Vortas 22, 2719 | Mid-Morning
Market, Not in Uptown Anymore
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Fionn should feel excited, grateful, some collection of positive emotions. He didn’t and maybe in all honesty, he shouldn’t be expected to feel that way. He’d gotten to go in an airship for the first time in who knew long but since before his gating obviously. He had a chance to wear clothing that befitted a golly gentleman, the same ones he’d worn to the confisalto showcase he’d attended with Professor Keyes back in Bethas. Yes, he was out of Brunnhold and out of that uniform that marked him as other, outsider, broken but there was a lot more going on here, far more complexity and the youth could hardly be expected to take this well. No doubt many of his peers would have been thrilled at the chance to walk among people who were none the wiser to what they were, being able to pass as human among galdori and the so-called lesser races. Fionn could admit that there was excitement in that, pulse racing as he imagined someone spotting him as a fake and calling him out, demanding that he roll up his sleeve to prove that he was one of those dreaded passives.
Not that the middle Madden could feel free here and he certainly wasn’t at his ease. He’d returned to the city of his birth for the first time since his gating, finding some familiarity in the Uptown streets but also encountering things that didn’t match his memory and the differences were unsettling for him. He could only imagine what horrors awaited him inside his childhood home and that was the building alone, never mind his parents, although they would certainly be- They’d be very-
Seeing them would prove difficult but he had agreed to this—had promised his sister that he’d be there for her and support her in her difficult task. He would be moral support but considering the way she wanted him kitted out, the young man also suspected that he had been brought along to get under their skin. He could have been a servant for all anybody knew, a human one but no, he was going to walk into that house and as soon as they realised that he had no field, they’d know what he was, even if they didn’t work out the who. Not that he’d changed much after all these years. Regardless of the reasons for his presence during the visit, he’d agreed to it but that didn’t mean that he had to be looking forward to it.
It was one of the reasons why he’d chosen to go wandering, the teenager restless with the anticipation of it all. So he’d donned regular clothes rather than the fancier ones that he’d wear later — going out in golly clothing without a field would have been a dead giveaway — but had added a good quality coat on top of the ensemble. The coat didn’t fit with the rest but he didn’t have another one, accustomed to making use of the ones floating around Brunnhold for the servants to utilise. He couldn’t go without one as Niamh had informed him sternly, basically bundling him into it as if she was his nanny or his mother. She’d also given him some money in case he wanted to buy anything, which Fionn had dropped into his coat pocket as if holding it for too long would burn a hole in his hand.
Once he got outside, the young man headed away from the areas that carried familiarity for him, walking with his hands in his pockets as he moved swiftly to escape the riot of galdori fields that seemed to be everywhere in Uptown. He didn’t know where he was going exactly — away. The boy only slowed when he hit rougher parts of Vienda and was greeted by the smaller, more chaotic fields of wicks and the monic absence of humans. Only then could Fionn relax, at least to a degree. There was still a paranoia that someone might realise what he was.
As he began strolling around, he tried to be nonchalant so that he didn’t seem like someone who had no idea where he was or where he was going. He found it difficult not to gaze all around him at the different people and sights. What was more, he found it difficult not to jiggle the coins in his pocket.
The passive had no idea what to do with money, mainly because he didn’t understand it. Obviously, he understood the concept — he wasn’t as clueless as all that — but the youth wasn’t familiar with the coins. He’d never had to use them, had never possessed them and so he found himself running his fingers over the different metal squares, wonderingly. How could he use them when it would be clear to anyone watching him that he’d never used money before? Someone would ask him for a certain amount and he’d have to ask them which coins he should hand over because he couldn’t tell them apart. Oh they looked different and he could make a good guess at their worth based on their size and designs but he’d have to consider them closely, mentally weighing them. His sister had meant well, she’d thought that she was being kind but Niamh had taken it for granted that he’d know what the little moon designs and the woman’s head meant.
As he trotted along, he realised that having his hands in his pockets and rattling coins probably wasn’t a good idea, so he took them out, making nonchalance a bit more difficult to manage until he shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and sent the coat riding up a bit, the pockets with the coins made to gape more in the process. Fionn didn’t notice or particularly care — it wasn’t his money — but continued on his way, wandering into a market where he couldn’t buy anything. However, it didn’t stop him from perusing items around him while he remained lost in his own thoughts.
The teenager was thinking about what would happen if he just… disappeared. He could do it, here and now, lose himself in the Dives so that his sister couldn’t find him and return him to Brunnhold. He had some money and he could probably get himself passage to… well, anywhere. Old Rose would be good maybe, a gateway to new places, namely Mugroba where people like him were apparently allowed to do things. It could be done but Fionn wouldn’t do it. Niamh and Harper had stuck their necks out for him, they’d trusted him and if he ran off now, trouble would come down on them. Lars — oh Lady, he really did hope that he was alive out here somewhere — may not be in Brunnhold anymore but there was still Aurelie and he couldn’t abandon her. He knew what it was like to be alone in that place, to feel like an island but to have had someone to care about and then have them lost to you would be so much worse. He didn’t know that he deserved to be out either but he certainly wouldn’t deserve it if freedom came at the expense of people he cared for.
The youth was morose and brooding, hardly taking in the things that he saw although he slowed periodically, gaze moving mechanically over objects that meant nothing to him. His thoughts were full of passives and his senses were full of glamours and spaces of nothingness around his own nexus and he wasn’t thinking about it, even when something familiar entered these strange surroundings. He’d just had some fat ersehole barge past him so he was understandably distracted, slow on the uptake. The blond didn’t recognise the other nexus for what it was at first, in spite of its near proximity, the young man too busy glaring after the ersehole. He missed the young thief sticking his hand in his pocket and he missed the hart the lad took even less. Oblivious to the fact he’d been pickpocketed, Fionn only turned to seek the source of that presence that was familiar but so out of place here.
Passives weren’t meant to exist outside of Brunnhold, certainly not wandering the streets of the capital.
The owner of the nexus wasn’t that much shorter than him although he had the gangly look of someone who had shot up before their body had the chance to cope with the change. Skinny and ridiculously young, not much older than the terrified and tearful faces that graced the Passive Ward when the new failures arrived. Fionn had no notion just how intensely he looked at the boy, zeroing in on him immediately as if he’d known exactly where to look — he had.
"You- I don’t believe- You aren’t gated!" he blurted stupidly, eyes narrowing and his brow creasing as he considered the youth intently. It was so strange to see one of his own kind out in the wild — so unexpected — that he wanted to find out about him, wanted to find out how he had gotten here and how-
He shot out a hand to make a grab at his shoulder, instinct telling him that the boy would bolt; he had a paranoid, almost persecuted air about him — mistrustful.
“Wait! I want to talk, let me- I’ll give you something!” Fionn added hastily, thinking of the money in his pocket and realising that it’d be a good incentive. The last thing he wanted was to draw attention by dealing with a struggling boy in this strange marketplace if he did do a runner.
