[PM to Join] Evict the Ghosts

[Albigence Fitz]

Mid-Evening, 23 Vortas, 2719....

Six windows of Hot House Glass winked with candlelight and gazed dreary-eyed down the orange evening streets, two on each of the three floors. Two windows, one on the second and one on the third, were open, and, perhaps, if a hopeful child listened closely to the breeze, he would hear the sound of a man cursing as he lay half under a bed on the second floor of his building. He had completely opened an apartment on each floor, lit all the sconces, and had the window that faced the grassy alley behind his building open in both the red-walled third-floor apartment and the green-walled second floor.

Albigence was laying on his stomach in the bedroom of the second floor apartment, only his waist, legs, and feet visible peeking from under the bed. A dry breeze swirled into the room from the open parlor window as, with the fireplace poker in his hand, Albi skewered and scraped papers and boxes of trinkets, coins, feathers, and more personal valuables out from the bed. He cursed each, too, like a very bad priest. "A gods-awful, stupid, fockin' drawing, absolute garbage of an artist, wouldn't trust you to make a dot above my 'i', I swear t'you that much! Ugly mock of a hat, more like a dead-n-run-over bird to cover up that big empty head that's keeping your boot-deserving-ass from getting swept away by a stiff breeze, that's right! Any doubts m'own son-hatin' mother had about leavin' my sorry ass here would be gone if she saw me in a mole-faced frock like this St. Grumble's-ghost-lookin' trash!" He crawled out with them like a some backwards snake trying to slip across ice, adding them to the pile of clothes he had removed from the dresser and trunk that gaped with their backs against the wall. He stood, sweaty and red of face, his hair in some haphazard nest and the poker scraping across the wood floor. He huffed, then began to push the pile of clothes and trinkets- far too big and disorganized to be his- towards the open window of the green parlor, leaving a trail of stockings and shirts behind him. He threw the poker with a clatter before the fireplace.

One might also get the impression that Albigence Fitz was maybe, just maybe absolutely pissed, especially if they watched the small passive man squat, grab, and lift the personal effects of his renter out the window of a second story parlor to both flutter gracefully and drop with the weight of a devil to hell into the alley.

"You dumbasses want to clockin' skip off into the sun and let it turn you into pipe smoke with your rent, then your fockin' shit gets burned," he spat as he heaved another load into the evening.

He had liked his renters, really. They were clean, quiet, and kind to him, but to just disappear mid-month and not give him any notice, not even take their rubbish, not even leave the keys to their apartments, not even shut the door on their way off to disappear? Now he'd be at least eight shills short next month! Now he had to change the stupid locks and get two keys and their spares made to match! Now he had to clean out the all of their trash, had to get new renters!

He stepped back into the bedroom, picking up his bread-trail of clothes and pushing them out the window latching onto the sill and letting the breeze surround him. He huffed, his anger sucking all the breath from his lungs. Underneath the red face and messy hair and huffing, he did feel just a little better, like a boiling cup a tea with a single cube of ice in it.

"So clockin' done with being nice, y'hear?" he yelled to the walls. They did not answer. He instead faced the window beyond and continued his elegant soliloquy to the only person who would listen. "Be nice and they pull this little plan, hm? Treat them like friends and they do this to you and leave you to keep their mess until they get back. Yeah, clockin' right! It's going to get burned! Bunch of ashes by morning, I tell you that!" He blew out the candles of the room. He readied himself to slam the door shut, then, stopped, gingerly closing the bedroom door and stomping down the stairs. He couldn't keep his jaw from clenching, his shoulders from hunching nearly to his ears, his fingers from making tense fists at his sides. He was hot, disheveled, and nearly blinded by a perhaps excessive anger. He needed a break from throwing other people's belongings out the window. It was draining.

[Peregrine]

23rd of Vortas, 2719 - Mid-Evening
Hot House Glass

Peregrine needed to move.

Ne, that weren't as quite true. Peregrine didn't need to move. They just wanted to. Felt like a change of scenery, right? They'd squirreled away the wages that weren't all spent on drink, found a few more of their little nest eggs. Found--remembered? Unearthed? Peregrine had laughed thinking about it, and a mother had crossed the street with her small child in tow with a glance over her pretty shoulder. Whoops. They were trying to be better about that one--laughing in public where proper folks could as hear them.

