Logs:Defect
| Defect | |
|---|---|
CN: references to murder and gaslighting | |
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia | 2024-08-14 "{What are you weighing them against, now?}" |
| Location
<NYC> Le Sanctuaire, Le Bonne Entente - Astoria, Queens | |
This café occupies what had been the sanctuary of the old cathedral, and retains some echo of its solemnity without any sense of severity. Two additional levels have been installed in the trefoil footprint, but do not extend all the way to the walls, supported instead by a sturdy steel frame. This gives the impression, as one enters, that the space is fitted with scaffolding and perpetually under renovation--but in a deliberate, beautiful way. The harsh lines of the load-bearing frame are softened by wrought iron fleur-de-lis scrollwork accented in gold. The tables and seating are also of graceful black iron relieved with cushions in red velvet. The long counter is curved along the back wall, and to either side arched doorways lead out into a colonnaded patio in the garden. In one lobe of the trefoil, a square spiral stair ascends to the upper levels, while a platform lift does the same opposite, both balancing utilitarian design with aesthetic sensibility. The most striking addition is the immense stained glass window, masterfully marrying to the neoclassical splendor of the original structure and the Parisian café ambience of the added levels. Its colors are rich yet pellucid, its lines clean and decisive, and its subject decidedly not Christian. The towering figure of Apollo gazes down serene and benevolent, three golden arrows clutched in his right hand and and a golden lyre cradled in his left arm. He's bare to the waist save for a sumptuous red mantle and gold pauldrons, and wears a white skirt overlaid with gold pteruges. He is crowned with a wreath of living green laurel, the great silver bow across his back like the arc of a crescent moon rising across the bright sunburst that halos him. A great serpent encircles the pedestal upon which he stands and lifts its sleek head toward the god in obedience if not adoration, visually recalling the legendary staff he gifted his brother Hermes. It's quite early -- too early even for the cafe to properly have picked up for the breakfast crowd, though inside there's a relatively steady trickle of bleary-eyed businesspeople stopping through for their coffees. Lucien isn't inside; he's taking his tea out on the patio, Flèche lying under the table at his feet. He's dressed in a gray and green striped seersucker button-down with the cuffs rolled up neat and sharp, a brown woven leather belt with more strands than most, though it's curiously hard to discern how many, faded blue jeans, and cognac leather sneakers, and is grimacing intensely at a very cluttered scheduling interface on his tablet. Desi didn't bother going through the hotel proper, making her way instead along the colonnaded path through the gardens. She's wearing a shimmery mint green corset top, laced up in back with a gold silk ribbon, a leaf green silk wrap skirt edged in gold, its flowing asymmetrical hem fluttering around her ankles as she moves, and gold spool heel sandals with gold ribbons wrapped up around her calves. Her hair is done up in a long, loose waterfall braid, and her makeup is natural with a faint but noticeable dusting of gold. "Oh!" she says, when she sees Flèche, but when she looks up at Lucien, then down over his outfit, she actually comes up short. It's almost a full second before she continues on to the other side of the table. "Hi." It's probable that Flèche was going to get up and bound over to Desi, but she settles herself back down prompt and obedient at a silent gesture from Lucien. He rewards her with a morsel torn off his cinnamon brioche, and inclines his head to his sister as the dog licks cinnamon sugar from his fingertips. His other hand turns out towards the empty seat across from him, and he picks up the tea pot to pour a second cup. Desi sits when she is bade, but does not take her eyes off of her brother. She waits for him to pour her tea, then waits until his hands are well away before reaching for it, herself. "Thank you." She does not drink yet, just turns the cup between her slender hands. It's a long moment before she ventures, "{How have you been?}" Lucien is settling back in his seat; he's pulled his small plate with the little brioche roll closer, pushed the larger one with its own small assortment of pastries nearer to Desi. He doesn't pick up his own tea. His hand has fallen to Flèche's head where she sits at his side, fingers scrunching slowly into the soft fur behind her ears. His head cocks, extremely slight, at her question, and the tiny pull at the corner of his mouth is too small and too quick to really parse. It's a long moment before he answers, mild. "{What's got you asking that, now?