2021-07-02: How Does the Canary Know?
- Log: How Does the Canary Know?
- Cast: Magilou, Citan Uzuki
- Where: Aphel Aura
- Date: July 02, 2021
- Summary: Citan meets with Magilou in the waking world. Everything is fine.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"... MAGIKAZAM!"
There is a chorus of 'ooohs' and 'aaahs', from this street in Aphel Aura, as from behind the crowd a flock of doves bursts up into the sky, all white feathers, coo-coo-coo. There's one voice used to projecting, in the midst of them, and it can be heard quite clearly on the approach.
"Thank you, thank you! Throughout my time here, you've always been a wonderful audience!"
As the crowd begins to disperse, it's clear who the performer who's captured their attention in the middle of the day just is. All dressed as a jester, a skirt of books about her waist, Magilou sweeps a theatric bow.
The little bat -- cat? -- devilish creature currently perched upon her jaunty jester's hat bows, too. He flutters off to the ground at the nadir of her arc, and she straightens up, lacing her hands behind her head, one toe tapping against the street behind her leg. Her grin is entirely self-satisfied. "Perhaps you'll see me again sometime~!" She lilts, as everyone moves on with their typical sky lives.
No wonder they like birds so much!
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
'MAGIKAZAM!'
There follows an explosion of birds -- real, flying birds -- within the streets of Aphel Aura.
Aphel Aura is not a city absent of joy. But it has also been a city well-marked by past trials and old sins. Memory lingers, in spite of the centuries. It can be at times a melancholic city.
In this moment, Citan Uzuki would say that this is the most akin to a city of the surface world that he has seen Shevat since the first time he ever had the chance to truly walk its streets. Freed for a moment from the memory of things past, people seem overcome, transported, even.
It stirs something in him, too, though it isn't so much feeling as it is a memory -- or to be precise, a recollection.
In that dream, there had been birds. And they had been under the control of...
He claps along with the rest of the crowd as the performance comes to its end, though he makes no move to disperse with the rest. Instead, once most of the audience has moved along, he says, "That was quite the performance, Miss...?"
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Performers spread joy throughout the world, no matter what world they happen to be on. For all her faults, Magilou exalts the stage, and all the delights it can summon to the hearts of men.
The doves, unlike most of her magic, don't go through Bienfu. They're older than him.
(Relative to Magilou, at least; Bienfu is still, objectively, the elder of the pair.)
All crowds must fade, though, impromptu or scheduled. The surprising thing is who sticks around, afterwards. Magilou tilts her head and elbows both, looking over to Citan, only for her grin to spread Cheshire-long across her face.
"Why!" Her hands come down and around, to clap in front of her. "I thought you'd never ask! I am the glorious sorceress, she of limitless power and potential, Mazhigigika Miludin do Din Nolurun Dou!" Her hands spread wide, before they come to rest on her hips, with a roguish wink. "... Magilou, for short."
Here Magilou leaaans forward, hands still atop her hips, peering at Citan in consideration. "Saaay... have I seen you around before..?" Maybe at the Palace with the girl-Queen, she thinks. Maybe.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
Magilou tells him her name.
Ever so slightly, Citan raises his eyebrows. It's quite a name, as names go. "Miss Magilou, then?" he appears to settle for, perhaps cutting the proverbial Slayheim knot as regards which part of that name is, actually, the surname.
But has she seen him before?
"Hmm... I might ask the same of you, Miss Magilou," the doctor remarks, after a moment's consideration. "Ah, the name is Citan Uzuki, by the by. My apologies. Were you by any chance at the meeting with the Queen...?"
It's not as if anyone else he's seen would have dressed quite so memoriably as she has. And now that he thinks about it, he can recall... a few particular statements.
But what sticks out in his mind far more distinctly than that was one in which he had, yes!, spoken to this very same young lady and drawn a particular card from the deck.
"...'The Magician'?" he muses aloud as the memory comes into focus for him, frowning briefly in thought.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Rightio!" Magilou confirms, brightly, an effusion of cheer upon her face as if she could make up for Citan's smaller expressiveness, and then some. Which part of that name is the surname..?
Oh, don't even get into that, scholars have argued for centuries and no one's come to a firm conclusion.