Point was, they'd as managed to save up a fair bit of coin. More than it seemed like they should, yeah? More than it made sense as they would have. But they'd done it, and they had it, and they wanted to move out of that filthy little tenement of theirs. They were a creature of material comforts, in the end. Pleasures of the flesh and all that rot. Sounded so vile, when they thought on it like that. What, they wondered, was the repulsive part there? Pleasures? Nah. Couldn't be that one. They rolled the word around in their mind, drew it out. Pleasures. Nah, nah. Flesh though--could be that one. "Flesh". Yeah, that was it. That was the word what made Gideon's skin try to crawl away.

"Stay put," they muttered as Gideon's body shuddered. "Ent even said it." Faces could be so strange in what they did and didn't want.

Point was, they were saying, the point was that they maybe didn't need to move but they wanted to. And it weren't just because the bottles had got to be too much to deal with, neither. So when they saw the listing at the pub--which pub? couldn't remember which one, but one of them, they were sure it was one of them--they thought, hey ho! Seems clocking convenient, didn't it? To see this ad just when they was beginning to look for a place. The location seemed familiar--just a bit. Couldn't quite remember why; didn't quite care. Maybe they'd been there before for... for... Peregrine squinted at the building in the dark of the Vortas night. For... glass? Hmm. Did they ever buy glass? Had to have. Probably.

They squinted again, as they approached the building. Weren't quite a normal sight, they thought, clothes and so on falling out of a window. Were it? A lot of things, falling out that window. Some of it was fair nice, Peregrine thought. Not the sort of stuff you just chuck out a window, all casual-like. Although they'd seen stranger, in their time. They could hear a voice, too, carried to them in the crisp cold air. Not a happy sort of voice, far as they could tell. Maybe it were. Peregrine weren't always so good at telling with that sort of thing. Could spot a liar and a grifter a mile off, but emotions were--nah. Sounded fair mad though.

They kept up their slow amble towards the door of the place. The throwing and the yelling, they thought, was odd. But it weren't odd enough to dissuade them of their mission. Their mission of--whatever it was? Moving. Yes. Asking about a rental. That's what they were here for. They opened the door and blinked at the man inside. Tilted their head to one side, not wildly unlike a bird, and blinked.

Seemed angry for sure, they thought. Could be the source of all the yelling and the throwing they could hear from the street. Wondered what that was about, but in an idle way. Could ask, maybe. Could know. But later--later. They had more... more pressing business.

"Saw yer ad." No preamble, no greeting. Not even a check to see if the dark-haired man had seen them yet. Just their low, quiet voice into the dark of the shop and the face of that anger. Followed by a hopeful little wave of a scrap of paper, as if that was all the context needed.

[Albigence Fitz]

Mid-Evening, 23 Vortas, 2719....

Albigence was proudly convinced that he was quite the careful, vigilant, and aware man. He had found the loudest bell one could put on a shop door, and it could be heard from the second floor. He also purposefully left the backdoor slightly under-oiled for a familiar groan of the hinges that could be easily picked out. He could also place the creaking wood floorboard by pitch and distance to what rooms and floors they belonged to. So, as Albi moved from his shop to his workroom, a bedroom of sleeping fires that let out cinder dreams, he was absolutely convinced he was alone. Yet, in the doorway between the two rooms, a voice stabbed through the façade of safe, warm, solitude in one’s own home, and Albigence jumped enough to forget he was angry- just a moment.

You absolute clockin’ idiot, you forgot to lock the stupid door when you closed! Murderers could be about to have jamboree of your ugly body, he thought, still rigidly facing away from the stranger. He had not expected a customer, had not expected anyone to force him to stop being a hunching gargoyle of a man. He was sure he was expected to look at his visitor eventually, rather than standing like a shocked stray cat hoping that stillness was equivalent to invisibility. With his fingers on his temples and thumbs on his cheek bones, Albigence looked rather like a man trying to keep his head from falling apart. He exhaled, turned, and did not even try to put a smile onto his pale face.

