Shirley ♕ 001

[truailligh]

Who: truailligh and ilpromenade
What: Checking out her place of solace/trying to get back on an even keel
Where: Her place of solace
When: Day
Warnings: Maybe some language? Oh and misbehaving jukebox

Comments

[showmeshinies]

So the humans where she lived spent only five days out of seven working. Quite frankly, that sounded like a marvelous idea, having two days out of seven to sit back and rest. Jarlaxle had never been so lucky, save for when he was adventuring. He enjoyed his job though, and so didn't really mind. With Kimmuriel in a position to take over whenever he needed a break, Jarlaxle was fine working ten tendays in a row if need be

[showmeshinies]

"Yes," Jarlaxle replied, completely straight-faced and serious. "Where I come from, at least, my kind are generally more feared."

He shrugged, grinned, and took another sip of the wine. Being thought of as an enigma rather appealed to him, of course. Being mysterious had been nothing if not helpful to him over the years. "Do let me know if you find a library here," Jarlaxle requested, changing the topic. "I've been looking for one since we arrived, but nothing has come up in my search of the place."

It would be fascinating to read up on the history of this place, and other worlds of course. It would be much easier to exploit the others here and Promenade's own system if he could learn what kind of background each person had. Plus there were other... pros, he supposed, to finding such a place. If people from different worlds were gathered, perhaps their knowledge would be gathered also. Perhaps knowledge of Gauntlgrym could be found there.

"Of course," he added, "I will let you know if I find one as well."

[truailligh]

"What's it like where you're from? Different to this if your sartorial flair is anything to go by." Because while it wasn't anything anyone she knenw would wear, he really knew how to turn himself out well.

"I will; you'll probably hear the squeal of joy for a five mile radius." Radius was right, wasn't it? One of the few math related idioms she actually was confident about using because pretty much all of the others shot over her head because who needed maths? Evil, useless boring subject.

"Did you...okay, I'm sure everyone got one but I just want to check that it wasn't confined to certain people, did you get a mirror that showed you your home?" She frowned as she asked because she still didn't know what to make of that mirror or what she saw in it. Nor the fact that despite best efforts, it seemlessly repaired itself after she'd stomped on it or thrown it against the nearest hard surface.

[showmeshinies]

Reassured that she would be just as pleased at the discovery of a library, Jarlaxle focused instead on her questions. "It is much different where I am from - though my mirror only shows me a tiny fraction of the places I once considered to be my own," he responded, answering both questions at once.

"My world is divided into many smaller countries and cities - some on the surface, and some underneath the surface. We call that second place the Underdark, and it is the most dangerous place in all the world." He paused to flash her a cheeky smile. "I was born and raised there, in the caverns miles below the world's surface. Toril is a place of little technology and great magic, if that helps at all."

He did not discuss what, precisely, his mirror showed, or his feelings toward it. Athrogate's name need not be mentioned to any here, save for perhaps Gromph.

[truailligh]

That was...that was good. Although she wasn't sure why they'd been left with that mirror in the first place - was it for comfort or for reassurance? It hurt, to see her loved ones and the flat and Alea the way it was meant to be, as though she were there but she couldn't feel any of it, some impenetrable wall between her and her life.

"Underdark?" Close to Otherworld in name and peoples of magic, living under the earth? Definitely similar enough to the tales of where her power came from for her to feel some sort of potential kinship toward Jarlaxle. "It sounds like places I know; the sidhe, or the fairy mounds as people call them."

It still provoked a twist of her lips when she thought of what she really was: bean sídhe, woman of the fairy mounds.

[showmeshinies]

If it was similar (and he was not so sure of that) then Jarlaxle would have much more respect for her. As it was, he kept his thoughts to himself for now. "What are those? I don't recall ever having heard of such a thing."

At least, not anything that wouldn't make her cringe in disgust. Sailors had used odder euphemisms, he supposed. "Will you tell me about them?"

[truailligh]

"The Fairy Mounds," her voice took on a tone somewhere between that of a story teller and that of a dreamer; the old stories of her childhood, probably the only happy memories she had of sharing her banshee heritage with her mother, "When the Tuatha Dé Danann surrendered to the Milesians, they agreed to retreat and dwell underground in the sídhe. They're the hills or Earthern mounds you find in Ireland now." She paused and came back to herself again. "Pretty much everyone outside of those of the blood or those who really believe in the supernatural will tell you that it's all just myth and legend but to people like me? They're real. They took place and shaped the world and passed the power down and down through bloodlines even now."

