EmilyDay
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Lost Girl
Posts: 19
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Post by EmilyDay on Dec 2, 2011 3:32:58 GMT -5
There were several answers for Lyall being fathomed by the blonde while they entered the main dining hall, in actuality but an average sized room with a higgledy-piggledy dashing of dark velvet curtain (pinned, not even affixed to any such rung) to a few walls and corner tables, when the zealous presence of a ginger cat began to slow-wind tail and paw around Emily's ankles. A squeak from the maid had her lifting up her skirts and swatting at Mox. Mox the Obnoxious. "Oh, Mox", she laughed, ushering the cat gently away so she could flutter off towards a table and prepare chair, cutlery and napkin for her guest.
"Sorry, what were you saying?", as someone who often forgot where she put things - keys, names, numbers, though never out of lack of focus, but rather the fainting spells over the years that had cursed her since.... That day.
"Lamb roast is the order of the eve if you're so inclined. While you settle I'll see if I can't go roust the cooks downstairs to see when Lauren will next be in. She sometimes pops in to help out and we're expecting a few visitors to the Nook tonight." It was the least she could do.
His last question had not been forgotten. Together, both knowing how flexible and strange Time could be, they made quite the pair. His napkin unfolded in her hands, ready for his throat. "I grew up in a small town. I haven't been back since." The dizziness occurred to her again, glazing her eyes, suddenly all the more luminous, all the more large - Emily resembled someone having a vision, and for all the absurdity of Lyall looking exactly the same and ... Well, maybe this was an exceptionally vivid dream.
"No.... I'm not from here...", she looks off, to some murky distance. At it's heart is a young boy with dark hair. "I am not from here."
Mox yowled crankily and began to wind in and out of her ankles once again, peeking his head up from under her pale skirt to glare at the man with the glasses and the scent of Wrongness all about him. There was a long hiss. Emily's ward was interrupting Moxs' own dinner time. Shame on Lyall!
Emily dashed a hand to her brow apologetically, for both her vague instant and the cat. "Lamb, then?" Quickly scooping the feline up and to her breast in the cradle of one arm, chiding him as she nuzzled his head. Not once did those amber cat-eyes leave Lyall, the yowl subsiding into a warning purr.
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Post by Lyall British on Dec 2, 2011 20:03:30 GMT -5
"What, huh?" Her eyes were on him but Lyall was everywhere. His eyes on the walls, the things around him. The thoughts that lurked in the back of his head about what was next.
Mr. A was still waiting. There weren't answers and at this rate, he would be combing all of time for it. It wasn't suppose to be this way, not for him. It was difficult enough just surviving, let alone trying to accomplish some goal. He pushed his glasses back up his nose, looking down at the awkward cat whose home was the room that guests were suppose to eat in. Women always seemed to gravitate towards cats. Or it was the other way around. Maybe the other way. No, people were the ones putting out the food. Cats looked cuddly and endeared themselves though, even meowed until you did as they liked. Anyway...
"Lamb is fine." It was probably going to be the best meal he would have had in three weeks. Rather compulsively he checked his watch. Couldn't help it, even if he did know what the time range for him was here, if for a little while. Couldn't always remember when he was and wasn't suppose to check. The watch embedded into his skin... he could feel it when the hour changed. It was a strange sort of sensation, like if a child could feel their own growth spurt.
"You should probably go back," he said absently, adjusting the cloth bracelets about his wrist. If he were a young boy they would have looked like friendship bracelets except some were thicker. All were threads, some more frayed than the others. His eyebrows were lowered as he spoke, the side effect of squinting his eyes as he picked at a loose thread at the end of his shirt, "Don't know when you'll ever get back to home." Wasn't he a fine one to talk? He and his parents, well, there wasn't much of a relationship there. Not with the monks that taught him penmanship or the notorious Mr. A who employed him. Lyall was perhaps the man who was the worst qualified to give her any insight at all. Were his regrets the ones talking to her?
He didn't know when he was going back anywhere. Another adjustment of his glasses as he sat down the table, "Ms. Emily, you know you're an odd sort of woman, right?" His eyebrows arched up as he looked at her. Since the first time they met he hadn't smiled. Not pleasantly like he was now. Before it was all awkward, all nervous and scatter-brained lip-excuse smiles. Now he wasn't fidgeting, wasn't thinking of his employer, the thing he had to do or what was next. He was looking at her, his eyes blue even behind the lenses of his glasses. There was something all together, almost always, lost about Lyall British. He was lost even before he met Mr. A. Maybe she understood that when she saw him. Maybe that was why she was being so nice.
"Thank you." He cleared his throat and the usual, social strangeness returned to him and he picked at the arm rests of his chair.
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EmilyDay
Somewhat Respectable Poster
Lost Girl
Posts: 19
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Post by EmilyDay on Dec 2, 2011 21:00:46 GMT -5
Lost and Lost. Any narrator, playwright or reader would be delighted at such a premise: man meets girl, girl dies, girl awakens, years pass, man meets girl-become-woman. It was how it started, stopped, and started again.
