Keep the Streets Empty for Me

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A large forest in Central Anaxas, the once-thriving mostly human town of Dorhaven is recovering from a bombing in 2719 at its edge.

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Tom Cooke
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Fri Jan 04, 2019 9:43 pm

22 Achtus, 2718 · Evening · The Toy Lantern

Diana was upside-down. It was as if she were suspended by her feet, but she was utterly still. She was not facing him, so he could see her bare white back, the narrow taper of its ribcage and delicate shoulder blades standing out. He could not imagine her face, no matter how much he tried to fix it in his mind. Her hair was down, a great river of spider-silk against the velvet dark; he reached out and took a lock of it in his hand, gentle, watching it sift through his fingertips. Then he came closer and, weaving both his hands through her hair, buried his face in it, breathing in the scent of rose oil and laudanum.

“Anatole,” she said in a distant and muffled voice, “this is not your dream.”

The light extinguished itself and Diana with it, and the blackness that swept over him was warm and damp like a cellar. The smell of laudanum turned to oudh, then to dirt, then coppery like blood or sulfur or both; without knowing what, he felt the shadow of something fall over him, felt someone come to stand behind him with soundless bare feet. Little breaths on the back of his neck, stirring his hair. The smell of gore was strong enough to gag him.

Cold hands with slender fingers slipped over his. They took his wrists with practiced firmness and raised his arms in front of him. “You forsook all this,” said a woman’s voice. “Why?”

“Wasn’t mine,” he murmured, not sure what he was talking about.

The little fingers knit through his, moved his hands in the air with delicate motions. “I can show you how to do what you’ve forgotten. It’s quite easy.” He strained to see, but there was no light at all. “It doesn’t matter who you were. You’re one of us: your hands and tongue remember, even if your soul does not.”

“I feel sick.”

“It’s because you’re guilty.” The voice now sounded peculiarly like the Constable Inspector’s, and the fingers gripped his hands hard enough to bruise them. “You’re a guilty degenerate, and you’re living on borrowed time. But you’re no wick, you’re no passive – you’re no damn plowfoot anymore. You’ve picked your bed, and yet you continually refuse to lie in it. It’s time you started acting like what you are.”

“I’m not anything. I can’t do anything.”

“Clearly.”

His breath caught in his throat and he retched, trying to wrest himself free. A crack split the air – the hands wrenched his hard enough to break his wrists. Gestures in the dark. His head spun, and he was aware that his lips were moving, that he was speaking some language he couldn’t understand. He felt the air sink, felt his lungs flutter and draw in something greasy and thick. Then he felt a million eyes on him, like the fabric of the universe had turned its attention to him, and the air was conflagration – the smell of burning flesh, his own –



Thomas’ apartment was dim; the shutters were closed tight, the moth-eaten drapes drawn so that only a few slats of dim, shifting light writhed on the floorboards. He’d tumbled out of the bed and caught himself on the chair, back bruised from the jabbing springs, muscles tight and spasming. There was a grimy metal bowl sitting on the chair – this wasn’t the first bad night he’d had – and he promptly vomited into it. His hands fumbled white-knuckled on the edges of the wooden seat.

“Clock it,” he choked, gasping and fumbling his way back to the bed, where he sat hunched over his knees. “I gotta get out of here. I gotta get out of this city. I gotta go. I gotta go.”

I gotta go, I gotta go, I gotta – He whispered the mantra to the half-light, whispered it till he stopped quaking in his bones. How? He had enough ging squirreled away under the bed by now, surely. Take a ship on the Arova, straight down to Old Rose. Figure out where to go after that. Stow away somewhere if he had to. Clocking swim to Hox, if that was his only option.

He spread out his hands on his knees, looking at them. He tried to picture them in the midst of alien gesticulation, tried to hear himself speaking parlor tricks, summoning up sparks. Making sense of the chicken-scratch in that book he’d taken. The one that was under the bed, now, under the box of money.

Butterflies in his stomach. Was it fear, or was it something else?

He had to get some fresh air. He ambled over to the window, banging his shin against the cabinet in the process and hissing profanities under his breath. With wild hands he swept aside the drapes, flung open the shutters, felt the whip of winter sting his face –

– and came face to face with the old woman who lived just across the street. She was sitting in her own open window, spinning, and because of the leaning tenements their apartments were barely two feet apart. She busied herself about her work, but for just a second as he opened the window, he saw her leaned out, as if she were listening. His lips twitched and peeled back from his yellowing teeth, and he snarled in Anatole’s most authoritative baritone, “Get the fuck out of my business. For once in your clock-stopping, miserable life.”

She was up and had slammed the shutters in moments.

Scrunching himself up so he’d fit, he hauled himself up onto the lip of the window, leaning his shoulders out into the cold and lighting a cigarette. Looking down onto the streets below, onto the few pitiful natti scurrying out in the morning shadows, scurrying through the dimness in their rags. He blew smoke out into the brisk breeze, frowned down. Little people doing little things.

Little people who were born and lived and died, who were born again, who lived again, who died again.

“Alioe hates me. They all do,” he murmured between drags. “Well. I hate them, too.” Then he started laughing – feverish, mirthless giggling – laughing so hard he nearly dropped his smoke.



