A hug in the Night

Log Info

• Title: A hug in the Night
• Emitter: Jinks
• Characters: Jay, Nemori
• Place: A07: Lower Alexandria Market District
• Time: Sunday, October 16, 2022, 12:15 AM
• Summary: Jay and Nemori wander the Lower Alexandria Market District. The egalrin lawyer is upset about various things, which he explains to the mul'niessian priestess. She tells him to 'affect change'. While she is delivering her advice, another of Mama Bula's charges comes by, and gives Jay a huge, and a drink, and a friendly gesture of sorts to Nemori, as thanks for their efforts.

-=--=--=--=--=--=<* A07: Lower Alexandria Market District *>-=--=--=--=--=--=-

Just west of the Northern Highbridge and east of the arena, commerce blooms. Noisy and bustling, most anything may be purchased here for a price. Vendors from all cultures sell their wares from exotically colored carts, and the smells of different nations and far-off city-states mix with local ones from Alexandria and its riverbanks.

For all its commerce, visitors are advised to keep hold of their purses. Even the merchants possess a certain, cunning look. Most are positioned at carts or stalls as opposed to a formal storefront, with trade here being mobile, and visiting from all parts of the world.

Though the quality of goods suffers here compared to Upper Alexandria, the options are more diverse. Too, the oversight of the Watch is slightly less, and during times events are held at the Arena, chaos abounds. After dark, the square becomes a hangout for bards and other entrepreneurs whose business is best conducted by night; the shadows at the edges of the square often contain furtive figures engaging in their own brand of business.

-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-

Further down the street, past a corner, up another one, the bluejay egalrin has escaped the coffee shop encounter simply by picking up the chest and moving. The scroll was expertly slipped into his briefcase and he somehow manages both with only two hands.

He does have wings, but not the fantastic extensible feather-fingers Slixvah is able to manifest. So, not really another pair of hands.

He walks with a lean, head down, cloak up, hat close, tailfeathers sticking straight out behind. Like a crow on a murder, if more crows were about, or one paying his respects.

While his body language is not easy to read, being a bird, those familiar with him would recognize the cues.

Nemori hasn't said much as she follows the egalrin. She hasn't looked at the chest nor mentioned the scroll. There remain the little treats she's been snacking on from her ceramic bowl; they were revealed to be hearts, it seems, though she wasn't clear on which animal they came from. Something small. Hearts seasoned and baked.

She walks with him, but the shadow elf seems to be waiting for the legal adventurer to speak. Or explain. He stops, squats, opens the chest to reveal four pouches with the look of coin. He takes one out and holds it for Nemori. "This is yours."

He flips the chest lid closed and then sits on it like he's incubating an uncomfortable egg. He rests his beak on his hands and stares off into the night. At a wall and the obscuring mists of an alleyway. A wing flips, like he's about to say something, but he doesn't. He ducks his head further.

"Did I tell you about the crystals? Yes. I told you about the crystals. I don't know what else there is to do."

Nemori gives the pouch a quick weigh in the palm of her hand before she puts it away. Then she, too, settles.. though it's more of a shift in her stance, settling back into her heels a little bit. She reaches into her bowl again, then changes her mind, upending the vessel to dump the remaining contents upon the street. No doubt the strays will clean the few bits up in short order. "Yes. The rather macabre journal left by the one responsible for that mess. Perhaps there is nothing else to do? Tell me why any of this is your fault.. beyond deciding to help that wretched lot. "

"I don't know. It is and it isn't." Integrity says, dropping his gaze to the ground where he can trace around a cobble with one toe-talon. It's a strange, scratchy shadow foot in the dim light. "Not my fault Ratto is dead. Not my fault Heady died, and that place exists. Not my fault an angel was in the torment engine."

"My fault I was there, my fault you were there. My fault my ideas were enough to get us somewhere." He shakes his head, "Smart enough for that, but not enough to get the contract right. My fault we're tied up in it, and now a crime boss, allegedly, knows about us."