The man was clocking tall- clocking bumbling human, the former galdor in him added. He was nearly a full head and shoulders above Albi, who had walked around his counter and now bristled with his back against it. If it wasn’t for the pit of dark circles beneath the man’s eyes and the life-sucking exhaustion that seeped from his body, Albigence would’ve been convinced this man could probably throw him pretty hard. Dark hair, dark eyes- nothing Albi had not seen before, but- it still was not the soft, pink, friendly face of his old renters or usual customers.

“ Ad?” Albigence echoed, his eyes narrowing at the paper. Vaguely, he recognized it, some hand-written ad he had posted a few months before. “ Old clock- old ad.Expected it to be nearly half-buried by now,” he answered curtly, struggling to switch back from his dock-speech to something that resembled professionalism.

“ S’pose you want a room, then,” he answered himself heavily. He had a few more rules and expectations to ad to the list, did he not? Something about the reasonable reaction of burning all of someone’s life possessions. Should learn to embroider, put ‘em up all cutesie in the rooms, he noted silently, imagining all the passive aggressive wording and flowers he could ever dream of.

“ There are, of course, a few simple rules- quite easy to follow, you’ll see, quite reasonable- that I do need you to be quite aware of,” he huffed, his face not nearly matching a the light tone he was forcing down his throat as if he were spinning a music box to drown his anger out.

“ One-” he held up a solitary finger- “ you pay the first of every month. You move in in Vortas, y’don’t have to pay until the first of Dentis- four shills. No half-payments, no payment plans. Four shills or you are gone. Two-” another finger-“ you keep it clean, you keep it quiet. Don’t know, don’t care what the- what you happen to be doing in whatever plethora of free time you may have, I just don’t want to see or hear it. Three-” his thumb- “ if you decide to disappear, if you decide to run away with your rent unannounced, you have ten days until all of your possessions will be mine to burn. If you tell me you’re leaving, I will happily help you move out and move into to wherever you may be going,” he finished, breathing slowly to prevent the dog-panting of too much excited speech. He eyed the man, waiting with a raised eyebrow for any reaction.

“ If you do not believe you are of the aptitude to handle the most simple expectations of the most barely decent person in this godforsaken Harbor, then I would greatly advise you to be on your merry way. Now,” he warned, his voice bouncing to emphasize almost every other word he spat. He crossed his arms and waited just a moment for the door to possibly swing open and closed into the night. When it did not, he sighed, deflated, and continued. “ If you are still interested, well, my name is Albigence Fitz, and I can answer any questions you may have and show you the room that will be yours to keep clean. And quiet.”

He waited, crossed his arms, and leaned against the counter. Truly, he couldn’t care less if the man decided to stay or leave.

[Peregrine]

23rd of Vortas, 2719 - Mid-Evening
Hot House Glass

Should have made a little more noise. Probably. Leastaways it seemed so, the way the sharp-looking little man jumped when Peregrine spoke. Although lots of folks seemed to jump when Peregrine spoke, even if they knew about their being in the room. So maybe it wouldn't as made much difference.

Peregrine squinted; couldn't see the face. Weren't too good at reading faces to begin with, but it was a hell of a lot harder when that face weren't turned your way. Posture didn't seem too good. They might have come at a bad time. Also possible he was always this way though, hey? And the door weren't locked. Shop seemed closed, but the door weren't locked. Peregrine had given up on making Gideon into the type of man who didn't just wander on in through an unlocked door. Maybe that was the surprise--not the sight of Gideon, all tall and looming and dark, but of anyone in a shop what had already closed.

Shoulda locked the door then, hey? Weren't their fault if he hadn't locked the door. Still Peregrine looked from that unsmiling face to the ad in their hand. They tilted their head up, thinking. Old ad. But not too old? Couldn't quite as tell. Seemed like, if the ad was old enough that there weren't no rooms to rent, the little man would have said. Right? Yeah. That made sense. And likely wouldn't have been throwing nothing out no window, neither. Folks tended to not like as when things were thrown out of windows in places they were living in. Unless those had been his things?