He’d spent the last of his money arranging this, instead of catching the earliest boat to Old Rose. He’d reasoned it out in his head – ultimately, what else was he going to do? – but it wasn’t so much a matter of reasoning; he wasn’t going to fill the gaping hole inside himself in Old Rose, or in Bastia, or in any other place he’d disappear to. He certainly wasn’t going to fill it in the Soot District. Tom Cooke had only ever known one way of life, and he couldn’t see himself doing anything else. He’d puzzled over it for awhile, planned out which palms to grease, thought long and hard over what to write (and whom to pay to write it, since his handwriting left a lot to be desired). The path was full of variables, but the destination wasn’t. In all that time, there was no doubt about the kov Tom wanted, ultimately, to get in touch with.

There was only one man – golly, to be precise – that fit all Tom’s needs to a tee. He couldn’t go waltzing to any of his human and wick contacts, not looking like this, and he certainly couldn’t rub elbows with galdori high society. Once you narrowed it all down, his options started looking blonder and more nine-fingered by the minute. That was the way things were. He didn’t like it none, but he couldn’t think of anybody else who straddled the line with quite so much finesse.

He’d managed to arrange the meeting at the Toy Lantern, on a chilly night in mid-Achtus (when he’d heard the toft was going to be in town). He’d cleaned himself up as much as he could – he’d worn his best, if still plain, clothes; he’d tied back his hair, given himself a clean shave. He thought he still looked like a pale shadow of Vauquelin, like a Vauquelin that had crawled out of his grave and propped himself up in a chair, but that couldn’t be helped.

Now Cooke sat tucked away in a corner of the Lantern’s interior, breathing in the scents of incense and tobacco; in the dense smoke, he could see candlelight-limned shapes of patrons bent over their glasses, sprawled on the floor on pillows and thick-woven Mugrobi rugs, sharing shisha pipes. Nearby, a woman – a wick, Tom wagered, by her sky-blue hair – stared at a candleflame, pupils unfocused, tracing the lip of a glass of chan with one finger.

On the stage, surrounded by stirring lanterns and a mesmerized band, a woman with a pile of blonde hair – it glistened like spider-silk in the gloom, like something from a dream – sang in an unusually, but pleasingly, deep voice. She danced, and her slim, dark dress danced with her.


“When the morning came, well, I called your name
Only to hear echoes in reply.
Darling, I remain, in solitude and pain
And all Vienda now can hear me cry...”

An old classic, but the band was playing Mugrobi instruments: he saw an ’oud and a qānūn, and some others that he didn’t recognize. Her voice lilted pleasantly around some sort of flute. Tom was sitting in wait, smoking and sipping Jeodre – enough to make him a little looser, a little less tense, than he usually was – and watching her sing.

On the table, beside the candle, sat a box of cigars – wrapped pleasantly with a little ribbon.

He took another drag on his cigarette, blew out smoke – then saw somebody approaching through the gloom. A familiar shape, he reckoned. Leaning forward, he waved the smoke away, raising his glass in greeting. “Far’ye?” He gave a thin, hard little smile, then gestured broadly at himself. “You know who I am? I reckon I can give you three guesses, but the first two don’t count. Go ahead and gawk, if you like. Everyone does.”

He scooted the cigar box forward a couple of inches.

“Hessean. Little birdie told me you’re fond of these in particular. Like to be considerate.”
Last edited by Tom Cooke on Mon Apr 22, 2019 11:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Corwynn
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: The Taxman
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Mon Jan 07, 2019 2:55 pm

​​
22nd of Achtus, 2718
​​The TOY LANTERN | EVENING
​​
​​Corwynn wasn't known to be anything but a punctual beast, impeccable with his time and his timing as well as impeccable with his dress. This evening saw him in rare form—several minutes behind and with a few dark red, wet stains on the well-tailored sleeve of his far too expensive for anywhere but Vienda coat. Thankfully, it was easy to remedy one instead of the other, the blond galdor taking several extra minutes to remove his outer layer in the cloakroom of the Toy Lantern, rolling up the fine Hoxian silk of his shirt sleeves without a care for the clear view of the tattoos that decorated his forearms in the most un-galdor of fashions. Not bothering to check the time on the weathered pocket watch that hid in the small pocket of his embroidered vest, the Bad Brother chose instead to let his crystalline gaze wander the smokey half-light of the Lantern's interior.

There were faces he knew, as always, but it was the music that distracted him for a heartbeat or two, the Kingdom of Mugroba and its sounds and scents and people always feeling far more like home than Anaxas ever had in the forty-odd decades of the blond gunman's life. The lyrics to whatever the woman on stage was singing were obviously not the original to the tune, and Corwynn scowled, fair brows drawing together as disappointment creased it's way into his aquiline but sea-worn features, his blue eyes coming into focus through the haze on the face of the older galdor he was delayed in meeting.

The Bad Brother had not expected the request—Incumbent Anatole Vauquelin was an acquaintance at best and hardly a close friend, but when Wavorly had informed him of who wanted his company while he was once again in the capitol, he wasn't about to refuse. Corinth Wynngate III had many contacts among the busy politicians and wealthy business owners of the kingdom, but that didn't mean he liked many of them, regardless of their promises to keep the King of the Underworld on his throne and the economy of Anaxas flowing with drugs and coin.

He made his way through the dimly lit, richly decorated interior, pausing only to curl calloused fingers with an almost flirtatious gentleness around the elbow of a passing server, offering the much younger woman a roguish estimation of an apologetic smile, "Some Twemlaugh, if you would. I'll be right over there."

"Yes, sir." The dark-haired server smiled back, hardly blushing in their proximity, before he released her and she fluttered away to deliver the alcohol that already weighed down her tray.

