I don't exist

[deservesadaisy]

Who: Ivan and Ilde Decima
What: in-person meeting and comparing notes
Where: out and about in the Brock Marsh area
When: Veerdi, early evening
Notes: If anyone feels a burning need to run into Ivan pre-Ilde, feel free, but brace for possible trolling.
Warnings: They are both terrible people.

Since the militia's raid, Ivan has mainly been cautiously exploring his new city. He's not quite sure yet precisely what he intends to do; he'll get bored eventually, he'll need to do something, but in the meanwhile, he's gathering information and blending in without much effort.

He's looking at some of the new inventions in a curiosity shop in Brock Marsh, and though Ilde has never seen his face, she could very well recognize his voice as he asks the shop keeper a question, clipped English with a deceptive hint of Wales and no hint of Russia at all.

Comments

[deservesadaisy]

His smile is canny, but he said, "The kind where they're making us feel safe and protected from whatever horrible individuals are behind this unpleasantness. And if they step on a few rights here and there, well." He exhales a jet of smoke. "All John Wayne, cowboys and indians, with this lot."

[rhinemaid]

That sounds more or less like the picture of them she'd formed in her mind, and she frowns, falling quiet for a while as they walk. The Militia didn't prevent their first, distressingly publicized escape attempt; they didn't interfere with them afterwards. On the other hand, it was an isolated incident they were expected to die of - a failed suicide mission. It'll be another story if they're seen to be agitating the populace.

Problematic. Not surprising, but problematic.

"I don't like westerns," she says, abstractly.

[deservesadaisy]

"They do get repetitive. Though The Searchers was quite good, for what it was." Ivan's opinions on film, as with most art, are solid but casual.

"Regardless. They seem confident of their power, but probably not without reason. That's what you were asking, wasn't it?"

[rhinemaid]

"Partly." She was also asking if they seemed corrupt or untrustworthy, which he also helpfully answered for her. ('Yes'. While Ilde has a marked bias, she's also perhaps not wrong, here.)

"Are you staying at the inn?"

[deservesadaisy]

"For the time being." He may move eventually, but he feels no big rush to depart. (And part of him can't help thinking that new arrivals make for easy prey, before anyone knows them.)

"Unless we keep getting exclusive visits from the militia, of course, but I've the sense they keep their eyes fairly far afield as well."

[rhinemaid]

"We didn't stay long. I wouldn't have liked to." It was odd to be in mixed accommodation again, and she didn't care for it, wasn't interested in having men underfoot. The out of the way house in Raven's Gate is quieter, more private, and generally a preferable situation. It's all right, for now, that it's just her and Sonja, and not the rest of the enclave.

[deservesadaisy]

"Still looking for a way out?" He may have taken the time to hear a rumor or two about her, after their first chat.

[rhinemaid]

"Until I find one," she says, peaceably. (She has yet to quite work her way up to actually going into one of the temples, but there's that, too- probably not a rumour, though, unless someone is paying very close attention to the places she walks past most often on her outings.) "You're not?"

[deservesadaisy]

Ivan shrugs, easy. "I move about, generally, so I may eventually. But I've only just arrived, and I can't say I'm in any great rush to leave."

That, and the fact he was fairly certain he couldn't, at least not back to where he came from.

[rhinemaid]

"I guess you can be obnoxious anywhere." Ilde is progressively more inclined to like Ivan, but that doesn't mean she's going to be sweet to him when they have such a nicely established alternative going on.

[deservesadaisy]

"One learns to adapt," he agrees with a laugh. "Besides. Not as if I'm inclined to be pining after Bristol."

[rhinemaid]

"I've never been." She doubts she's missing much, really. (It's not as bad overseas as in North America, but - well. Even so.) "Is there anywhere you will pine for?"

[deservesadaisy]

"If I can't get out, you mean?" He considers. "I'm fond of Vienna. And I have some good memories of Paris. But no, no one place particularly." He would miss his liberty, but he'd had longer in the world than most. He could let it go.

[rhinemaid]

"Paris is overrated." Let it never be said that Ilde isn't a woman of strong convictions, namely that the French can get bent. She rests the box in front of her, her fingers laced underneath it to better carry a parcel of inconvenient shape. "No one there can drive to save their lives."

[deservesadaisy]

"Now that is an apt observation." Ivan's driven in Paris, both before and since acquiring his current car. (Perhaps most recent would be more accurate - he hopes Daniil took it, since Daisy never cared to drive. If he'd had a will, he'd have willed it to Carl for a joke, but it was a poor vampire who admitted the possibility a car would outlast him.)

"But I had some good days there that pre-dated the cars."

[rhinemaid]

Ilde gives him a sidelong look. "You must be especially susceptible to 'good old days' syndrome." She's observed something interesting about those, namely that they're just never as good when they're actually happening as they will be remembered later, when the worst parts can be selectively edited out of memories. After a moment, absently curious, "How old are you?"

[deservesadaisy]

"37," he deadpans back at her. Which is not technically a lie, but not what she was asking.

"It's easy to get bored, but I try to make a point of remembering the things that pleased me."

[rhinemaid]

"I'd have guessed forties," she murmurs; fey, claws, scratching post, etc. "I'm twenty-one, so I just remember everything."

Ilde has found reciprocating when she demands personal information of people occasionally makes them less inclined to view it as oddly. On the other hand, she's not unaware that she is herself just a bit odd, sometimes. ('Sometimes'.)

[deservesadaisy]

"Mm, well. Once you pass 200, people tend to forgive you for letting a memory slip, here and there."

Not that he did. But people would understand, should it happen.

[rhinemaid]

"Senility is a poor excuse." Just in case he was wondering if she's one of those people.

[deservesadaisy]

He laughs quietly. "I suppose, yes. But to address your earlier comment, there were no 'good old days,' but there were one or two days, here and there, worth thinking of fondly."

[rhinemaid]

"Picky," Ilde remarks, feeling comfortably free to do an aboutface on whatever subject she chooses to needle him idly about; it doesn't much matter, so ... well, it doesn't much matter. She detours almost abruptly, though, turning down another street that leads (inevitably) to the riverbank, tired of walking for a while and fond of the water. Ivan will follow her or he won't, she figures.

[deservesadaisy]

He does; he wasn't kidding about having nothing else pressing, and she interests him.

"Where is it you're trying to get back to?" he asks, after a short pause of walking and smoking.

[rhinemaid]

Ivan likes the sound of his own voice well enough that Ilde watches him out of the corner of her eye as they walk- she moves when notices, and the last half of that tells her enough.

"New York. Eventually." Her tone doesn't suggest it's for any pleasant purpose. "Sonja and I have things to do there. We're going back."

There is no question of that, in her mind.

[deservesadaisy]

"God help New York," he says, lightly, based on her tone. He'd gone there in 2001, but nothing terribly interesting had come of it. "What year?" he adds, remembering that it might matter.