multiversallogs | unfortunately, "I can show you the world" is stuck in my head and I can't think of other lyrics

A knock at the door means that might be unnecessary; Ilde had had to get something on the way for herself, so it had seemed perfectly reasonable to just ... well, if she's honest (which she isn't) bribe her way in with pastries and coffee if it turns out that the very awkward silence following the last book she gave him (poetry; one of the poets that Severus had mentioned, although not the work that they'd discussed) was more of the well now we have nothing to talk about kind than the usual sort of silence she's come to more or less anticipate.

They have plenty to talk about. She thinks briefly of Bellatrix's question, and wonders if Bella will be living here now- well, she'll find out as soon as somebody answers the door, won't she. She wonders how he'd have answered it. Maybe he saw it. Then again, probably not. He's not much for the network.

Straightening her cardigan, Ilde knocks again, just in case he thinks she's somebody else and is ignoring the door.

For just a moment, Rodolphus resembles a particularly guilty deer. The one time he's indecorously hungover and in a less than presentable state while not also dying, someone is here, at his house. At least it can't possibly be Bellatrix. They're knocking, after all. Hellsing would have contacted him via the CiD, obviously, so that leaves one of his loosely defined friends or Ilde, none of whom he wishes to see right now.

At the second knock, he gathers himself, putting the glass on the counter. "A moment," he calls. It's more like a minute before he opens the door. He didn't attempt shaving, merely a change of clothing and a splash of cold water for his face.

"Hello," he says with the usual blank expression, now with some visible awkwardness, to the fresh-faced and well-dressed Ilde. A large part of him is distressed, but another part (the part with the hangover, probably) has more or less thrown its hands up. What was he supposed to do, not answer the door? So he's a pathetic old drunk; she had to have known two out of three of those things already.

“You look like you've had a long night,” she says, extremely tactfully, taking a slight step forward when the door opens - she doesn't brush past him inside without being invited, but it does look a little like that wouldn't be completely out of the ordinary for her if she did. Lifting the cardboard tray illustratively- “Coffee will help.”

...troublingly, too many people in Ilde's life before Baedal (all the way before-) drank too heavily for her to even pause. It's easy for behaviours to become normalized if it's what you're accustomed to; seeing it in people she doesn't often only reinforces that normalcy, more than anything else. You see, it says. Everyone does this. Just like you thought.

The faint alarm on his face has to do with how did she know but sense returns after a moment when he concludes she didn't, it's just. Timing. Reluctantly, he steps back to allow her inside, which is also distressing but the self-loathing hungover portion of himself points out she's already been inside when he was gone. She's seen what it's like and she returned of her own will.

For the first time, Rodolphus really thinks about what kind of person Ilde might be, to have struck up an odd relationship based entirely on the enjoyment of poetry with him — to have seen his house and returned — and to know, apparently, that he is a Death Eater, and understand something about what that means, but to be here anyway.

The only logical conclusion is that the breakfast is poisoned, but at that point, he's already leading her to the kitchen, where there's a place to put the tray down and actual seating.

He loiters uncertainly in the doorway of his own kitchen, eyeing her, pondering a tactful way to inquire if she's trying to kill him. What if she only smiles and offers him something?

Having been allowed into his space without any protests and as he's leaving her to her own devices in the kitchen thus far, Ilde sets down what she's carrying to investigate the possibility of finding actual plates, and maybe transferring the coffee that she bought into something not made of cardboard- bustling around his kitchen without a half-dozen things in her hands in front of her makes her particular weight gain of late a bit more obvious, although she hasn't quite progressed past that awkward period when one begins to show where maybe it's just a little extra weight and an unforgiving empire waistline?

(It's not that.)

The picture this must paint of what kind of person Ilde really is, all that said, isn't nearly as pretty as her face. Occasionally it can be said at least that she means well, which is arguably what's happening now, except that she directs these impulses in such worrying ways. ...given what she now knows, and what she understands. Yet here they are.

“Maybe I should have brought you an aspirin,” she says, thoughtfully, which is mostly a joke, and would probably be funnier if she were sure he knows what aspirin is.