She taps a finger to her temple, straightening up. "Cite-ann... Ci-TAN... Ciii..." It's all immensely silly, the way she plays with his name as she thinks back in her mind. All a sudden, she snaps her fingers, pointing to him. "Oh, right, right, right!"
Magilou rocks back on her heels, still grinning like a shark. "That astounding old man energy! Wow, how did I forget that? Huh," she blinks, tapping a hand to her chin. "Come to think of it, how'd we both REMEMBER that?"
Dreams, while weird, are usually not weird in stereo.
"Nevertheless, what a noble happenstance this is! Why, imagine experiencing the nonsense of a dream together? Those random impulses which come to you in slumber, together at last!" Magilou cries, reaching a hand to the heavens. "Though it was surely nonsense, now it seems we are connected for all time..!" She looks like she's about to burst out singing. Oh no, is she about to burst out singing?
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
For his part, he simply waits, as she toys with the pronunciation of his name. Is this a part of the act, or is it something else? Or, perhaps--
But something rings a bell for her.
...Perhaps its his astonishing old man energy, after all. "Ah, is that so?" he muses, folding his arms across his chest. "That is strange. Had you not referred to me as such within the dream as well? I seem to recall something of that sort..." Indeed, if anything, he just manages to keep that smile of his in check as she remarks upon his nature, as if it were some sort of joke that even he found funny.
But more to the point -- how did they have the same dream? Or remember it, for that matter?
"That, I cannot say. But it is strange. I have heard of people experiencing similar dreams, but in those cases it is typically only the theme that is shared, rather than the dream itself! ...For instance, I have heard that it is common to dream of flying, though I cannot say I have ever had such a dream."
Citan seems to be the sort of man who just likes to talk.
"'Connected for all time', is it... hmm," Citan remarks, as if considering the nature of that of which she speaks. He glances about the both of them, as if to see if they're drawing attention (yes), and ultimate shakes his head. "...But I must decline. I already have those to which I am bound," he says, which might be a subdued way of saying, 'sorry, but I'm called for'.
...Possibly also, 'please don't sing'.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Magilou, through all her theatrics, is just thinking: this guy doesn't LOOK like an Element. Did... did Riesenlied?! Or, perhaps...
But that's all part of acting! Magilou is a very good actor. That's why she draws so much attention, all the time!
The two of them are united in one fact, at least: they both love to talk. Magilou goes 'huuuuh,' as Citan shares his insight on shared dreams. "Flying, huh? Weird!" Says the woman who can fly on her shikigami, as if it's totally abnormal to spite gravity.
Magilou takes in a deeeeeep breath, and...
"Whaaat?!" With a big ol' puff, she deflates, arms hanging slack as she slumps over herself. She pouts, with a stormy frown. "Oh, phooey, you're no fun! And after I had such a great introduction planned, too!"
Straightening up, she points at him. "You'd better make it up to me! You, Citan Uzuki, hereby owe me a drink!!" That... that might, at least, be a good excuse to get her off of the side of the road, where just anyone can hear her yowling.
It's really exceptional yowling. Magilou is VERY expressive. She's good at it, remember?
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
"So I am told," Citan says, on the matter of dreams. "I have also heard that 'dreams about falling' are quite common, though this is another that I cannot say that I have experienced."
What is the tone of the dreams he has frequently, then? Of this, he does not remark.
It seems -- at least from the immediate perspective of the outside observer -- that this had come as a bit of a shock to her. Or something in that immediate ballpark.
There's something about the expression on Citan's face, though--
Is he stifling a smile, himself?! Did he respond like that in order to rile her up?!
Perhaps it cannot be proven without a doubt.
"Ah, did you, then? My apologies, Miss Magilou--"
It's a mild enough response. Though as she declares that he now owes her a drink he does seem to be taken a bit aback. "Er, is that so...?" he hazards, glancing again about himself (people are staring of course) before sighing as if giving in. "Very well. If that will be a sufficient apology..." he says to her, before trailing off.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"So long as they have a nice trip!" Magilou enthuses, on the topic of Falling Dreams. She, too, is entirely cheerful about sidestepping the topic of how dreams normally look.
Maybe it's just not very good streetside talk. Maybe she wouldn't be caught dead saying it anywhere. Who knows?
