Awareness
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 6, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 2
SerafíneThe night is dark and the street is a crowded whirl of second-hand costumes and second-hand magic and second-hand clowns riding double-decker bicycles and would-be sideshow geeks showing their stuff, barkers in striped pants and tophats and organ grinders and little monkeys and snake handlers and belly dancers and steampunk belly dancers and steampunk organ grinders and artists and sculptors and food trucks and buskers and sellers of things and among this great and cacaphonous frenzy we find a fewa very fewcapable of true magic.It is not as earth shattering as you might imagine, see - but Sera felt Tí¡ltos from three or four blocks or more or endless blocks away, some bar, probably a dive, with live music and a sweating crowd and 2 for 1 well drinks where she said fuck the well drinks and got herself a bottle of tequila she has carried all the way here, trailing a few friends and watching them peel off and allowing them to peel off here or there or wherever so that by the time she arrives at a particular booth in a particular stretch of the indie circus / carnival she is alone except for her friend, the bottle of tequila. Lime slices long since gone and she has no shaker of salt and she's dressed, ohwe know how she dresses. Tonight, in a short black circleskirt that barely covers her ass and a pair of tights that are solid black up to the thigh, where the Paris skyline is, uh, evident. Overthat a strappy black bustier that is really closer to a bra and a very thin, very fine-gauge hoodie in a beautiful sullen heathered gray."You're telling fortunes?"This spike of her dark brows, wry. She lifts up that bottle of tequila and sets it down on his table like an offering, like payment-in-advance. "I want my fortune told."
SerafíneThe night is dark and the street is a crowded whirl of second-hand costumes and second-hand magic and second-hand clowns riding double-decker bicycles and would-be sideshow geeks showing their stuff, barkers in striped pants and tophats and organ grinders and little monkeys and snake handlers and belly dancers and steampunk belly dancers and steampunk organ grinders and artists and sculptors and food trucks and buskers and sellers of things and among this great and cacaphonous frenzy we find a few
a very few
capable of true magic.
It is not as earth shattering as you might imagine, see - but Sera felt Tí¡ltos from three or four blocks or more or endless blocks away, some bar, probably a dive, with live music and a sweating crowd and 2 for 1 well drinks where she said fuck the well drinks and got herself a bottle of tequila she has carried all the way here, trailing a few friends and watching them peel off and allowing them to peel off here or there or wherever so that by the time she arrives at a particular booth in a particular stretch of the indie circus / carnival she is alone except for her friend, the bottle of tequila. Lime slices long since gone and she has no shaker of salt and she's dressed, oh
we know how she dresses. Tonight, in a short black circleskirt that barely covers her ass and a pair of tights that are solid black up to the thigh, where the Paris skyline is, uh, evident. Overthat a strappy black bustier that is really closer to a bra and a very thin, very fine-gauge hoodie in a beautiful sullen heathered gray.
"You're telling fortunes?"
This spike of her dark brows, wry. She lifts up that bottle of tequila and sets it down on his table like an offering, like payment-in-advance.
"I want my fortune told."
Tí¡ltos[Hmm. Dex + Crafts, for earlier. DECISIONS.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Tí¡ltosThe lick of stretch where Tí¡ltos Horví¡th has his fortune teller's booth feels different from the rest of the c a u c h e m a r indie fringe-outsider summer carnival. Like this is a place where somebody'd wander onto and get lost or really drunk puke see through the thickening net of glamour past and into -- no. But they wouldn't see past it, 'least not looking at the dreamspeaker's set up. He constructed, with help because in spite of his grin, his energy, he was like a skinny candle, tired quickly when the flame was lit, this tent-thing out of thrift-store teeshirts and dishcloths and cut-up rags and squares of cardboard and circles of mirrors that catch and reflect the light and there's this fucking paper lantern inside it that sets up an ambient glow and behind the paper lantern, one of those cheap star things, you can just see this row of bottles (no tequila yet, but whiskey, gin, vodka, beer, one lone vanilla creme soda), some with their tops popped and others quiet as quiet can be, and of course there's a table such as it is, a scrap metal twist of city discarded city property, and there's a little sign that says fortunes told for fun and profit; beware the vultures of expectation and somebody else tried to afix a better sign but that's fallen and been blown down the street and that one just says tarot readings, spirits spoken to, and the point is this is where Serafíne is drawn to following Tí¡ltos's unique resonance that thing welling up from his heart and his blood and his sharp-shrewd mind to effect the world. Beguiling Tí¡ltos, Tí¡ltos who lusts for life, who is always in the middle of wanting it so:
He's lounging when she arrives. All 6'1 of him, lounging on the cracked asphalt covered in a rug or a beach towel who knows the difference outside his tent, and of course there's no surprise because he felt her, but of course there's surprise because here she is, and look at him with his owl eyebrows going up, the flash of his teeth under that splendid-of-all-splendors mustache, tonight waxed and curled and thicker than she probably remembers, just as his cheekbones are a little sharper, the flash in his eyes a little more tarnished.