There are four plates total (they came bundled together when he got them) and exactly two mugs (someone just as well-meaning at Hellsing had given him another when he returned). Rodolphus observes her, and in his own way perceives the physical change, which is to say he is blearily aware she looks different but has made no corresponding assumptions, nor does he have any opinions on it. Mostly because —

"Why are you here?" The directness, the bluntness, is not entirely out of character for him. It's more that he asked at all. It is the question he should have asked from the beginning and didn't because he preferred not to know, to merely accept her presence. That was before the banned poetry, before Bellatrix. Who has she been talking to? It's difficult to imagine her speaking at any length to Lucius, but then, here she is talking to him.

“What do you mean?”

The words she uses could be a dodge - dissembling, pretending not to understand - but the tone of voice, the way her eyebrows rise a little, that isn't what she means to do, it's just that there are several different possible motivations behind that question. For instance, why is she here unannounced on his doorstep, at this particular time of day? Or: is she here for a particular reason? Or: he needs her to be here for a particular reason or else she can push off, due to the hangover that she cannily observed upon arriving. Or, most accurately: what the fuck is wrong with you, Ilde.

...the other questions would be easier to ask. They may not have enough time for that last one.

As far as hamstringing questions go, any question which requires Rodolphus to elaborate is usually an effective tactic. The progress he's made so far regarding insight on the topic of Ilde Decima momentarily grinds to a halt as he struggles with his old nemesis, putting shit into words. At this hour (though it is not really early) and in this state (though he's been worse off before), it makes him feel cranky and old. The second is business as usual when it comes to Ilde, but the combination is new.

All of it, he thinks incoherently, aware that is not an acceptable answer, even if she might very well understand. Besides, what if she answers?

"Here, now," he says finally, selecting the least threatening question (least threatening to him). "What are you doing here right now."

Given that Ilde isn't completely without insight of her own, generally - just not very good at doing anything about it besides watching, creepily - she decides not to dissemble here, either, partly because she thinks maybe a thorough answer will render unnecessary any more of this awkward question-asking. Or feeling the need to ask any of these awkward questions. Playing dumb only makes people suspicious, and there are plenty of other reasons to be suspicious of her in the first place. There's no need to encourage it.

“I wanted to make sure I was still welcome,” she says, finally, in such a matter of fact tone that at first glance it doesn't seem like any kind of concession, just a neat and simple statement, requiring no further examination. “Usually you're quiet because you're quiet. I wanted to make sure you weren't quiet because you didn't have anything else to say to me.” Conspicuously absent is 'I can go, if you'd rather', which would be polite and which is almost expected on the end of something like that. She could, it's true, but she doesn't feel like it and she isn't going to suggest it before he does.

So there.

He experiences (conscious of what it is) a moment of madness where he wants to tell her about Bellatrix and the dreams with the dog-that-is-maybe-Voldemort and his sometimes suspicions about the Mark. It is a very clarifying moment. He is afraid and he was going to tell her, just because she knows and still came to him as a friend. (Unless the coffee is poisoned.)

"Who told you about that specific poet?" It was Severus, wasn't it. Rodolphus should probably be upset about that. Funny how they never talk but Severus seems to occupy positions of influence in his life anyway.

After a moment, she says, “Severus didn't know that I didn't know.” What that says about Severus Snape's assessment of either of the two of them is- accurate, probably, in some ways if not all. Not very flattering, either, but the fact that she came back speaks for itself. (The coffee isn't poisoned, but she'd be lying if she ever tried to tell him that it never crossed her mind. A lot of things crossed her mind, most of which she'd never dream of telling anyone.)

“And it seemed appropriate.”

Because they don't talk about things, they just- read poetry. She knew that he'd understand, she just hadn't been sure what understanding would mean, because she still isn't sure where exactly it is that she fits into this context. Did he change his mind or does he think it doesn't apply here? Is he willfully ignoring something? Is watching her smoke and stab fog eels without her glamour different to the idea of listening to her recite certain kinds of poetry without it?

(That would be one of those things she isn't going to ask, because there are certain illusions she'd rather leave be, at the moment.)

There's no reason to disbelieve Ilde, or even to think that Severus would bother to try to sabotage his life, and Rodolphus doesn't. Why would anybody put in the work when he's perfectly capable of that himself? And yet, he adds one more little tick mark in some secret book in the Severus column.

