be a cold shiver down her spine. Either way, Clio will probably follow her, curious enough about how Ilde feels to her to forget social norms and ask for an explanation.

[rhinemaid]

An explanation is not going to be the most forthcoming thing in the world - for several reasons, one of the first and foremost being that Ilde doesn't like giving them, but most immediately that 'conversation' is not exactly a high priority as she tries to gather her shattered composure in front of the mirror and over the sink. Cold running water on her hands is soothing, if not as much as she'd like.

She does, typically, have a reflection; the empty space in the glass is an illusion, self-protective, because there are times she frankly doesn't feel like being confronted with herself. Now is arguably one of those times, and her focus is narrow enough that she doesn't immediately realize that Clio has followed her - no sound, the mirror carefully not reflecting anything but an empty room, and her attention too concentrated on her own steadying breath to register the shift in the room of someone else entering it.

It'll be a minute.

[caoineadh]

Before she goes into the bathroom, Clio pauses for a moment outside, taking a few deep breaths and trying to force herself to calm down. The results aren't as great as she'd like - she's no longer actively having a panic attack, but her hands are still shaking. Her not-quite-there body slips through the bathroom door and pauses just on the other side.

Clio is caught, suddenly, between wanting an explanation and not wanting to interfere with the scene in front of her. She feels guilty for intruding upon it - fear should be private - and for being somewhat responsible. She doesn't quite understand what's happening, but she's aware that their fear seems to be amplifying each others.

After a pause that feels like hours but is closer to a few seconds, her desire to try to help in some way wins out, and she speaks up in a quiet voice, "Are you alright?"

Stupid question, obviously, but it's all she's got.

[rhinemaid]

The question gets no response - there is no shift in tension that indicates she's ignoring it, she just doesn't seem to register anything at all until her hands unclench just enough that she can release the enchantment on the mirrors--

--at which point she can see Clio behind her and doesn't quite actually swear, the word that half-happens more startled than malicious. “Jesus,” she says, after a pause, pressing the back of her thumb to her mouth, and it's clear at that point that she hadn't heard a thing.

“...hello.”

Umibōzu! I am taking your lunch date spot! If this is not okay, let me know.

[orionis]

Bellatrix enjoys Umibōzu because of the fact that it's built from a giant sea monster. There was no moment of needing a deep breath, or to psych herself up to step inside the first time. She appreciates the atmosphere of it, and the magic it took to make it what it is.

That the food is also excellent doesn't hurt either. (She's a fan of all things horrifying on the menu.) By the time Ilde arrives, she's already secured herself a seat, raising her hand to wave the other woman over with a warm smile.

[rhinemaid]

“Bella!” --is a very welcome sight after the morning that she's had, and Ilde is more than happy to slide into the seat beside her, pulling the loose arm-holes of her cape higher to her elbows so she isn't dropping fabric in food. There's probably something to be said about the kind of people in whose company Ilde is most at home, but it's equally likely that the content of that remark would be 'well, fairies'. So there's that. “Better timing than I thought.”

[orionis]

"Well, don't you look lovely?" Bellatrix squeezes Ilde's forearm gently in greeting after she's settled in. There's something vaguely intimidating about Ilde that also translates to 'well, fairies,' that Bellatrix enjoys immensely. "You always have perfect timing, darling. How are you?"

[rhinemaid]

“The better for good company.” Which is not only sidestepping the question but managing to pay Bellatrix a compliment in the process; she's getting better at this 'don't just say you're fine, they'll know you're lying' business. The hand on her arm is welcome - touch is grounding and comforting, and she's tactile with the people she likes, when she can be. “Have you been here long already?” Or can they have lunch together?

[orionis]

Compliments may not always derail Bellatrix, but they may be toll paid for a question avoided. "Not at all. I'm still deciding on an appetiser yet. By all means, join me." It is good to see Ilde, truly, even if she is somewhat wilfully ignorant to any trouble she may be going through. It isn't as though Bellatrix wants to discuss her own woes either.

[rhinemaid]

The way Ilde sees it, there's no reason to go into respective woes; they can just enjoy one another's company, and pretend for a while that they don't have any at all. It seems like an easier and altogether more pleasant way of doing things - it always seems like a good idea to her, to sidestep the things she doesn't like.

“I feel like I haven't seen you in forever,” she says, instead. “Where have you been keeping yourself?”

The latest - his place after groceries?

[deservesadaisy]

Ivan suspects he should theoretically be helping Ilde with some or all of what she has to do. They have decided to stay together, and that should probably mean properly together. But Hal's presence - and the way he was looking at her at the swap meet - hasn't helped the fact that he's already out of sorts, and he can't be quite as generous as he probably should be.

That said, he's not keeping his distance altogether; if she left him too much on his own, he'd get restive.

It's probably not a good state of affairs. He's not sure how to correct it.

Instead, he stays in, smoking and looking over the paper and trying to distract himself while she's not there.

that works!

[rhinemaid]

It's not a great state of affairs, but it's what the situation presently is; 'fixing things' is not a particular skill of Ilde's, and at the moment she's working on the assumption that she probably can't make it any worse by trying to make sure it doesn't get any worse. (She's not entirely sure this is accurate, but-- maybe.)

Which is why she's letting herself into his flat at the very end of her day, toeing her way out of her high heels before she's properly through the door to close it behind her. “It smells like cigarettes and sulking in here,” she remarks, dropping her bag down on the sofa that he isn't currently occupying.

[deservesadaisy]

"I missed you too," he says, dryly, stubbing out the cigarette in the ashtray at his elbow. "Have a successful day?"

[rhinemaid]

“I think so.” Her morning wasn't great-- but she didn't expect it to be (even if she hadn't expected it to go quite so awry, either). She's reached the quiet point of the day where the rest of it seems vague and distant for the time being, and it makes it easier to just reflect, for a moment, that it hadn't gone as badly as it feels when she doesn't think about it. “I got the number of an architect who's willing to do some work for free to get her name out.”

[deservesadaisy]

He reached out for her to come join him. "You and Sonja are adding on?" There might be other uses for an architect, but that seemed the most likely.

[rhinemaid]

“We're thinking about converting the basement for an indoor pool,” she says, tangling their fingers together and using that as leverage down into his lap. (Inevitably.) “But it's going to mean paying out through the nose, I think.” Even if they can get an architect working cheaply, there's still labor and materials to factor in, and maintenance, and the fact construction in the basement will be a goddamned pain in the ass.