Corwynn took in the other galdor's face as he closed the distance, noting what he could only describe as the signs of wear and weariness, especially once he began to pour himself into the opposite chair at the table, the other man's field a sputtering lantern, running quickly out of oil. The blond gunman flexed his own heavily laden field as if in greeting, hiding his concern behind a broad grin and the bobbing of his head in a rather informal sort of bow of greeting to the man's raised glass. He sat, resting his calloused palms briefly on his knees, the puckered scar of where his trigger finger used to be always given an interesting backstory when among the more straight-laced, civilized folk of Vienda instead of Old Rose Harbor.

The Incumbent greeted him with Tek, with a manner of speaking not at all heard in the banquet halls of the wealthy upper class, not at all heard in the arena of politicians like he was. Caught off-guard by the informality and strange mannerisms of a galdor he'd met in much more civilized situations before, he paused before responding, "Good evening—guess? Oh, I know who you are, Anatole. Or, I suppose, I thought I did. It's good to see you again, Incumbent Vauquelin."

His crystalline gaze shifted downward, reaching to pull the box of cigars close with curiosity beginning to crease its way into his well-aged features, "For me? Why, thank you. Yes, Hessean tobacco is far more rich and flavorful than whatever it is we grow in Brayde County here in lovely Anaxas. It may look the same, but it most certainly is not. Tell me, is this a favorite meeting place of yours or just another example of you being considerate?"

Corwynn winked playfully, reclining back against one of the arms of the chair and crossing one ankle over his other knee, expensive boots oiled and well-cared for. He was just settling into a comfortable position when the server re-appeared, a tumbler of Twemlaugh ready to pass into his hands with a lingering smile, "Thank you, love. I'll want another shortly, I'm sure."

"Of course." The dark-haired woman purred back at him, looking to the other galdor as if to see if he was in need, "You good here, love?"

Exhaled smoke filled the space between them and the blond gunman couldn't tell if it was the atmosphere of the Toy Lantern that made the older man look different or if he was, in fact, somehow inherently not the same as he remembered.
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Tom Cooke
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Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:52 pm


the toy lantern · vienda
[ 2718 / 22 achtus / evening ]

He had never known Corinth Wynngate III to be late, but he wasn’t fussed about it; he was hardly keeping track of the time himself. He quirked an eyebrow when Corwynn took the chair opposite him, fluid and graceful as a cat, wearing that field of his like a strong but tasteful cologne. He didn’t say anything when the galdor accepted the gift: he didn’t know Hessean tobacco from Anaxan. As long as it eased his nerves and gave him something to do with his hands, he didn’t care what he smoked, but he figured it was best not to show more ignorance than he had to.

When the server came round with his Twemlaugh, Tom noticed the lingering, flirtatious glances; he had to suppress a snort. Typical. Being honest, Tom had never found any appeal in the fairer sex, so he didn’t feel much envy about it. Nevertheless, he’d heard enough about the towheaded gunman’s escapades to know he didn’t much discriminate. When the dark-haired chip turned to him, he smiled in what he imagined was a good-natured sort of way. “Aye, my dear, for now,” he murmured. “Thanks.”

After she left, Tom leaned forward, propping his chin on a fist and studying the older – younger? – galdor. Unflappable, he thought with a smile, or fair good at seeming so. That was part of the reason he’d figured Wynngate to be the man for this, of course; he couldn’t imagine anybody else bringing that easy manner and winning smile to a meeting with a half-dead, notoriously missing politician.

“Good to see you again, too; I suppose it’s been awhile. How’re things Uptown?”

To his surprise, it was actually good to see the toft again, even if it wasn’t quite the way Corwynn meant. It was a bit like having a piece of his old life drift into his new one, so viscerally familiar that it made him feel a little like a Bad Brother again. In life, of course, Tom hadn’t really worked out his feelings about Hawke’s pet galdor; he’d found him a creature of contradictions. That field like a brick shithouse, those fine clothes and that fancy talk, every inch the prodigal galdori son – and those tattoos and that missing finger that screamed interesting, but not ‘interesting’ enough to get tossed out of a respectable galdori establishment. Shithead, Tom might’ve thought, but borderline-admiringly. This here was a tolerable golly – a pleasant, attractive golly, even – but a golly nonetheless, who flexed his privilege by being a worldly man of taste. Tom knew worldly, but he didn’t know taste. Not yet, anyway. That was the difference.

Fortunately, Thomas Cooke had never been the rebel type. He had rather been the sort of man who’d shrug his shoulders and do just about anything if it looked like it might land him in fortuitous circumstances. In that way, at least, he reckoned he and Corwynn could meet in the middle. Alioe knew this toft exuded fortuitous circumstances like his silk shirt exuded money.

“Not sure if you heard, but I been off the path for a bit. Ran into a Seventen or two in the past couple of months – surly types – and if I’m not mistaken, I do believe I’m wanted.” His smile twitched, eyes glinting sardonic. “Not that anybody down here gives a moa’s feathery erse, hence us meeting here. Since you ask, I am fond of this place, though I figured you’d be pleased with it, too. It’s no Black Dove, though, eh?”

On stage, the woman finished singing on a lingering, husky note; she swept her swaying, mesmerized audience with a hard-to-read smile, her heavy brow and strong cheekbones casting deep shadows across her face. Tom watched her for just a second or two, the black silhouette of her dress moving liquidly – he looked out across the Lantern, the light drifting on the smoke, all the figures blurring. Then he turned back to Corwynn.