He says, "It is appropriate." Unappreciated, but appropriate. More so than he suspects or is willing to believe, given things happening now.

There's a small pause, and then, very reasonably: “Am I?” -still welcome, since Rodolphus started this 'asking very blunt questions' thing this morning and she should probably know, if she isn't, since that's what she came for. Well; also there's coffee and she would like to show him the book she found, but in the main. At least in the first, given present conversation. It doesn't seem like an unreasonable thing to ask, although she's aware she's not necessarily the best judge of what is and is not a reasonable thing to ask another person.

She doesn't like asking questions very much. Mostly all you learn is how someone chooses to answer questions, and you can never be sure if they mean what they say - people are untrustworthy that way, which she knows because she lies constantly; it's true what they say about liars and trust - but under the circumstances, it seems like the next thing to say. So she'll see what happens.

He thinks again, are you trying to kill me? and then reflects that most of his actual friends, with or without quotation marks, have probably attempted to do exactly that. And when did he start being so fussy about his life, anyway? The answer is Bellatrix, as it so often is. Bellatrix is here, at a slightly more appropriate age, and it is no longer quite so acceptable to die alone in a ditch. If that's not love, what is.

"Yes," he says after that moment's consideration, and then, "thank you," which she can take any way she likes for any number of things. He couldn't possibly stop her, nor would he.

In that case, Ilde holds a coffee mug out to him, expectantly. “Good.” As if it's exactly that simple, or at least as if she can force it to be that simple by pretending as hard as she can that it couldn't possibly not be, which is a particular skill of hers. “I brought you books, but you should probably drink this before you try to parse literature.” Because it's coffee and he looks ragged around the edges, not because poison.

Poison isn't really her style, regardless. If she starts singing to him, then he should worry- but the water would probably be closing over his head before he'd think to. It's a gift.

He accepts the mug and drinks immediately, so in a sense, the singing isn't necessary. Eventually he will always drink. He may be standing in a delicately pink kitchen in a strange city in another world with younger versions of his wife and colleagues somewhere else and a young woman who has sharper teeth than the ones that are currently showing right here, but he will drink.

Something else is on his mind, though. "How are you?"

“Busy,” which is a standard answer, lately; the easiest answer, in that it's very accurate. She is busy. “I've been- I have a lot to do lately.” Not so much she can't find time to upend other people's business, mind, but that would obviously be a cold day in hell. (Other people's business is fascinating.)

Once her tea (a fey-origin blend that she's been sampling) is in the other cup, she puts the pastry plate in his hand and gives him a little shooing gesture out of his own kitchen because that's enough pink now, thank you. “And I have an excess of other people's fussing, although Ivan has very obligingly lengthened the time between texts to make sure I haven't been abducted again.”

Rodolphus allows himself to be shooed back into the darker living area, where he places the plate on a stack of books and, once he glances over his shoulder to establish she's not directly in the doorway, picks up his wand to summon a chair from the kitchen. It's one of those pureblooded 'yes it would take literally only 5 seconds more but this is the way we do things!!' habits he sometimes reverts to in times of (di)stress.

"I am sorry to hear that happened," he says, as sincere as it is an obligatory statement. It is... good to hear about an Ivan who cares a lot for Ilde. He tries to make as many assumptions as possible in that direction.

“So was I, when I came to.” -because her sense of humour is as bleak a little thing as she is, naturally, and because laughing at it lets her step around instead of stepping directly into the quicksand of and I didn't even know, I was in a box and I didn't even know, which is not the sort of thing you spring on company. Or anyone. Ever. “Apparently I've just got one of those faces that suggests I make an excellent kidnapping victim, which is something I would vigorously dispute if I knew where to submit my written complaint.”

It's just acerbic enough not to require some kind of obliging laugh in acknowledgement of her witticism, which would probably fall sort of flat if it did. Rodolphus is a tough crowd, as presumably Antonin can attest. And Ilde doesn't even have somebody else's pants and a goat at her disposal. (At the moment.)

“I'm all right, though, I shouldn't actually complain. So I won't.” Thus implying there are things about which she might complain, but aren't there always. “I'm just irritable because I had to quit smoking and lollipops only help with the oral fixation.”

