Logs:(Other)kin

(Other)kin
Dramatis Personae Anahita, Damien, Lucien
In Absentia Elie, Matt, Joshua	2024-07-04 "-- human legends often range from baffling inaccuracy to offensive slander, but these flowers are much beloved of our people."
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. The view from L'Entente of the elaborate fireworks display over the river is spectacular. The patio is crowded, the cafe is crowded, the rooftop pool is crowded, the balconies are crowded -- in here, though, it's remarkably quiet. Perhaps one of the pleasures of owning this hotel is that Lucien is, at the moment, enjoying the fireworks display without the throngs. He's still dressed for the party, even if he's having a respite from it right now, in an unstructured linen jacket in sea green with a Captain America lapel pin, a crisp white dress shirt with no tie, the top button undone, gray linen trousers, and cognac bit loafers. He's tucked himself on a comfortable rock among some foxgloves, sipping slowly at a cup of tea. His face is tipped up toward the fireworks, lights down low in here and the starbursts overhead illuminating his placid expression in a shifting rainbow of colors. He's holding a small smooth stone in his other palm turning it slowly over and over as the fireworks continue. Is this garden officially off limits, who knows. Lucien's solitude is about to end -- there is another person wending their slow way through the greenery. Damien is brighter than Lucien, dressed in a mandarin shirt in black brocade with a gold qilin motif, a green velvet waistcoat with a gold-chained watch that ticks in the rhythm of a heartbeat, wide-legged pleated pants in silver lamé, and black buckle boots with long pointed toes. He drifts nearer to Lucien and the foxgloves, and while Lucien watches the fireworks above, he's watching Lucien. His eyes are just a little wider, his hand moving to touch at the watch pocket of his waistcoat. "You throw quite a party." Lucien's head turns very slightly to one side -- just for a moment. His brows hitch up a tic and he turns his gaze back upward. "I am glad you are enjoying yourself. My apologies, but the conservatory is closed. The pool deck has excellent viewing if you are looking for a place to watch the show." "I -- was not looking for anything, but I am glad I found you." Damien comes a little closer, stopping at the edge of the path and dropping a hand to trail against the edge of one flower, deep red and dalmatian-speckled white inside. "This place is a marvel, you know. Truly magical." The conservatory is closed, but at the sound of quiet conversation, a door is opening somewhere deep in the foliage. Anahita slips out from the groundskeeper's workshop hidden away in one of the negative spaces of the crossroads. She also looks to have retreated from the festivities she's still dressed for, in an airy wrap dress -- really just a long bolt of watery blue silk gathered and tucked and draped just so -- and elegant black ankle strap sandals, her single neat braid hanging over one shoulder, glossy black streaked with silver. She coasts to a stop beside a slender hawthorn tree, one hand on the trunk. "Gentlemen." She inclines her head slightly. "Is everything quite alright?" "Me?" Lucien's fingers close gently around the stone, pressing it flat now to his palm. "Is there something I can help you with?" It's a very customer-service pleasant tone, now, in contrast to his previous soft distraction. He pulls his eyes away from the light show and down to the flowers, colors at once softer and bolder in the brilliant flashes of colorful light. "It is dear to my heart," he admits -- a little reserved, here, but far less so when Anahita draws nearer and he adds easily: "-- and if there is magic in its pathways, it is our groundskeeper's doing. Quite alright, thank you. This guest was praising your handiwork." "Anahita and I have met." Damien dips his head politely to Anahita. "She has introduced me to much of this garden before -- though she owes me a story, still." Only now is Damien turning to look up through the large windows, eyes all the brighter for the glow reflected in them. "I am sorry to interrupt your quiet, only I have been rather keen to make your acquaintance." "It was enchanted before I ever set foot in here, but I have striven to." It might be a coincidence that Anahita's words halt after a particularly resonant boom from the distant pyrotechnics. There's a brief but noticeable pause before they resume. "To foster the magic, wherever I am able." She takes a couple of steps toward Lucien, though her gaze remains on Damien, fixed steadily in the region of his watch chain. "It needs care beyond the physical requirements of the plants." She almost manages not to flinch at the next audible explosion. "Sometimes, that is a story." Lucien's hum is quiet, but quietly intrigued. "She has quite a many to share." He glances brief to Anahita, and after a moment fishes a small silver compact out of a pocket (intricately filigreed, with a small snowdrop design in nacre in the center) and pops it open -- there are a couple different pills inside, but it is the oblong white Xanax (already divided neat into smaller doses along its scoring) that he is offering Anahita. Now that Damien is looking away, he is taking a longer look at the man. "You were seeking me, then? To what end?" "{I knew your mother. Several decades ago, in Montréal.