He ashed his cigarette in the tray, leaning back in his chair with a creak of upholstery. He regarded the man opposite him with keen, narrow grey eyes. “I won’t,” he started after a few seconds, a little more thoughtful, serious, “dance around it. I’m acting like I’ve lost my clocking mind.” He took another sip of Jeodre. “No need to be polite about it. I’m aware, and that’s part of why I needed to talk to you.”

His eyes never lost their spark of amusement, and his face never lost that off-kilter, bitter sadness – it was in the twist of his lip, in the tension around his eyes – that seemed to say that something was terribly wrong and would never be fixed.

“I don’t plan on wasting your time, believe me, so bear with me. What do you know about ghosts? The kind that’re supposed to float around, mind. You’re a man of the world; I’d say you’ve met all sort of folk that believe all sort of things.”

That sardonic curl of a smile again. He figured the Bad Brother could respond to that bit of vodundun in one of a handful of ways; he’d thought a lot of them through, and even now he was thinking about what he’d planned on saying. He took another drink; a nerve jumped in his right eye, making it flutter in an unseemly fashion.
Last edited by Tom Cooke on Fri Jan 18, 2019 4:53 pm, edited 7 times in total.
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Corwynn
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Wed Jan 16, 2019 2:55 pm

​​
22nd of Achtus, 2718
​​The TOY LANTERN | EVENING
​​
​​"It's been a while, indeed, and I clocking hate Uptown. I'm eager to return to the Harbor, that's for sure." The blond gunman smiled a hatcher's smile, comfortable as he was into the padded chair, pausing to savor a graceful swig of his Twemlaugh, watching the other galdor carefully, pale brows drawn together in curiosity instead of judgment, "But you know I'm just a Vienda visitor. I don't think I could ever live here and I don't know how you politicians stand it."

The Bad Brother chuckled as Anatole declared himself off the path, turning the words over in his mind like the motor of an aeroship churned through the clouds and ether high above. He was vaguely aware that the Incumbent had been declared missing, the man before him a subject of gossip and curious whispers within the political community he'd managed to slip from the grasps of and all but entirely disappear. Here, like a ghost, the older galdor sat before him and spoke strangely—had the stress of Anaxas' Symvouli cycle finally caused him to have a psychotic break? Gods only knew Corwynn understood—he could hardly stand the stuffy culture of his own kind, let alone the politics of the Kingdom of his birth.

The blond arched a brow at the reference to a well-known and ill-reputed Harbor establishment, caught so completely off-guard that someone he'd assumed to be so straight and narrow as Anatole would at all know of the Black Dove. He smirked from over the rim of his snifter, crystalline gaze wandering from the other man's face through the hazy interior of the Lantern, lingering over pleasing silhouettes before returning to stare at the galdor in confusion,

"Ghosts? What? Sure, this is a strange conversation coming from you, Incumbent, but—" He blinked slowly, emptying his glass to set it within noticeable view on the table between them in hopes of procuring another as soon as possible, leaning forward, elbows digging into his knees and nine fingers lacing together,

"—tocks, I don't know. We've both been uniformed schoolboys daring each other to spend an extra hour in the Crypts below the Church of the Moon, you and I. Sure, I've traveled quite a bit. Not everywhere, not yet, but still. In Hesse, there is a celebration for the dead, an open invitation for hungry ghosts to be fed. In Mugroba, they have priests devoted to keeping candles lit in the desert near Serkaih in order to make sure the departed don't get lost in the colorful sands. Do I believe they actually exist? I don't know—I've never met a ghost as far as I know, so I'd say I'm rather indifferent until I do."

His sharp blue eyes flicked down to the Hessean cigars and his body language spoke of the temptation. Even though the comfortable, familiar weight of his firearm was pressed against his side beneath his coat, he felt the sudden need to do something, anything with his hands. Reaching for the box with every intention of sampling what was inside, he looked up as he did so, curiously searching the strange demeanor of the galdor in front of him, inhaling a quick breath between his teeth before he offered with a quiet urgency, concern for not only the other galdor but also his own personal safety well-hidden within the baritone of his voice,

"Do you need some help, Anatole? If it's drugs you've fallen into, well, you know they've probably got Silas' touch on them somewhere along the way. Listen, you always had a friendly enough ear to my King's affairs, so if it's a favor you need, I'm available."
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Tom Cooke
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Fri Jan 18, 2019 9:52 pm


the toy lantern · vienda
[ 2718 / 22 achtus / evening ]

Candles in the desert sands. The smile drained off Tom’s face for awhile; his glance strayed to the candle on the table, lingered steadily on the wavering flame. He sucked at his teeth, smoked a little more. Felt something settle down inside him like a heavy rain cloud, a clump of iron in the bottom of his stomach, bitter and strange. He remembered being a ghost. Things slipped away; you lost your way easy. The whole world was a desert, and you were parched, and you’d murder just about anyone for his water. That’s what Tom had done, in the end.

“Lucky bastards,” he muttered. He stirred, meeting Corwynn’s eye again. “I mean, the ghosts that don’t get lost in the desert – the ones that find their way. That get to go home. Wherever that is.” He finished his drink, setting it down with a sigh and running one finger around the rim.

On the stage, the singer backed up, shadows pouring themselves after her coal-black hems; the silence that followed her was like an intake of breath. Then, in a stroke, the music started again. This time, the ’oud played a central role, weaving itself like a dancer around the davul’s regular thrum. Tom found his eyes lingering on the ’oud player’s long, deft fingers, the way his dark hair fell over his face and the way he moved his shoulders as he plucked the strings.