Those are a lot of words, which Rodolphus can just barely understand as probably being meant as a tactic in which the answers exist, but have been presented in such a way as to not invite any specific reaction to any one specific part. Which is kind of their way of talking anyway, yes, and he listens as attentively as he has at every other occasion; this time, though, there is the awareness that his friend's complications are not things he can skate over and ignore in order to interact with her on one plane only. Of course he was aware they informed everything on that one plane, the poetry, but meeting her in cafes, or even in a house in which to attend a small recital, has been a held at arm's length (if that close, even) experience on his part. Ilde being in his house doesn't bring her any closer, yet the framing, the situation, somehow concentrates how he sees her.

Rodolphus notes consciously now: a life as busy and dangerous as the Fog excursion. A man who cares for her very much. Pregnant. Conversation like a shell game.

"Then complaining seems reasonable," he says, picking his plate back up and examining the pastry. If his wand is close at hand now, well, that's just another habit, and not actual commentary on his new view of Ilde.

“It turns out,” she says, conversationally, “that without the buffer of nicotine and a glass of wine, I don't actually like most people very much. Maybe I'm just an uncharitable person.” And yet: still here, which suggests that maybe it's more that she grades other people on an incredibly bizarre standard. (Accurate, and not irrelevant is her lingering suspicion of anyone whose faults and vices are not immediately obvious.)

Either way, though, the notion doesn't seem to be one that she's going to lose a lot of sleep over, however mildly sardonic she may be. “There's a poem that I only ever remember one part of- I don't know who wrote it. But I remember that there's a part of it that says, all I can think of is that I want you all to be quiet, very quiet, quiet as death.”

She has a pastry of her own, and as she breaks it in half she says, “I think that's pretty.”

If only he were the type of man who could allow himself to lean his chin into one hand and gaze at Ilde like 'really'. But if he were, Ilde might not be here. Rodolphus settles for pulling his pastry apart while looking at her, no more evidence of thoughtfulness than is typical for him.

"You'd have to create other buffers," he says eventually, though the implication there is if you wanted to, which he doesn't see as all that advisable. People are tiresome. But not everybody is blessed ('blessed') with the thousand mile stare that encourages tiresome people to go away. "Because I find that sentiment pretty, but also charitable."

Because it isn't 'be quiet like death because I have killed you', presumably. But that isn't very poetic.

In place of the stare, Ilde has been blessed with an unerring ability to attach herself to people that other people don't want to be near very much, like a cat that only wants to be stroked by someone who has allergies and prefers dogs anyway. Her personal life is an understandably odd place to be, all things considered.

“Quiet as and not quiet in,” she concedes, with that smile she has like a shuttered lamp, body language via morse code. “There are days I wouldn't be so choosy.”

He wonders if people have begun to give Ilde baby advice yet. There's nothing quite like being pregnant during a full out wizarding war, as he learned from observing Narcissa. In fact, circumstances might have shielded her from even more well-meaning people who would have showered her with tips and warnings and intrusive cossetting. There was a certain look to her after a while.

(Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that Bellatrix would never have his children.)

"If the latter would be more convenient." The part of that statement that is a joke has to do with how Ilde has at least two other people in her life that he knows of who would be able to arrange that. What a good joke.

Ilde laughs, a quiet musical gurgle, because she's made that joke on more than one occasion and it's always funny to her because she knows she could, probably. Something in her is perverse enough to find it really entertaining, for example, when she reminds Ivan while he's trying to get her pants undone that Sonja could break him without breaking a sweat. Just in case he'd forgotten.

(He hasn't forgotten, and he remembers well enough to know that any genuine concerns he has should probably just be kicked to Sonja when Ilde is so prone to dismissing his 'fussing' as a charming personality quirk.)

“I once saw a woman bring out her other two heads and swallow three men whole.” Her name was - is, Ilde hopes - Ellen, and Ilde thinks she's beautiful, and there's a slightly dreamy quality to the way she recounts the incident. “I think it made her feel better.” Do unto others as they did unto you.

Rodolphus sips his coffee. Is there a good response to that? He doesn't have one. After a moment he ventures, "Could provide some extra nutrition."