} We were close, for a time. Things were -- difficult for her. After your brother was born, particularly. I had a thought to..." Damien trails off, his tone distant and his brow furrowing for a moment. Like his English, his French has a strange accent, distinctly marked as Something Else but difficult to place quite what. He's not looking away from the sky, and somewhere along the way he has somewhat unthinkingly drawn his watch from his pocket -- just brushing his fingers along its case without opening it. "{Not important. I was foolish and had a severe overestimation of my own importance, at the time.} I did very much think we were in love, but when she got pregnant again she was quite emphatic about her distaste for me. She ended things with me and, she claimed, had terminated that pregnancy as well. But -- when I saw you on the news. The name, and the timing, and --" He turns his hand up in an elegant sort of shrug. "Again, forgive my intrusion, but I had to know." Anahita hesitates, but another beautiful starburst in the sky above and the somewhat less pleasing crack that comes after convinces her the wisdom of Lucien's suggestion. She accepts half a Xanax from him with a grateful dip of her head and places it delicately under her tongue. As Damien speaks she tilts her head, her intense concentration easing only when he switches back to English. "I know not the truth of what he says." Her eyes stray back to Lucien, her voice level, her fingers fluttering along one of the pleated folds in her dress, fussily evening it out. "But please have a care what you say to him." Lucien has gone very still, as Damien speaks. The pills are still open, after Anahita takes one; he forgets to close the case, forgets to lower his hand. It's another bright flash at the periphery of his vision that draws him back to the present, snapping the case closed and putting it and his Nice Smooth Rock back in his pocket. He takes a slow sip of his tea, before he speaks, and it's Anahita he is addressing rather than Damien: "You've heard this tale before, then." One of his brows has arched high at her caution. His eyes slip thoughtful back to Damien, and then the windows. "My brother came by here, the other day." This is very, very even. "He said some strange man was making claims to my paternity. And that he'd gotten himself entangled in a deal with a --" But here he's breaking off, his eyes lowering again -- to the foxgloves in front of him. The short-sharp puff of breath he exhales, almost a laugh, comes at a small delay. "I have no proof to offer you. Elie could corroborate my story, but it has been --" Damien studies Lucien's face with a small hitch of breath. "-- three decades and then some since last I saw her. I knew the truth of it, though, the moment I stepped into this sanctuary of yours. There are many kinds of magic in the universe, but our type is spread thin, in most of this world. Here, it thrives. I could feel the love you had for this place before I even met you." His eyes lower, too, and a small smile touches his lips. He stoops, eye level to the foxgloves, one fingertip delicately brushing a speckled cup. "-- human legends often range from baffling inaccuracy to offensive slander, but these flowers are much beloved of our people." "Not in such detail, but he did say he was your father, when I saw him last." Anahita does not flinch at the next colorful explosion, but she is very tense beside Lucien, rubbing a silky fold of her dress between thumb and forefinger. "Then, too, another person -- one I trust implicitly -- claimed to have been bound in some way by a wager with him. I do not know what to make of this, but I would be wary of making any casual agreements with him." She studies the flowers, studies Damien, and heaves a small sigh. "Not Hong Kong, then. Are you from...London?" "Matthieu claimed this man is a fairy. I admit I had little idea what to make of that at the time, and perhaps less still now." Lucien's next breath is dry. "I do not tend to make agreements casually. Bound, how? Is this some mutant nonsense?" "I have some wonderful stories from Hong Kong," Damien answers Anahita with an almost playful