My dream last night
The scene: 'Monarch' tube station, on the Hammersmith and City and District lines. Midnight. A girl arrives, buys a bottle of water and a kitkat, and makes her way down to the platform worrying vaguely about whether stopping to buy a kitkat has made her miss the last train. It hasn't; there's one more coming although nobody will tell the people
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***
‘It’s a strange affectation,’ said Prospero, leaning back in his chair and surveying the crowd. ‘A noblewoman - surely her bearing tells us as much - wearing a mask in the style of an artisan’s tools?’
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ Gawain raised his eyebrows behind his own mask. ‘I was wondering about the thing itself. Cogs and springs, Prospero - the inner workings of a machine, proudly displayed on the outside of a face. An illusion of what lies beneath. I think that’s rather splendid,’ he added, under his breath. Prospero gave him a sharp look but said nothing.
The strange woman laughed, suddenly. An open, unguarded laugh. She wielded her fan -bronze and gold silk, also printed with a definitely mechanical motif - at her companion with no finesse at all, gripping it more like a hammer than the delicate instrument of society it should have been. Her companion started, recovered, and laughed along with her. Prospero felt Gawain tense beside him.
‘Young di Tuffatore seems to be enjoying her company,’ he said, making absolutely no effort at all to keep the amusement out of his voice. ‘Perhaps the Donna Ophelia has some competition?’ Prospero raised his hand to cover his grin as the muscles in Gawain’s jaw worked and he answered through his teeth.
‘Not if di Tuffatore knows what’s good for him. After all, the Duca would presumably be very upset to hear that his dear sister was being played false.’
‘… my Lady,’ Xavier’s voice floated up to them, still ringing with mirth. ‘I must respectfully disagree. Nobody could do all that with only a hammer and a length of string!’
‘Is that a challenge?’ the lady replied, her eyes dancing strangely behind her odd mask. Almost as if summoned out of thin air, a dark-haired young man appeared at her elbow. Xavier thought him some kind of butler. Gawain thought him some kind of spy. He had a malevolent-looking grey cat perched on his shoulder.
‘Excuse me, my Lord,’ he said, ‘Lady Heterodyne has to… be somewhere else now.’
‘But, Wooster, just a small clank…’ the lady could be heard protesting as the man steered her away from a deeply puzzled Xavier.
***
Some other time on Things There Ought To Be Some Kind Of Law Against:
Prospero boasts to Agatha about his manticore and then meets Krosp! Calormena turns out to be strangely unable to resist Agatha’s orders! Valentin accidentally gets drunk with the Jagers! Gil successfully invades a Sentate meeting, which then explodes for no good reason! Moxana gets hold of the Re Stracciati deck and it all goes downhill from there! Agatha’s mask turns out to be really a clank and saves the day somehow!
... it's been a bit of a slow day, all right? *hides*
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