what if

[pureandstrange.livejournal.com]

Who: Ilde Decima and Rodolphus Lestrange
What: Ilde wishes to bestow a priceless artifact upon Rodolphus.
Where: Queequeg's
When: TODAY, RIGHT NOW
Notes: if you don't like tentacles u a scrub
Warnings: ... tentacles, or rather, just one tentacle, a very small one (I presume)

While prior to his arrival in Baedal, such activities as 'going out for coffee/tea' or indeed anything other than 'running around hiding and killing people indiscriminately' had not played a large part in Rodolphus Lestrange's life. Even after he has for the most part become accustomed to life in this city, there are not many conventional leisure pursuits for someone like him. He reads a great deal, explores what he could, and lives frugally from job to job. His natural disconnect makes it difficult to find suitable employment, but he sees no reason to seek a more permanent vocation — yet. The city unsettles him, as does this world's propensity to neutralize his magical powers depending on where he was.

This, then, is a novelty, not only in activity, but the setting, as well as the other participant. He has been past and heard about Queequeg's but had never entered the premises before; the last time he 'socialized' with a significantly younger person or people was, in fact, the sea trip, and before that, the battle at Hogwarts. He remembers Ilde and Balthier best, but did not see fit to seek them out afterward.

... he doesn't expect anything sinister to happen, even with Ilde's ominous query regarding the fae.

Comments

[pureandstrange.livejournal.com]

He inclines his head at her, and while the sense of formality that accompanies many of his actions is present, he does not go as far as to pull out a chair for her. Nor does he inquire after her motivations or as to what's in the box; he's sure that will come on its own, as Ilde hardly can be said to be timid. This is more or less what he's accustomed to, anyway. Rodolphus has tea, himself, and what he's wearing is nearly identical to what he wore on the ship, but with the addition of a black open robe. The sleeves conceal the sheaths with Bellatrix's wand and his own, a barely visible embossed pattern at the hem nudging the overall style away from plain and academic.

[rhinemaid]

Passive sometimes, but no, never timid. This is brilliantly demonstrated by the instruction she proceeds to issue, having pulled out her own chair to sit opposite him: "Lean forward," she says, with a gesture just this side of peremptory. Subtle but perceptible, her air is that of someone slightly pleased with herself, though she lacks the malicious anticipation of shenanigans.

[pureandstrange.livejournal.com]

The empty gaze he affords her for just a second is not skeptical but it does convey deliberation. He definitely thinks about it before obeying, a self-aware gesture that shows he is taking some pains to maintain a polite distance despite having obliged.

[rhinemaid]

"You are so serious." She's just making an observation, opening the small package - the tentacles (three of them, relatively small, dark blue-green) react to the motion and the change in light, reaching for and recoiling from her fingers in turn as she fishes the tie-pin that they're attached to out in the grip of her thumb and forefinger.

The fact that Rodolphus isn't actually wearing a tie is not going to thwart her, the pin will attach just as well to his robe and she sits forward in her seat to reach across the table and achieve this, adjusting the sit of it a few times until she's sure that it's secure. She flicks her fingers at the tentacles before she takes her hands away from him, settling back in her seat and picking up her coffee cup, cool as you like.

Is there a good response to 'I saw these tentacles and thought of you'?

[pureandstrange.livejournal.com]

Though it is, as ever, difficult to tell how much he is paying attention to her and how much he is staring through her, he does take the time to observe at this brief proximity that her features are similar to but much sharper than Bellatrix's. The comparison is not truly significant, as he does this with any woman who has similar coloring. When she settles back, so does he, glancing down his chest and watching the tentacles furl fitfully in response to that parting flick. Under his watchful look they eventually curl tight and stay that way. His eyes flicker to Ilde and they twitch to underscore another distinctly dry pause.

"Thank you," he says blandly, sitting perfectly still. "Truly I will cherish this reminder of the wonders of the deep."

[rhinemaid]

Narrower in the face and subtler in the madness.

"It won't try to eat your face off," she says, philosophically, as if this is a quality one should be concerned about in tie-pins. Or in remembrance of the wonders of the deep, probably, because she's still irritated about those eels and would've been profoundly unhappy about it if she'd had to deal with them again in the recent monster incursion. (What was there wasn't fun, either, but it was a different experience. And, well, throwing a monkey into Alucard's mouth actually was pretty entertaining, all things equal.)

[pureandstrange.livejournal.com]

Finally he lifts a hand to carefully touch the pin. Enjoy this extended three seconds of a man playing with his tentacles.

"Is that a fairy promise?"

[rhinemaid]

Her brief grin is along the same lines of the earlier ominous inquiry, but after a moment or two she concedes, "Shop guarantee. It seemed prudent to ask."

It wouldn't be as funny if they were malevolent.