It's like Ilde brings out the absolute best in hungover Rodolphus. He considers, briefly, adding something to the coffee, then remembers how he got like this. Suddenly he recalls some apocryphal story about a lonely second year who falls in love with a mermaid in the lake at Hogwarts. It goes pretty much the same way all the fairy tales go, just dressed up in the context of the school. He wonders if they still tell it. (Maybe they should.)

“Revenge is best served, etcetera.” Obviously she does, and it would be lying to say that Ilde isn't vaguely intrigued as to what might come out of his mouth next, tired and unshaven as he is; it would be polite to leave, it would not be polite to turn him upside down and shake him like a snowglobe, and she compromises by doing neither of these things.

Or at least not the latter intentionally, which is something, because plausible deniability aside, she isn't always unaware.

He can never remember if that quote is or is not from Les Liaisons dangereuses, but it's appropriately inappropriate that Ilde would (accidentally or unconsciously) remind him of that, anyway. It's certainly not a direct comparison in any sense; for one, he's not having nearly enough sex. He wishes he weren't thinking about this. It's not even eleven in the morning yet. Rodolphus drinks coffee stoically. He should say something. He's not sure what. Just what he's not going to say.

"What are the books?"

“Les Épaves,” she says, holding it up to show him. Baudelaire is absolutely going to make every conversation they have less tense, surely. “I don't- actually know if you speak French, I've just realized, but it was my first language, and I've lost most of it, but I've been practising again...Pietro was helping me, until he left the city, but I thought, well, I thought poetry would help.”

She doesn't get any further into the whys and wherefores of that, but her reasoning is relatively straightforward- she didn't lose her mother tongue, she rejected it, along with her mother. Maybe it'll be easier to lure it back to her if she teaches herself to associate it with something she likes - reading Baudelaire the way he wrote it, keeping company with friends.

"A little..." He reaches out for the book, curious. He's familiar with Baudelaire, of course, but passingly, and more with Fleurs du mal, as might be expected. That vague era, Baudelaire and Rimbaud and Verlaine and such, doesn't necessarily appeal to him, but like Ilde, he has an interest in the the language of it as well.

She obliges in handing it to him, open to Lola de Valence- “My stepfather took me to see the painting, once, Lola of Valencia.” To be fair, it wasn't the only thing they were there to see, but it's what she remembered when she was thumbing through the book and deciding whether or not to pick it up. He'd told her the poem, too, standing in front of it, and- then he'd had to tell her it again in English, because she'd been fourteen and sulky and the only French she could reliably summon involved disagreeing or insisting she hadn't done it.

He takes it, setting his coffee aside to read, and now, apart from his unshavenness, her pregnancy, and their dim surroundings, it is much more like how it used to be. Namely, with a poem which coincidentally lampshades the awkwardness between them if read a certain way (i.e. by him). Rodolphus reads it in his slow and careful way.

"I have never seen it," is what he chooses to say of the poem. It's short enough that he doesn't have to make any commentary, he feels.

“Some of the poems in this were censored from previous publication,” she says, “although I don't think Lola was one of them. I'm not sure why the other ones were censored, particularly- although one of them is called 'Lesbos' and this was the 1860s, so there's always that.”

Although you should really know what you're getting, with Baudelaire. Some of his imagery is a little too Catholic for someone who only ever wore the image of that faith like an ill-fitting costume, but she doesn't mind the trappings, just never quite grasped what lay beneath.

Catholicism is like an exotic land to Rodolphus, who has a loose, scholarly concept of what it is in theory and little idea of what it's like in practice. It's another reason why he doesn't always take to poets whose reputations are made on the flouting of certain conventions or the use of blasphemous imagery: sheer disconnect. Still, you don't need to grasp every aspect of Catholicism or religion in general to understand what Baudelaire does with it.

He turns the pages at random, ending up at Le Léthé. Undoubtedly he's not getting the full nuances, but based on what he's reading, he quietly shuts the book.

"It will be an interesting challenge," Rodolphus says, sincere but also toneless. This is a true statement on a few levels. "Historically, the censorship and banning of literature has rarely proved effective in the ways those in power might have wished."

It's as much commentary on the earlier book she sent him as he'll give.