The woman started singing again, this time in Mugrobi.

Thomas glanced away. The server was coming around again, threading through the candlelit smog, still carrying her heavy-laden tray with the grace and balance of a veteran. She dipped by their table, dropping off another Twemlaugh and a pleasant – albeit hurried – wink in Corwynn’s direction. Tom caught her eye with a wave of one bony hand. “Gioran whiskey,” he said softly, leaning over, “if it’s no trouble. On the rocks.”

“Of course.”

When she left, he turned back to the Bad Brother, watching him take out a cigar. As he spoke, Tom raised his eyebrows. Wasn’t really as if he hadn’t expected this; he knew well enough how he sounded. But hearing it out loud – hearing Corwynn call him Anatole, most of all, maybe, with that faint note of personal concern, all business-like, all respectful – fucked with his head. Sitting there, it made him feel like maybe he was some moony golly, for all the physical proof he had of what he was. Nasty chills.

You don’t know the half of what I’ve done for our King, he thought. How much sap I’ve spilled, mine and others’. A hell of a lot more than a friendly ear. His glance strayed – briefly – toward the space where Corwynn’s trigger finger had been. Little reminders. Scars like that one – the gods’ way of writing your mistakes on you. My life was a damn sight more like that.

He thought about his own scars. In life, he hadn’t been proud of them, hadn’t really felt anything one way or another; they’d impressed a handful of his lovers, especially a long, jagged-looking one on his back that he’d nearly died getting. He remembered another one on his lip – remembered it, hazy through a dusty looking-glass in Barker’s flat on the west side, still fresh – he’d gotten that one from a fellow Bad Brother, a little unfriendly competition over a certain handsome dark-haired man, a mark that was supposed to remind him of his place. All that was gone, now, all the scars that Tom had earned. Maybe a lot of the memories that had gone with them, too. He’d found a thin white scar on the back of Anatole’s hand, barely visible, but he didn’t know where it came from.

What were you, if you weren’t marked by the life you’d lived? And then, uprooted from all that, when you started forgetting what it was even like to be alive, to have a body and to have scars, to be a human being and not some kind of ravenous unclean-undead –

“It’s not drugs, no.” For a moment he fumbled for words, rubbing his raw eyes. He waved his hand a little dismissively, shook his head. “But I’m grateful anyway, to you an’ our King. I’m not moony, either, though I know how it’s got to look. I’m coherent, I’m lucid, I’m – all here. So to speak. I’m just not Anatole Vauquelin.

“You don’t have to believe me. But this toffin’s done some good for Hawke, and I reckon that at least makes him worth listening to, eh?”
He sat up in his seat, leaned forward across the table. Steepled his fingertips underneath his chin and held Corwynn’s eyes with his. “The kov who’s sitting across this table from doesn’t know shit about how the Symvoulio works, wouldn’t recognize his wife or his kids, can’t talk like a golly, can’t do poetry like a golly. I woke up and looked in the mirror and didn’t know who it was, and that’s when I fuckin’ dusted. Too weird. Couldn’t handle it. Gone.”

He paused as the dark-haired chip returned with his whiskey. He inclined his head at her, and she gave him a look – and it was a look that cut him to the bone in the strangest way, even though it was a friendly look. It was how different it was from the smile she gave Corwynn. When she’d gone, he pulled the glass toward him on the table, stared into the amber-dark liquid. Stretched out his hands, pale and trembling, on either side of the glass; the callouses and scuffed knuckles were out of place, just like the cheap cigarette between his right index and middle fingers.

“But I’ll tell you something else, an’ this is the kicker. I don’t have amnesia. I remember living in Old Rose Harbor just like it was yesterday. I remember doing – things – some things I might regret, if my heart wasn’t black as coal. I remember being a different man, and that man wasn’t a toffin politician.”

His lip twitched. He took a long drink of his whiskey, and when he put it down, he was studying the golly Bad Brother through narrowed eyes. His voice became hushed, tense.

“I think we both know,” he said, “what the dove said when the sparrow caught him cheating at Rooks.”
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Corwynn
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: The Taxman
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Mon Jan 28, 2019 3:10 pm

​​
22nd of Achtus, 2718
​​The TOY LANTERN | EVENING
​​
​​To say that the blond gunman was confused by what was a swiftly unraveling conversation would have been a bit of an understatement, but Corwynn did his best to continue to stay the course, tacking his sails despite how he could feel the ship they were in heeling in metaphorical waters.

He needed more to drink. He was too sober for this.

Had the Bad Brother known who he was talking to, what familiar creature sat across from him wearing another familiar creature's skin like some crude, hapless disguise, he would surely have been just as terrified as he would have been intrigued. There was something about the way the galdor talked that tugged at other memories, something about his mannerisms in the hazy, dim light of the Toy Lantern that scraped against the hull of his thoughts and reverberated with something not unlike that tingle of deja vu.

Gods, his field wasn't helping any of the tax collector's whirly feelings, however, the other man's doetoed frazzled mess a stark contrast to Anatole's insistence that he was not at all strung out on opiates or high as a clocking aeroship on something new purchased with a galdor's salary from the streets. Corwynn admittedly had his doubts in this moment, crystalline gaze narrowing as the other man before him leaned closer and claimed he was someone else entirely. He opened his mouth to object, to crack a joke, to make some snide comment about living a shallow politician's life anyway, but the waitress re-appeared and his jaw clenched instead, waiting.