Two lost people walk into a dining hall...
Confident that Mox had been subdued, she lowered the ginger to her feet and gave him a tap on the bottom to see him leave. Surprisingly, the cat did just that, racing off into a scurry beneath a table, only to peek out at Lyall intently, tablecloth all over his impervious orange head. And he stared.
"Odd? I suppose I am!" Half amused, half matter-of-fact. "I'm not from here and I don't think a city ever quite sticks to you the way home does, and this is not my home." It was a stepping stone along a large, puzzling river and one she was determined to leap from, had to leap from, with Sargasso wanting her head. What she did next was as surprising as the mischievous cat obeying - Emily sat down at his table - now his guest, his companion, and she undid her apron. She did with some resign, a wan calm. Bold, the maid bent forward, eyes frank and blue as ever, and sought the Lyall that had appeared and evaporated in a mere few moments. The one that relaxed. The one that was with her, not everywhere else. Her head inclined. "Do you really not remember me?"
Goodwin bustled out front and Emily kept one eye and a hope on the slim chance that Goodwin wouldn't appear, wouldn't drag Emily from the table. Her voice was at its lowest, urgent as the first breaking wave of the day. "It's me. " That explained it all! Perhaps this was her oddity: her utter conviction that he was that man and her being too-interested. Her being so nice.
"Tell me, tell me about that bracelet." Her tone were as grieved as her eyes. "Please." A whisper. "Please." Begging. Goodwin would be in at any moment. And Emily had to know.
The lamb and the prospect of returning home were ignored for the moment. The latter an idea Emily might never return to.
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Post by Lyall British on Dec 4, 2011 9:53:12 GMT -5
"I think I would remember if I had any history with a woman like you." Beautiful and kind. Well, mostly kind. There had definitely been something clouding her manners, but it wasn't rudeness. It was the rest of everything that was about to fall out of her mouth. Why did she think that she knew him? Please, for once in his wretched life let it be a good association. Maybe he gave her some change she was short of. Or!! Maybe some trade on behalf of Mr. A that made her rich. Regardless, there was no way he knew her directly. Not the way her voice was pointing.
"I've never seen you before in my life," he insisted, his eyebrows lowered. Walls were up and armed. The dining at a comfortable setting was now becoming an interrogation he was not happy to entertain. Why couldn't he just rent a room and have a good meal and cleaned clothes like everybody else? Why did something odd, like her, have to happen?
The Lucy he knew, briefly, was not the Emily he saw before him. Not in personality, not in looks. Though had the two been able to stand side by side anyone would have said without hesitation that they were mother and daughter and, oh, didn't they just look so alike? But Lyall hadn't thought of her that way. Didn't think of the Silver Ouroboros as being a bracelet that, a couple weeks ago to him, had set into her life a scar and that scar, matured and changed, was before him.
"Look I don't have any jewelry to give you." He stood up now, looking at her, "I don't know who you think I am or what bracelet you are talking ab--" Dawn breaks and suddenly, Lyall stood silent. His mouth dropped open and for what seemed the longest time he just stared at her. The contours of her face, the color of her hair and what she had said before. She wasn't from around here. She was from around... there. With the speed of a sunset he dropped back into his chair, his stare uninterrupted on her face.
"You're her?" He looked at his watch and then back to her. Well, it certainly was probable, now that he thought about it. What year was it now? He adjusted his glasses and looked at her, "I think you have had enough to do with that bracelet." It was incredibly awkward for him to be giving advise to anyone. Especially nice advise. Truth was a certain guilt in his chest obligated him to her. Even though she was the one who went though his bag, being a curious little girl. Perhaps he could have secured it better but it wasn't like he put a piece of jewelry down on the ground like bait. She had gone to it and... maybe he could have been more careful and none of it would have happened. Maybe. She'd done it all a few weeks ago and he still couldn't recall her name yet there she was, sitting across from him with all the certainty of the judge. She knew him, that had been what the look in her eye said.
"Don't worry about it. You've grown up and you look...quite lovely and you have a nice, steady job that keeps you fed and occupied. There's no need to ruin all of that." You could end up like him. She could end up worse. "Just put the bracelet out of your mind, okay? Blood follows that thing, remember?" He remembered seeing Maggie drop to her knees and pass on and then Lucy and Jamie woke up from what had been something like a coma. For Lucy and Jamie to come back that woman had died. It was best for everyone to avoid that little thing. Why would she seek it out?
What was so wrong with people that they would continually seek it out? It made him itch behind the ears. She was uncomfortably close to him, maintaining the heart of his attention.
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EmilyDay
Somewhat Respectable Poster
Lost Girl
Posts: 19
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Post by EmilyDay on Dec 4, 2011 18:45:36 GMT -5
Tarnished Hopes Like An Old Wedding Band
The Grandfather Clock chimed the hour.
