gobble gobble . 27th metal

[godsays]

[ GENERAL: DAY

He slips through the crowds, among them but not touched by them, his panther daemon pacing patiently by his side. He checks with his contacts and listens to how the world is moving, what people are saying, what they are thinking. He skirts the market and the docks, dipping into them to pause on the quay and watch the water move. He's scouting.

NIGHT: HUNTING

At night, at dusk and dawn, it's different. He's hunting. He paces up and down the darkest alleys and the edges of the world. He looks for children. Sometimes he does this with his sister. Together, they never come home empty-handed.

CHURCH

He drifts to different churches, preferring the larger ones or the cathedral, with broad stained glass and deep shadows and air streaming with dust. Not Dust, of course; this is just the ordinary kind, but when Zane kneels, when he bows his head, he imagines that it is the other sort, that it is sin that sparkles in the air around him, sin that he breathes in, sin that illuminates the shafts of color from the stained glass.

Here, he prays, fervently, straining for even a hint of the Authority's voice. Riona paces patiently beside him, and watches, ever-attentive, when his eyes are closed and he has no more will to watch for himself.

He stays in here too long, in the near-emptiness, as handfuls of worshippers drift in and out.

THE PARTIES OF THE RICH

But he is, after all, a member of the society of Oxford. His isn't just to hunt, and to listen to informants on the street. Sometimes, what one hears in a party is a thousand times more important.

So at the events of the rich, of the high-class, he can be found in rich and fine clothes, a glass of drink in his hand, dancing and conversing and making connections as is demanded of him.

He thinks of this as another mask.

AT HOME

After dawn, he returns home, perhaps after sweeping up another child in the net of captives, perhaps empty-handed. He slips into the narrow apartment that he holds on his own, though his father owns other places in the building. His daemon steps up on a couch by the window, and Zane is hard-pressed, always, to stay away from the knives perpetually laid out on the table.

OTHER

Write me a thing, we'll do a thing. ]

Comments

[fridgetothefire]

[Anya is a fanatic by nature who has cast her faith aside; on the days she allows them to roam, she will not set foot in any church. Malachai misses - he misses how they burned together, how it seemed like grace filled them up and flowed between them like water spilling from hand to hand, instead of the zeal that is a wedge between them now. And he misses the trappings too. He thinks on her previous descriptions.]

When it was empty, or when it was full?

[godsays]

There were children there. They broke the silence.

[Zane, and Riona, crave the silence. They search it out, because only then does it feel like they have a bond at all. It's too easy to drown it out.]

One was devout. We may take her, if we find her again.

[fridgetothefire]

[And Malachai lets silence lapse, for a few minutes, more, until Anya is nearing the end of her current draw, about to start winding.]

Anya hasn't eaten today.

[She doesn't listen to Malachai anymore, no matter what he does - logic, pleas, snarling, it doesn't matter. But she might listen to Zane.]

[godsays]

[And Zane catches the servant going back out of the room.]

More. Another meal. Quickly.

[The panther doesn't say anything, just licks Malachais face.]

[fridgetothefire]

[He licks her nose back after a moment, nuzzles under her chin. Anya breaks her concentration for a moment, shoots the pair of daemons and aggravated glare, hands held perfectly still in her moment of distraction so as not to admit any sudden minute flaw. Then she returns to work.]

[godsays]

[He uncovers the meal, once it is brought, and leaves it on the table. Place set, the smell of it slowly filling the air.

She will come out, he thinks, and he sits across, eating his in slow, calm bites.]

[fridgetothefire]

[She finishes the spool and - holds herself. She is all patience and pride and deep ravenous anger, and she considers, for awhile, whether she feels more kept if she goes to dinner as expected, or if she must be coaxed to it like a child. She's a little light-headed, as she flexes her cramped fingers, and she knows she needs to eat one way or another. She takes a third option, in the end, drifts by the dining room door to meet his eyes.]

Have mine brought up to the roof, please.

[And then she goes, climbs three floors and out one gabled window and onto the gentle tiled dome of the little cupola. Malachai slinks from Riona's side with one last affectionate nuzzle to follow Anya's bare footsteps, but he can't reach her portion of the roof without hands. So he settles on the open windowsill, breathes a little easier.]

[godsays]

[A roll of his eyes. He's tempted not to, but summons a servant and has it done anyway.

He doesn't go after her, though.]