Peregrine thought on this a moment. Which was more likely--throwing his own things out a window, or someone else's? Seen both, in their time. Angry people did things like that, and a body could be just as angry with themselves as someone else. Peregrine decided that it didn't matter. It was moony either way, but moony never bothered them much. Glass houses, all that rot.

They listened with unblinked focused attention as the angry man listed off the rules for rent. That third one seemed awfully specific. Someone else's things then, out that window. Peregrine rolled that around in their mind. Sometimes that kind of moony, the kind that threw folks' things out windows and talked about burning them, could be harder to manage than the kind that turned all that in on themselves. Lashed out, see? But he was small, this Albigence Fitz, and Gideon was big enough. Tired, but probably could still do something about it if he turned that kind of attention to poor, innocent Peregrine. Weren't no angry little ants crawling all around this one. Human then? Maybe. Something--Peregrine didn't as like the feeling they did get off this one. Not-ants. But it meant no magic, nothing to use that Peregrine couldn't do nothing about. Could break his neck, probably. Didn't want to though. Just could. The thought was practical and reassuring.

Could they handle them "simple expectations"? If that was the only ones Albigence had... Yeah. Yeah they could, likely. Depending on what else counted as being "barely decent". Or "person", but that was a point of contention not worth bringing up at this time. There was a long silence after that tirade, and a stillness. Peregrine had not thought to blink, yet. They did so now, though they didn't remember as not to stare quite so hard.

"Yes." Their response was simple and short; just an affirmation with no change in expression or even a nod. Flat. Yes, they still wanted a room. "Please," they added as an afterthought. Remembering to be polite. Gideon seemed like he should be polite. Had been Gideon for months, and they were still working out all the little details like that. The effort weren't helped none by how Peregrine couldn't as always keep track.

"Money ent--shouldn't be no problem." Not as they thought so, anyways. Landlords tended to like hearing that, anyways. Peregrine's eyes darted away from Albigence's face at last, quick and around the shop. Something about this building was so--ah. Ah that was right, the moony little ghost had been here. Finally remembered. Funny little ghost. Couldn't as quite--they knew he'd told them his name, told them lots of names. Peregrine had too much to drink, couldn't remember. Fun, the little ghost. But probably as better not to see again.

"Anyone else?" A pause. "Livin' here."

[Albigence Fitz]

Mid-Evening, 23 Vortas, 2719....

Something felt off in the dry air that lingered between him and the other man, but Albigence had never felt this kind of wrong before. He certainly wasn’t sure what it was- much of this man looked normal to the eye but felt uneasy and acidic in his stomach, like Albi was left waiting for the punchline of a joke to make an innocent question dark. The unease had pushed his anger into the back of his mind. What was it? It could be the slightly excessive stillness that had seized the man’s body, or maybe it was how the man only seemed to blink when Albi wasn’t looking, or- could it be- the days of exhaustion piled up on the man’s face. Whatever odd déjà vu or paranoia was prickling up his arms, Albi couldn’t name it. It was probably just that this man had surprised him, wasn’t it? Albi felt so small before him. Without the shuffling of the other tenants that filled the building with some semblance of safety, the silence was far too quiet.

He said he could handle both the money and the rules, which was good, he supposed. It would mean as little interaction as possible. Albigence nodded vaguely at this, then changed direction and shook his head when the man asked about other tenants. Something in him tried to be mad again, but the unease grabbed his anger with a hand on its mouth and pulled it into a dark corner.

“No one here but me n’ you. Tenants left few weeks ago, been cleaning out their rooms,” he explained, perhaps a little too loudly to bat the silence away, and he patted his pockets until he located the lump that was his key ring, pulling it out and sifting through them until he had separated a key with a baby blue ribbon from the rest. He pulled it off the ring, his eyes flicking up to the man and back to the keys every few moments as if trying to make sure the man was really there and wasn’t about to burst away in a cloud of smoke or bats.

“S’pose you may as well see it, hm? Before you make your decision.” Yeah, maybe he wouldn’t like it. Albi could just tell him to leave, couldn’t he? He’d done it to others. Not now.