Magilou, it seems, is eminently easy to rile up, but that might just be all part of the joke. One must be sure, however, in entering a joke with Magilou, that one is prepared to play chicken right to the very end. (Or, maybe the expression is playing dove...?) "Corr-ect!" She insists, and pointing off in a new direction, marches them off to...
PUB CONDEMN
Which is currently running a special on Break Burgers.
The bartender looks a mite nervous to see Magilou again, but the strange woman who shot his bar up isn't in view, so -- it's probably fine? It's probably fine. With aplomb she secures a booth towards the back of the bar, and, of course, a bottle of rum and some shot glasses. (Magilou ran with pirates for a while. There are some things which rub off on a lady.)
"Okay," she says, just about as soon as they've sat down. "Okay, okay, okay. One thing. Just ONE thing." Magilou holds up a long finger in pause, before she points it, with vast accusation, to Citan.
"You ARE a dad, right? You can't just give off that amount of dad energy and not be a dad. Don't lie to me!" Magilou talks like she knows how to tell, in the way parents always can. But Magilou couldn't possibly be a mother, could she..?!
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
Most of Shevat more or less works on the barter system--
But this doesn't apply to outsiders (at least, not as much). The particulars of Shevat's economy are, as Citan understands, partially funded by various 'endeavors' on the surface, which then go directly into buying what supplies Shevat can't make or grow in their floating city. In this way its residents are taken care of, and visitors too, but when it comes to things that are not strictly essential the calculus is a little different...
Such as alcohol, for example.
This also applies to someone like Citan Uzuki who, while he might be married to a native of Shevat, isn't one himself.
Frankly, he's happy enough to simply be tolerated.
And so they sit themselves down in the booth towards the back.
He hopes, distantly, that she's not a heavy drinker.
And then he finds himself on the other end of an accusatory finger. "Yes?" he says to her, glancing down briefly at her fingertip.
Is he a dad?
"...Guilty as charged, I am afraid. I am the father of a nine-year-old girl," he says, shaking his head and shrugging. He's smiling, though. "I am very proud of her. Though it is likely because of my wife that she has grown up as well as she has..."
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Why settle for being tolerated?! Why, Magilou is barely suffered!
(But don't worry, Magilou doesn't have to suffer the effects of any medicines she happens to imbibe. Biennn...)
"HA!" Magilou crows, which is at least not quite as head-turning, given the fact that there aren't many people drinking at this hour. (It's always five o'clock somewhere, but the citizens of Shevat are at least generally better than that.) "I knew it! Everything about you screams 'I haven't slept for five years and what are these dolls they're crying about'!"
That's not a real story. Anyway.
"Just be careful," Magilou says, settling back in her seat with a smirk. "Before you know it, they're all grown up and crying at your funeral. Kids grow up so fast!"
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
There might be one glance in the bartender's direction. He's not a heavy drinker, like some (Jessie) he could name (Jessie); he's not a regular (like Jessie). Perhaps it's just as well that's the case.
"Oh dear," he remarks, still smiling. "Do I look as tired as that? That is unfortunate," he sighs, recent bouts (possibly partially due to that weird shared dream) of sleep trouble aside.
Though he raises an eyebrow. "At your 'funeral'? Hmm... The way I had always heard it was 'crying at their wedding', I must admit. Though, that is still a long way off," he concludes. Assuming Midori ever decides she wants to marry in the first place, that is.
He doesn't worry about his daughter as much as he worries about the world around his daughter. She seems to be fitting in better in Shevat than in Lahan, but...
"You speak as if you have some familiarity on the subject," he remarks then.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Don't worry about it, I'm sure you'll be fine! Probably." There's a casual air to that last word which carries with it the implication that perhaps... Magilou doesn't actually care that much about reassuring him.
Surely not?! She is such a nice and generous woman!
She gives Citan an odd look, as he talks about crying at their wedding. "Now where would you hear a silly thing like that? That just means it's not my problem any more! It's hardly something to cry about!"
A beat, and she adds, lightly: "And if they were crying, well, that would just mean I'd have to have words with the groom. You know what they say! There's always more fish in the sea."
Is it... always this hard to tell whether Magilou is terrible or not?
