Logs:Tragedy of Manners

Tragedy of Manners
Dramatis Personae Polaris, Wendy, Winona	2024-03-20 "I wouldn't be surprised if a mystery or two was still on the docket."
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 very late -- or very early, but has that ever mattered here? The sign on the door claims the conservatory is closed, but that's always been little more than a suggestion. Wendy is currently in here, quiet, seated cross-legged on a flat rock with her elbows perched on her knees and her fingers interlaced below her chin. Her oversized loose-knit sweater is appropriately springlike for the day in ombre shades of green, her long skirt pink and grey and comfortably pooling around her on the stone. She has been eying the tray in front of her -- laid out for tea for, though she hasn't yet poured any. When she does eventually break the silence, her voice is quiet and rueful. "... have you heard anything about a funeral? Maybe they need help planning." Winona is sat upon a boulder, one foot on a smaller rock and the other planted firmly on the ground. Her eyes are slightly shaded by an olive coloured newsboy cap that matches with her jacket. She's been bouncing her leg for a bit, hands clasped together in a contemplative silence, pulled out of it by Wendy's question. "My understanding's that his mother is taking charge on much of that. Wouldn't hurt to see how to be of help..." She bites her bottom lip. "Not sure how close they were. But it's probably hard for a mother to lose her son." Polaris is perched on a picturesque log in a purple blouse with upturned cuffs and a full circle emerald skirt spread around her that she keeps fussily rearranging. Her hair has gotten even shorter, with a faded undercut that makes the black skinny scarf wound around her neck even more striking against pale skin. "I haven't heard anything, but." She tips her head at Winona. "That woman is a force of nature. Even if she needed help, I'm not sure she'd accept it." She's rolling a smooth steel ball between her hands, slow and meditative. "I guess that's where he got it from." "These things are hard. Maybe not for nature. But -- for the rest of us." Wendy's fingers unlace and lace back together. "At least maybe some food. I don't know if any of his siblings can cook." She does not apparently even bother entertaining the notion that Elie might cook. Her brows dip slightly inward. "They weren't close," this comes just a little vague, "and also very." "Food, I can help with," says Winona, her head bobbing in a slow nod, "I'll make his family a casserole so they can focus on the--" She pauses for a few moments, her eyebrows furrowing. "Grieving." Her knee continues to bounce restlessly while she seems to sort through her thoughts. "Did you... notice anything? Anything off about-- It was unexpected. I didn't see it coming. Maybe I should have paid more attention?" She shakes her head to cast the thought aside, however futile it is. Polaris nods, slowly, and too many times. "We can set up a meal train. If Jax and Ryan haven't already, but I doubt they're doing so great, either." She rolls the ball off of her palm and across her knuckles and drops it into the palm of her other hand. "I guess I get that, a little. Parents can be complicated." Her eyes dart to the row of bangles on Wendy's forearm. "And also not. Luci wasn't exactly an open book, either." Her mouth pulls to one side, and then she looks up and around them. "Kind of just. Not really what you thought you'd be reading at all, until you're really into the story." "You pay a lot of attention." Wendy is studying Winona from beneath her scrunched brows. "I think you would have noticed. -- He wasn't using. It was unexpected." She unlaces her fingers once again, but this time drops her hands, leaning forward so that she can pour the three enameled cups full. "I didn't think his story would end like this. -- What did you think you'd be reading?" She's plucked up the first of the cups to offer it to Polaris. "I figured I would be reading something that--" Winona tugs at the hem of her jacket. "Would require a second reading to understand. A complicated story, with a complicated end, for a complicated man." The sound of the pouring tea attracts her attention, and she looks back over to it. "I know better than most that death doesn't heed the laws of storytelling. It just happens. But I figured if it'd heed for anyone--" She shrugs limply. "I don't know." Polaris snaps her fingers at Wendy's assessment of Winona's attention to detail. "'Wasn't using' for a while can make it more dangerous to start again. But he's always so damned meticulous about everything." She scoots off the log and settles herself on the ground, a little closer to Wendy. The steel ball floats up to orbit her so she can accept the cup with both hands. "I thought it was gonna be like, a Victorian play full of eccentric socialites with dry humor that's well-written but not really my speed." She closes her eyes to inhale the gentle fragrant steam of the oolong. "Then all of a sudden he's teaching me fisticuffs, which definitely scans for that kind of play, but more and more like some frakking interstitial magical realism twist on it." She shrugs. "And like. His brother and his mom both cheated Death, so who knows." "So more Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell than Pride and Prejudice. He did like a good fantasy of manners." Wendy is pouring Winona's cup next, precise and careful before she offers it out. "It feels off to me," she's agreeing, "but I don't know if that's truth or mourning. Death makes all the strings get tangled and his were already always so..." She trails off, her eyes lowering. "Well. Complicated." She exhales a quiet and heavy puff. Her head tilts slowly one direction, like she's listening to something just out of her reach. "I don't know if life has that kind of genre savvy." There's a quiet amusement trickling into the sorrow in her voice. "But if it did we're probably due for -- extradimensional Luci? Zombie Luci? At least his ghost should hang around and help solve a mystery." Winona drops her previously bouncing leg to the ground so that she can properly lean in to take the tea cup. She holds it up to her face for a few moments to inhale some of the steam before taking a sip. She bows her head towards Polaris, a tinge of amusement to colour the flat pall of grief, "Some stories are a slow burn. I'm not surprised that fisticuffs is the hook that got you." She closes her eyes for a few moments, another deep breath of steam, "I imagine he has all kinds of unfinished business. I wouldn't be surprised if a mystery or two was still on the docket." She lifts a shoulder. "At the very least I'd hope he'd pay me a visit. I know a thing or two about ghosts."