[Lucid Dreams] riddles
Title: riddles
Story/Character: Lucid Dreams / Musouka, Kelpie
Rating: PG
His hands had been moving as we spoke; not for emphasis or demonstration but the sort of mindless little gestures of picking things up and moving them or fiddling with them that spoke of either nerves or an inability to keep still. I had my doubts whether he was even capable of being nervous, but the motions were so fluid that after the first minute I had barely noticed; it was only as he stilled, his hands coming to rest at either end of the table, that I realized what he had been doing, painted in the sudden lack of what had been.
His fingers curled inwards, thick blunt nails and the gleam of the sunlight on his rings. "What do you see?" he asked quietly.
Unbidden, my eyes went to the table, bracketed between those long, pale fingers. There had been some sort of method to his motion, trails of water drawn out across the table top from the condensation that dripped down the sides of our drinks in the summer heat, but no matter how I squinted the image - if it was an image - wouldn't resolve. "Water," I told him impatiently. He made a small sound, almost pleased, and drew his hands back.
"You're looking in the wrong places," he told me abruptly, sitting back. I caught my breath and smoothed it before it could reach my throat, hours of practice in board rooms keeping my expression more still than any card game could have taught.
"And?" I prompted, when he said no more. He wouldn't have agreed to meet again, wouldn't have told me even that much, if there was only that much to tell. His smile, close lipped and gently curved, said as much.
"By which," he replied, idly combing that impossible thick fall of hair over one shoulder, "what do you need to offer me in exchange for the information?" I pressed my lips thin; it was crude and blunt and not the way I was accustomed to doing business any more, but if he thought he could shock me with it he was badly mistaken.
"I'm prepared to offer standard rate for accurate information," I started, but he flicked one hand in a sharp negative.
"I don't need your gold," he said, lip curling back over white teeth as though the word were distastful, and it was such an archaic phrase that it sucked out all of the annoyance at his presumption and left bemusement in its wake. "What I need," he clarified, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table, "is your attention." He cocked his head, eyes narrowed. "Tell me... what's your name?"
I drew myself up, anger tightening my spine. The game - whatever game he was playing - had lost its allure and it was on my tongue to snap the truth back at him, the name on half the business newscasts, my family name that owned most of the eastern seaboard, but he stopped me before the first syllable left my mouth, one long finger reaching out across the table and stopping just short of my lips. "Your real name," he clarified.
It was still there, all the syllables my father had heaped on me at birth, but something in his look pushed it all back down my throat. "...Musouka," I told him, my voice a whisper.
"Ah." He drew his hand back. "And what does it mean?"
Bastard. Snake. As though he didn't know. "'Dreamer'," I snapped.
He didn't challenge me for it, only smiled, that infuriating flicker of expression that never reached the cool depths of his eyes. "There's your answer," he said, sitting back again so that only his clasped hands rested on the table between us. "You won't find him in your electronic dreams. You won't find him so long as you're awake."
"And what is that supposed to mean?" I demanded tightly.
"Exactly what it says." He pushed his chair back, getting to his feet, and shook his hair back over his shoulder with a flick of his head. "You're awake," he noted, reaching out, and I couldn't help flinching when his fingers brushed my cheek, cold and wet, "but it's only the body. Until you truly wake, until you learn to dream properly, you won't find your sweet Thomas in the places you're looking."
I wanted to grab his wrist, to stop him or shake him. I wanted to demand what he meant by it, a threat or a clue, nonsense riddles at high noon in a cursed café, but he slipped away before I could move, one blink and the next, and he was gone, an eel lost in the current of the pedestrian flow and I was not, I was not going to get up and chase the bastard.
His touch on my cheek was still cold. I wiped the wetness away with the back of one hand, and where it dragged across my lips it tasted of salt, like tears or ocean water, and nothing at all like condensation. Across the table his beaded water scrawls were still fresh and undried beneath the hot sun, the chariot wheel over the seventh water sketched in transparent wet lines.
