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

[heardmermaids]

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.

Comments

[toldastory]

Martha arrived on time, which is something unusual with Martha. It's probably the doctor in her, but she normally tends to run anywhere between ten and fifteen minutes behind. She smiled at both Sebastian and Velcro, checking to make certain that he wasn't working as a service dog before she even thought about petting him.

"'Lo Sebastian. How are you?"

[heardmermaids]

"I'm well, and you?" Velcro is not wearing his vest today, so she's welcome to pet him, if she feels the need. "Shall we go in?"

The tavern is a thoroughly average sort of Proper Italian place with a woodfired pizza oven, bottles with candles trapped in layers of old wax, stone walls, and a certain percentage of the chairs creak and groan ominously no matter who sits on them.

[toldastory]

Martha quickly touches the dog's head by way of greeting, but it's something that she sees as only polite really, and then she nods and heads inside the restaurant.

It's very familiar, like it could be one of a hundred places in London or New York, and it makes her smile to see because she's missed pizza even if it's a bit rubbish and Martha's reminded, not for the first time, that they need to get out more into the city.

[heardmermaids]

The good news is that the tavern isn't entirely rubbish. The menu is short and consists of a few daily specials alongside standard Italian fare and there are enough people eating there that it's unlikely to be poorly made.

"I was heading to Italy when this place snatched me away."

[wandandsickle]

Jones has never been particular about food, and, after all, she's more interested in the company. She arrives a bit early, putters around nervously outside for a few minutes, tugging at the ends of her scarf, and then knocks.

[heardmermaids]

From inside the apartment, there's the sound of someone walking over to the door, followed by a dog, and checking through the fisheye.

"Hullo. C'mon in, it's a bit of a mess." No, it's not. "But I'm glad you found it."

His apartment is small. From the front door, a visitor can see a galley kitchen, the dining nook, a couch, and hall to the bathroom, while directly above their heads is the loft for the bed. It could be dark, but the wall facing the entrance is almost entirely made of glass.

[toldastory]

Martha just smiles and inhales deeply for a moment with her eyes half-closed. Smell is the closest thing to memory and she's reminded of times in New York now, and small places in London. When Sebastian mentioned that he had been heading to Italy, she frowned.

"That's awful. What were you going to be doing there? Holiday?"

[heardmermaids]

"No, not really a holiday." His laugh is quiet and surprised, but entirely in earnest. Sebastian really does think it funny to imagine that he could be on holiday in Italy. "The married set of Malfoys and I had been in another thief-city before this one and we'd come back after the war. Alastor helped with the papers -- do you know Moody? -- and off we went. We'd just gotten into the south of France when Baedal took us."

[leviohhhhsa]

Hermione had accepted that Sebastian was stubborn- long, long ago- and that there was almost no possibility of swaying him once he made up his mind to do things-

But stand by and agree to keep her nose out of anything this big? No way.

So she'd researched, of course, coming across the rumours (upsetting) first but being clever enough not to actually trust them. The facts she could find had seemed far more reassuring- though only relatively.

After all: still a cult, still shrouded in some degree of enigma, still the native religion of a city that kidnaps innocents for some unknown purpose. Well, innocents among others.

She's just wondering if there's something in that thought- if she should revisit her brief speculations on the concepts of Hell, Heaven, Purgatory and the like, which she earlier dismissed as nonsense- when she catches sight of him. She'd Apparated to a familiar spot in the neighbourhood (what's wrong with weird health food, exactly?) and chosen to find the cafe on foot rather than take her chances. She can see it now, between them.

"Sebastian!" she calls, a smile on her face and a hand raised in greeting, hurrying forward to draw closer to him.

[toldastory]

Martha frowned a bit at the laugh, but she understood the way he responded to it. It was the same way that she'd responded to things when she mentioned that she'd been a place during her travels. Of course they couldn't know what she had meant.

It was interesting to think that there was another 'thief-city' out there, but she didn't want to give it too much though. Mozenrath was home and waiting for them; she was going to believe that with every fiber of her being. He wasn't somewhere else.

The question about Moody gave her something to focus on, and Martha shook her head. "I've only heard of him, I'm afraid." She didn't mention that in the timeline Martha knew, he'd died saving Harry.

[heardmermaids]

Nothing is wrong with health food in principle or fact, but as with most things in Baedal, it can be a little unusual. (They have almost everything in there. Almost.)

"Hullo!" Sebastian is pleased to see her and Velcro wags his tail by way of greeting. "How've you been?"

[heardmermaids]

"He's a holy terror," he replies with genuine fondness but there's a suggestion to his tone that should Moody walk out of the backroom to admonish him, it wouldn't be too unusual. "But a good friend."

This dichotomy tends to appear fairly frequently among those Sebastian considers true friends. Perhaps because those are the sort of people he prefers to associate with, or perhaps because they tend to live longest in his experience.

