multiversallogs | closed :: don't you wonder when the earth will go

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closed :: don't you wonder when the earth will go

Who: Sebastian LeMat and a cast of thousands.
What: A whole lot of meeting up over coffee, tea, lunch, etc.
Where: All around town - Sobek Croix and Howl Barrow, mainly.
When: At various points throughout the week.
Notes: Organization plurk is here and a Podder mix is here.

For Martha:

As promised, Sebastian and Velcro are waiting outside the Italian tavern on Damgate and both look happy, enjoying the cold air and a spot of people watching. Now that his identity is a little more open and Martha seems to have heard something of his past from the Professor, he's unsure how well this lunch will go, but he doesn't want it to be said that he didn't put forth a minimum of effort to be civil and welcoming.

For Tonks and Hermione:

Rationally, Sebastian knew that keeping his involvement with Shada's cult as a private matter wouldn't suit Tonks and certainly wouldn't be enough to appease Hermione. He was afraid that no matter what his assurances were, they'd take a dim view of the way in which he'd sought to resort his magic and while they may not be exactly the people he once knew, their approval mattered to him.

While those concerns remain in the back of his mind as a problem to be dealt with in the future, he is currently more interested in finding the pie shop that he'd promised to meet Hermione and Tonks at. One of the other staff at Hellsing suggested The Pie In The Sky -- two story bakery and café located in the heart of Howl Barrow, just beyond Royal Jewels, but if you've hit the weird health food shop, you've gone too far.

For Jones:

It had been weighing on him for a time -- would it be wiser to explain the full terms of his arrangement to Jones before or after he confessed his interest in her. In the end, he was selfish and choose to tell her about his feelings first, making sure that she cared enough in return to hear him out. Wisely, or perhaps too cautiously, he hasn't yet mentioned their relationship to his friends in the even that she decides to now reject him.

To that end, Sebastian has invited her over to his flat for dinner and warned her that he's a poor cook, but can manage a few, simple things - omelets among them.

For Princess Nuala:

If you are feeling up to some company, I would like to speak you to, your Highness.

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"You'd be surprised how many places out there have a similar feel to our cities though. Probably because of the way we spread out. It's amazing to actually just see a city that is so different. There was one where we needed to travel around in sort of bubbles because the atmosphere was too sulfuric for us to breathe. They had the most interesting food there, on Detruea." Nervously changing the subject? That was exactly what she was doing. Planets and stories had a way of doing that for her.

"I'd thought of staying in alien town I knew, but I suppose if I had to wear a bubble all the time, I might've not been quite so enthusiastic." If given the chance to return, Sebastian would still visit, but he wouldn't be quite as keen to stay. There's too much to do back in London and, for the interim, in Baedal.

"The city you were in before you came here, yeah?" Martha was just making certain of it before she took another bite of her pizza. "What was it like?" A part of her wondered if it was cut off like Baedal was or if it was a place that people could get to with the assistance of a TARDIS.

"No, Bete Noire was very much like Earth." A version as seen through a glass darkly, but still recognizably human-built and oriented. "I remember that someone else described it as 'if Los Angeles took a wrong turn into an even seedier neighbourhood'."

"Beyond having the good fortune to be introduced to the Malfoys, I can't say that it was a city that treated me kindly."

Martha nodded, and she imagined Los Angeles as she'd last seen it, minus the statues of Saxon. It provided a compelling image for how she saw the city that Sebastian had been in. Of course she didn't know if it matched up, and she was loathe to ask.

"The Malfoys, are they from your timeline?"

"No, they're both dead in my world," he says with some strange, weighty emotion colouring his voice. "Not to mention the ones here are about twenty years younger than the Malfoys I was acquainted with."

There's a hesitation before he uses the term 'acquainted with', almost as if he was going to use a more violent phrase instead.

Martha wondered about the weighty emotion, because she couldn't not. She knew of how in the end family had been far more important than anything else, and she wondered if in Sebastian's world that lesson had come far sooner than the final battle for Hogwarts.