"I've not been the same since, you must understand. The fits, the fainting..." she got up, throwing the apron over her chair and came around the table to sit right at Lyall's feet, a hand upon his knee. "Why did the bracelet.. that thing do as it did? It is not ordinary. I have been working in antiques since I was eighteen, traveling around, town to town", her eyes danced this way and that, "trying to educate myself on something similar, and there is nothing, nothing even close..." and how could she explain what it what she looking for, let alone what had happened - an enchantment gone wrong, or worse, a curse? She was not versed in any form of magic though some instinct in her knew what she was dealing with was beyond the natural.
Emily was now tugging at the material of his pants, her skirts in sad pool around her. "Please, won't you tell me what you know?" Emily was especially pale and small then, her hair pallid swirls of tired gold, not unlike the Lucy of many moons ago, strewn ice-cold along the road. The clock chimed again, a thin shiver of sound.
"The boy, the little boy, Jamie... I have some tarnishing hope he.. he too shares what I do. It's like that silver is a part of me and I wonder of him and whether..." blue, blue eyes hatched an escape route from his gaze - she really didn't know this man, despite his bumbling, his Lostness (each some comfort) he had afterall been the one who coveted the wretched trinket in question. It was too late to turn back.
"I .. I have come too close to the truth to let it go."
Mox pawed up and began nuzzling Emily's shoulder.
"Won't you take me away from here. Have me know what you do." Another shivering chime struck a few minutes past the hour.
"We were meant to meet again, Mr. British. You didn't end up here by coincidence." Did he feel that very same sentiment? How can he travel as he did, how can he see what happened, and not feel more than some idle, passing curiosity? Surely, that awful night still lingered in his mind, haunted the strains of the soul, had he notions like that.
There was no denying in her own travels and years she had come to wonder of Jamie. How he had tried to stop her those years ago. Where was he, what was he doing, and did he encounter the same paralysing behaviors, those contemplations - the ones that made her bite the Earl's nose, that did see most kept at arms length from her (and her undergarments!)
Lyall had become something of a wager.
A final shiver from the clock and then a BONG that reverberated its own finality. Its arms began winding backwards. Forwards. Backwards. Forwards. And Emily felt most faint.
"I am changed."
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Post by Lyall British on Dec 6, 2011 12:09:35 GMT -5
"There are lots of things that aren't ordinary!" It sounded, quite nearly, like a defensive yelp. Not many would have understood how a man could have such a vulnerable yelp and yet also be the one that a woman kneeled before in pleas as if he held all the power in the situation. Lyall managed to do it, though, never quite play the role of a confident informant. Why had he sat back down? He was nearly out of the room a moment ago and now he couldn't because her hand was there, on his knee, which was equivalent to building an entire wall over his legs.
"Look, it's not just something you walk in and out of, you know?" He blinked at her and then looked away, biting his lower lip and then returning his eyes to her, "It's like eating chocolate, there isn't a world without chocolate after you've eaten chocolate. Can't forget it, can't go back. Except sometimes this chocolate destroys part of who you are, which isn't all together agreeable but it's still chocolate. I have my chocolate and you have, uh," his hands were wrapped around her's now, the ones holding him by the pant leg, "all of this?" his eyes took in the scope of the dining room she had brought him and he tried, very much so, to pry her hands off his leg, "Good for you... all this that you have." It wasn't all together convincing. Yet one would not look at Lyall and say he seemed overjoyed with any facet of his life.
Somehow he had flattened himself and slimed his way out of the chair, skirting around her, "Look, I only have a few days here. It's not like I can sit with you and tell you everyting." But she wanted answers. But if he gave her one answer, just one detail, he knew exactly what would happen next. Another question. Another answer by him. Another question by her. It seemed all together much more agreeable for him to not even start that sort of cycle. Why... what? He didn't have all the answers! Sometimes he just was and what part of what just was. It frustrated him to even think about how he would explain this to her.
No more shiny items in his bag. No more children. This is exactly why he hated children. Well, it was close anyway. Maybe not close, but he disliked children and now it was validated.
"Maybe... we were meant to meet again so I could tell you what a lovely, accomplished woman you were and then you could go on to be a nice...lovely little wife with a very orange cat and what seems to be an apron with too many stripes. There! I've done it! You've got the reassurance and now go! Go live that wonderful life here without my chocolate." He completely ignored any mention of her fainting spells. That was how women did it, you know. Got their foot in your door with that little bit of guilt. That little bit of thing that said they were unwell and yet some resolution still remained.
"You are changed but that doesn't mean you need to spend more time with other changed people. It just adds to your divide from other people, not mend it." Quite insightful for a man who didn't understand why he had no relationships outside his employer. He didn't know how to register her now, the little girl or the woman infront of him. Could she be both to him... Where was that Lauren woman? He checked his watch again like the time passing made him nervous. She was still going to help him, right? That Lauren girl came here anyway, whether she asked her to or no?
