[Wild Roses] one of several
Reposting the current Isael arc with some editing to flow better. 1239 words in this section
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The shop was quiet, cooler and darker than the street outside, paneled in woods of dusty red, red-brown and walnut. Hand-sized panels of the ever-bubbly glass inset in the outer walls threw afternoon sunbeams across long rolls of waxed paper and cloth, and the grizzled head of the man half-dozing on a stool behind a long toffee tinted glass counter. When Isael asked after his wares, the man behind the counter smiled, slid off his stool and stumped briefly into the back, emerging with a saucer supporting four pieces of fruit--something peeled of its thin skin and juicier than the peaches he’d had earlier--that had had gently warmed chocolate spooned over them.
He actually liked the way the bittersweet matched to the sweetness of the fruit, but the dark suited better for itself, and he said as much to the man.
It took a few minutes to make up the package, a block of only mostly solid dark cut away from a much larger sheet in the back and carried on a glass spatula to the spread out translucent paper, then folded up and tied with gray-blue twine cut from a spool kept near the slightly rickety stool. The shopkeeper asked to borrow Isael’s knife--utterly certain that Isael had one about his person--after a moment of searching for his own. Isael silently produced it from a pocket, along with a tiny bag of mixed coins, and passed both over.
After cutting the twine and returning the knife, “You’re a Sabaey, child,” the old man pronounced the name Sah-ba-ye, like it was something he was not a part of but respected immensely. “You could have anything in this shop for the asking--why offer your bits of silver?” he tapped the drawstrings of the bag, then pushed it back at Isael, along with the package.
Isael pulled out, then laid the coins--storyteller’s silver, something he was actually rather sure he would 'could,' the back of his mind insisted, not have earned before the last war--across the not quite even surface of the counter, looked up from them at the keeper. “Because I am not my father,” he said softly, “and I do not think he would offer nothing in return for such as what you offer me.”
The keeper laughed suddenly, caught up two of the middling sized, harp-backed coins and pushed the waxed-paper package across at Isael again. “You’re Ruadhan’s boy--the youngest.”
“What gave it away this time?” Isael asked, wry, as he slid the package into his rucksack, carefully between his cloth-wrapped wooden flute and the purple-fleshed apple he’d bought for the novelty value earlier in the afternoon.
“He had sideways manners for one of your kind, too.” The keeper tried to slide a few small coins back as change, and gave up, smiling, when Isael looked straight through them, eyes unfocused and contemplating the truffles through the bubbled glass of the counter.
After a moment, he dipped his head in a peculiar, smiling near-salute, then turned for the door and walked away.
“Enjoy, young man. And come back, if you ever want more!” he called, and Isael lifted a hand in acknowledgement as the glass and sun-faded wood door closed behind him.
He found an empty room eventually, one of the ones adjacent to the room that most people avoided. The staff whispered about ghosts, and only the sturdy ones would go in and actually clean the piano. Flightier girls would appear breathless in the kitchens, unmindful of anyone sitting at one of the tables with a sandwich, and say they'd heard something in the room.
He wouldn't mind if a ghost put in an appearance. It wouldn't be anything new, after all, and so he placed the wrapped bar on the sturdy table, just slightly off center, and concentrated, thinking of a name and of his gift at once.
His cousin popped out of thin air a few inches above the table, then dropped down crosslegged to sit next to the offering. Reached down, caught up the bar of candy and sniffed at it thoughtfully.
Flipped a small, filigree knife from a pocket as he unwrapped the chocolate one-handed, shaved off a precise, tiny curl, which he laid on his tongue and let dissolve before he asked, “and the icons aren’t good enough for you?”
“This way, I’m assured of an answer, Cousin.” He cracked a smile as his cousin laughed delightedly, his fangs unhidden and his hair a natural curly red. Aodh was dressed in a plain gray teeshirt and many pocketed nearly-the-same-shade-as-the-gift brown pants, trimmed in a dark red that reminded Isael of a cross between old drying blood and his cousin’s natural hair.
“And what would your question be, that gets me such offerings as this?” Aodh gestured with the package, eyebrows lifted in inquiry.
