multiversallogs | bitterness without a name

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bitterness without a name

Who: ILDE and RODOLPHUS
What: a gift!
Where: a coffee house that is not Queequeg's
When: afternoon... sometime...
Notes: if I say "girl you in danger" that's actually directed at Rodolphus
Warnings: inappropriate poetry

It is still a fine enough day that sitting outside to drink coffee is pleasant, and so Rodolphus has arranged, somewhat abruptly, to meet with Ilde, whom he still thinks of as 'the girl from the fog trip'. Sometimes, as now, 'who gave me the brooch' is appended to that.

There is something about the virtually motionless, straight-backed way he sits that simply does not look comfortable, yet one may get the impression he could easily maintain the position for hours. His manner of dress rarely varies, which was convenient in the event of Dean's funeral; it's still tailored charcoal grays and blacks, though of course, he forwent the brooch at that time. It is on right now, naturally, the same way one wears the sweater their aunt sent them when meeting that aunt. But he genuinely likes the brooch, at least as much as he likes anything, which is why there is a book lying next to his cup of expresso. It is a little worn and not, on first glance, much to look at, but there is still a trace of gilt on the leather cover, and the pages are very well preserved. The illustrations inside are black and white, a little grim, a little bold, definitely strange.

A younger man might fidget, check the time, look around, or inspect his prospective gift. Rodolphus stares off in the distance, perhaps thinking, perhaps not. He is aware of his surroundings, but they are relatively unimportant.

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Ilde and Rodolphus are friends.

Now, this may not be something that he's aware of - she hasn't felt the need to mention it to him, for example, and it's largely based in an arbitrary decision made several months ago - but nevertheless the fact remains, and so she's just slightly pleased when he contacts her, rather than concerned by the fact a man she described once as looking like he might come around and peer in somebody's windows has decided out of the blue that they should have coffee.

Viewed objectively, Rodolphus is (at best) a bit disconcerting. Viewed by Ilde, who is a lot of things but approximately none of them 'objective', his stillness is oddly comforting; the performative aspects of her general interaction become unnecessary. In other words, it's almost like she actually becomes creepier around him by osmosis - Ivan told her once that he thinks she creates a charming character for public consumption, and he's not entirely wrong about that.

So she doesn't feel obligated to traditional greetings when she joins him (but when does she ever), settling opposite and setting down on the table the red feathered beret she's been wearing lately. (Not indoors, after all.) "Is the new wizard one of yours?"

Don't pretend the idea of Rodolphus and Antonin hammered together isn't funny to you, too, imaginary audience.

The formal incline of his head will have to pass as a greeting; Ilde's question causes the faintest of expressions to form on Rodolphus' face. It is the facial equivalent of a quiet sigh, followed by steeling one's self, albeit reluctantly.

"Yes," he says, and the regret is both distant and delicate. He is totally remembering that time Antonin sold Barty to some hags for three galleons. In a way, though, he's still sort of impressed that Antonin got them to go as high as three. After a pause in which he tries his best to dismiss those memories (they come from an uncomfortable place), he pushes the book across the table toward Ilde. The tentacle brooch twitches and curls up tight.

In all its glorious subtleties, that's more or less the reaction she was anticipating (as indicated, helpfully, by that terrible little smile she's occasionally wont to do) and Ilde is content to leave it at that, looking down as she accepts the book instead. This is arguably the first time it'd have occurred to her to think of Rodolphus Lestrange and Christina Rossetti in the same breath, and it warrants some investigation - of the book, mainly, being an oddly well-suited gift for her.

('Sad-looking old books of poetry' were half her collection at home as a pretentious little girl given frequently to melancholia, which therefore also included Famous Last Words: The Ultimate Collection of Finales and Farewells as given to her by a school-friend.)

It's approximately as out of the blue as the brooch she gave him and at least twenty-five percent less inappropriate, so she looks up from examining the illustrations and almost smiles. "If you'd waited a month, you'd have hit my birthday." ...but that is a companionable joke, since no one here even knows said birthday (and some of them would probably be slightly startled by how old she's going to be on it), and she adds, "Thank you," a beat later.

The terrible little smile does touch off a hint of dual intrigue and unease in him. Why should Ilde be amused at that? Well, clearly she has a good idea of what Antonin is like, and many people find Antonin amusing, so he dismisses any personal involvement in her reaction. Rodolphus regards her steadily as he sips his coffee, considering his words before he says them, as he usually does.

"I will remember," he says in that casual way that is also inescapably serious, even if he only means to state it as a fact. As opposed to a promise/threat. "If we are both still alive." ... he says that the exact same way too.

