Logs:Home Away From Home

Home Away From Home
Dramatis Personae Anahita, Damien	2024-05-27 "Most places do. But a home has more than charm."
Location <NYC> Le Carrefour, Le Bonne Entente - Astoria, Queens
Above the bustle of the clerestory restaurant, tucked at the base of the bell tower, this indoor garden and library is out of the way and easily overlooked, sure to become a favored "hidden gem" of travel guides. Low bookshelves full of mythology, fairy tales, and folklore ring the central elevator shaft and the stairway spiraling around it like an easily navigable labyrinth. Beyond these are plants in a variety of tastefully whimsical containers, each with its own engraved plaque giving the common name, the scientific name, and their significance to various traditional stories and practices. The walls have been done away with so that the room extends beyond the doric columns into a surreal rooftop garden enclosed with glass stretching between the tower's massive buttresses. The arrangement of plantlife becomes less formal as one moves out into the four arms of the conservatory, visible containers giving way to beds and terraces and eventually landscapes carefully cultivated to look wild. There is plentiful seating scattered along the paths and just off of them, from proper benches to picturesque logs to surprisingly comfortable boulders. By day, myriad butterflies dance amongst the enchanted vegetation, and likewise moths by night. A shallow stream weaves throughout, feeding ponds that host plants of their own alongside fish, frogs, and turtles. Wandering the outer edges of the conservatory, one could almost feel lost in a mystical forest but for the stunning views of the cityscape beyond the glass. It's not quite dark, the last lingering bits of twilight still lending enough light to see by through the glass walls. The garden is nominally closing for the night, little though its posted hours tend to be much enforced on those who are respecting the space. The man in the back of the garden is certainly not making much fuss -- hasn't been making much fuss for quite some time. He's lying along a large boulder, where he's been for a while now -- maybe not that unusual around here, really, although he does not look dressed for Lounging About On Rocks. It's hard to say what he does look dressed for, wearing a jaunty black velvet tailcoat with a boutonniere of some beautiful unearthly flower -- it's hard to describe, and seems to change colors every time one looks at it -- over a faintly translucent blue-purple ombre mesh shirt, its stand collar cinched with a white neckband and rainbow obsidian cabochon brooch, which also affixes the folds of a fine lace jabot, a wide black silk sash at his waist, and white linen trousers tucked into tall black riding boots. He's got a copy of Jamaica Anansi Stories open on the flat of his belly, but is not, in fact, reading them -- instead he's holding his hand up just above his face and watching, very intently, the large malachite butterfly that has just perched on his finger. Anahita is wending her slow way through the labyrinth and then each wing of the conservatory in turn. It seems like a casual stroll, but her steps are sure and her eyes search the greenery with a keen familiarity. She's wearing a plaid shirt in shades of light and dark purples, sturdy denim overalls, and black engineer's boots, a black crescent bag slung across her body, and a scarlet pashmina draped about her neck and shoulders, her long braid half lost in its folds. She doesn't seem much disturbed by the man lounging about on a rock, and though she does look at him twice there's no discernable change in her expression the second time. "She likes you." This is quiet and matter-of-fact. "Come evening she usually finds a perch on a night-blooming plant." "She's got good taste. if I could fit on a night-blooming plant I'd probably do the same." There's a definite accent to Damien's quiet voice, but it's difficult to place. He lifts his hand a little bit higher, very gently curling his long fingers inward until the butterfly shifts its footing and wings off. "Are you two friends, then?" Anahita's eyes follow the butterfly as it flutters away to alight on a spray of night-blooming jessamine that isn't quite ready to wake just yet. "Oh, yes. She keeps me company, and I keep her in the choicest of fruit." She turns back to the man, her eyes ticking over him and fixing on the boutonniere. "What flower is that? On your lapel." "How wonderful." In Damien's voice there's a quiet earnestness, like this news of the butterfly is, genuinely, brightening his night. He sits up, something oddly and uncannily fluid in even this small shift of motion; he's dropped a hand to catch at the book that was resting on him, closing it quiet and setting it beside him. He's turned his head to follow the butterfly's path. "Good taste and clever. You've a very solid arrangement, there." His head rolls back along his shoulders, eyes tracing the greenery overhead before slipping off the leaves and onto Anahita. "Oh --" He lifts his hand, one finger gently tracing at the flower's ethereal petals. "You know, I don't know if you've a word for it in your tongue. My mother used to grow them in her garden and when they're fresh plucked just a snip of the petals in one of her pies could make you forget all your cares. Dangerous in excess, but --" He turns a hand elegantly upward. "Long-preserved, this one's lost that particular magic." His eyes haven't left Anahita all this while, studying her with the same curious intensity with which he had studied the butterfly. "What would you call it?" Anahita gives a thoughtful hum and circles around to Damien's other side for a better look at the flower. "It is lovely. My compliments to your mother's gardening. Did she breed it herself?" She tilts her head, as if listening for an answer in the burbling of water and chirping of insects. "Lethe," she replies at last. "I would say that I have never seen anything quite like it, but perhaps I have, and simply do