[fridgetothefire]

[She thinks of winter in the bell tower, the way she used to spend hours in the curve of the stone niches until Ben pulled her out of the wind. Malachai croons, long and low, and she puts him out of her mind. After she finds Felix, maybe she can avenge him too. The stars peek out, and she doesn't want to think of the stories he told about them, so she comes back in, gives her clean plate to the servants. Malchai walks - at her pace but not quite at her side, a length of two strides between them, seperate and parallel. She sits across from Zane, hands clasped in front of her, composed and - not serene, but still, chilled against any pangs of her own uncertainty.]

Tomorrow I'm going to join the doctor at his work. He agreed.

[godsays]

[Disgust surges up tight in his throat. The panther twitches; another rarity. Usually she and Zane hardly seem as if they feel the same thing.]

Why?

[fridgetothefire]

[Because Felix is there. Somewhere. But she hasn't told Zane about Felix. And she won't, because he might tell his father, for all his revulsion.]

He invited me. And if I'm going to - stay, with you, and be part of this. Then I should know what I'm really helping. Shouldn't I?

[And I want to stay, she leaves unspoken. She wants to be a part of - whatever they are. She shows attachment and affection very rarely, but she likes this better than being alone. And Zane can't gainsay her, because he is just as culpable.]

[godsays]

You already know.

[ He knows she won't be dissuaded by squashing her individual reasons. That's not how she works. He says it anyway. ]

[fridgetothefire]

I've been told. It's not the same.

[godsays]

That's right it's not the same.

[fridgetothefire]

I need to go there, Zane.

[Steely sternness in her voice now; this is not something she will cede any ground on.]

Afterwards - if the Doctor is pleased with my work, perhaps I will return for awhile.

[Quiet, speculative. She has no idea if she would be welcome in this tight, tilted sanctuary after leaving it. But it is the closest thing she has left to a home.]

[godsays]

They almost cut her away from me.

[ He has not said this to her. Perhaps she has guessed it, or perhaps the odd relationship she has with her daemon means his doesn't register. ] They cut....

[fridgetothefire]

[She suspected, the more she learned. But she didn't know for sure, and she certainly couldn't assume.]

I'm not asking you to help me.

[You don't have to face it. For Anya, it's almost gentle.]

[godsays]

My father saved me from it.

[ And if he hadn't been there...

Maybe they would have died. Maybe they wouldn't have to be like this.

Riona glances back at him, deliberately, and he wonders helplessly if she's thinking the same thing.

His fingers curl around the handle of a knife. ]

[fridgetothefire]

Zane.

[Her voice is uncharacteristically gentle. She puts her fingertips on his wrist, not actually restraining, just touching.]

I'm going to be right at his side. Do you think he wouldn't protect me?

[Not particularly worried, but also not rhetorical. She is not his child, and she has a particular interesting daemon, a particularly unusual relationship with him. She will listen to his judgment, let it inform her caution even if she will not turn back; in this moment, Zane can help.]

[godsays]

Until it doesn't suit him anymore, he will. Until he doesn't -

You'll see it coming, but you won't believe it enough. Not until you're dead.

[ He leans against her. But he doesn't let go. ]

[fridgetothefire]

Do you love him?

[She hasn't dared to ask anything like this personal, before. But she's leaving anyway. She may as well. She strokes his wrist, between the bones, almost as though he were a nervous animal (or a daemon, if either of them were so affectionate).]

[godsays]

A son should love his father.

[ It's not really an answer. The tendons show against his skin, and her fingers follow the little dips like trails. He is hypnotized. ]

[fridgetothefire]

He's not my father.

When I see it coming, I'll believe it.

[She wonders if she should offer to promise not to kill him. She keeps stroking, steady and slow, finds herself counting in her head before she forces herself not to. She filled so many days with counting.]

[godsays]

[ His hand relaxes, slowly, the knife settling back down onto the table. ]

I don't trust him with you.

[fridgetothefire]

[Under the table, Malachai licks Riona's jaw a little, rubs their faces gently together. Anya doesn't smile, but her eyes soften, and she keeps touching his arm.]

I don't trust anyone anymore.

[Felix tricked her, and Ben is dead, and Zane - Zane cares for her, which warms her more than she wants to admit, and she would kill for him in a heartbeat, but he isn't stable. And he thinks a son should love his father.]

I'll be very careful. I promise.