She barks out a laugh, and downs a shot of rum, in roughly that order. "Haaa..! Familiarity, he says. Not for some years now." Her chuckle splits her mouth in a razor-sharp grin, eyes half-lidded. It's almost possible to believe they're just green. "Really, that's for the best. Mothering is not amongst my broad and varied skillset. It's a wonder they turned out diligent at all! To be frank, that's hardly my fault. It's nice having someone else to be a good example, isn't it?" Well, she wasn't her wife, but having a friend to help out really did wonders.
Magilou sighs, head lolling back against the chair. "Hoo, boy... it would be nice if I could say I'd do it better with a little more experience. Too bad!" Apparently, elven longevity doesn't necessarily come with elven capability.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
And what can he do with that but sigh and shake his head? "I see..."
She seems to be a difficult woman--
Which her next comment to him makes plain. Among other things. "You have...?" he starts, eyes widening just enough to suggest that he's actually taken aback by this revelation -- that she's had children. But no, he realizes, in the next moment, no, he's really been a fool.
She's an elf. Hadn't he noticed that about her? Whatever her appearance, there's no telling how old she really is.
Even if she looks, at best, as if she were in her early 20s. No, it's far more likely that she has several decades on him, perhaps even centuries.
He has let himself get sloppy today.
"...I see," he says again, perhaps falling back on that for a lack of anything else to say. "So you have some experience yourself. That must be how you were able to determine that about me."
'There's always more fish in the sea', though, was it...? Hmm.
"...I suppose I must confess that I may not be the best example to my daughter, myself. After all, I have only recently reunited with her and my wife," he says, and if there's any cheer to be found in that smile, it's by thirds and quarters. The rest of that expression is... bittersweet at best. "Still! One must look in the positive side of such things, do you not agree? We have been reunited now."
Though it won't be at all long before he will need to leave again. There is no 'escape' from what must be done. Perhaps that's why his daughter seems to prefer just about anyone else to her own father.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
It's not really fair. Magilou has absorbed a few stray comments which means she already has a view to the depths Citan isn't speaking on. One might ask, given that, why she's hinting at hers, from the position of strength she's in.
... sometimes you have to go all in to stop someone folding entirely.
It's notable just what she chose to elaborate on, given what he's said.
"Yup yup!" Magilou agrees, cheerfully, with so much more exuberance than her newly-implied age ought to suggest. "It's an exclusive club!" It's not that exclusive, Magilou. Somehow, she resists scandalising Citan anew, though.
She falls all forward onto her folded hand, elbow to the table, as Citan elaborates on his own circumstances. There is some energetic nodding to indicate her engagement. Somewhere in the back, there, behind the curtains, she's teasing at the timeline. It doesn't really matter, but Magilou would rather bite into this mystery than --
Never mind that!
"What a wonderous occasion! Your little girl has a father again! Sounds like she's set for life!" Magilou straightens up, stretching her hands up behind her head. "Unleeess... you happened to have something to take care of. It's so handy when they get old enough for you to do that, right? Just, hey, I need to take care of something, be nice for your aunt! Then, poof!" Magilou shrugs her shoulders, elbows rising up in the motion. "Honestly, I don't think they minded that much. When I think about it, we got along about as well as me and..."
Here her smile fades, as Magilou's rambling very almost goes from calculated revelation to accidental reveal.
What did she say about fathers, back then..?
Magilou shakes her head, and when her smile returns, it's a shade more rueful than it was. A step closer to genuine, perhaps. "... be nice to her, all right? At that age, everything bad is the worst thing that's ever happened to you. Having some good memories... well, it means more the less of them you've got."
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
"'Exclusive'? Well, I would not say it is quite as ah... exclusive as all that," Citan says, shaking his head. "I would say that most manage it easily enough, do you not agree?" Even among his friends he's not terribly alone. Jessie has two children, himself.
And a dead wife.
But it's then that Magilou goes for the throat.
He doesn't answer her at first, and though he dissembles well enough, there is a split second there where Magilou might be able to tell that she's got him. That he's absolutely planning on leaving, in time. "Well... it is not quite as set as that," he remarks, shaking his head. "Rather, with everything else that is going on..."
Magilou had gotten on with her children as well as she had gotten on with her... ah. Citan takes a breath and does not immediately release it. His shoulders tense, ever so slightly.
He recalls, come to think of it, a particular comment that Magilou had made in that dream, something that had wedged itself into his mind.