"Sera!" He proclaims her, you see, smacking his palm on his thigh, un-lounging now, like you'd proclaim an old friend who danced you under the table though you don't really remember it just this general sense of it happenedness or one of the furies wandering in to seek shelter from the cold before they head back to the business of righteous murdering, "Tequila will buy you only one half of your fortune. Can't say which half, the bad or the good. Sure you want your own and not somebody else's?"
Tí¡ltosThe lick of stretch where Tí¡ltos Horví¡th has his fortune teller's booth feels different from the rest of the c a u c h e m a r indie fringe-outsider summer carnival. Like this is a place where somebody'd wander onto and get lost or really drunk puke see through the thickening net of glamour past and into -- no. But they wouldn't see past it, 'least not looking at the dreamspeaker's set up. He constructed, with help because in spite of his grin, his energy, he was like a skinny candle, tired quickly when the flame was lit, this tent-thing out of thrift-store teeshirts and dishcloths and cut-up rags and squares of cardboard and circles of mirrors that catch and reflect the light and there's this fucking paper lantern inside it that sets up an ambient glow and behind the paper lantern, one of those cheap star things, you can just see this row of bottles (no tequila yet, but whiskey, gin, vodka, beer, one lone vanilla creme soda), some with their tops popped and others quiet as quiet can be, and of course there's a table such as it is, a scrap metal twist of city discarded city property, and there's a little sign that says fortunes told for fun and profit; beware the vultures of expectation and somebody else tried to afix a better sign but that's fallen and been blown down the street and that one just says tarot readings, spirits spoken to, and the point is this is where Serafíne is drawn to following Tí¡ltos's unique resonance that thing welling up from his heart and his blood and his sharp-shrewd mind to effect the world. Beguiling Tí¡ltos, Tí¡ltos who lusts for life, who is always in the middle of wanting it so:
He's lounging when she arrives. All 6'1 of him, lounging on the cracked asphalt covered in a rug or a beach towel who knows the difference outside his tent, and of course there's no surprise because he felt her, but of course there's surprise because here she is, and look at him with his owl eyebrows going up, the flash of his teeth under that splendid-of-all-splendors mustache, tonight waxed and curled and thicker than she probably remembers, just as his cheekbones are a little sharper, the flash in his eyes a little more tarnished.
"Sera!" He proclaims her, you see, smacking his palm on his thigh, un-lounging now, like you'd proclaim an old friend who danced you under the table though you don't really remember it just this general sense of it happenedness or one of the furies wandering in to seek shelter from the cold before they head back to the business of righteous murdering, "Tequila will buy you only one half of your fortune. Can't say which half, the bad or the good. Sure you want your own and not somebody else's?"
SerafíneSee, she takes a moment to read the sign, the sign left behind not the better sign, the sign that passing strangers might understand, dark eyes crawling across it in the paper-latern glow and there's a laziness to her smile tonight. The first time they met she was sober and now she is not sober and being not sober is evident in every languid inch of her rather-shorter frame (but she wears liar's shoes that make her 5'9.5" tall tonight, wedge-heeled boots with platforms that any other would would dodder around in but she walks in like a linebacker, love, not a girl at all).
It isn't a bottle of tequila, that. It is a half bottle of tequila.
He - straightens on that rug or beach towel or forth-hand saddle blanket and she sinks into a low crouch, an arm slung across her knee, her eyes all glassy and direct, so they are eye-level.
"I expect a whole fortune the same way I expect a whole ass," she tosses back, her mouth crawling wider, " - but well, someone else's fortune will do me fine. What do I get for a bottle of tequila and a kiss?"
Tí¡ltosHe is sparing with his voice with his first response, which is this chuckle, this bright-eyed laugh, that's just three syllables nicked out've his throat, amused and good like the Devil about to entertain a witch's Sabbath or maybe more like the Devil about to give that fiddler-boy his due for being just so damned good. Sounds like this: hh hah haah, and of course it animates his eyes and animates his animated aristocratic features. Tí¡ltos settles his bony elbows on the scrap metal table next to that half-bottle of tequila and his right arm is all bangles and his left arm is all temporary ink right now and duct-tape and of course there's that harrowing ring that malicious thing holding court amongst all the other rings.