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EmilyDay
Somewhat Respectable Poster
Lost Girl
Posts: 19
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Post by EmilyDay on Dec 6, 2011 19:28:23 GMT -5
A low, exasperated warbling came from her with an "oh no you don't!" look causing the frowniest frown Emily had ever worn as he pried himself free from her. "You ruined my life, I think you can spare five minutes of your own to tell me the truth!" Her words followed him like darts.
If Emily had to make a phenomenal piggy-back to tackle him to the ground, she was resigned to the thought and would do so. Even if in the end it had her cuddling thin air, for there was something about the man with the lopsided glasses that made her feel like he was already slipping out of her grasp... and not just because he had wormed out of her grip once already. She itched to touch him for he anchored her to the past. The present wasn't where she rested her affections.
And sure, Lucy had grown into a relatively pleasant, accomplished woman, but there was a gaping hole in her life always waiting for her to trip and fall in. Every year the circle widened. Every year it seemed the bracelet lost more of its marvelous shine, every year Jamie's features grew faded in mind. So no matter her successes, there was little satisfaction. Money in the bank but an ache in her heart - a feather on one scale, a brick the other.
"Trust me, when I say my leaving this town would be of benefit." Sargasso would want her thieving hands scrubbing their boots soon enough. It leant a deeper panic to the scenario. She stepped towards him. It was a Wendy Darling dealing with an obdurate Peter Pan. Take me away... Only Neverland was no place, but an event. It had no map, yet its latitudes and longitudes had inexorably changed the geography of her life. Who knew what Lucy she could have been?
"I only ask for five minutes. Tell me what it was."
If she had that much, she imagined she could live with herself. It may not materialise Jamie, and she may always have her faint spells and fits, but she would be empowered, in some way, with the knowledge. All she had to do was somehow sew Lyall's shadow to his shoe. "I'll help you, I'll get Lauren, I'll even throw in the darned ear cleaning, if you'd... If you'd please not have me.. " her voice dropped away into a hoarse whisper, " beg this way."
Goodwin bustled in at just that moment. Her bulky frame almost entirely filling the one door that was opened to the dining room. A few candles surely shrank in their flames. The clocks stopped winding.
"EMILY DAY!"
Emily peeked over Lyall's shoulder towards Goodwin and pouted.
"What do you think you are doing??" Nose high, brow higher - tilted in disdain.
"Leaving!"
"I beg your pardon."
Emily threw her arm under Lyall's meaning to drag him for the exit that Goodwin was presently blocking with her unfortunate shoulders. Mox rolled into action with a yowling hiss. Emily wanted to leave the Sleeper's Nook to its own dream, one that was not hers. It meant Lyall's ear cleaning would have to come off the record. And there was still a Lauren to find.
"Emily Day!" Goodwin managed to holler, even with the maid right before her. Emily inclined her head and looked the barrel of a woman in the eye. Goodwin nearly jumped in the stare returned, perhaps she too saw the widening circle, the promising fall into a deep dark well.
"That's not my name."
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Post by Lyall British on Dec 6, 2011 22:48:40 GMT -5
"I, uh, well you see the thing is that um..." Lyall felt like he was grabbing at sparrows scattering from the scarecrow. Untouchable and now seeming very far away. Five minutes she said. And was that so unreasonable? Five minutes. "It's just that..."
There was now an intrusion, which he met with a solidly surprised face. Now, in the numbness of her new emancipation he was gripping her hand and he spoke under his breath while Goodwin continued her rant, "Let's get out of here." He pulled.
It wasn't unlike a whirlwind, actually. Taking the steps two, sometimes three at a time back to his room. Cramming all he had back into that bag of his now. Some things left behind in his hurry. Pulling on the unpolished shoes to his feet, the unwashed clothes on his frame. Looking like he had when he first walked in, all though now much disheveled by her fateful hands. Dark blond locks out from under the hat. Thick glasses and a journal, tucked away close to the heart of his chest. Once he had his things together his hand was in her's again and they were down the stairs like a flight. Like a sucker punch to Goodwin's chest.
"I never!" Goodwin was calling after them now. Lyall spun around on a heel to meet her.
"Sorry, Lady but," he stopped to look at Lucy and then back to Goodwin, "Lucy is newly employed. I'll be borrowing her permanently now so best be looking for another, right? Yea. Okay." Before he rambled into those wandering thoughts with no root. Out the door. Wendy hadn't sewn the shadow to Peter Pan. She had started to lift off, just it wasn't yet time to go back to Never Never land. Once outside, once around the corner and away from foot traffic Lyall and all his debris spun around on her like an odd hurricane.