[showmeshinies]

"Is this an ancestral tale then?" Jarlaxle asked. Now he was definitely curious. There seemed to be a lot more to Shirley than met the eye.

He had always preferred his women to be that way.

[truailligh]

"I suppose it is, in a way. The Tuatha Dé Danann are the pre-Christian deities of Ireland. They had kings and queens and they shaped all the old stories. It'd take too long to go into the history just now though because I'd need to start at the very beginning, when the land was shaped."

But maybe she'd open the pub doors one night, let people come in, do some story telling the way it used to be done.

[showmeshinies]

"Someday, I hope you will tell me. This sounds like a very interesting tale." Jarlaxle enjoyed listening to the stories of others, learning about them and their cultures. It would no doubt help to slake any wanderlust he might experience while trapped here and unable to explore the vast and innumerable beauties of Faerûn.

"Do you have many of these stories?" Perhaps she should take up the job of a bard if she did.

[truailligh]

"When I was little, mum used to tell me the stories," and it might just be an ingrained thing for her but children being told stories in bed, by an adult surely had to be one of those universal things. "Some children got silly fluffy fairytales or whatever book was popular for that age group and gender but I got Irish and Scots mythology cycles, the Ulster Cycle, the Fenian Cycle. Things like that." She laughed then and shook her head because honestly, the stories would horrify so many. "Bloody battles, treachery, quests, warrior men."

And then all those hours of research with Cassandra, peering through musty old tomes in Gaelic and even into Old English.

"Táin Bó Cúailnge - the Cattle Raid of Cooley - used to be one of my favourites. If I track down a library here then I'll see if they have a copy. That and Beowulf, this Old English epic poem; it's incredible."

[showmeshinies]

Jarlaxle had been told stories as a child too, but they were meant to brainwash him, he knew now. They were horrible stories of the evils of the surface elves and all the wrong their kind had done to them, told to him by his wean mother to frighten him from his rest and enable him to better take the pain of her wicked abuse of his small body.

Shirley's sounded much better. "Your mother sounds like an interesting woman. Those stories certainly sound much more interesting than any silly fairy tale about wolves and wells." He had heard a few of the humans' stories before.

[truailligh]

The snort that escaped her was nothing close to dignified and she could feel the sneer pull at the corners of her mouth. True, her mother did have her good qualities; knowledgable, witty, charming and well-versed in their old myths and legends and she was a talented writer but that part of Shirley that marked her as different gnashed and clawed. Ancient lusts for power drove a deep wedge between mother and daughter.

"We have tales like those too but generally as long as you don't eat the food of the fairies or try to cheat them, the world works out fine in the end." Really, never eat fairy food. Ever.

[showmeshinies]

Well, well, well. Something he'd said seemed to be a sore topic. Jarlaxle pushed away the smirk that threatened and pretended to ignore the snort. Interesting.

"Fairy food? What happens to those that dare to eat it?" he asked. It wouldn't hurt to know, just in case he happened to run into somebody like that.

[truailligh]

In time Jarlaxle would no doubt hear the story of her mother either from her lips or through her mind but right now, no.

Ah but this, this made her smile.

"Terrible things," she said, leaning forward, smiling enigmatically and wiggling her fingers, "Sometimes those who ate the fairy food never left the fairy realm because fairies know your deepest desires. They can give it or," she drew the word out, leaning back again, "they give the illusion of it. Often a terrible price is involved. If you're lucky though, you'll think you're in a sumptuous banquet hall and then suddenly, it all disappears. All those beautiful things, all the wonderful food and drink vanishes like that." She snapped her fingers together quickly, loud in the quiet bar. "Then it's just some poor sod sitting in a field gnawing on a stalk of heather or worse. And sometimes, the person makes it back from the fairy realm but they get sick and die. Nasty stuff. Not what most of the children friendly stories say."

Sorry. It got buried under my bills in my inbox.

[showmeshinies]

She was quite the story teller! Jarlaxle found that delightful even that it drew a laugh from his lips. The rest of the wine was drained from his glass and he set it down to fold his arms on the bartop.

"What terrible creatures!" he replied, though he was grinning. "They are truly such horrible things?"