"A story to tell somebody's grandchildren, a fucking song in my fucking heart," he replies, spring-lordling and all, "and a secret that everybody knows. Depending," and his mustache twitches, as he pretends to be a serious, to be sober (he is sober, though really, he is celebrating, and the true celebrant is never sober, because they are always possessed by exultation, huh?), "of course on the kiss and how quickly the tequila is drunk. Whose fortune do you want me to tell you? There's a hat to help you decide."
"And, honey, you've gotta beware the vultures of expectation."
There is a hat. It's under the table.
Serafíne"The kiss'll be fucking awesome, Tí¡ltos the tí¡ltos," she returns with this swimming and drunk bravado, her mouth sliding and her eyes all glassy-gleam and with sharp note of appreciation for that three-syllable laugh he utters and the bangles on his arm and the temporary ink and ducktape. "Mine always are."
And that's not arrogance, that's just solid knowing. Look at the way her mouth crawls, look at the way her mouth curls, look at the way her eyes settle on his, look at the way she feels. Girl knows how to kiss.
"I want a stranger's fortune, I think. Make it a sweet one, I don't think I can abide the dark tonight or - "
A sharp breath out, a shake of her blond head. " - is that an expectant vulture there, looking for sweetness from the tí¡ltos when maybe there's only sour out there lingering on the tongue? Fucking hell does that mean, the vultures of expectation?"
She has ink too: and her ink is real and it is sharkscissors, the blades on her index and fore-fingers, the handle on her palm turning into a shark that curls down over the pulse point of her wrist and she holds it out to him like this hand, this left hand, is the hand you are going to read. "The fuck's the hat for?"
Like an afterthought but she's reaching for it anyway.
"Oh wait, do I have to give you your kiss first?"
Tí¡ltos"The hat's for fishing-out other people's fortunes." He answers that question first. Her hand's on the table and he doesn't take it yet. He waits until she's pulled the hat out and up and put it on the scrap metal or until she's just reached her hand into it.
The hat's one of those old top hats you find in vintage shops sometimes or an old uncle's chest and it's not really in shape enough to be worn but it's old and it's got knowing and it used to be worn out on the town and the inside is still lined in silk, but it's silk turning into scraps, and it's hard against her knuckles. But there's a lot of other stuff in the hat. Coins, cards, oblong objects, rings, little sharp hard things, stones, keys, plastic bows, beads, a lug-nut or two or three, salt-toffee twists wrapped in paper, other paper things like photographs maybe or postcards, larger cards not the shape of a playing card, and it's all a jumble.
"And oh, pick your stranger first, put whatever you get right here," and he taps the table (clack, clack) with two fingers, "then you've gotta give me my kiss." The smile he gives her isn't really about the flash of teeth or a twist of the mouth; it's this secret thing that's always burning behind his skull and his skin; a warm thing like the gold gets put into corn; but a contained thing, like it's his. "We tellers of fortunes don't fuck around with payment. Look shit-stupid otherwise."
SerafíneWhat she pulls out is a single silver earring, this small tarnished dangle with a silver bead swinging from the French wire in the shape of a rosebed, the dark shadows of the inner petals oxdized to a near carbon black, the silver old and worn from handling and warm for reasons she cannot name and does not consider, and she holds the warm bead in the palm of her hand for a long beat of a moment then deposits it precisely where he tapped his fingers in the center of the little table.
Then oh she shifts her crouch forward until she's kneeling instead of crouching and braces her hands on the tabletop, see, palms flat on either side of the of the ear-ring she has fished up from the depths of that tattered silk lined hat and leans forward until her thighs are against the edge of the table and shifts the brace of her weight from two hands to one and reaches up to curve her fingers around the back of his skull see and twist them through his hair and pull him closer and she's closing her eyes and she's
kissing him and she knows how to move her mouth with s soft but gentle and increasing pressure and how to suggest the teeth behind her lips and how to withhold that suggestion and withdraw from it without ever really ending the kiss so,
you see,
it is a lovely, lovely kiss and when she is done she's smiling and sitting back down on her knees, kneeling with her rear end tucked just so over the heels of her shoes and smiling at him rather smugly.
"Make sure it's a good one," Sera tells him, " - my stranger's fortune."
And there's a glint in her eyes.
She dreamt of him last night and now she is remembering why.
He's telling a fortune to a seer; he's telling a fortune to an oracle, but she doesn't tell him that.