"So this is it, then, huh? You really want to know?" It was too late now. The job was done. They had said goodbye yet Lyall found himself still asking. When it happened to him no one asked him twice. Perhaps that's why he asked ten times. Really? Okay. No, seriously? Fine. This is the last chance you have to say n... all right. It's time then.
"I'll tell you what I know," his hands were pressed together towards her as a man does when he prays, "But I will do so after we find Lauren and barter, trade...steal our way into this item of her's, all right?" He checked his time piece joined into hist wrist. He still had days but now he didn't have a room to stay in and there was company. Fantastic. Why... did this happen to him? He adjusted his glasses and pushed that most prevalent thought from his mind, "Miss Lauren has a necklace... maybe a family heirloom or something she got in a trade show. Anyway," he tapped the watch against his wrist, "I've got three days, you hear that? We need to find her, get this necklace thing...whatever... and then I will tell you all you want to know at length. Or until that time is up."
He set his bag down in the alley, looking down the traffic pattern and then back to her, "You're an odd woman." The odd ones found him. He rubbed his hands together and gave her what could be considered a look of blame, "Really odd."
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EmilyDay
Somewhat Respectable Poster
Lost Girl
Posts: 19
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Post by EmilyDay on Dec 7, 2011 18:24:15 GMT -5
Wiseguy Thorough (Thoroughfare) was nothing but an especially long alleyway with cheap tenement rentals sprouting up on either side with the occasional bohemian roost or jazz enclave upon the lower levels, with some venues even spilling outside onto the crooked pavement - musicians, foreign instruments and cigarette smoke grew here. While odd, Emily was also resourceful and knew Wiseguy from her own time spent in one of the rentals when she first reached town. It would suffice while they sought Lauren and provide anonymity - no one asked questions in the rentals - if you were there you were Between (Tweeners was the term for all in tenure) and the why and where you were meant for was all your own business. Only the rodent that might flee across your floor in the dead of night knew your secrets.
After their escape from the Nook, Emily had suggested Wiseguy as the place to stop. Lyall needed a safe habor for his precious goods and they would both need a rest at some point, no matter the urgency. So through the crowds, hand in fateful hand, they had weaved and ducked and rushed towards the Thoroughfare until its straining strings, wailing horns and smoke-thick corridor rose before them. The ex-maid turned to Lyall, spent from their spree. "We're here, and Copperbee Lane, where the bakery sits, is only a few corners away." An affirmative squeeze to the Time-treader's hand, and they were again on the run, until the pocket sized door was in view - pumpkin-orange, rusty hinges. Squeaaaaak. Squawk. Crochet-glove to the wood admitted them through.
Payment made, they took the several flights up to their rental. Young mothers and runaways littered most of the landings on the way with tight expressions not so different to that of the two of them. The paltry room that would be theirs had two slats - thin mattresses with lousy pillows and curious stains along the single carpet before the vanity. The glass was cracked upon the mirror. Bag rested at her feet, Emily... Lucy, fingers undid themselves from Lyall's, and she began re-pinning her hair. She had never slept in the same room as someone else and her eyes were roaming the beds in abject fear. Her fits embarassed her, she did not want to be seen when they took hold, and though it had taken more out of her meagre salary, she had always requested a private room, and the greedy landlords and Goodwin's of the world had obliged. Her room at the Nook had been wide as a pantry (so the term wide was not fair to use), hardly worth the extra shells by most accounts, but no one knew of her seizures and so it suited her purposes.
Not that they really were as serious as they sounded - her body did seize, but her tongue never went back down her throat, there were no convulsions - Lucy froze. Sometimes wide eyed, sometimes not and be so for several minutes. Rarely, a shudder or gasp overtook her. But mostly, Lucy resembled a girl suspended in a super-sleep, trapped beneath an invisible sheet of ice. Then it passed, she moved and it was business as usual.
"It'll do." She turned to him, eyes searching his face, to know what thoughts lurked there. "Lauren will make her next delivery in the morning, 5am. We can intervene, then. How... desperate are you?" What she was asking was - how aggressive their tactic should be. Lucy understood well enough the lengths one had to take sometimes. She may very well need his aid if Sargasso caught wind of her flight from the Nook. Free little bird with her ruiner-come-redeemer.
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Goodwin was baffled. Lucy? Who in Lord's vain was Lucy?
"Delilah..."
The woman in question, dark haired with sultry green eyes, crept from the office. She had spied the end of the drama. Of strange little Emily running off with their latest lodger. Had they been taken with each so quickly? Or was that planned? Delilah wasn't surprised. She had always sensed something out of place with their newest maid, a sense that the woman was navigating some turmoil. Emily had reminded her of one of those porcelain dolls, with those eyes, while only paint, could look haunted. Delilah liked her gossip and had always wanted to know what brought her here. Emily had always maintained it was love of travel, but Delilah knew better. Delilah knew Goodwin, and Goodwin had told her all. Sargasso paid well.
"I want you to search the city until you find The Knott's birdy. I'll tell them she has flown the coop. You must find her, now."