}" Desi does not answer immediately. She traces the glossy edge of the plate with a glossy french manicured fingertip. "{I didn't know where else to start,}" she admits at last. "{I've done poorly by you for a very long time, now. When you came back, after the aliens--I wanted to mend my ways. I didn't.}" She returns both her hands to the cup, little though she needs it for warmth. "{It's very easy to blame Mother, but I am not a child anymore. I ought to have talked to you and weighed her words against--}" Her lips start to compress, then relax. "{--against anything else whatsoever. I'm sorry.}" "{It was a bit of a volatile time,}" Lucien replies, and though it does not quite have the tone of an excuse it is hinting in that direction. "{It feels sometimes that our entire lives have been a bit of a volatile time.}" He's not looking at Desi, eyes slipping past his sister to the river beyond the grounds. "{What are you weighing them against, now?}" "{I think we're what made it volatile.}" Desi looks down into her tea. "{Mother, too, to be sure, but not you. After she was gone I wanted to be like you, to take on some of what you carried. I didn't.}" She takes a deep breath that might have ended in slumped shoulders in another. Hers just pull back more graceful. "{Sera. Where you went she would not say, but she insisted you were not as Mother claimed. They--she and Gaé told me what happened to you.}" Her wide green eyes search his face. "{Is it true? That Matthieu took--your life? And that Mother permitted it?}" "{I am very much not a person you ought to be emulating.}" Lucien is breaking a small crumb off his bread again, dropping it to the pleading dog before he takes a pepper bite himself. He chases this with a slow sip of tea. "{Not precisely,}" he finally replies. "{She requested it of him.}" "{Requested. And he just...}" Desi's jaw tightens and she drops her gaze to the cup, finally lifting it for a delicate sip. "{He used to defy her. He was the only one who could get away with it. I wanted to be like him, too, until I realized...}" She lets her sentence lapse into a slow breath out. "{Sera's convinced there's a conspiracy afoot, that Mother's been playing us all like some grand game of chess.}" The sharp puff of her breath is only the ghost of a laugh. "{She couldn't have played us if we weren't so ready to let her. But we're not, anymore. Me and the--Gaé and Sera.}" She lets go of the cup, only to lace her fingers primly together. "{I understand if you cannot trust us, or forgive us. But we want to help keep you safe. However we can.}" Lucien's slow soft exhale would perhaps not scan to most other people as a laugh, but there's amusement there in his vivid gaze all the same. He takes another small sip of his tea before his quiet lament: "{I truly do not know why people think being good at chess makes you some kind of master manipulator, they are widely divergent skillsets.}" When he sets his cup down again, his hands spread upward in front of him. "{You're my family. Of course I forgive you.}" Desi shrugs, more with an upturned hand than her shoulders, but "{Mother's dreadful at chess}" is an emphatic agreement. "{And Matthieu--}" Her hands tighten on her teacup, and though she is not shaking with rage, Lucien knows this particular strain of poised stillness well enough. "{--we know better, now. I've not gone back to the house, since I found out. I'm busy enough in truth that I've needed few excuses, but it won't be very long before they put together we are all staying away. I fear this may put you in danger again.}" She lifts her teacup and just inhales the vapors, this time. "{Mother was apoplectic when Sera refused to go back, and she blames you, naturally.}" "{Naturally. I was in another dimension entirely at the time but it was my machinations all the same. Though,}" Lucien is saying this with a very small sigh, "{I really do wish I could keep straight whether I'm meant to be an utterly incompetent imbecile or a tremendously devious mastermind.}" He does not actually seem all that fussed about sorting this puzzle out right now, though. He just glances back at the building behind them, and gives his head a small shake. "{Thank you. I will be safe enough, though. After all,}" here, his hand is tipping out toward Desi, "{I have all of you in my corner.}" | |