[toldastory]

It was nice to hear about this from a perspective that she was different with; it was a bit like hearing the other the other side of the tale. It was interesting to her as a storyteller as much as it was being like a member of the audience. All and all the fondness in his voice (as opposed to the scowl in her husband's when he talked about Moody.)

And Martha respected friends who were holy hells; she had more than a few of those and grinned knowing at the comment. "He seemed like the best bloke to have in a fight, really. I know people like him back home."

[heardmermaids]

"He's very good at his job." Alastor is a good man as well, but excelling at his chosen profession would be his preferred compliment and so it is the one that Sebastian gives. He believes in the value and importance of trying to be a good man (keyword: trying), but isn't sure if anyone can truly deserve the title until the ramifications of their actions are fully explored.

It's about this time that their waiter appears and there's a lull in the conversation as they each order - pappardelle with some sort of red, meat sauce for him.

"So, what exactly did you want to talk to me about?

[toldastory]

Martha tends to think most people are good people until they are proven otherwise, and sometimes even being proven otherwise tends to be circumstantial. It was one of the things that she'd learned aboard the Barge and one of the reasons that she'd been friendly with so many people there. It was an interesting dichotomy, really.


Martha herself ordered a personal sized pizza before she took a sip of her water. She'd been careful to wear a long shirt, and the cuff of it covered the mark at her wrist.

His direct question deserved a direct answer, so she gave him one. "Well, in part it's because I don't want you to assume because I'm married to Sev, that we shouldn't talk or anything. I know he can be very 'stay out of my life' about me."

[heardmermaids]

"To be equally frank, I don't think he wants me to have anything to do with his life and I'm happy to respect that." Sebastian has no problem chatting with Martha, and possibly eventually becoming friends with her, but this is a firm and necessary distinction. He knows that she's welcome to associate with him, but should anything ill come of it he'll have to shoulder the blame.

[toldastory]

Martha nodded in response to what he said; it was a fair point. Severus Snape had lived and died in another life to protect a boy who was not this man, despite the name that he shared. Really, she didn't blame Sev for not wanting to have anything to do with him. However, Martha had found herself liking him, and she felt tragically short of friends even before she had known who he was.

"Fair enough," Martha said after a minute. "But I liked you before all of that, and I hope to eventually count you as a friend, Sebastian."

[heardmermaids]

"I hope so too." He may be less sure that it will come to pass than she is, but if he's made friends entered into an arrangement of enlightened self interest with Lucius Malfoy then anything can happen. "I am sorry if I've come off a bit brusque, but I feel that being upfront early on is the wisest course of action."

For some strange reason, Sebastian has an almost pathological hatred of the paternalistic view that information needs to be kept hidden and only shared when it's advantageous.

[toldastory]

His agreeing with her made her feel better about this, that much was clear. She had relaxed and there was a smile on her face, because she had missed just having people in her life whom she was friends with. There was something about the city, (or the husband) that had made making friends here much more difficult than she had remembered it being before.

"It's alright, I agree. I'd much rather have honesty than to worry about something being held back and coming out later. I wish more people took on an honesty is the best policy." Said the woman who could be pathologically bad at lying.

[heardmermaids]

"It's not an easy thing to find, but I'm always surprised at how few people take the opportunity to reinvent themselves in these new worlds. Although, I suppose, if someone did, how would we know about it?" Sebastian rebuilt himself back in Britain, so it's less a change brought on location.

"I know Baedal and Bete Noire, but I don't really know anything about where you've come in from?"

[toldastory]

"It really isn't," Martha agreed with him about honesty, but she'd come from a place where it had been largely built around rebuilding people and her husband was proof of that. She'd helped many people do it, but that'd been the reason that they were there, and hopefully, they were all better for it.

Somewhere.

"I come from the Barge," she began with a smile. "It was a ship that moved outside of time and space giving people who had made the wrong decisions the opportunity to change and go back and have a second chance at their lives. I was a warden there; we were the people who helped make that happen."

[heardmermaids]

"That's...no, I don't know if that's a kind thing at all. I can see that it could be, but I guess it would hinge on how it worked." Sebastian's expression is guarded, but not disbelieving. He's thinking about how unpleasant it would be to have some strange 'warden' review his choices and offer commentary on events of the past.

"Who ran it?"

[cailisairgid]

Of course, Sebastian. Join me.

[heardmermaids]

As promised, Sebastian arrives at Nuala's rooms with a small pot of preserves as a get well present; he's never sure how to pick out flowers, but jam won't steer a man wrong.

Knock, knock?

[toldastory]

"Some of the inmates might agree with you. Well, most do at the start." Martha paused for a moment, remembering all of the ones she'd had over her time there. "And there are people whom I'd agree with you on." Like the Doctor and Sirius Black.

"A man," Martha began, and then she shook her head. "He's not a man, considering how he could alter timelines and how people live and die. But he's called the Admiral. He just kind of shows up and offers you a job. Some people make a deal to come work for him. I didn't make one until after I'd already graduated an inmate." Because there was something she wanted then.