Delilah rolled her tongue delightedly around her red-wine lips. "Ready to go, Goodwin...", sashaying towards the door, fetching her plumed hat from the rack. "I'll send word tonight..they couldn't have gone too far."
"Hopefully your word comes with one of her feathers in your teeth. Now go", Goodwin ordered.
Sargasso would not be happy about this development. Goodwin was their eye and ear and now she was blind and deaf. Her role was to ensure Emily always had work and remained at the Nook where, when the time arrived, she could be cornered. Goodwin hurled around and towards the dial. The dial felt awfully heavy in her hand. A sick feeling of doom washed over her.
This was not a good development.
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Post by Lyall British on Dec 10, 2011 9:31:31 GMT -5
"How desperate?" Why was it that adjective tended to be associated with him? Initially it was a somewhat insulting word when applied to him. That he was desperate but the reality was his situation was desperate, which did make him desperate. It was a reality and her saying it brought to the forefront that there weren't copious amounts of days to complete this task. He couldn't take his time, there could be no leisure like he had originally been hoping.
Lucy. He'd called her Lucy. She had introduced herself to him as Emily so why did he call her Lucy? Did she look like someone he knew... no, he had thought her unique upon seeing her, a face that did not mimic that of many others readily. When he set his bag down he tiled his head to the side as some does when they're trying to get water to poured out their ear. His eyebrows lowered and he cleared his throat, "You're that little Lucy girl." His recollection of her was like a haze but now she was in sharp focus. Now he saw her as a little girl in the tent. How was it that she could remember him so well? It was impossible to tell if he meant for her to respond or if he was talking to himself, making that realization for himself.
Wiseguy Thorough. How many places of similar credit and build had he often occupied? Never ended up being the bed and breakfast with the beautiful woman who washes your clothes and shines your shoes. It was best not to dwell. He couldn't see what was happening right in front of him when he dwelled. Perhaps it was more intelligent to accept the pattern than to thrash against it. Perhaps, in his line of work, that was the standard.
"I have a couple of days, if that answers your question," he took off his coat and looked at her, "I don't control when it's time for me to come or go. That's... a whole other story. I only know how long I will be somewhere and what I am suppose to do. I need this item, I'll give Lauren whatever she wants for it. It could be something that she cares little for or a family heirloom to her for all I know. I'd rather not steal, that gets me a lot of negative attention." He inspected his watch and then looked back to her, his eyebrows lowered and he drew in a breath.
Lyall would pay her, little bit by bit, "That item you're looking for, that bracelet, it's called the Silver Ouroboros." He looked away from her as if he didn't want to see her reaction to the description, "The soul eater."
That was fair enough, wasn't it? She was helping him with Lauren and he, as payment along the way, would feed her tiny tidbits about that sterling monster. Lyall's eyes went to the beds which looked to be little less than rakes with second hand padding, which was to say it looked like padding but would be paper thin on contact. It was a setting he thought he almost recognized. He walked over to the vainty, to anything that had a drawer and began opening it up, searching through what was there. Inspecting this room as he had the first she had introduced him too. He said under his breath, "Did I leave anything..."
"Ah!" From one of the drawers he pulled out a clean, pressed shirt and began unbuttoning the one he was wearing to switch them out. The clean one was his size, it was also similar to the one he was already wearing. He was off of his own map, but he wasn't lost, was he? One of his hands rubbed his face and then he sat down on his bed with a metal exhale. The old shirt set on the bed post and the new one slipped on but not buttoned up yet. Had he looked that tired the whole time or was the poor lighting emphasizing his features? His eyes were on her expectantly. She had taken him here, they were seating at some place.
"What's your plan for Lauren?" To the woman that knew the details.
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EmilyDay
Somewhat Respectable Poster
Lost Girl
Posts: 19
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Post by EmilyDay on Dec 11, 2011 18:32:11 GMT -5
Crossroads
"You.. have been here before then?" the words rose with her brows watching him confidently navigate the set of drawers - he was a magician plucking the expected magic rabbit from the hat. Her hands wrung together. "And this .. this trinket.. it ate my soul..?" She very nearly laughed at the absurdity of it. Lucy felt she should run now, before she know anymore - go back to the Nook: bow her head, apologise, kiss Goodwins' hob-toed shoe if need be. Plead forgiveness for her foolish act. Free little birdy who was suddenly shy for her wings.
But the liberty of her new circumstance flushed her through with a high-octane exhilaration (though, later on, lying curled upon that slat, she would ask herself if that particular thrill did not emanate from Lyall himself ) and any thoughts of running back were diminished. Lucy felt around into her skirt pocket for the tortoise-shells which she slid on. Her best sight returned, she headed towards the torn curtained window, the glass brown with pollution, to look down over Wiseguy. The sounds of music could still be heard even at their height. "We have two options for Lauren."