“C’mon, then. Follow me,” Albigence waved towards the door to the right of the desk, forcing himself not to watch the man walk as he half expected him to hover just above the ground. He opened the door, only a stairway and a door letting in the evening light before them, then started up the stairs quickly, like a child trying to get under their covers before the last ember of a blown-out candle goes black. A landing with two closed doors, stairs, and then another landing, this time with a closed door and an open door on the left pouring light into the hallway, waited for them. The open door showed a clean, red, welcoming room, but Albi ignored it; he moved to the closed door, unlocking it with the blue-ribboned key, and pushed it open for his intruder. He retrieved the matches he had lit the other two rooms with less than an hour before from his pocket and moved to light the room- two wall sconces on both the left and right wall.

“Pretty decent room for four shills, I’d say,” he mumbled, a try at normal conversation. The sconces, as he lit them, licked cream-colored walls with faded, golden flowers. Powder blue curtains were pulled over two tall windows on the left, a mismatched excess of length leaving one curtain resting on the bare wood floor while the other dangled. Before the windows, a crooked wooden table, now adorned with a chess board that Albigence had set up in the best way he knew- mixed black and white pieces like checkers- sat between two wooden chairs. On the right, a simple, white stucco plaster fireplace with a cooking spit and pot slept as a cobalt blue loveseat sat before it and tried its best to match the curtains. Across the room, a doorless-way with an empty wall-mounted shelf foretold a bedroom with the edge of a bed showing and a naked window beyond.

He moved to open one set of curtains, thought better of it, then continued glancing down at the pile of trash in the alley. He exhaled sharply, a moment of humor seizing him.

“Say, whether you want the room or not, may wanna take a look at the pile down there in the alley. Old things from old renters- may find something catches your eye, may wanna bring it up here as a little house warming gift from the ghosts of the place,” he suggested lightly, jabbing his thumb at the window with making contact and smudging the pane.

“Gonna burn it in the morning, anyway” he added, turning over his shoulder and watching the other man. He wondered what he was thinking, this strange, still beast. At least he seemed like the type that would keep to himself, maybe stare a little too much like a cat. Albigence could deal with that no matter how unsettling it was, or he thought he could.

Finally, he turned fully, arms crossed over his chest. “So, mind still made up? When y’moving in?”

[Peregrine]

23rd of Vortas, 2719 - Mid-Evening
Hot House Glass, the Rose

See it? Oh. Oh yes that were the normal way of this, weren't it? Peregrine hadn't even considered looking at the space--they figured as it had to be better than the tenement they were living in at present moment. Certainly seemed as there were less shady sorts loitering about outside at this hour. None at all, except Peregrine. And they were loitering about inside, see? So that was alright then. And there weren't nobody else living here neither--the little ghost must have gone to haunt somewheres else already. Convenient, that.

Peregrine nodded, a curt, jerky movement. They were trying to ignore the unease they could see come over the little man--Al... Al... Albigence, that were it. Should probably remember, if Peregrine wanted to live here. That was polite, too. Pleases and thank yous and remembering names, all them little details. Peregrine weren't blind, though. Could always tell when they were particularly putting someone off. Granted, that did seem to be a fair majority of the time--so they had a lot of practice in picking up all them subtle details, see. Like talking too loud into an empty space, or looking around and away from handsome Gideon's dark-eyed face. Nothing as Peregrine had ever found to be done about it. Seemed to be something that just happened, something folks could always sense no matter the face.

Probably didn't help that they often came up looming in the dark, though.

Peregrine followed Albi up the stairs, slower and more deliberate in their movements than the man in front of them. Stairs were sometimes not Peregrine's friend; too many opportunities for Gideon to try something and throw them both back down. Today though they didn't feel no lack of control, no fuzzy little edges, and they made it up just fine. They passed a red room and instead went to a different door, a closed door, opened with that little key. The lights were lit, and Peregrine looked around the room.

They had not, really, expected furniture. That was a fair nice surprise--they had some, but it was the kind of thing you picked up for lack of anything else. Excepting of course their linens and their chair, which they would have to find a way as to bring with them. They did like the chair. Assuming they were moving in, of course. It weren't a done deal, they reminded themself. They moved to the window, hardly noticing the curtains and instead looking at the chess set arranged on the little table in front of it. For a moment that was all they did, stare at that there chess set.