Shifting in his seat to cross a leg over his knee and press his right side against the overstuffed arm of the chair he'd sank so comfortably into, purposefully digging the hard outline of his firearm into his ribs in desperation for a grounding moment of painful clarity, his blue eyes followed the dark-haired woman as she slipped away as if she was at all worth admiring when there were far better distractions, gathering his thoughts before he looked back to Incumbent Vauquelin's haggard face, glancing down as he stretched out his hands instead of meeting his gaze.

Staring at the space between them while the other galdor spoke, he inhaled slowly, finally reaching for the box of cigars and opening it. His fingers faltered as he selected one of the fine Hessean tobacco-filled cigars, Anatole's voice speaking a coded sentence that the galdor could not possibly have ever known. It would appear for a moment as if he was ignoring the other man's comment, as if he was completely ignorant to his very specific words.

The complete opposite was true, and the chill of concern that crawled down his spine was not unlike the sensation he remembered as a boy that tickled beneath his skin and set his heart racing that first time he snuck his way into the Crypts beneath the Church of the Moon. Muscle memory drove him to make his choice and close the box, not looking up as he set it on the table and took a lingering moment to inhale the sweet, well-aged scent of the carefully spiced dried leaves from the Kingdom of drakes and war, reaching into his coat with his free hand and drawing the knife at his belt to trim the tip with all the care of the experienced expert he was.

Tucking the knife away, cigar brought between his teeth, Corwynn looked up, finally, and let his sharp blue gaze hold the other man's bleary hues,

"Aye," grunted the blond galdor, the flicker of a smirk slowly creasing its way into his sea-weathered features, mischief in his equally hushed baritone, "'You'd better watch out for hawks,' she cooed, 'They never miss a bird.'"

Perhaps it was laziness. Perhaps it was a threat. Perhaps it was simply showing off. The King's Taxman gathered his field and quipped a short phrase of Monite, aware that it was in flagrant rebellion to the Noble Uses of such a phrase, lighting his cigar with a spark of magical flame, pausing for a couple of quick puffs and a long, needful drag, filling his lungs and the rest of his senses with the saccharine spiciness that was the specialty of Hessean farmers,

"I don't miss often, either, but apparently you know that. Don't you?" He moved only slightly, four-fingered right hand waving the edge of his coat to give the briefest of glimpses at what was hidden beneath the expensive, well-tailored fabric, snuggled just so against the brocade of his equally expensive vest,

"Clocking hell. I'm not sure I'm quite following, but I'm also sort of afraid that I might be. Let's see—" The Bad Brother took another leisurely drag from his cigar, speaking as if he didn't care in the least about what kind of insane shit was flapping in the winds of his mind at this moment, speaking as if he had every intention of ignoring the rush of his pulse,

"—if you're not Anatole Vauquelin, then who are you?"
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Tom Cooke
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Tue Jan 29, 2019 7:05 pm


the toy lantern · the dives
☙ 2718 · 22 achtus · evening ❧

His right eye was twitching something fierce. He took a sip of whiskey to mask the tension in his face, keeping a close eye on the galdor’s movements. The bite of it steadied his nerves, but not by much. He was aware of how hard Anatole’s heart was beating, how oddly frantic the thrum – great Lady, you fucking toffin, he thought, calm down, calm down, but he wasn’t sure if he’d have been able to keep his own heart under control under these circumstances. This was more of an audience than he’d expected; he knew that the taxman was open-minded, but this was just a smidge beyond a novelty. He’d often wondered what it’d take to get Corwynn properly spooked, and he hoped he wasn’t about to find out.

The gunman had subtly showed him he was armed. Huh. Tom lifted an eyebrow at him over the rim of his tumbler, lifted an eyebrow at that hint of a weapon ensconced in all that fancy-erse brocade and silk and gods knew what else from where else.

Then he set it down, ice jangling against glass. “Oh, Lady, Corwynn.” His voice was laughing, but a little irritated, and he waved a hand; on Anatole, it was an oddly prissy gesture. “I know you could shoot the tail off an albatross from all the way across the Tincta Basta. You know I’m no threat to you, and you know I respect you. You’re a hard bite, damn good at what you do, and you’ve been doing the King’s work longer than I have. Longer than any of us, just about. I respect you.”

Besides, I’d haunt you. Hell, I’ll haunt anyone who cotts me this time around. You’ll wonder why all your bread tastes stale and your vegetables are all withered and dry, like somebody’s sucked the life out of ’em right before you got around to eating. You got a garden? Plants in your house? Not anymore.

He blinked. He was feeling a little more thick-headed than he reckoned he ought to. It wasn’t a bad feeling – in fact, it was the first time in months he didn’t feel like he was struggling against his body – but it wasn’t one-drink Cooke, either; it was more like three-drink Cooke. Alioe, Anatole, what the hell? The tingling burn in his throat was pleasant, offsetting the chill, warming him all the way down to his stomach, and he reflected with irritation that he hadn’t paid for Gioran whiskey not to drink it. Whatever. But he needed to keep clear and steady. Needed that desperately.

He cleared his throat, frowning. This was the hard part.