"I guess that's still better than nobility."

Nemori scoffs. It's not a kind sound, though by now it ought to be expected enough. "Your fault I cared enough about your well being to follow you. Your fault I was introduced to Robert. So your fault I have been adopted into this circle of friendship. Perhaps it is your fault I lost my ear, would you like to claim ownership of that as well?" She glances at her bowl, perhaps considering the goods and bads to striking Jay in the head with it. "Are you so powerful that all of these things that involve decisions made by many more people than yourself are ultimately controlled by you? It is not your fault that Bula is an opportunist. It is not your fault that her 'children' keep getting themselves in trouble. And besides; what of this crime boss knowing about us? They already knew, and it means nothing. They have no hold over you, or me, or any of our friends. The limit of their control lay within the limit of your willingness to help them."

"That sounds about right." Jay admits, not answering any of Nemori's questions. They might be rhetorical. His wings shrug a little. "I'm sorry you nearly died."

"Heady is better. We did good things, why don't I feel better about it?" He looks up.

The bowl might be overkill. Instead, Nemori reaches over and pulls at one of Jay's head feathers. Not nearly hard enough to pull it out; not even hard enough to be called an attempt to. But it's the nearest thing she can think of as an equivalent of an ear-flick. "Get over yourself, Integrity. Mama Bula inserting herself into your.. into our business is her decision. It has nothing to do with you or I. If you let it happen again by the same means, then perhaps I could be convinced you would hold some measure of blame. But do not give yourself credit for this. Robert would tell you the same." Robert would also probably be a lot nicer about it. "Instead of moaning and sighing about the situation, spend your energy considering what we can do about it. And remember... 'do nothing about it' is a perfectly good decision to make."

"Ow!" His head is jerked in the direction of the pull. It makes him watch her, so his attention is fuly on her words.

"Well. I don't know." Jay says after a while. "I can't imagine not looking into it, but I feel dirty now because of what I learned researching artifice, and saw."

"How do you 'get over it'?" It's a question with a barb in it, and the egalrin stoops into a kill dive, figuratively, "feeling bad about the things you did before? If you feel bad about them."

Ever or anymore, as he refers to the before-times of their meeting.

Nemori just folds her arms, bowl dangling from her fingers over the hand's opposite elbow as she looks at Jay, one eyebrow arching in something of a 'what do you think?' expression in response to his probing question. And she doesn't give an answer. Instead, she asks another question. "What is the purpose of 'feeling bad' about it?"

"There's no point." Integrity clacks his beak, "I don't know how your emotions work but mine don't turn off just because I tell them to."

There's that wing-shrug again, "Lucky gets drunk. Sissy breaks up with someone or gets arrested; Tempty goes dancing with all comers." He draws his foot back, stressing the word, "Dancing. The mating kind. Anyhow, those aren't productive. I could file some motions. What do you do to get over those feelings."

Soft-soled shoes scuff across the cobblestones as a rail-thin tomboy jogs into view at a nearby intersection. Her messily-cut hair sticks out from beneath a patched skullcap and she has a faded scarf looped loose around her neck to help her suspiciously-nice jacket ward off the coat. Her freckled cheeks are flushed for the effort spent on an increased pace but the bounce in her step dismisses any thoughts that she might be fatigued.

The loose crowd of pedestrians move about her as she stops-- granting her the berth most afford urchins with a street-look about them-- and she goes to tip-toe and cranes her neck to look over the taller folk. She hops out of the way of a cart and rocks back in her heels for another vantage.

"Oi!" Tamzin hollers and lifts one hand hidden in a coat pocket to point at the bluebird egalrin and dark-skinned elf. She grins as she starts to stalk over.