amusement, "and some terrible ones from London that are beautiful as well." He drops his hand to his knee, remaining in a low crouch beside the flowers. "I should hope you do not. Your words are never casual, though humans bandy them about like mere trinkets. I am --" He hesitates, looking at Anahita with an unusual intensity for a moment before -- somewhat more reluctantly, continuing: "-- from considerably farther away than London. Or Hong Kong. Or Mumbai or any other of your cities. I have no illusions that I deserve a place in your life by simple accident of birth but -- whether you want to know me or not, there is much you need to know about where you come from. For your own safety, if nothing else. Otherworld has a way of calling to its own." "I do not think that other person gives their word lightly, either." Anahita sounds more thoughtful than anything else here. "Their warning was vague and they did not explain much, but they felt that they had been taken prisoner. A view to which this gentleman objected strenuously." She studies Damien, looking just a bit more uncertain now than wary. "I know quite a few faeries. Most of them are from the Bay Area, which is arguably another world altogether." Her expression does not change markedly, but there is something indefinably sad in her carriage. Another particularly loud boom disrupts her newly regained poise, and she clasps her hands together primly. "How do you think your Otherworld might call him?" "Otherworld," Lucien echoes, and then stops. He starts to rub at the bridge of his nose, forefinger and thumb pinching there a moment. Even when this grip relaxes his hand remains, slightly narrowed eyes fixed out on the fireworks through the splayed cage of his fingers. "You are -- what. Afraid the fairies will steal me away. A pity you weren't in my life, before -- when I was much younger, I would have been quite taken with the concept. I am some years past their target demographic for such a kidnapping, though, non?" He sounds more tired than curious, and drops his hand back to curl around his mug. "This is the kind of calumny --" Damien begins, considerably sharper; he has to visibly bite back the rest of this sentence, turning his eyes up as if the booming fireworks calm him. "There are," he finally continues, doggedly light in his tone despite a definite continued aggravation darkening his expression, "a number of persistent cultural misunderstandings. Between humans and our kind. Injustices against liberty occur in my world just as well as here but I am no jailer. That young man made a wager with me and is perfectly at liberty to reap the consequences if he no longer wants to fulfill it." He is pushing back to his feet, both hands clasped together now in front of him and the watch chain threaded between his fingers. "There are many paths between our worlds and you --" He's turning, slightly, his eyes flitting from the foxgloves to the hawthorn, the nearby forget-me-nots and columbine, and then beyond, "-- seem to be accumulating a critical mass, here. Is it really kidnapping if you are banging repeatedly on the door asking to come in?" Anahita's gaze remains fixed on Damien, her focus intensifying. "I cannot speak for the young man in question, but I had no preconceptions regarding your culture. I had no context for your side of...whatever your arrangement is, and plenty of context for his distress." She considers her words carefully. "In the absence of cultural competency, most people evaluate the actions of others through the lens of their own culture, or the predominant one in their society. I hope you do not take this as an insult, but in your case it seems hard to avoid, given you appear to be human. Of some sort." She unclasps her hands and spreads them palm-up, an ambiguous gesture of openness. "If you really are from another world, and have lived in ours for decades incognito, then I daresay you have the advantage of us in cultural competency." Her expression almost tips into something like amusement as she follows Damien's survey of the pointedly magical plants. "I think we can agree that this is a place of power, and that power is always complicated. But if you think his sanctuary is dangerous to him, then please enlighten us on how to mitigate the risks." It is hard to tell quite how much of any of this Lucien is paying attention to. He is looking now, not at Damien, not at Anahita, not at the dazzling end to the fireworks display outside, but only down at the tea now cooled in his cup. His eyes close, through several long breaths, and are still fixed on the tea when he opens them. "{I do not know if you are who you claim to be, but if you are I am afraid I cannot think too highly of your judgment or associations.