They jerked their eyes to Albigence when he spoke again, talking about the pile in the alley. The tone was light, talking about ghosts and taking their things. Scavenging things what were for other people. Well, weren't that just what Peregrines were best at? Except this time of course they didn't need to be the one making ghosts to scavenge from, first. This idea tickled something in them and they couldn't stop a grin from spreading across their face, followed by a short, rasping laugh. Abruptly, both smile and laugh ended. Had to remember not to do that. So hard, remembering.

"Could do," Peregrine agreed. Gideon's long-fingered hand tapped out a little pattern that weren't a pattern, really, on the table they stood next to. They looked back to the chess set. Tilted their head just so.

"Seen sets made of bone," Peregrine offered. Animal bone, of course. It had been a lovely set--when had they seen it? Not the bookseller, not the sailor. Who had it been? What face? Peregrine cast their eyes up trying to pull up the memory. They could remember the set, beautifully made and lovingly displayed. Couldn't touch it, weren't allowed. Wasn't the sort of thing for hands like theirs to touch, hands of a... a...

There was a sound in their mind, some high-pitched whine, some mechanical hum. A hole, the set was in a hole and they didn't want to--it was rude, to fall into holes when--Peregrine frowned, their shoulders folding up around their ears. No, weren't gonna think on that, hey? Weren't the place weren't the time, didn't want to. They gnashed their teeth, once, hard. Scaring off whatever it was what tried to reach for them, just because they was thinking about chess.

"Yes," Peregrine said to Albigence instead, voice tense. A pause, fingers still tapping. "Tomorrow or--or the day after, too, could do." Could have done it right now, really--weren't like they had much to move but the linens and the chair. They didn't want to look over-eager, though. Weren't maidenly.

[Albigence Fitz]

Mid-Evening, 23 Vortas, 2719....

Albigence stiffened as he stood at the curtain. Had it been that funny? The laughter like scraping metal rumbled and rang and ricocheted off the walls and the furniture around him, and he steeled himself for the moment it would hit him, knock him down, and then bounce away. His hand tightened around the thin, powder blue curtain. And then it stopped, sooner and quicker than Albigence felt natural. When he looked at the man, there was no sign of a smile, no sign of the joy that had alarmed the room. The visitor continued like no shifting of the earth, no quaking of an epicenter, no cataclysmic sound had just happened.

Albigence nearly shook his head. Maybe this was something normal in humans, or in Old Rose, or in tall men, or in the family of this man. Maybe Albigence had just been alone too long, but it hadn’t been that funny. In fact, it wasn’t funny at all, especially after that.

“Bone,” Albigence echoed, as he always did. Echoing was all he could think to do, still shocked by that grin and that laugh and the sudden cease of both of them. He had mastered echoing others to give him time to think, time to look at this chess set and think of what to say to something that had just rattled and scraped and rang with a cacophonous guffaw like a flock of geese or piano keys all being smashed in different melodies and tempos, or what he imagined an earthquake would do to the sound of the glass shop below. Glass- yes, he could talk about that. That would make sense. “Can’t imagine bone is easy to work with, brittle and hole-y as it is. Glass, though- bet I could make a real pretty set of kings an’ queens an’ princes with glass.” He had played chess, once or twice before in an old life, had gotten absolutely destroyed by his brother and perceptive magic playing chess. Didn’t too much care for the popes and horses and towers, whatever their fancy names were.

“Tomorrow or the next day- either’d work if you come near this time, after I close up the shop,” he offered as he gazed into the alley, thinking about what having this not-quite-normal man in his shop during business hours. No, that certainly would not do.

“Like I said,” he started, nearly missing the I of his sentence as he closed the curtains finally and stepped back from the window. He turned, fingers resting in the front belt loops of his pants. “Y’don’t have to start paying me the four shills until the first of next month. Give you time to move in, adjust, make sure you want to truly stay here.” He stepped to the sconces one-by-one, standing on the tips of his toes to blow the flame out from over the walls of its dusty glass fortress. He didn’t ask if the man was ready to go, didn’t ask if he was done, didn’t ask anything else. He just blew out the sconces and moved the conversation towards the door of the apartment.