Because it had been about fathers. Right before, in that dream--
He can't remember the next part at all. He can recall the shape of it, the feel of it. But the contents of the rest are gone.
But maybe that part of it is the least important part of their shared dream, now. Citan isn't smiling, instead gazing at her across the table. Perhaps what he's likely got on his mind is far from veiled -- she would already know that from the reaction she'd triggered before. But.
"So... it was difficult for you when you were young," he says to her. He nods, as if to suggest that he understands the situation. "Was your father away from home often?"
No. That isn't the reason, and he knows it. Yet, it's the angle he approaches the matter from.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"I'd offer to test that theory, buuuut... you're married~!" Just kidding, Magilou is ABSOLUTELY that horrible. She even winks at him. Shameless!
Let us note for the academy that Magilou does not have a dead husband. Suffice to say, her family name has never been particularly bound by blood.
... they're still humans, last she checked.
She's checking things now, too, stabbing the dark with those implications of attending the girl-Queen's plea for help. She can smell the blood, even if it's too dark to see the wound. With everything else going on, huh..? "Oh, the things we tell ourselves to sleep at night. Only to have dreams like these! Tragic."
That offhand comment might sound a shade cruel, but really, it's leagues kinder than she could have been. It's more a gesture at carving out the truth than anything.
Maybe she can see the way he's stiffening up.
Maybe she has certain ideas about why he is which don't quite reflect the truth.
Because Citan makes that venture, and -- ah! -- there's an awful lot of talent in Aphel Aura, Magilou reflects to herself, bitterly, as a veil falls over her green-purple eyes, and the smile fades from her lips.
"Was it..?"
It's a moment of distant wondering, as she herself reflects on the dream. If he's as sharp as he seems, he won't have taken her bait. Unfortunate. This would be much easier if she could convince him it was all stuff and nonsense.
Her fingers fall down to drum against the lip of her shot-glass, one, two, three. "No," she gives him that much. "But he had... certain expectations. I couldn't..." Her tone all a sudden is flat like a tyre or a note or a corpse, and the lack of expression in her gaze, eyes fixed somewhere a little to the left of Citan, is dull enough to drain all light and energy from the room. She is a black hole, consuming all life and joy and despair, returning it to the nothing of 'zero'. Even the end of her very sentence falls into the horizon of herself, trailing to silence, all implications.
And just like that, in the next eyeblink, it's gone.
Magilou laughs, raising her glass, that awful smile on her face again. "But he's dead, and I'm still here, so I win! And now I can sit here and tell you not to be such a deadbeat, so when you reaaally think about it, I'm doing the daughters of the world a service!" All at once she downs the shot, as if it's all one big joke. It isn't.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
If her aim was to provoke a reaction here, she wins. "Quite happily married, I should add!" he protests, shaking his head as if in disbelief. "Really..."
Besides, the reason that he had fallen in love with Yui in the first place had been...
He can't think of another person who could possibly suit him as well.
"It was... a strange dream," he'll allow, dodging the real meat of that question. "Stranger still that it was shared." It's an attempt to deflect, and she's canny enough that she'll see that. But, perhaps for just a moment, she might think that he's...
...not sharp enough to return the favor, after the blow she's connected.
But unfortunately, he has icewater in his veins. He wonders whether her father was often away from home, the sort of misaimed guess that still should be close enough to the real hurt.
In the end, it all comes down to those old wounds. Always.
Magilou, in an instant, becomes in a sense unzipped. He watches her without so much as blinking an eye, as she expresses, for a moment what just might be the truth.
"So," he says to her quietly. "You were abandoned. Now I understand."
He doesn't even blink when she reassumes her cheerful persona, as she professes that she's still alive and he's dead. Instead, he simply smiles slightly and shakes his head. He's read about this sort of behavior as a coping mechanism.
"Really, now," he protests, as she calls him a deadbeat dad. "I do not think I am quite as bad as that..."
There's a difference between thinking something and knowing it.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Victory for Magilou!
Unfortunately, winning the battle isn't the same thing as winning the war. Even as she allows him to deflect the question, there are things she could not have guessed, about one Citan Uzuki.
He's really VERY good, in much the same shape. Carving into the same wound does eventually draw blood. She's alive, after all.