She wants to ask the question, and it hovers on the tip of her tongue for a moment before Martha can't dampen it down. However, it only comes out as one question, which is an improvement. "Acquainted with?"

Sebastian takes his time composing his reply. After putting his cutlery aside and taking a drink of water, he calmly answers her: "I killed Lucius Malfoy to spare him a long and messy torture session. If I had not gone to his aid, his son would've attempted it and died, leaving my colleagues and I without a doctor. Narcissa did not long outlive her husband."

There is a coolness to Sebastian's tone that almost dares her to judge him and implies that he has not distanced himself from his actions, rather he remains firmly set in the belief that he did the correct thing.

Martha listened, and she just set her fork down when he mentioned it. She looked concerned for him, and horrified, but there was no judgment in her expression. She couldn't judge someone for having done what he needed to do in those circumstances. Leaving someone in pain wasn't something she would have done either, and it was odd to think that what she would do was something in common with Draco Malfoy.

After a second, Martha's fingers flexed to reach over and touch him, but here in Baedal she was learning not to do it. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring up painful memories." She hadn't at all.

"You don't need to apologize to me for my own actions." Sebastian doesn't recoil from her touch, but he isn't about to take comfort from it either. "I've been told I have a talent for doing the necessary thing; which I did then, and which I will do now by apologizing for my own poor behaviour and leaving you to your meal. If you'll excuse me."

Provided she doesn't stop him, Sebastian will find their waiter, pay for both meals, and leave.

"Sebastian, wait." Martha frowned when he started to get up. She didn't think it was bad behavior at all; at least on his part. "I'm sorry, for my bad behavior."

Martha hadn't wanted to make him angry, and she definitely was worried that she thought that she was judging him. "I'm a doctor, I know how hard those decisions can be and more than that," her voice lowered, because this wasn't something that she normally spoke about with anyone. "I know how it can be when everything's destroyed and people are counting on you to save everything." And she meant everything, that much was certain from her tone. "I know what kind of decisions you need to make then."

Clearly frustrated, Sebastian runs his hands through his hair before retaking his seat and gesturing for Velcro to sit as well.

"I said it when we first arrived here and now that we've spoken a little, I'll ask again: what do you want? What is it that you're expecting to gain from talking to me?" Fundamentally, he understands and relates to strangers on a transactional basis. Perhaps Martha wants to know him to better understand her own husband's life or she might still be in the mindset of one who needs to rehabilitate those who have made 'the wrong choices', or something else entirely. While Sebastian can accept that she may be able to empathize with him and may have a stated interest in being friends for the sake of friendship, but he doesn't know or trust her enough to believe that's the whole of it.

The optimistic, bright part of Martha that still hasn't been worn away by dealing with cynicism and how dark life had been flinched a bit when he started talking about gaining. For a moment, she really doesn't know what to say in response to that. "I want to be your friend, Sebastain. That's all I ever wanted."

She paused before she added, "I want friends. I need friends. I've not had this few friends in years. It's never been this hard for me to make friends before. I mean, with people here. Not just you." Which said something about the situation, or life here or both.

"Here's what we're going to do: I am going to go pay for lunch, walk out of here, and then we'll meet at work, sometimes talk, maybe about nothing, and we'll see if we can't manage to be acquaintances before we're friends. What do you say to that?" While Sebastian may wield his ugly history as a weapon, he doesn't trust people easily. It's fair to say that he appreciates Martha's situation, but that he is not compelled to shoehorn a new friendship into his life.

For a moment, Martha isn't certain what to say. She isn't certain what she can say. So instead she just nods, deciding that arguing with him about paying the check would be an effort in futility. In the end, all she could do was sigh, smile thinly and offer "alright" as a response.

"Oh, eggs would be perfectly lovely," she says. Really, she wouldn't mind anything he cooked, but that's something she'll keep to herself, thank you very much. That, and she's often not had the luxury of being picky about food.

