→ take me to wonderland.

[thedominatrix]

Who: Irene & guests.
What: Birthday drinks.
Where: Syriac Well.
When: 24th Shadri.
Notes: An outfit.

Birthdays are busy when you maintain a variety of different social circles. There's the enormous, lavish, exclusive party she throws, where she stays stone cold sober and pushes drinks on everyone else, to fascinating results- there are numerous private one on one dinners for the people who all need to feel like they're her favourite, like they're getting the special treatment, poor things, and that's almost fun just because of how dishonest it is except the boredom tends to negate that. But then there's this, which is play and not work, Irene inviting people because she likes them rather than because they need to feel invited, and because when she likes people she has to insert herself into their lives and demand as much of their attention as possible.

The surroundings are incredibly sumptuous, of course, stirred by a slight breeze from the open balcony doors. The atmosphere is intimate, private, slightly heady and unreal, urged on by some excellent wine (far from the only thing on offer, of course, but particularly notable) and Irene's languid charm, her usual society persona toned down ever so slightly as if to say well, you all know the truth, which is a very insidious sort of lie that she can still have fun telling. She's being very attentive to her guests- an uncharitable observer might suggest, in fact, that she pounces on them as they arrive.

But they wouldn't get an invite.

Comments

[asklepios]

“Ah, a little more than-- half a year? A little more.” And from the beginning she's been remarkably relaxed about the whole thing - the way she recounts it to him, she might as easily be talking about a move she made to a place wholly of her own accord, drifting back to her arrival in her mind and lacking the tension that comes with an unpleasant memory. It's just a memory, and that in itself suggests more than meets the eye with her easy, understated way. “I was lucky to have friends already here, a friend who let me stay until I had a job - but, it's as you say. There is always demand for a surgeon, a doctor.”

She'd managed to find herself a position within the week - she'd been out of Tom's apartment almost before she'd noticed the effect Bonetown was having on her. (A papercut that didn't heal itself immediately had been fascinating at first, and then irritating, and then a bit of a concern.)

[diogenesis]

“You must have arrived a few weeks before I did,” Mycroft says.

Some throw-away comment nearly follows—maybe a trite quip about how it's gone so fast, or how Hellsing's been so accommodating, or an agreement that yes, it's always good to have connections—but every statement dies in the back of his throat, because he's been here five months.

Addressing it out loud is a confrontation he hadn't been expecting; his mind snags on it like flesh on a splinter. It hurts, and the pain is sudden and surprisingly deep. His masks freeze in place, a movie on pause, while he tries vainly to plow through, to process, to fold it over until it becomes so small it might fit on the head of a pin.

[asklepios]

Concern filters into her expression - a little, enough to say I noticed if he cares to look for that, not enough to suggest she intends to take a scalpel to the barrier he's already erected. Sometimes it's kinder not to ask, and in the context of their conversation deciphering that moment of silence isn't so very difficult.

There is a silence. Benevenuta fills it, ready with low, warmly thoughtful chatter to carry them past something that she suspects he'd prefer not become 'an exchange': “It was early last Maryden-- I'd just got used to unexpected places, but, ah, the last one didn't hang onto me so tightly.”

(Closer to eight months than six, for her, but she can be careless with time.)

[diogenesis]

Her tact is a blessing. Mycroft blinks slowly and allows the subject change to distract him, the sound of Vanessza's voice like a guiding hand.

“The last one...” he says, beginning to reanimate with interest. “I'd heard talk of other worlds like this. I suppose previous experience must make it all a bit... easier to accept, yes.”

His agreement carries undertones of both doubt and curiosity; his voice has quieted and softened around the edges by a small degree. Out of misplaced reflex, he doesn't mention her time-related error.

[asklepios]

“It is a much less organized place - called Xanadu.” Isn't that much more interesting than her accent, Mycroft? Yes. Yes it is. “A city as railway station, if we accept discrete realities as destination, from which to come and to go. It does not have, ah, the government or these things, but it forms similarly to this place, building itself from its inhabitants. Who may not inhabit at all.”

Leave a little slice of their reality behind them, until there's a whole place made up out of patchwork. City as junction, as hotel.

“Baedal is not so-- laissez-faire.”

[diogenesis]

The new concept continues to do an admirable job of distracting him. He imagines it, or tries to: a world acting as a midway-point between dimensions. But what, exactly, does that mean in terms of space and reality? If such a place were 'in-between worlds,' would it not have to exist in a state of both 'being' and 'not-being?' Would one's corporeal form go through a similar change in state due to being there, and would there be side-effects? What does Vanessza mean by 'inhabitants who may not inhabit at all?' And most importantly—

“You could leave the other city at will.” Her wording makes it clear.

[asklepios]

“Yes-- yes, that's so. Not so reliable - perhaps you come by accident, perhaps you do not leave when you wish to, perhaps lots of things.” Variables. Irritating differences in pattern; today you can come and go as you like, tomorrow you're stuck hours past time you wanted to leave. Predicting anything that way was difficult, except that you could more or less rely on probably going home eventually.

(Yes.)

“It is easier for me, I think, than many. I have a useful profession to travel, and I like to go to the new places, learn new things.” She isn't naive to the ugliness of this city - but she's lived through ugliness before, even if that experience is tucked away somewhere hidden underneath the engaging readiness of youth. She seems like a woman self-contained, benevolent, untouched and untethered as she passes through - or a dream, gone tomorrow like dissipating smoke.

[diogenesis]

The doubt he'd felt a moment ago concerning her preternatural nonchalance returns. Maybe some of her ease with the subject comes from previous experience, but there's something else—maybe her choice of words, I like to go new places—that makes Mycroft feel as though he's not even being shown half the cards in play. And there's still her her niceness, and her impossible accent (no, he's not going to forget about that). Who is this woman?

“If you knew a way to leave this place,” he says with an innocuous expression, “would you go?”

[asklepios]

“No,” she says, after a moment, thoughtful and smiling- there's a hint of something almost like approval there, that's an interesting question, something a little bit unexpected, something she can sink her teeth into and give a considered response to. “But perhaps it depends on the way, mm? Is it very urgent, my means of transport? I have so many things to do. But perhaps I keep it with the rest of my keys, and go when I am ready. I would like to come when I am ready, too, but, ah, I don't know that I didn't.”

She hadn't had any more warning than anyone else, granted, but- well, here she is, and how she has landed on her feet.

“And you? Let's us say that I hold the door open for you. Do you go through?”

[diogenesis]

Mycroft feels some satisfaction at her reply. It doesn't really answer anything (in fact, it only creates more questions), but it tells him his impression of her is the correct one.

As for answering the question himself, it proves more difficult than he'd anticipated. Two months ago—before his brother disappeared, before Sol and his daughter moved to Queensgate, before Alan and Ilde ate tartufo together, before Irene Adler jumped out of a moving carriage and met him for drinks the next day—the answer would have been much simpler. Before, when he felt more certain of which world was real and which was the dream. He's not so confident, now. About anything.

“I think I would also keep a key,” he says, after a time.