Story/Character: Lucid Dreams / Musouka, Kelpie
Rating: PG
His hands had been moving as we spoke; not for emphasis or demonstration but the sort of mindless little gestures of picking things up and moving them or fiddling with them that spoke of either nerves or an inability to keep still. I had my doubts whether he was even capable of being nervous, but the motions were so fluid that after the first minute I had barely noticed; it was only as he stilled, his hands coming to rest at either end of the table, that I realized what he had been doing, painted in the sudden lack of what had been.
His fingers curled inwards, thick blunt nails and the gleam of the sunlight on his rings. "What do you see?" he asked quietly.
Unbidden, my eyes went to the table, bracketed between those long, pale fingers. There had been some sort of method to his motion, trails of water drawn out across the table top from the condensation that dripped down the sides of our drinks in the summer heat, but no matter how I squinted the image - if it was an image - wouldn't resolve. "Water," I told him impatiently. He made a small sound, almost pleased, and drew his hands back.
"You're looking in the wrong places," he told me abruptly, sitting back. I caught my breath and smoothed it before it could reach my throat, hours of practice in board rooms keeping my expression more still than any card game could have taught.
"And?" I prompted, when he said no more. He wouldn't have agreed to meet again, wouldn't have told me even that much, if there was only that much to tell. His smile, close lipped and gently curved, said as much.
"By which," he replied, idly combing that impossible thick fall of hair over one shoulder, "what do you need to offer me in exchange for the information?" I pressed my lips thin; it was crude and blunt and not the way I was accustomed to doing business any more, but if he thought he could shock me with it he was badly mistaken.
"I'm prepared to offer standard rate for accurate information," I started, but he flicked one hand in a sharp negative.
"I don't need your gold," he said, lip curling back over white teeth as though the word were distastful, and it was such an archaic phrase that it sucked out all of the annoyance at his presumption and left bemusement in its wake. "What I need," he clarified, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table, "is your attention." He cocked his head, eyes narrowed. "Tell me... what's your name?"
I drew myself up, anger tightening my spine. The game - whatever game he was playing - had lost its allure and it was on my tongue to snap the truth back at him, the name on half the business newscasts, my family name that owned most of the eastern seaboard, but he stopped me before the first syllable left my mouth, one long finger reaching out across the table and stopping just short of my lips. "Your real name," he clarified.
It was still there, all the syllables my father had heaped on me at birth, but something in his look pushed it all back down my throat. "...Musouka," I told him, my voice a whisper.
"Ah." He drew his hand back. "And what does it mean?"
Bastard. Snake. As though he didn't know. "'Dreamer'," I snapped.
He didn't challenge me for it, only smiled, that infuriating flicker of expression that never reached the cool depths of his eyes. "There's your answer," he said, sitting back again so that only his clasped hands rested on the table between us. "You won't find him in your electronic dreams. You won't find him so long as you're awake."
"And what is that supposed to mean?" I demanded tightly.
"Exactly what it says." He pushed his chair back, getting to his feet, and shook his hair back over his shoulder with a flick of his head. "You're awake," he noted, reaching out, and I couldn't help flinching when his fingers brushed my cheek, cold and wet, "but it's only the body. Until you truly wake, until you learn to dream properly, you won't find your sweet Thomas in the places you're looking."
I wanted to grab his wrist, to stop him or shake him. I wanted to demand what he meant by it, a threat or a clue, nonsense riddles at high noon in a cursed café, but he slipped away before I could move, one blink and the next, and he was gone, an eel lost in the current of the pedestrian flow and I was not, I was not going to get up and chase the bastard.
His touch on my cheek was still cold. I wiped the wetness away with the back of one hand, and where it dragged across my lips it tasted of salt, like tears or ocean water, and nothing at all like condensation. Across the table his beaded water scrawls were still fresh and undried beneath the hot sun, the chariot wheel over the seventh water sketched in transparent wet lines.