"The sixth," she supplies, helpfully, tasting her tea and then stirring in a little more of something sweet that she's been told is 'a bit like honey'. She's assuming this means it came out of the back end of something and is trying not to think about it too hard. "If we're still alive, I'll be twenty-two."

It's an odd thing to think about - she'd had to figure out how old she was from the date when she got out of Prometheus, time in captivity blurring until she sometimes thought she'd imagined anything else, and before then her birthdays were proper events, masterminded by her father, and she doesn't know why the memory that sticks out on this occasion is when she was five and Léa cried because of the mime. So she doesn't keep thinking about that, sipping her sufficiently-sweetened tea and saying, instead: "I used to get books ever year, like this- poetry, older editions, antique and secondhand so there'd sometimes be something written inside. To soandso with love, or a little message that only meant something to the person who wrote it and the first person who read it. Or particular pages dog-eared and certain passages underlined. It's the best thing."

That might actually be the most she's ever said to him.

This time, the beat before he speaks is because he recognizes the sentiment even as he is completely unfamiliar with it. (Rabastan tended to give him expensive alcohol, probably on the basis that Rodolphus really needed it.)

"History," he supplies, looking through her for a moment. After so many years, Rodolphus is accustomed not to brooding upon his vast marital failures in public or in the company of others, and so he doesn't. It's just so clearly going on below the surface anyway. "Do you have a favorite?"

It is both a polite conversation question and of genuine interest to him.

"But I don't recollect like that," she quotes, smoothly, stirring the tea in her cup again for something to do with her hands, watching the violet liquid (Baedal does things differently and she doesn't mind all of it-- much of it, if she's honest, but wouldn't that be a first for her) and the steam rising from it.

"I don't think I ever loved that gently. And I’ve never flown toward a burning house, hoping, maybe my faith lay in that single thing left, in that smoldering filigree. I never reminisce a sorrow that delicately shaped. But sometimes I feel someone remembering me that way: translucent, crazy, awake only at night. He’s regretting his fingertips were not wide or soft enough. He’s mourning me now. He’s imagining me eating away at someone else’s light. And that’s perfect. That’s exactly how he always wanted to love me."

It's not the whole thing, but it's a substantial chunk of it and the ability to recite it so neatly off-the-cuff in a café presumably reflects how much she likes it, how many times she's traced the words with her fingertips while she was reading. It's the kind of poetry she'd like hers to be able to stand beside.

Edited 2011-11-10 20:30 (UTC)

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Rodolphus is forced to acknowledge that somewhat clandestine meetings with a twenty-two year old woman to exchange gifts and discuss love poetry are quite possibly Inappropriate, but the greater portion of him accepts the excerpt with purely academic attention, because really. The other day his knee made a really alarming popping sound, just as a random sample of all the many, many reasons why he doesn't give the potential inappropriateness any credence. That's crazy talk! Everyone would agree. (Except Ilde???)

"Where is that from?" He finally asks, reaching inside his coat to retrieve a small notebook in which to, presumably, write down the answer. It's not his main journal, just the one that goes with him, and has lots of cramped, precise handwriting filling every page with meticulous (boring) detail of god knows what.

Ilde has always been extremely fond of lists - putting things and ideas down onto paper where they can't escape from her, mainly - which is why she has both her own notebook (tucked in an inside pocket of her coat, which has a tulle underlay at the hem and makes her think of flouncing around a room in her mother's high heels) and a private list of reasons why it's perfectly acceptable and maybe even a good thing for her to do exactly what she feels like.

(Top of the list is usually 'I could always be doing something worse'. Poetry and tentacles are downright well-fucking-behaved.)

"Olena Kalytiak Davis," she says, then, "O-L-E-N-A K-A-L-Y-T-I-A-K Davis. 'Angels and Moths'. It's in one of her collections, but I don't remember which one."

Poet and title dutifully noted, Ilde might observe that Rodolphus also writes her name in parentheses beside it. It's a simple and easy four letters, which may account for the casual lack of hesitation over it. No one has ever read Rodolphus' diaries and he gives no fucks. Not even Rabastan, who presumably had better things to do, like organize his sock drawer. Throughout, the tentacle brooch remains relatively still in its curled up position, only evincing a slight undulation which could easily be the motion of Rodolphus breathing.

"I suppose the chances of finding any of her work are small," he says, laying down his pen and taking his cup again, "but nonetheless."

Inexpressive is of course the default for him, yet now there is something more obviously hooded in his eyes, the distance more deliberate than before. According to his mysterious internal rules, he is free to discuss poetry, just not his ~feelings~ about it, but clearly, the quoted passage struck him.