Tí¡ltos[DOO DEE DOO. Char + Exp + Specialty, maybe?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 2 [WP]
Tí¡ltosHe's telling a fortune to a seer; he's telling a fortune to an oracle, but he doesn't know that. What he does know is that that was a fucking awesome kiss, and Sera's got rights to that rather smugness, though the smug earns another one of those three-note from-the-throat pleased laughs. Don't go ahead and think that Tí¡ltos sat there on his flat ass with his lips pursed like a marble statue to Disney's version of the kiss, either. That would be silly with a enthralling, visceral Serafíne girl who knows how to kiss and that tumble of pale hair and Tí¡ltos himself as red-blooded as the ol' silver-tongued Beguiler himself; oh no! His participation is enjoyment, edged in Lust. Or else. He's one of Jarovit's men, and his touch brings flowers up out've the earth and coaxes fallow seeds into wakefulness; he knows how to kiss, too. He also knows how to keep his hands to himself. How to accept a gift and a bribe. How to draw a tincture out of berries that will heighten a fever, before breaking it. How to guess at somebody's life from a drop of their sweat.
So - that hh hah haahh. An appreciative gleam when he licks his lips, perhaps partly for her handling of the 'stache without giggling, and then Tí¡ltos puts his hand over the object she drew out've his hat, holds it up so it dangles and looks it over. Then he reaches for her hand [his hands are spring, are spring] - the scissors-inked hand - and puts the earring in it, closes up her fingers, keeps her hand between his warm hands.
If she thought she was going to feel true magic, maybe she'll be disappointed.
But then again,
Tí¡ltos
is a fucking urban-poet shaman. He lures you in; he draws you down; he fixes his eyes on yours and he speaks and every word's just another wall in the maze and you're maybe the Minotaur or maybe you're Icarus and he's just Daedalus-tongued, weaving that story, giving you wings made out of wax and thread and feather, showing you the way the sun burns.
He tells her a stranger's fortune and he makes it a sweet one. No; he makes it romantic without letting it taste too much of sorrow. He tells her about the son of the daughter of the daughter of the daughter whose first crush came up with the design way back when and how they never lost each other, but they lived, and as living sometimes does that worked its own inevitable decay, happy-decay, good-decay; he tells her about how the son of the daughter of the daughter of the daughter who started it all has lived this life feeling always on the brink of discovery, haunted by things from his youth he half-remembers, fighting against falling prey to the knives of nostalgia, and he tells her about how this son wants more than anything to figure out how to save this small and little known sub-species of fish which only live in this one lake up in the mountains and how the son's destined to hold the last of those fish's bones in his hands but how once he does that he'll make a wish and how once he makes that wish it'll come true. He tells about how that son is going to wind up jumping off a mountain and landing on his feet, how his parachute is going to open, how the woman he falls in love with is going to fall in love with him too, and how the last thing he sees is going to be a patch of sky so blue it almost hurts his teeth but it makes him happy because he remembers the fishbones in his hand and making a wish and when he remembers that his spirit is going to move and he's going to
really fucking see
and then somebody is going to hold his hand and he'll feel that
and the end.
Serafíne"Oh,"
This is her reaction at the end; it is sweet and it is sighing though she herself is sweet only in reference to darkness, in reference to things made to intoxicate and her sweetness has nothing to do with the plain edge of sugar dissolving on the tongue. It is complex and smoke and a current of shadow but throughout that tale she is so perfectly in tune with him, so entirely affixed on him, that the end of it is a disappointment verging on the painful. And,
" - oh," her mouth curves around the word and her hands are cupped in his and the ear-ring is still inside, warming now against her skin, which is against his skin, against those spring-hands.
And a third-time, "Oh." This one with a sigh that heaves through her shoulders and drifting glance away from him, past the many half-empty bottles into the frame of the make-shift tent with its cheap paper lantern and diffusing light.
"That was a lovely fortune. That was perfect.
"If I make a song of it, will you come hear me sing?"
Tí¡ltos"Sure," Tí¡ltos says, releasing her hands after her question. He puts his bony elbows back on the sheet-metal, leaning forward, his spine practically a C.
He pauses; then groans, standing up. The sheet-metal shakes like theater-thunder, and he takes the half-bottle of tequila, his eyelids low and his lashes shadowing, "Drink the rest of this with me, this way," and he tips his head toward his tent. "Keeps away the vultures of expectation."
And then: another meeting, ending with libation and exultation, huh? With a drinking game called: drink up! Drink up!
This might be! The last! Time you see your cup!
No comments:
Post a Comment