Isael took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, looking up at his cousin. “I need your help.”
The eyebrows lifted further, and Aodh tilted his head, in something that might be birdlike on someone else. “Oh, so?”
Isael bit off a sigh, and began listing out what he needed, and thought he might need. “I need to get out of this city--probably for a week or more, and I’d very much rather not be around people if I can possibly help it. So I need someplace safe, and a way to store food so I won’t accidentally poison myself if I’m not paying attention. You have some of the old card-keys, the ones Sebastién made--" he hesitated slightly as the corners of his cousin's mouth turned down, then forged on-- "before he figured out how to destroy them from a distance. I’d guess there’s one or two that might fit--he seems to like quiet, self-sufficient places. . . and if any one asks, you telling them that you borrowed me would be,” he bit his lip, “appreciated.”
“Conall ever finds out about this, he’s going to put me through another wall,” Aodh remarked conversationally, shaving another tiny curl of dark chocolate off the bar before it was stuffed away in a pocket--not the same pocket the knife had come from and disappeared into, Isael noted idly.
“That mean no?”
“Non,” the red head shook, shifting mid-shake to the spiky white thistle-fluff Isael had grown familiar with over long years. “You need the help, and you asked me.”
“You’re a much better liar than I am.”
Aodh turned slightly-too-gold eyes on him, head tilted a little to one side. “ . . . I deceive, cousin,” he said, distance deliberate, “You omit. There’s a difference between a lie of deception and a lie of omission, but both are lies.”
"Blank space is a little more obvious than verbal trap doors, Cousin," Isael replied after a moment of thought. " . . . And I haven't the reserves to make it anything else."
Aodh blinked at him, then nodded slightly, acknowledging the admission. "Give me a couple've days t'find a place with keys to and from, then call again."
"With--?" Isael gestured at the pocket the bar had disappeared into, and Aodh laughed.
"Use the keys, Cousin, or a cheaper grade. You needn't spend such expensive coin every time you wish t'get my attention."
"I needed an answer," another admission, one he forced past something he would not give the mental dignity of naming paranoia. "And I've the coin to spend."
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The shop was quiet, cooler and darker than the street outside, paneled in woods of dusty red, red-brown and walnut. Hand-sized panels of the ever-bubbly glass inset in the outer walls threw afternoon sunbeams across long rolls of waxed paper and cloth, and the grizzled head of the man half-dozing on a stool behind a long toffee tinted glass counter. When Isael asked after his wares, the man behind the counter smiled, slid off his stool and stumped briefly into the back, emerging with a saucer supporting four pieces of fruit--something peeled of its thin skin and juicier than the peaches he’d had earlier--that had had gently warmed chocolate spooned over them.
He actually liked the way the bittersweet matched to the sweetness of the fruit, but the dark suited better for itself, and he said as much to the man.
It took a few minutes to make up the package, a block of only mostly solid dark cut away from a much larger sheet in the back and carried on a glass spatula to the spread out translucent paper, then folded up and tied with gray-blue twine cut from a spool kept near the slightly rickety stool. The shopkeeper asked to borrow Isael’s knife--utterly certain that Isael had one about his person--after a moment of searching for his own. Isael silently produced it from a pocket, along with a tiny bag of mixed coins, and passed both over.
After cutting the twine and returning the knife, “You’re a Sabaey, child,” the old man pronounced the name Sah-ba-ye, like it was something he was not a part of but respected immensely. “You could have anything in this shop for the asking--why offer your bits of silver?” he tapped the drawstrings of the bag, then pushed it back at Isael, along with the package.
Isael pulled out, then laid the coins--storyteller’s silver, something he was actually rather sure he would 'could,' the back of his mind insisted, not have earned before the last war--across the not quite even surface of the counter, looked up from them at the keeper. “Because I am not my father,” he said softly, “and I do not think he would offer nothing in return for such as what you offer me.”
The keeper laughed suddenly, caught up two of the middling sized, harp-backed coins and pushed the waxed-paper package across at Isael again. “You’re Ruadhan’s boy--the youngest.”