"Some people here read a lot of Jane Austen." It's only a tangentially related thought; she says it as she produces her own notebook, writing out another preferred poem since the first one seems to suit him (is that what that is? if someone told Ilde that a piece of work tore through them and left parts bleeding, she would assume that meant they liked it). Her handwriting is compact, neat cursive and quick without being rushed.

(and this is my terrorism lipstick, she writes.)

The hesitation at the end is over author; she settles on ? at length, explaining, "I heard this one recited," when she offers him the paper. Then, "People don't talk to me about poetry any more."

They might do, if she tried it now, but it's one of those things that got relegated to 'my old life' and it's a pleasant surprise to have someone ask what she likes and seem interested in the answer. Ilde sometimes tends to respond a little bit more than is entirely comfortable to encouragement.

While (FOR A CHANGE???) there's no real reaction visible as he reads the poem she's written for him, it does prod that same sense of intrigue/unease, the idea that maybe this isn't exactly or has the potential to change from the strange but harmless social diversion he's envisioned to... something else?... surfacing briefly and then sinking back down to the murky depths, like one of those frogs that are too big but you don't think about them until someone else brings them up. On the topmost level, however, all he thinks is: I didn't expect that. The next level down comes unbidden the thought: There's probably a lot more I don't expect. He has vast experience in obfuscating his own thought processes, however, and does it now in the interest of there not being too gigantic an awkward pause.

"Hellsing is very busy, but I would enjoy talking about poetry. Though I have not had opportunity to do much of that before, and am not widely read."

Few things in Ilde's life are properly harmless (because apocalypse, because Baedal, and because she's built for bad decisions and has a problem with impulse control), but the way she reasons here is thus: Rodolphus is married and she has an apparently possessive vampire boyfriend, ergo nothing will happen, ergo she can just talk about poetry she likes and it won't be weird, even though she tends to like poetry like that and whiled away some of her hours on the first fogtrip looking at his ass. It doesn't occur to her to share any of this helpful dissection of their interaction, partly because it never does and partly because the sparse conversations she has with him tend to be pared down to the necessary and it just doesn't feel needful.

"I write down the things I remember," she shrugs, because it's relevant. "Poetry- segments of stories. Sheet music." The prose gets inadvertently paraphrased more often than she realizes, but she memorised enough poetry in her teens that that tends to be more consistently accurate, and she's physically incapable of screwing up the music. "Dorothy Parker is good for that; she wrote a lot of short, sharp poems that stick in your mind."

That he does not appear to recognize the name is more a consequence of time than prejudice; Rodolphus is familiar with the works of some non-magical writers, provided they are from earlier eras, before the split in society was so enforced and important, hence Rossetti. But the closer to present day (his present day, anyway) a non-magical writer is, the less appropriate it is for him to have knowledge of it, which of course does not completely preclude him knowing, but he is still, in many ways, a close-minded old fool.

This is Baedal, however.

"Perhaps, if you have the time, you could record some for me," he says, that typical lack of inflection somewhat flattening out the possible subtext. Probably he means Dorothy Parker, but actually he'd be okay with anything else too.

"I can find time for words." She likes letter-writing, too; poetry evokes ideas, she thinks, but letters are intended to evoke the writer's own self through what they think to say and what they don't realize they're saying, tucked into neat envelopes and given away like parts of a heart. She used to sit and practise her penmanship for a style of communication that's been going out of style for years, and there's something similarly appealing about the notion of transcribing the words of others she's loved so much for someone else's appreciation.

(She wonders only fleetingly what her choices will say about her.)

After a beat, "I write it, as well- I like them. Words." She also tends to be irritatingly pedantic about the meanings thereof, which isn't as unrelated to this as it might immediately seem.

The pause for consideration does this time consciously address the appropriateness or lack thereof involving inviting Ilde to share her own writing with him, but Rodolphus sticks firmly to the conclusion he's already come to in regards to that sort of thing.

"I would be interested in whatever writing you have to share." The sheer stubborn neutrality of it is almost comical, and is punctuated by another sip of expresso. And in the interest of polite sharing, he adds, "I used to keep journals."

As if he still doesn't. But he ain't sharing that.

In lieu of the opportunity to actually read them, Ilde briefly and vividly imagines what the content of Rodolphus's journals might look like. A lot of words packed in close together; she wonders how he describes things to himself in private. What kind of language he speaks when no one is listening. These are the sort of things that interest her about other people, but they're not the sort of things she ever asks questions about. She just wonders, and watches for any opportunity to see.

"I wonder what makes people write things down." She considers her tea for a moment, then adds, "Besides being told to do it."

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