It's not something she makes obvious. The tension in the way her eyes scrunch shut, for that moment. The little tug downwards at her lips. The sharp intake of air through her nose. It's all rather blink-and-you'll-miss-it, which can't account for someone who doesn't blink.
Yes, she was abandoned.
No wonder she so cheerfully -- viciously -- lays into him, with the laughter of a wounded hyena. "Oh! Well, if you've asked her, who am I to argue?" Her grin all pulls from one ear to the other, strung up like a corpse at the butcher's stall.
"By the way," Magilou says, quite casually, quite cheerfully, "just as an itsy-bitsy point of curiosity, how many of you are there out here?"
As if he ought to know what that means.
As if those men are working together.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
In the end it always comes down to those old wounds. And everyone has them, without question.
It's impossible to advance through life without gaining a few and then spending the next few decades building up around it. Someone more poetic might call it a pearl in an oyster, but while there are a great many things in his life with which Citan Uzuki has made his peace...
It also does not mean that he's willing to see the silver lining in those clouds.
Magilou returns the favor by laying into him; this time he sees the blow coming.
Which doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt. Merely that he's able to lean into it, as it comes.
"Indeed," he says, shaking his head again. There's no need to make excuses for this, for a conversation he hasn't yet had. Has he even learned enough sign to understand his daughter's response?
But there's one thing she's curious about. How many of him are there out there?
"What do you mean?" he asks in response, quite mildly.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
There is something a shade dangerous to her smile, as Magilou abandons some of her pretence. It is still tragically, agonisingly casual, in just the way a performance is.
"There's a certain technique. Do you know about it? Take a canary into a coal mine, and see if it dies. If the dear little thing perishes, that's your warning to leave. But how does the canary know?" Magilou tilts her head a few degrees too far to the side, though her eyes remain so lidded.
"How do you know to use that particular turn of phrase? I wonder. I never said as much in the dream, now, did I? No, the only time that particular point of contention was raised..."
She tilts back, in her chair, fixing Citan with a sceptical expression. "I wouldn't have guessed," she surmises. "You hardly seem the type to say 'Raaaah' in a dark alleyway." Here, she does not quite say his name; one more emblem of the mistrust she views him with, here. "But I suppose it makes some sense, now I think of how you approached that window. If you're planning to reach inside me, too, I must warn you I'm terribly sick of the whole affair. I may just raise a fuss."
Strangely, despite the threat, she's not raising much of a fuss as it is. Her tone has lowered, her body language stilled.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
"Hm? You are speaking about the practice of certain miners, are you not? It is," and he pauses, thinking for a moment of his daughter's love of birds, "a rather distasteful practice. I believe it serves due to the way that birds breathe..."
And he trails off as he takes in the look on her face.
The time for odd little statements and the like is past.
"I am afraid I do not quite follow," he says to her, shaking his head. "Could you..."
She does explain after a fashion.
It's just not in the sort of way that he's able to quite follow -- there is in this moment a small but important piece of context missing. "..."
There's something about this that just about sets off the alarm bells of familiarity. But it comes up alongside whatever it was and slides on past it, like ships in the night.
"I assure you, I intend no such thing," he tells her.
But he can read the writing on the wall. He'd pushed too hard, perhaps, and she's now rightfully wary. After all, isn't he more wary of her now than he'd been before?
There may be silence at the table for a few moments before he finally rises.
"I will pay for your drink, as promised. I am..." Not sorry as such. No, the correct word for what he feels right now is something else altogether.
"Perhaps we will speak another time," is what Citan settles for, before heading over to settle up with the bartender.
How strange. He didn't drink a single thing, himself.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Assurances, she thinks, and the word is a gunshot. It rips through her eyes, the way they narrow, just so.
She doesn't trust him, but she has no reason to, after all, just as he has some sense of wariness too.
"I'm sure we will," Magilou says, perfectly polite, something horrible in the confidence.
She watches him leave.
A Seraph spills out of her, and says, "Miss Magilou, are you sure he's really on his side..?"
"Who knows," Magilou says, with all the weariness of the world on her shoulders. Does she regret it? Does she see how she's acting? She pours another drink. She says: "But one thing's for sure."
Bienfu adjusts his hat. "What's that?" He asks, with some trepidation. She's not the only one watching herself, in those shattered remnants of her heart.
"He's not on our side."