“What gave it away this time?” Isael asked, wry, as he slid the package into his rucksack, carefully between his cloth-wrapped wooden flute and the purple-fleshed apple he’d bought for the novelty value earlier in the afternoon.
“He had sideways manners for one of your kind, too.” The keeper tried to slide a few small coins back as change, and gave up, smiling, when Isael looked straight through them, eyes unfocused and contemplating the truffles through the bubbled glass of the counter.
After a moment, he dipped his head in a peculiar, smiling near-salute, then turned for the door and walked away.
“Enjoy, young man. And come back, if you ever want more!” he called, and Isael lifted a hand in acknowledgement as the glass and sun-faded wood door closed behind him.
He found an empty room eventually, one of the ones adjacent to the room that most people avoided. The staff whispered about ghosts, and only the sturdy ones would go in and actually clean the piano. Flightier girls would appear breathless in the kitchens, unmindful of anyone sitting at one of the tables with a sandwich, and say they'd heard something in the room.
He wouldn't mind if a ghost put in an appearance. It wouldn't be anything new, after all, and so he placed the wrapped bar on the sturdy table, just slightly off center, and concentrated, thinking of a name and of his gift at once.
His cousin popped out of thin air a few inches above the table, then dropped down crosslegged to sit next to the offering. Reached down, caught up the bar of candy and sniffed at it thoughtfully.
Flipped a small, filigree knife from a pocket as he unwrapped the chocolate one-handed, shaved off a precise, tiny curl, which he laid on his tongue and let dissolve before he asked, “and the icons aren’t good enough for you?”
“This way, I’m assured of an answer, Cousin.” He cracked a smile as his cousin laughed delightedly, his fangs unhidden and his hair a natural curly red. Aodh was dressed in a plain gray teeshirt and many pocketed nearly-the-same-shade-as-the-gift brown pants, trimmed in a dark red that reminded Isael of a cross between old drying blood and his cousin’s natural hair.
“And what would your question be, that gets me such offerings as this?” Aodh gestured with the package, eyebrows lifted in inquiry.
Isael took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, looking up at his cousin. “I need your help.”
The eyebrows lifted further, and Aodh tilted his head, in something that might be birdlike on someone else. “Oh, so?”
Isael bit off a sigh, and began listing out what he needed, and thought he might need. “I need to get out of this city--probably for a week or more, and I’d very much rather not be around people if I can possibly help it. So I need someplace safe, and a way to store food so I won’t accidentally poison myself if I’m not paying attention. You have some of the old card-keys, the ones Sebastién made--" he hesitated slightly as the corners of his cousin's mouth turned down, then forged on-- "before he figured out how to destroy them from a distance. I’d guess there’s one or two that might fit--he seems to like quiet, self-sufficient places. . . and if any one asks, you telling them that you borrowed me would be,” he bit his lip, “appreciated.”
“Conall ever finds out about this, he’s going to put me through another wall,” Aodh remarked conversationally, shaving another tiny curl of dark chocolate off the bar before it was stuffed away in a pocket--not the same pocket the knife had come from and disappeared into, Isael noted idly.
“That mean no?”
“Non,” the red head shook, shifting mid-shake to the spiky white thistle-fluff Isael had grown familiar with over long years. “You need the help, and you asked me.”
“You’re a much better liar than I am.”
Aodh turned slightly-too-gold eyes on him, head tilted a little to one side. “ . . . I deceive, cousin,” he said, distance deliberate, “You omit. There’s a difference between a lie of deception and a lie of omission, but both are lies.”
"Blank space is a little more obvious than verbal trap doors, Cousin," Isael replied after a moment of thought. " . . . And I haven't the reserves to make it anything else."
Aodh blinked at him, then nodded slightly, acknowledging the admission. "Give me a couple've days t'find a place with keys to and from, then call again."
"With--?" Isael gestured at the pocket the bar had disappeared into, and Aodh laughed.
"Use the keys, Cousin, or a cheaper grade. You needn't spend such expensive coin every time you wish t'get my attention."
"I needed an answer," another admission, one he forced past something he would not give the mental dignity of naming paranoia. "And I've the coin to spend."