It merits a slight pause, accordingly, although Ilde isn't inclined (this time) to press her luck; sending him the book probably qualified, although she isn't sure where exactly that falls when it seems necessary (and courteous?) to inform him that she knows. That there are better ways of doing it than obliquely referencing war poetry is...valid, but also not her style, so.

“At home, we had a section of the library that was just devoted to books that had been banned somewhere. Just for novelty value, I think.” Her father liked that sort of thing- some of them he had more because the reason they were banned amused him more than because he was at all interested in reading them himself. If he could find an edition of the year it was banned, so much the better.

"I had a few myself," Rodolphus says, though that small shelf did not include the poet Ilde sent him. That he did have some banned books is incidental rather than through deliberate effort. Once you get to a certain era and you start collecting books, it'd be quite difficult to avoid having a few.

"I suppose the demonic tomes probably count as well," he adds after a moment's reflection. They weren't all banned. Just some of them. But most old pureblooded families had a handful.

Interest: piqued. “What sort of demonic tomes?” ...of course she's curious about that, even if it's probably not poetry.

This conversation is very revealing for both of them, but only Rodolphus derives any distress from it. At the same time, it's not enough distress to make him stop talking to Ilde, which is probably its own, special kind of distress. His eyes stray unconsciously to his wand, thinking of the last time he was free to practice that particular kind of magic.

"The summoning of otherworldly creatures, primarily," he admits. "The summoning and binding to a common reality... so bound, they are not really useful, but they will answer questions on interesting topics, sometimes. Some of them respond well to rhyme and rhythm, I could not say why, so poetry can play some small part."

“How Faustian. Maybe demons have literary preferences? Some poetry has more of a pleasing cadence than other kinds.” That's an interesting place for her mind to go on this topic, yes, but she's touching on it very lightly, not entirely sure what to make of it. Even at this point- she keeps encountering things that feel like stories, and she has to remember that until she was sixteen, she would've sounded like a story to herself.

Which is confusing, a little.

“Although 'otherworldly creatures' is a much larger category than 'demon'.”

He shrugs, reluctant to warm to the subject — this kind of magic is unpopular in his world, though she probably wouldn't know that. Unless she mentioned it to Severus. Ah, well. Rodolphus can't be expected to live his life according to what Severus may or may not find out.

"'Demon' may not be the right term. To me it means spirit. They come from somewhere else and when they are inclined to explain themselves, it is not always easy to understand. Especially when they like wordplay." He sips his coffee. "One enjoyed limericks."

The dryness only just hints at despair.

Ilde laughs, seemingly in spite of herself- “There once was a...?” Don't finish that sentence. Do not. She drinks her tea instead, trying to imagine what sort of limericks were involved. This is not very successful, but it is privately very entertaining.

Eventually, she says, “I know a lot more about poetry than how any kind of magic works,” which is an observation more than any kind of complaint or suggestion that someone should teach her. (If she wants to learn, then she'll find someone who is a teacher and ask; she isn't inclined to slide inquiries in slyly, although she rarely turns down an opportunity just to watch and remember.) “Or any sort of practical thing, probably.”

He can't quite stop himself from mentally filling in the one limerick he remembers from that particular demon, which is probably the only non-Antonin or Evan Rosier related memory he has involving the phrase 'two cocks'. Probably. (It is too early in the day for this.) Per usual, he only sips his coffee, privately resolving to forget that as soon as possible.

Rodolphus shrugs at her comment. "Life demands more of us than practicality, no matter how smug people can be in their small-mindedness."

“I have great artistic and sentimental value to the world,” she says, in that complacent tone she sometimes adopts to mock herself, shifting slightly to adjust her sitting position to get more comfortable. (Just when she thinks she's getting used to the changes going on in her lately, something else changes, too.) “I think I can confidently assert that, as long as nobody asks me what worlds I mean.”

How important is one that's already over, after all.

The hint of smile goes directly behind the coffee cup as he drinks again, but he's sure she'll see it anyway. This is one of those times when saying nothing is the best response, he believes, and he rarely misses the opportunity to take that route.

As if his smile (the hint of it) is an answer in and of itself, she says, “See, I knew you'd agree with me.”

unfortunately, "I can show you the world" is stuck in my head and I can't think of other lyrics

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