“Well, that’s the, ah, funny thing, ain’t it? ’Cause we’ve met, I reckon. Fair recent. Maybe a year ago. I’m, er—” He swallowed thickly. He lowered his voice, conspiratorial. “Tom Cooke. Big man, dark hair, scar on his upper lip? Cotted that dob, took care of that whole business with Hamish Doyle. That’s – me, if you can believe it. I reckon you can’t, of course. But a man can hope.” He met Corwynn’s eyes; then, suddenly, he gave a threadbare little laugh, sincere and sad. He glanced down at the box of cigars, just to have something to look at. “I’m not a man who scares easy – but I’m scared shitless right now. I don’t believe in ghosts, hey? I’m not a monster. And I’m not moony, either. But I’m not – gods, just look at me –”

Another snorting laugh. He started to reach for his whiskey, then stopped, hand twitching away and tapping irritatedly at the table. His eyes wandered up again, met the taxman’s, tried to read that sky’s-edge blue; his heart – Anatole’s heart – was pounding, and his mouth was a little dry. He wished he could be sure he was coherent.

“You don’t have to believe me, but I think – there’s got to be some rational explanation out there for all this vodundun, right? And you got to admit, don’t you? If I ain’t who I say I am, then I’m damn good at acting like somebody I never met.

“Whatever’s happened, I’m still the King’s man, through and through. I was working for the Fosters when Hawke took over, when I was just a lad. That was what I did my entire life, until the day I – well – dze. What I’m saying is, it’s all I’ve ever known.”
His brows came together; he studied the other Bad Brother’s face. He took a quick drag on his cigarette. “So I do need help. I’m no Vauquelin. What does a man like me do? I’m taking a chance, ye chen, telling you I know all this shit I shouldn’t know? You could have me cold in a week and you’d be justified. But I got history with Hawke. And I’m loyal. And I’m bending my knee again, ’cause he’s always taken care of his own, and I’m one of his own, whether you believe me or not.”
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Corwynn
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: The Taxman
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Tue Feb 05, 2019 8:17 pm

​​
22nd of Achtus, 2718
​​The TOY LANTERN | EVENING
​​
​​Spiced, slightly sweet smoke filled his lungs and dried against his tongue, Corwynn slowly exhaling as if the steady, familiar motion was somehow a comfort, an anchor, in this moment of uncomfortable confusion. He wasn't really about to fire his gun in the middle of a bar in Vienda, even if this was the Dives. He wasn't clocking stupid. Paranoid, yes. Concerned, sure. But dumb? No. Obviously not.

Anatole spoke of things the other galdor shouldn't have known about, had no way to know about. He'd never been to any meetings in the Harbor. He'd never seen Hawke's face. Sure, Corwynn had his ear like he had the attention of a few other politicians in Vienda, but, gods. This was beyond strange, the Bad Brother unsure if he'd had enough to drink to deal with what was unfolding or if he'd had too much. The man across from him seemed to grow more uncomfortable as well, flighty, agitated.

Different—

Tom clocking Cooke.

"What? Hang on." The blond gunman coughed, sputtering around the end of the cigar clenched between his well-bred white teeth, crystalline gaze faltering, quickly flitting over the older, obviously galdor-shaped thing in front of him as if hoping to see some hint of a disguise or some magical sign of being duped. Perceptive magic could make someone believe they were looking at something that once actually there, could be used to cause more than just simple hallucinations, if the caster was powerful enough. Magic could change memories, shift thoughts, convince a body to do something the mind thought it didn't want to.

But this?

"Tom. Big Tom Cooke. From the Doyle job. Is dead."

The soft waif of a galdor in front of him gave a nervous little laugh, and yet the familiar face of an older politician he'd known for years spoke with such surreal and shocked confidence that Corwynn didn't have a godsbedamned clue how to read the situation, how to feel, or what to even think. He heard his pulse, felt its rhythm in his veins.

Scared. Only scared? It didn't feel like enough, but Hawke's taxman didn't know another word to use.

"Saw the body myself."

The other galdor spoke quietly, each word emphasized evenly, almost slower than necessary. Out of habit, he flicked ashes away from the cigar he'd been enjoying until just a few heartbeats ago. Now the flavor had soured against his tongue, the smoke feeling uncomfortably tight in his lungs. He took a long moment to study the thing across the table from him as if somehow he could see through him, as if looking for something hidden or invisible or obvious that he'd missed all along.

It was Incumbent Vauquelin that looked back at him, desperate and afraid, but it was not at all Anatole that spoke to him. His mannerisms, his figures of speech, the way he held himself, and the things he knew ... those were, indeed, Tom things. The face was a golly, through and through, but the mind?

What kind of sorcerery was this? What kind of bizarre joke?

Crystalline gaze slid away from the man in front of him to flit about the room like a dragonfly over some lazy Brayde County pond in the summer, scanning faces, looking for danger. Paranoid—was this a trap? What was he supposed to give away?

"Vodundun, indeed. I've never heard of such magic, not legal magic, anyway." Corwynn hissed his words through his teeth, exhaling smoke, returning his attention to the person before him, aware that Anatole or not-Anatole, Tom, Dick, Harry, or Jane that this man claimed to be was expectant and afraid. Worried. Needing something the blond galdor wasn't sure he had to give,

"I'm sure as the sea's wet not ready to admit anything ... or believe anything ... after you spout a few facts and affect a few words. Anyone can do that." Shifting in his seat as if he considered standing, leaning just so to purposefully feel the press of his gun against his ribs for the comfort, for the anchor to a reality he lived and understood, "I'm wary to consider the loyalty of someone who doesn't know who the clock they're supposed to be. You look like Incumbent Vauquelin. You live like him—a little. But you don't talk like him. You don't feel like him—"

There it was. The comment about the intangible.

If nothing else was truly different, the other galdor's field was ... well ... like a first form's budding aura. Doetoed. Frazzled. Strange.