Silhouetted against the glow of the street, Lucy tapped a fingertip along the window, drawing nonsensical swirls and arcs. . "We assert her in the morn as she makes her delivery or, we wait until she has a performance at the Sherlow. She is far too hard to track throughout the day, but I have gone and seen her sing there,and know it to be her daily gig, and once she is done with her act she'll be easier to address. The morning may be too rushed. I thought only to suggest it if you thought soliciting this item to be a difficult task, and an ... ambush necessary." Not that Lauren was a formidable obstacle, but her ego would need oiling if the deed was to be done smoothly.
She nudged the glasses back up the bridge of her nose. "I won't ask you any more questions about why you need this item, implicit as it is. Your help is worthy of any debt I come to owe." Not all the blame could be shouldered on him. It was her little hand that had snatched the bracelet after all. Lyall, as ever, had been only the messenger. Some defiance filled her posture as she looked up towards the sky, its glare caught and cobwebbed in her lenses. "Sherlow's opens at eight..."
Fingertips poked over his fatigued (but endearing!) reflection in the glass. "What say you?"
Unbeknownest to them, a plumed hat bobbed through the milling bohemians and strays below, sultry green eyes scanning the faces.
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Post by Lyall British on Dec 13, 2011 7:42:35 GMT -5
"Maybe I have been here, in the future," he admitted with a small shrug of his shoulders, looking up at her from where he sat, "I cannot tell if I was here in the past or here in the future. You have to remember, I don't live in a linear line like you or we wouldn't be almost the same age."
It was complicated to try to explain himself to someone else. Part of that was because he had never tried to before. Most of the time when someone noticed there was something off about him he just shrugged his shoulders and let them think he was strange. He ignored them, removed himself from the situation. For most people, it did them no good to know about his circumstance. Most would think him a liar but it was Emily...Lucy's full experience with him that made her unlike most. She knew him, he'd left enough of an impression on her for that. Often he was trying to not be involved wherever her went for that exact reason. With the twists and turns he was always taking, it was important that not too many were knocking on his door when he arrived.
"It hasn't even been a year since I saw you last," but he saw her, withdraw, change and twist at the knowledge of what had happened to her, "I don't think your soul is gone. Just...it was compromised for a while?" He turned and reached for his coat where he withdrew a journal and opened it up to a blank page, kept in place by a piece of ribbon. Before he began with the record keeper he looked at her and nodded, "We will try both. First get her attention in the morning so she can expect us after her show. Hopefully it will be something she's happy to get rid of for money. If she's a street performer... I, well, we might just be in luck. That sort of person isn't one to turn down money."
He began scribbling in his book. Notes about what was happening. Where he was. Who she was. Since he had company he was quick about it, he did not fill the page with little drawings or past thoughts. Once his quick note making was finished he closed the book, set it under his pillow and took off his shoes. He slept in his clothes most of the time, except for his shoes and jacket. Like a man that didn't know when he'd be springing out of bed next. If someone would wake him. While lying on his back he started to button up his new shirt, "What will you do afterwards?" he looked over at her at the window, "Once you have your answer?"
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EmilyDay
Somewhat Respectable Poster
Lost Girl
Posts: 19
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Post by EmilyDay on Feb 7, 2012 3:34:13 GMT -5
Emily sat down on the very edge of what was meant to be her bed and attempted to relax, letting her own doubts slip away so to see the man without them. There was enough clouding him (hello, confusion..) let alone allowing further complications to change the course. "I don't rightly know, Lyall. I haven't gotten that far yet, all in all...I haven't gotten very far with any thought. I'm quite stuck on the fact you.. we.. ", she indicated between them, "are together. Like this. And you, you're.. you as I knew you then and I'm me .. and you know .. both of my whens.... That hardly makes sense but you are real unless I dance with madness." What riddles she spoke.
The blonde began pinching the tender flesh inside her elbow. Colour, pink as fright, crept into her fresh cheeks. "Okay. This is happening." Believing of, if not quite comfortable with this new reality, she tipped her head. "Will you have me along with you to a point... or..", again, she gestured to him, clothed and lying down "am I expecting you to dash off into the night. To leave me here, again, with only more questions."
Abiding in stillness, poised as a bow in minor, Emily was trying hard to accept this all yet. Sceptical gleams washed her gaze, like sun catching on steel. "I don't think I could stand it." Emily was no jilted bride, but she could imagine the feeling of one ... she didn't think she could take being abandoned at the very threshold to all that had been so elusive. . There was that quality to Lyall that kept reappearing. That quality that said he might disappear... and she felt it was not really that waylaid her trust, but the conspired fates that threw them this hand. Dread was a beast that hunted her, even now. "My soul surely couldn't...tattered as it may be.", a mild smile.