Out of curiosity, she switches on her magical senses; the warding, as she sees it, is pretty impressive. It's still difficult for her to imagine why someone as pleasant as Sebastian might even need that level of protection, but all sorts of people have enemies—sometimes especially good people. "Do you need any help in the kitchen at all?"

"Company, please? I've got something I want to run by you." Whether or not he needs the wards is debatable, but he's been a target for far too long to be comfortable in an apartment that lacks a robust ward system.

Assuming she follows him, there's a seat for her that will let them easily talk while he cuts up some vegetables and gets the pan ready. "You know that I'm working to get my magic back and that I've a series of tasks to complete."

"Sure." She follows him; if he lets her, she'll help him cut vegetables, but otherwise she'll just sit. "And yes, you did mention that, I think when we were at the cafe just after the winter holidays..."

He never did tell her exactly what it entailed; she didn't want to pry, since it seemed kind of personal, although she's certainly curious—even more so because he seems like he's avoiding the subject.

"I've finished the first, caring for a young creature, and the second is going to involve blood letting," he says casually and untroubled. If anything, he sounds more unnerved by having to care for another being than ritualized blood-letting.

"Then there's a third, that I want -- that I'd like your opinion on."

Both of what he described are not particularly strange-sounding or objectionable, but it's his hesitation at the last one that troubles her. "It's not something dangerous, is it?"

"No." He looks over what he's been cooking, sweeping vegetable scraps into a little bin for compost before rinsing off his hands and turning to face her.

"Not dangerous in the usual sense. She's a fertility goddess and there's some expectation, but not necessity, that I participate this spring."

Jones has at least memorized the names of the Twelve Point Divinity, although she's kept them at arm's length otherwise. While they might be the Powers that Be around here, she is still a little uncomfortable with polytheism, so... she chooses not to deal with it unless she absolutely has to. As such, their ways—and by extension their rituals—are not particularly well-known to her. She's not quite sure where this is going, but she has a sort of feeling that she should be fretting about this.

...then again she has that feeling about a lot of things. Maybe it's just her?

"I'm not... well, I'm not really well-versed in the sort of festival days the Twelve Point Divinity do...?"

"I could try and couch this in gentle terms, but I'm rubbish when it comes to finding the right words." It may have been selfish, but Sebastian had hoped that Jones had done a little looking into the cult of Shada and would already know what he was talking about. "We're coming up on spring and, and I've been invited to participate. I was given the choice to do repairs for the temples to show devotion, but that seemed to me to stick to the letter of the law and not the intent."

"Whatever your thoughts on the matter are, I'll accept it."

"Yes, that..." Jones has caught the gist of it; she's had enough pagan friends to extrapolate to the logical conclusion, as much as her face is studiedly blank. There's just a lot of her head noting that it would really be easier not to deal with it at this moment in time. But, then again, when is it ever going to get easier?

And she really does like Sebastian. She owes it to him to consider it thoughtfully, doesn't she?

"I..." Jones takes a deep breath. "I think I'll... I'm going to need a little bit of time to think about this, honestly." She runs a hand through her hair, a million thoughts tossed back and forth in her mind.

(Does she wish he'd told her about this first? Yes. Would she have been more hesitant about seeing him officially if he had? ...probably. If she lost her magic, would she do this to get it back? —this and more, probably. So can she judge?)

She twirls a finger through a stray lock of hair, looking down at her feet. "It's a lot, I guess, to think about. And, um... it's not just you, some of it, I think, is me. There's been a lot of changes to process since I've gotten here, coming from what amounts to about sixty or seventy years in the past, and the world's so different." Her hands twist nervously in her lap.

"It is a lot and I, I wasn't sure that it was what I needed to do until recently." He'd spent a long time thinking about whether or not he should just give his time to the temple and do some repairs instead. "...and, whatever you decide, it's your choice. Even so, I don't think that much has changed. This is an unusual situation for anyone; fidelity is expected."

"Because of the type of rite, they're pretty sure there'll be a child at the end of it, but I'll never meet her."

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closed :: don't you wonder when the earth will go

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