The light of evening was waning quickly as the sun slipped behind buildings and clouds. Drowned and grey, the apartment fell asleep, whilst the hallway outside was still lit by the red room across the hall, its window still letting in a night-cooled breeze.

“I’ll give ya the key once y’come to move in, make sure it isn’t lost in the moving and all that,” he added as he shut and locked the door of the apartment they’d barely seen. It was time to go, he had decided.

“You have any questions, may as well ask. Better downstairs, though. Gets awful cold ‘n dark on an empty floor. Getting late, too. Best be on your way soon,” he said rather quickly, placing a hand on the wooden railing worn smooth many different lives, years, and hands. He stopped, and turned around.

“Step outside and grab what you like, too. Lots of clothes and trinkets and drawings down there, a nice set of playing cards, too. May catch your eye,” he added, this time careful not to add any humor, any thing that could trigger a bout of hysterics like the events of only a few minutes ago. He moved down the stairs, everything he needed to say expelled quickly into the tense air that surrounded the stranger.

[Peregrine]

23rd of Vortas, 2719 - Mid-Evening
Hot House Glass

Hadn't thought about the ease of working with bone much. They liked that he had thought, immediately, of the practical implications of Peregrine's idle comment about the set. They'd never seen a set of glass, they didn't think. Leastaways if they had, they'd forgotten it. So it couldn't have been quite so pretty as the bone set. Now, whether or not this Albigence could do any better than the set they'd seen before... that was a different question. They hadn't really gotten much of a look downstairs.

"Could do," they offered in mild agreement. Funny to think of making something like that in glass as any easier than carving it out of bone. To Peregrine's mind, the bone was the easier of the two. Less heat, for one thing. But what did they know about it? Hadn't never been a glassblower before. Maybe it was easier than it seemed.

The time was set, and Peregrine just nodded to that. It was a sharp, jerky movement. The man was being awful generous--weren't no landlord as Peregrine had ever had who wanted to give a trial period. They thought to smile, but it didn't seem smart. Not given how skittery Albigence had proven to be around them so far. Not given how few folks tended to like it when they smiled in general. But seemed like that was that business done, because there he went snuffing out all the lights and walking out the door. Peregrine followed, fair amiable.

"Alright," they said in response to the matter of keys. Just show up with their things then, hey? Peregrine could do that. Didn't have many things to show up with and all. The chair might prove hard. The shop had delivered it, when they bought it. No shop delivering nothing to them now that they were moving it to somewhere else. Ah, well. They'd figure it out. Would be easy, if they had an extra pair of hands. But they hadn't quite made friends in Ol' Rosie. Not that kind of friends, anyhow. Not "moving your nice chair" friends. Not any kind of friends, were they inclined as to be honest about it.

They moved back down the stairs fair quick. The day was falling away into night, sure enough. Still, Peregrine weren't so sure the hour alone was adding all the pep to the man's step. Air was tense, like he expected--well, shit. Peregrine never knew what it is folks as thought they were going to do, precisely. Eat them? They weren't done being Gideon. For someone so jumpy around them, he seemed awfully keen to have them as a renter. Money moved in mysterious ways. Maybe the glass business weren't all it was cracked up to be. (Ha! Again, they thought to smile or laugh, but reconsidered at the last moment.)

"Ent wanted by their proper owners, then?" Their dark face was still, but they were joking. Hard to tell, most like. Seemed worth the effort though.

[Albigence Fitz]

Mid-Evening, 23 Vortas, 2719....

Albigence busied his hands as he stepped down the stairs and behind the counter, putting the key in the little drawer there and straightening it among its brothers. He shut, locked the drawer, careful to shut it slowly less it get jammed into its slot for weeks again. The man asked about the previous renters and their things and Albigence- not looking at the man- could hear just a touch of a joking tone in his voice. He looked up, stepped to a window opposite the stairs, and pulled back the light, fluttery curtains. Some of the effects of his renters waved from the alley, particularly the lighter clothes and papers that strayed from the direct, linear path of the window to flutter on the window. He pointed out the window, careful not to smudge the glass with his finger.