Snuffing out the cigar on the tabletop with a scowl, Corwynn leaned forward, nine fingers curling white-knuckled into his knees. He held the other man's gaze firmly, his blue eyes sharp and hard, "—you feel strange. Whether it's indeed magic or something more, I suppose we'll have to get this sorted. Whoever you may actually be, both swore fealty to Silas. If you're someone else entirely, well, another body won't be a problem, no matter how famous the face. Help? I'm not sure how to help you myself, I'm not even clocking sure if you're making enough sense."

The blond galdor bristled. Put off. Confused. Uncomfortable. It was as one might imagine a bad trip, he assumed, had he ever been interested in the harder narcotics the Bad Brothers distributed through the Kingdom for profit,

"A visit with the King may be in order to get you proper sorted." His expression turned sour, the flavor of his words distasteful on his tongue. Silas may be displeased with ghost stories. Or he may find this fascinating. Either way, the wick had access to magical secrets hardly anyone else in Vita did. He'd know what to do, provided it was worth the risk bringing Anatole, Tom, whoever, into his presence,

"Fancy a trip to the Harbor?"

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Tom Cooke
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Fri Feb 08, 2019 8:16 pm


the toy lantern · the dives
☙ 2718 · 22 achtus · evening ❧

So there it was, out in the open. He’d known it, and that was the funny thing; he’d known he was dead. Deep down, anyway. You don’t get to be a ghost without dying, and dying means there’s a body – a corpse that rots and goes to the dirt and the worms, or the fish in the sea. He’d seen enough of them in his lifetime. He knew what they looked like after a few months, and it’d been a few months.

It wasn’t that he’d entertained any thoughts about getting back to his old life. Tom Cooke was realistic, and he didn’t waste time on mung daydreams of the way things might be. That was just it, though: he hadn’t thought about it at all. And now that the golly Bad Brother was sitting across from him, looking him in the eye with that unreadable look, that uncharacteristic stiffness and – was that fear, on Corinth Wynngate III? – looking him in the eye and telling him he’d ‘seen the body’, like that was some…

“’Course you’ve seen the body.” The body, the body, the body... His head spun. Tom hadn’t meant to snap, and he certainly hadn’t meant his voice to come out all shaky, all tenuous and strained. The whisky had made him feel looser, had eased his nerves, but now it sat in his belly like a fire, and he had to swallow bile. He couldn’t get his thoughts straight; his head was too fuzzy. He felt like he’d lost control of something important. “I know. I know. Just don’t tell me how.”

He couldn’t seem to push out any more words; he wanted to say something more, something coherent and sensible, but his tongue felt thick and heavy. So he just sat listening to the taxman, watching every little movement. He pursed his lips tightly. Anyone can do that? Affect a few words? Of course it’s not legal magic; the King’s Crop ain’t legal, either, but that don’t mean it don’t exist – But he didn’t say anything, didn’t even move until Corwynn shifted in his seat like he might get up and leave, and then Tom’s heart was in his throat.

But the King’s tax collector didn’t leave. He went on talking, and slowly, Tom started to relax. He took a shuddering breath, rubbed at his temples. Looked down at his half-empty Gioran whiskey, now more watery and pale from the melted ice. Magic, or something more – Tom wondered what it could be, if it wasn’t magic. He was out of his league. He was a human; voo had never been his business, much less this kind of voo.

(He’d only seen voo in practice a few times, and he’d only seen a galdor cast once, during the nastiest fight he’d ever been in. It wasn’t a memory he liked. Heavy, physical magic. He’d seen a man’s bone bend like a young tree-branch in a storm. He figured that magic could do anything, and then he wondered if maybe somebody’d put a curse on him, made him a ghost. Or maybe somebody’d put a curse on Anatole. Then he thought, what if he wasn’t Tom Cooke at all? He knew he was a ghost, though; he knew he was holding on to the body. Or he thought he knew. What if he didn’t know who he was? There was only one way to find out, and...)

He realized he was biting his lip hard and stopped, grateful he hadn’t drawn blood. It was the mention of ‘a visit with the King’ that raised him from his reverie, let him shake off his confusion. A trip to the Harbor. He stared at Corwynn for a very long moment, hands lying useless on the table in front of him, brows drawn together.

He’d never seen Hawke’s taxman this put-off; he’d never seen that kind of sour expression on his sea-weathered face. Corwynn had always seemed an unshakable man. He’d been doing the King’s work, shedding sweat and sap on volatile seas, for more years than Tom had known what a Silas Hawke was, and this even after he’d lost his trigger finger. Tom wondered that there was anything the man hadn’t seen. Now, he looked genuinely disturbed. But he was giving a ghost a chance.

“That’s all I ask,” he breathed, “all I ask. Thank you, Corwynn.” His gaze went askance – out across the bar, studying each person that passed, their lantern-limned features hazy in the Lantern’s smoky interior; for a moment his breath caught in his throat and he couldn’t speak. He kept alighting on half-lit faces, thinking out of the blue, Who’s that? How long are they going to live? Wondering if this joint was full of people like him, only they kept it secret, because nobody’d believe them.

He looked back at the taxman with a genuine smile.

“You’re more open-minded than me, hey? If it were the old Tom Cooke sitting across this table from me, there’d be blood. But I’m willing to bet this’ll catch the King’s interest. If not, well –” He shrugged, ashing his cigarette. “I’ll face the consequences. Like you say. I got nothin’ to lose. Besides, it’ll be good to see the Harbor again.” He crossed his arms. “You can guess how much I’ve missed it.”
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