not remember." "Lethe," Damien echoes, drawing his fingertip once more against the flower. "Yes, that sees apt. And yes. My mother grows such wonders in her garden." He's looking, briefly, back out over the greenery around them. "Stepping in here I felt half at home. -- Are you friends with the flowers, too, then?" "Your home must be splendid." Anahita does not quite smile, but the faint tug of her not-quite smile is wistful. "I fancy myself friends with most of the flowers here. Some are practically kin." She gestures at a bed of many-colored poppies farther along the path. "Like the flower of forgetfulness from the land of my birth. Others, I am still getting to know. I have bred no new ones just yet, but I do." The sentence just stops, but not abruptly enough to sound like she's cutting herself off. She winds the tassels of her scarf and around and around her fingertips. "I did have some promising sports. Alas, such things take patience." She looks at Damien again, curiosity renewed. "Are you seeking an introduction? You must know many flowers, growing up with a master gardener, but some of these wonders may still be new to you." "My home had its charms. Most places do, I am learning. It sometimes takes a bit of exploring to find them -- but that is part of the adventure." Damien looks to the poppies. "What happened to your promising young?" When he looks back, his smile is a quick, bright thing that lends a surprising warmth to his severe features. "Would you introduce me? I have traveled quite a many places but for all its reputation this is my first time in this young York. I would be delighted to meet some of your lovely friends." "Most places do. But a home has more than charm." Anahita's tone remains light, but there is a distant spark of fury in her determined calm. "They were trampled by the men who drove my people from our homes. It is an old tale that I am learning to tell all over again. Such things also take patience." Her eyes refocus on his face, sudden and perhaps a bit startled. Though she does not mirror his smile, something indefinable brightens in her, too. "It would be my pleasure. I was given care of this place for just such inclinations. Let us start with the first flowers I befriended." She tips her head at the poppies and waits for Damien to follow. "They have many names, but I knew them first as Tiryāk. This means 'medicine', in the land of my birth." "What does make a home? I've spent so much time with wanderers, I feel no two people will give the same answer." Anahita's fury finds echo in Damien's expression, as fierce now as it was warm a moment before; it's a passion kindled all of a moment and fading from his dark eyes again just as soon. It's left a quiet ember burning in his voice, though: "To be driven from your home is altogether different than choosing to roam." When he hops down from his boulder it is light, boots making surprisingly little noise against the stone path. He's folded his hands behind his back, and keeps them folded there as he bends nearly double to inspect -- or perhaps listen to, given the slight sideways cant of his head -- the flowers. "Tiryāk," he echoes, something reverent in the way he holds this newly bestowed name in his mouth. "When faced with such cruelties, forgetting can be strong medicine indeed. Then again, so, I have found, can be revenge. -- is it far, this land that sprouted you?" Anahita stills momentarily at that flash of anger, but evinces no sign of fear. The gaze she fixes on Damien is thoughtful. "Home is where I can rest in relative safety and cultivate what I love -- be it plants, or art, or family. I do long for one from which I can wander when I please rather than bracing always to flee, but." The quiet puff of her breath could be a laugh or a scoff, but isn't necessarily either. "I did not mean to sound so wretched, only the loss of my last home is still raw. And. It is rare to meet someone who both understands that distinction and speaks it plainly." She crouches down, brushes her fingertips over the petals of the poppies and meets their swaying with an easy smile. "It is strong medicine for many things, and beautiful, too. I was born in Afghanistan. My first mother was a revolutionary, but it turned out she was the wrong kind, when the revolution came. I was very young. I suspect most of those murderers are dead by now." She straightens up. "The U.S. government took every other home and family I have had, since. Vengeance against them does not tend work out so well, as you might imagine." This time her rage is carefully tempered in a way that suggests long and extensive practice. She draws away from the poppies and leads her guest toward a tree covered in bright pink blooms. "Where did you -- sprout? And where do you call home now, if it is not there?" "If you've fled enough, I imagine the bracing stays written some time on your heart -- relative safety or no." Damien's voice has gentled, thoughtful rather than pitying. He straightens, watching the poppies in their gentle sway. He drifts after Anahita, turning his attention to the pink flowers wrapping the tree. "This upstart government has learned quite quickly to throw its weight around. I do think the violence will catch it up before long, but --" He reaches out a hand, brushing the pink flowers, now, lightly, and his words trail off unfinished. "Oh, a magical place far far away. Not so very unlike this city, I think. We drew travelers and refugees from far and wide. These days --" His hand drops to his side and he rises just slightly onto his toes as he pivots back toward Anahita. "I think I'm still trying to learn what that means." "You imagine well. What I fear is that if you've fled enough, perhaps it cannot be erased." Anahita does not sound very fearful, though. "Maybe I will find out, when I find my next home." She smiles again, when Damien reaches out to touch the flowers. "This we call Arghavan. My first guess at your magical place was Istanbul, but then you would likely know this tree." She circles around to the