"Effect. Change." Nemori enunciates each word deliberately and forcefully. "'Feeling bad' does not do you any good. If you do not like something, change it or leave it behind. You do not help anyone sulking about events you can no longer do anything about. You feel bad because you think you should feel bad. That perhaps you must punish yourself for mistakes you think you made. You are an intelligent and rational creature, Integrity. Close your eyes, breathe deeply, look at the situation with the eyes of a solicitor. Figure out..." And then she trails off, scowling as she turns to look for whoever it is having the temerity to interrupt her. Upon spotting Tamzin, she immediately turns her face back to Jay, her face now one of seeking patience from the divine. "We could kill her," she suggests quietly to Jay. "Perhaps that would send an appropriate message to Mama Bula."

Jay looks towards Tamzin, then at Nemori. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply. Opens them again and watches the tomboy once more. "I should set office hours. Charge three gold a minute."

Tamzin falters a step, her enthusiasm meeting a wall of disgruntled expressions that costs the waif the smooth rhythm of her advance. She skips to one side and turns a shoulder towards the pair, making a more cautious (and sideways) advance.

"Well... I were gonna 'ug yer, coo-birdie," she drawls at Jay before forcing a wider, squinting smile at Nemori. "Not yer, ffough, no-no'ri." She waits a tick but then sighs, scooping out her arm from beneath the back of her coat and holding out a brown-glass growler.

It glugs and tinks and she rolls her wrist, catching the hinge-capped bottle through the loop with one finger. Her manic grin falters to be replaced with something thinner and more-genuine. She suddenly looks less the pixie and more a young woman with more than a few rough years at her back.

"I just wanted ter say 'thanks.' I 'aven't seen ever'body smile since the corpses came walkin', init?" She nods past the mul'niessa and egalrin. "So, thanks."

"... 'n no it weren't poison," she promises Nemori.

"Oh." The bluejay says. Would he have wanted a hug, or would it have felt like a trap suddenly closing. Suddenly Nemori makes a little more sense. The fewer her emotional ties, the better for her. She doesn't want to care. She cares about him, and regrets it.

He wonders what his sisters might tell her about that feeling.

"It would have been ok." He tells Tamzin, even if it might not have been. "I can't smile."

He taps his beak. "Beak. It's good to hear."

Nemori turns back towards Tamzin, her arms still folded, as she taps her bowl against her elbow. "I imagine that is something someone wishing to poison me would say," Nemori responds. "If they were hard of thinking." She eyes the bottle for a moment longer, then gestures for it to be given to Jay. "I am glad your friends are okay," she finally says. She might be lying. Or maybe it is, in fact, one of the few things she is currently glad about. Further phrases are on the tip of her tongue; suggestions that some of Tamzin's friends smarten up. Other, less kind ones. But they die before being voiced. Instead, her face relaxes.. she doesn't quite smile, but at least the severity.. the grouchiness.. melts a little bit away. "Perhaps next time there will not be a need," she says instead.

Tamzin surges ahead when people seem to relax and Jay has offered his consent. Her embrace isn't the nicest hug-- she's all elbows and chin, a day past needing a bath, and her jacket has a few too many buckles-- but it's as quick as it is honest and the egalrin is holding the bottle when she steps back. Her coat makes quiet rattling noises when she shoves her hands away, busy eyeing Nemori and making a conscious effort not to duplicate her previous act.

Instead, she sighs and shrugs her shoulders. "It weren't 'ave 'appened if I didn't cop laid up by them vargwills." She takes a step back and readies to depart, pausing briefly to tell Nemori: "Yor pretty wen yer don't 'ave a look like yor tryin' ter hold back wind, no-no'ri." She's walking backwards now.

"... 'should go. Annie's still mad about the bloomin' sleepin' draughtaff the chuffin' knight's camp." She shrugs and turns away only to turn back-- "but -that- weren't poison..!"

And then she's jogging off again.

Jay watches her go, then looks at Nemori. "Your advice is good."

He stands and picks up the small chest. "I'm going back to my office to think about it. See you around Nemori."

The egalrin fades into the mists and the night.