#maramcna.

[vullcanica]

@maramcna : Lucienne & Silas in Fiddler's Green and she's reading to him who has his head in their lap

Days like these when the tree shadows get dark and tranquility grows deep and unbroken, he misses the Elkswood something fierce. The stone-wood hut and the hearth within it. And the foxes. There aren't nearly as many in the Dreaming and what few there are speak or walk too odd for believability. Nostalgia isn't in his nature, not usually, but death - and afterlife - would make even the most headstrong of men ponder an irretrievable past, wouldn't it?

It's been an effort getting Lucienne to join him like this, but their voice is a pleasant, even calm that has him thinking they no longer mind the regaling that got them here. Even if he's a weight in her lap, when it should perhaps be the opposite... But the grass is cool. And the book is a classic.

His fingers drift across the hard cover. A grey, smooth binding Lucienne had called 'satin' he'd not known in his time, and a raven stitched atop. "When was this written..?" a caress against the knuckles she's curled around the book. "How long after my time?" How truly irretrievable, indeed.

[peacereflecteda]

@maramcna asked: am i to assume you are the expert?

❝ 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐞 whatever you want. far be it from me to stop you. that's more Dream's style, not mine. ❞ they bare their teeth at her in an attempt to intimidate, though he knows it probably won't work on her. lucienne has seen the entirety of the Dreaming and then some; she isn't easily intimidated. still, the nightmare looms large over her, all seven feet of monster peering down with smug expression on features. ❝ i wouldn't claim to be an expert. just someone with . . . experience in the occasion. and isn't that what you want, with a task like this ? ❞ they raise brows at her, gaze hidden from behind dark glasses. ❝ you wouldn't dare think of disappointing Morpheus, would you ? ❞

[vullcanica]

@maramcna : ❛ please practice blinking as others can be unsettled by your inhuman ability to maintain an unbreakable stare during casual conversation. ❜- someone is tired of having Incidents when he's just trying to get food, angel

It's instantaneous. Already heavy brow drops lower still to shadow his eyes - half-lidded, unamused. Irony is a tiring sentiment, and with the company Angel's taken to keeping, he isn't in the business of getting scolded for misbehaviour. He's a man with decades of human co-habitation under his belt, after all. He's a man with manners and etiquette and decorum. Most impressively, he isn't a man at all.

"Snakes don't blink." he deadpans, matter-of-fact, in a tone that suggests arguments are off the table. "So I don't need to." And I won't, is likewise resolutely implied.

"I understand the very human urge to.. fix whatever and whoever doesn't behave like you." There's a brief pause to light his cigarette the moment he has his back to the market stalls shrinking behind them. He shoves his lighter back into a pocket and keeps his hand there for warmth. A plume of smoke dances into the air from his grimacing mouth with a heavy, chest-deep exhale.

"But do consider how some of you cretins act..."

[vullcanica]

@maramcna : Nikolai is giving Angel a kiss as they're finishing up putting away all the groceries from this most recent run, since he was so kind to buy and bring them over (though he was repaid in full).

"Insatiable beastie." Angel's cooing to Цаца perched on the kitchen counter. Hand outstretched, he lets her gorge on a piece of already opened bacon which Nikolai's currently sequestering inside the fridge before more of it can be surrendered to entitled felines. She's spoilt, yes, what of it. By marginal fault of his. They're squeezed into in a cosy corner of the spatious kitchen between microwave and stove - something about Angel's inclination for curling up snug in tight nooks - when Niki boxes off the only exit and catches the edge of his mouth in a kiss.

It's a quick peck by design, easily recognized. Angel doesn't tolerate quick.

Whatever effort Nikolai makes to vacate his space, he finds it foiled by an iron claw grip on one beltloop - a single halting finger Angel's curled around the fabric. He isn't a sentimental man. Not anymore. But Nikolai fills the space just right to make him think about things as frivolous as indulgence.

He smiles, rare and reticent as always, a leisurely curl to the left. Thinking about something, unhurriedly.

"Ah ah." A soft tut. He bends his wrist and the mechanism holding Nikolai put tugs him in, gentle but unyielding - inescapable - speaking volumes of the great strenght Angel doesn't choose to exert. "I'll decide when you've paid in full."

[vullcanica]

@maramcna : ❛ You really try. I like that. You really make an effort. ❜ Lucienne and her boy who can't read

It ought to feel like a jab, the way it's worded. Not the first time Silas'd suffer a slight of the sort, nor the last time he falls short and someone fails to keep quiet about it. But the way Lucienne's tone is soft and earnest, lifting at the edges, and the way she's smiling from across the book-laden library table gives the words a whole other air. He feels almost flattered about his marginally improved reading comprehension.

"Would that I could make it pay off faster." Silas laughs, hearty, with his chest, and gingerly turns the gold-limned page of a children's tales compendium. He'd only been a little rustled when she'd offered to start him off there, but several short fairytales down the line he had, quietly and blushingly, understood the politely unsaid sentiment: an attention span as abysmal as his lent itself rather poorly to longform...

"So've you decided where to put me to work yet?" he looks up from his reading. Fixes Lucienne with a prodding smile that suggests he's not dropping the topic of recompense a second time. "For the lessons?" Pats the heavy tome in front of him. "I'd do well with heavy lifting or the like. A scholarly lady ought to be spared it."