other side of the tree, her fingers tracing over its blossoms, as well, but her eyes on Damien. "It blooms when the Persian year begins, and fills the countryside with color all spring long. The great poet Hafez sang: "From the beloved come word of the new day, written on the wind; If you desire help from this wind, you must light the fire in your heart. If, like these flowers, you have little, spend what you have on joy." "Would you want to erase it, if you could?" There's something in Damien's tone, in the pensiveness of his gaze, that makes this not just an idle question. He's looking back at the tree, then, head tilting to the side to peer at one of the springs of pink blooms. "Arbre de Judee. The first name I learned. Names are queer things, I think. Sometimes they tell us as much about the people using them as the ones they're applied to." His eyes half-close at the poetry, and though there's a smile playing on his lips it has turned by the time he opens his eyes again to an amused curiosity. "A beautiful verse. Though it stirs a deep curiosity in me. Which wind did Hafez entreat, I wonder, that they wanted a heart aflame in trade. I suppose the Southerly has cared a time or two for animal concerns. Zenith, perhaps, if he was foolish enough to bargain with her." Once more now his fingers are touching light at the flower at his lapel. "Is it advice you follow? What does comprise your joy?" There is an indefinable push in his rich voice -- it feels less like a compulsion than like a trust, not so much Obliged To Answer as wanting to open up. Anahita looks like she's giving the idea serious consideration. Serious, but brief. "No. I suppose not." Her brows furrow, very faintly, as she studies the young tree's canopy. "Arbre de Judee. 'Tree of the Jews'? Or is that French for 'Judas tree', as the English call it? I do not know which was named first or what it says about my ancestors, but 'arghavan' also means a pinkish purple color, like these blossoms." "Hafez bargained with the winds extravagantly. This wind kooy yār meeyāyad, it comes from his lover. It is their breath that carries word of the new day." She leans one shoulder lightly against the trunk of the arghavan tree, her eyes following his hand to the Lethe blossom and lingering there. "Not always, but I remind myself every new year. Every new day. My joy is fighting for a better world. Seeing those in my care thrive. Hearing and reading and telling stories." She hesitates, twirling the tassels of her scarf around and around. "Being loved as fiercely as I love. It sounds a bit conceited, when I say it aloud." She cocks her head. "What brings you joy, then? I take the adventuring as read." "Tree of Judea. The English got it wrong in the retelling, as they so often do." Damien's smile grows warm again, at Anahita's reply. "The adventuring is a means to an end. I find great joy in people. Their stories, their dreams. If I lived a thousand years in this world I think I'd learn something new about people each day." He's turned, drifted just a short distance away where now he is closely examining a cluster of dark berries tucked among the needles of a small juniper. "I don't believe in false modesty. If you have a skill, claim it, and others will benefit all the more. What would you give, for a love like that?" "Oh. That makes much more sense than the other etymology I have heard for 'Judas Tree'." Anahita studies the slender branches overhead with a critical eye. "It really is just an awful tree for hanging. He would have died of frustration first." She shakes her head, glancing over at Damien. Or, anyway, at the juniper shrub he's examining. "I know my worth, as do my comrades and community. It did not seem to benefit anyone when I wore my intensity on my sleeve." She does not sound bitter or regretful, just tired. "I almost did not say it at all because I cannot really imagine what that would look like, in the life that I have now." She quiets, thoughtful. "Maybe that is what makes it so appealing. Like these flowers, I have little enough to spend, but I would give them attention, and dedication, and passion, as I would for anyone or anything I love fiercely. If you mean what I would give up?" She gives a dry huff of a laugh. "I would give up the 'relative safety' I was talking about. That 'relative' might be working a little too hard, anyway, in light of recent events." "Ought you to bargain something you may never have?" Damien may as well be musing this to the juniper; his attention is still settled, thoughtful, curious, on the berries. "Though it is often interesting to see who pays those dues. -- Love does tend to find a way in all manner of circumstances. It's a very adaptable creature." He looks a little lighter, when he straightens, and dips his head politely to Anahita. "Thank you. For the introductions -- though we've neglected one, it seems, I don't know what to call you if I should stray into this enchanting haven again." "Hope is always currency, but I suppose that particular one is disingenuous." There's amusement in Anahita's tone if not her countenance. "Loving so fiercely is never safe, but that has not stopped me yet, and for those in my care I give my safety as freely as I do the rest. All I have left to offer is a heart aflame. That is either the most appropriate trade, the most tragic, or both. Depending on who I bargain with." She pushes off of the tree and steps back onto the path, though not without another wistful glance up at its flowers. "We've neglected two. A name for a name, then. Mine is Anahita." She flashes him a coy smile. "If you do stray back, I will give you another. I might even introduce you to the flower behind them both." Once more Damien's expression lights, warm and delighted at Anahita's reply. This time his deeper incline is a lot more like a bow, the courtly affectation a comfortable fit on him. "My name is my own," he answers, "but you can call me Damien. I suspect I will see you again, Anahita." He makes very little noise as he slips off through the greenery.