“Don’t suppose it would be abandoned in some grump’s rooms and jumped out a window if they wanted it,” he offered with a slight shake of his head before turning his back to the window. Each movement of his head sent the haphazard updo he had thrown above his head teeter precariously. With a calmer brain, he supposed he could sell it all instead of burning it. Certainly would not quite satisfy his anger the same way, he knew, but he imagined he could sell those fancy clothes for a decent coin. Burning a little and selling a little might do him enough catharsis to get him back to a normal level of his cantankerous aura.

He motioned vaguely to one of his front window displays, a variety of translucent vases, trinkets, wine glasses, and ornate bottles watching the sky outside turn to the dust of broken glass bodies and, in a lower tone, mused, “ They come back for it, I can offer them a nice house-warming urn of it all for wherever they’re off to, can’t I? ” He could also tell them where they could buy it back. Might be satisfying to see their faces, hm?

“ Clothes may not fit a tall fella like yourself, I’ll be honest. The two weren’t the biggest two in the world, but some boots, a little furniture- might interest you, you know? ” He nodded to himself, hoping the visitor could find something that suited his tastes. Albi was quite curious as to what those tastes could be- nothing normal, he was absolutely sure and would have to peek out the window once the man left to satisfy his imagination.

“ But, that’s enough of that. You’ll sort it out. Now, I- you’re coming back to move in, then? ” Albigence asked, trying to keep whatever unease threatened to jump out of his throat quelled. He wasn’t against having them here, no, he would just have to mentally prepare himself for regular appearances of the man who moved as if they were separated from the entire world around them and merely passing through.

“ Like I said before, you can drop in the next few days at this time, and I can give you your key and help you move whatever you’ve got into the room, ” he suggested. He was not sure how much help he could be to someone favored physically by the gods much more than he was. He would feign help and be there, at least. That much he could do.

[Peregrine]

23rd of Vortas, 2719 - Mid-Evening
Hot House Glass

Peregrine took this information and they thought on it. Abandoned? Yeah, seemed as it were. Jumped out a window, though? They knew, on account of how they weren't no fool, that no actual jumping had taken place there on the part of the items in question. They still thought on it seriously, as if it were possible.

"Seems as likely," Peregrine offered, even though they'd as been joking before when they'd said it. They watched the little man turn his back to the window. They didn't come no closer, not to look out at the items or nothing. If they wanted as to do that, they figured, they'd go outside. Didn't tend to like when Peregrine got close, most folks.

At his gesture, Peregrine let their eyes follow the line of Albigence's arm. Lots of pretty little things on display, yeah? Delicate things, in all kinds of colors and shapes. Peregrine didn't know as what you'd want with half of it, but it was fair pretty to look at. The joke startled a dry, brittle laugh out of them. It ended less abruptly than the one before, lingering somewhere around the sharp, elegant lines of Gideon's face.

"Fair," Peregrine agreed with an amused incline of Gideon's head. Peregrine didn't know who the other occupant had been, but they remembered the little ghost. Nah, weren't as nothing that fit the ghost as was like to fit Gideon. Except maybe that coat, but they didn't know about that. Just seemed as too big for the ghost, that was all. "I'll look, yeah? Could be as there is something."

They didn't think so, but it seemed as the thing to say. Couldn't rightly remember what all the little ghost had in that room. Other matters had been more pressing, at the time. Weren't as they'd known they'd get to play carrion bird over the corpse of a ghost's belongings, yeah? Nah, weren't no way to have known. Too late now, anyways. They'd just have to look.

Peregrine crossed the space between them, careful to keep some kind of distance while heading towards the door. Weren't no good, to get too close. They reminded themself over, and over. Weren't never no good. They looked to the door, and then back to the little man.

"Yeah, will do. I'll return," they promised gravely. They ran Gideon's fine fingers along that sharp jaw and they nodded again. "Ent as have much to move, yeah? But I'll be back with it." Maybe they would leave the chair, after all.