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Post by Lyall British on Feb 10, 2012 8:27:18 GMT -5
"People do that all the time, you know." He was staring at the ceiling now, his fingers zipped together behind his head as he thought, "They look for an answer. Sometimes they're obsessed with it and then when they find it, they finally find it, it's like they're empty instead of full." His eyes went to her before he took off his glasses and set them on the smallest night stand beside his bed, "Maybe wondering about an answer is more fulfilling than the answer itself?"
He rose from the bed to start cleaning his other shirt. The room had a sink in it, which was only a little odd. It was small, like a shoebox with a crack at the top of it, off in the corner like a secret. The bathrooms were community used ones, down the hall and looking foreboding. Might be worth it to wait. When she asked him about staying with her all the time, about being bound to one another, he shut his eyes, "I can't make you any promises. I don't know the future I just keep...tripping over it. I don't know if I could even take you with me if I wanted to, I've never done that before. Plus, Mr. A might not take to your presence too well." Had he ever mentioned his employer to her before? He hung his shirt up on the crooked curtain rail and laid back down in his bed.
He found that he kept convincing her to stay here and she kept telling him she couldn't. Was his life so bad that he would continue to discourage someone like her from it? Perhaps. Maybe. No? So far, there wasn't anyone out there like him so he couldn't have said if they fared worse or better than he. He just was. It was easy for him though, no real family and his friendships were awkward and strange, like this one. Unsure if she actually liked him or if he was a strange puzzle she was trying to put together. He'd met that type before, the sort that wanted answers. What if she never felt like he answered her? What if she told him he was a disappointment and a waste of time?
His voice was starting to drag. Lyall was finally starting to fall asleep and get that elusive night of rest he had always been wondering about. His mumble continued into incoherent phrases, "Get some rest, we need to find that Lauren tomorrow. You're not unpleasant or anything... you don't smell bad and you're not rude but... a person is complicated and I... I don't have much...."
He was gone into dreams, his head rolled to the side so his chin was leaning over his shoulder somewhat. A little hum from his throat as if he were still trying to keep talking to her.
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EmilyDay
Somewhat Respectable Poster
Lost Girl
Posts: 19
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Post by EmilyDay on Feb 16, 2012 18:35:21 GMT -5
Emily was thoroughly glad to know she wasn't considered putrid in any sense, but most of all, Emily was glad it was Lyall who had fallen asleep first, else she be made endure the torture of knowing someone went beneath the ice of a fit. In the few times she had had to sleep close to another, Emily outlasted the other's wakefulness, desperate to be the last one to drift off. His words dragged, caught, fell, and she loosed a breath of her own. He was out.
Inwardly, she hoped, against hope, that he wouldn't disappear and that if ever he did that she would go where he went. Whether it be that she chase after him through dreams or time, it didn't matter. What mattered, was that Lyall was near and that she was close to being whole again. The chill of that unknowing struck her - would she be Lucy at all, or was it by finding the sweet, dark haired boy that solidarity be regained?
The Nook had been safe, but it was a honour with barbs. Wiseguy offered no such safety, whatsoever, and yet in being redeemed, she felt untouchable. The door was not the cause for her present constitution, for anyone could barge through that locked door should it be their hardest wish, and Emily drew a sweeping look over the darkness of the frame. She didn't feel anyone would want them, as hopeless as they had probably looked walking up all those flights of stairs, clinging to one another like shipwreck survivors.
"Lyall?"
She checks against the silence to see if he answers. Had he slipped down so far already? Men were won't to fall into slumber quicker than women. The only real friend she'd had, Emma, had said her husband was dead weight before he hit the pillow. Emily had always found that amusing, and felt even a little envy. Sleep had been a thing she avoided for the better part of her years.
"Lyall?"
Removing her shoes, she places the courts beside her crib and crawls across the floor, devoid of any shame or resistance, to curl beside his cot and stare down over him. His face is exactly as she had remembered - Emma also used to say that all memories are false, even the most vivid ones were wrong in some way, some detail awry, but Emily had never forgotten Lyall.
But asleep, his face changed. His broad features looked near a boy's, devoid of the glasses and the constant consternation. He must have been tired. And, had Goodwin not interfered, he'd have eaten something, so surely he was famished as she and this aided his exhaustion. She glances to the glasses on the night stand, takes them up, places them on, examines their world through foreign lenses then returns them to their place. "Mr A will just have to deal, I think!", an arm scoops beneath his pillow, to fluff the feathers and ensure his head was at a more comfortable angle. Emily stares at him a little longer, perched on her knees, gripping her skirt. A cloud veiled the moon, shadows her face.
A loud trio of knocks tattle their door. Emily gasps. Gets to her feet.
"GIVE US YA FOOD. COME ON. OPEN UP. GIVE US WHAT YA GOT."
The voice cracked. It sounded... familiar, like a voice she knew that had been altered, like an accent tried on.
On the other side of that door, Delilah, covered in shawls and a hood, hunched over and playing Crone, glared hungrily. "COME ON, LET US IN."
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