}" His French here is solidly Montréal, Joual rapid and clipped in contrast to the cultivated softness of his English cadence. "{My life has been very full of family, and with the kind of schedule I keep I cannot say I have much room to add more.}" He drains the rest of the cold tea in one quick gulp and rises, as the fireworks fade from the sky. "Please do enjoy the hotel. I am sure my staff is more than equipped to handle any further needs you might have." He offers Damien a very small bow of his head, and turns to leave. "Please --" Damien's resonant voice has been, in general, richly expressive, playful or angered in turns but here for the first time it shivers with fear. He's stepped closer, quick, and quick as well when he reaches to grab Lucien's hand. The spill of feeling that comes from him is at once familiar and utterly alien. It does map, intelligibly, to something like what Lucien has come to expect from a thinking person's neurological makeup, in that it is very stark and very clear to Lucien's own senses that this person is very (very) distressed and very (very) afraid. It doesn't map, intelligibly, to what Lucien has come to expect from a human's neurological makeup, in that past these feelings there does not (at the moment) seem to be anything else, the infinitely busy background hum of biological processes that should be governing everything from the squeeze of his hand to the cadence of his breath simply -- not there. "Forgive me. Go if you must go, but remember this conversation and -- if ever you do find yourself in a magical sort of danger --" He leans closer, here. Whatever he murmurs next to Lucien's ear is not audible to Anahita, save for a very faint sense of melody just at the edge of hearing. Damien drops Lucien's hand, and drops his gaze. "Remember that name. Please. And call it if you are in need." Lucien's eyes have opened very wide, when Damien grabs him. He turns quickly, eyes dropping to rivet on where the other man's hand is on his. For a long moment he doesn't move, but there's a far more conflicted churn of feelings that hammer back against Damien's as if trying to beat back that overpowering crush of fear -- fury and hurt and confusion and a strong but reluctant curiosity. At the -- name? -- Damien offers him his breath has actually caught, the curiosity and confusion growing together with a muddled but fierce longing. For a second his hand curls back against Damien's -- but then his eyes snap up quick. He jerks back as if stung, fingers balling tight into a fist, and, without a word, turns and hurries away. Anahita straightens when Damien grabs Lucien. If she had hackles, they would be raised. Only when Lucien has pulled loose and fled -- and when Damien makes no move to pursue -- does she relax. When she stirs to motion again it is to trail her fingertips lightly over the column of foxgloves nearest her. "It is never easy." Is she talking to Damien? To the flowers? To herself? "When you and your child come from different worlds." She looks back up at Damien, her gaze softer than before. "Would you like some tea?." Her head tilts in the direction of the unseen door whence she emerged. "I do still owe you that story." Damien is very still, watching Lucien depart with a growing tightness in his expression, though he doesn't move to follow. He holds his watch tight, pulling it to his chest before dropping it back into its pocket with a twirl of its chain. Though very deflated, now, there is a wry note to his exhausted voice. "I don't suppose you could brew up a good, strong foxglove?" Anahita arches a single brow at Damien, then at the flowers thriving around them. "I could, but there are easier and more pleasant ways to go." She does not sound unsympathetic, even before her voice lowers conspiratorially. "And better ways to forget your cares, too. I can tell that you care about him, and I have some small inkling..." She trails off and looks back up at him. "Well. I know why you might want something stronger than chai." "I did not understand mortality, so viscerally, until first bringing children into this earth. After watching them wither and die when they had only just begun to live, I told myself..." Damien trails off, blinking several times. He shakes his head, and looks down at the foxgloves in a mild confusion. "They are," he begins, before a small defeated slump of his shoulders. "...Poisonous," he allows then, and with this seems suddenly indefinably older, somehow. "Thank you, plant witch." In his voice this sounds like a term of great respect. "I think I had best depart, before I leave any further stain on this sanctuary of his. I do very much appreciate your hospitality." Somewhat wistful: "Pass on your story to another who could use it, and I will call your debt forgiven." He sweeps her a graceful bow, and then sweeps away.