had_not_lived | ♕ |[39]| And pay meet adoration to my household gods

There are so many deals. So many, many deals. The papers for them all all fall all across my desk and make new mountain ranges, ghosts crowded beneath the eaves. Stretched among snowy soot chimneys, booming over air-shafts, too tenuous themselves for sound, dry now forever in this wet gusting, stretched and never breaking, whipped in a glassy French-curve chase across the rooftops, along the silver downs, skimming where the sea combs freezing in to shore. They gather, thicker as the days pass, so many jostling in the night, memories unloosening into the winter, seeds that will never take hold, so lost, now only an every-so-often word, a clue for the living--"Foxes" will call someone across astral spaces, the word intended for another who is not present, who won't be told because the few Psi Section who're there to hear it get cryptic debris of this sort every sitting, the sound too late, after the blast, a ghost calling to ghosts newly made. Then silence. Another event, another round-headed pin to be stuck in a map or a list, a square graduating from two up to three hits, helping fill out the threes prediction, which lately's been lagged behind.

A pin? Not even that, a pinhole in paper that someday will be taken down, when the papers has stopped its falling, when the stars have stopped their falling, or when some statistician chooses to end his count, paper to be hauled away bt the charwomen, turn up, burned.

And now, sneezing here over my dimming and diminishing desk, the barking from the kennels flat now and diminished by heat and distance, shaking my head no, inside me, in my memory, more than an "event," but our common mortality, these tragic days.

I have the Book, to remind myself that of an original seven, there is now one owner left. The five ghosts are strung in clear escalation: I can name them, and there is no sense but terror's, all skin aching, for the mounting sophistication of this, for the dialect it seems to imply.

Fuck it. The mummy's curse or whatever.

Remind me again which deal it was?

Oh. ~~Kind of pretty, even if I don't understand all of it...~~

Well, sir... My friend Todd and I-- we made a deal a while ago, to share his life between us? It goes back and forth, every week?

~~Pretty words, pretty sounds, if I made up a language and told you what it was, you'd all believe me.~~

I remember that one.
I like that one.

It's been better than I could have hoped, sir. But... well, I wanted to know-- if I wanted to cancel it and put things the way they were, give Todd back all of his life, would that be possible?

It would be.

I wonder what he'd say about it, though.

Well... right at first he might be upset but I think once I explain things...

~~I don't know how much to say, though they seem to know everything here anyway...~~

I was hoping to make it a surprise, sir.

You know the example they always give in schools about dramatic irony? That story, "The Gift of the Magi," where the husband sells his watch to buy hair combs for his wife and the wife sells her hair to buy a watch chain for her husband--let's hope we don't spiral down that route. It's so melodramatic.

I dislike melodrama.

It's also an imposition on me, so I will have to demand a little fee. The surprise is easy to arrange.

I hope we don't either. Thank you sir. Let's see...

~~I figured there'd have to be something... It has to be worth losing, for a while at least, for them to accept it. Let's see.~~

I'm not sure what I can give up that's of value. Poetry? All of it. For... ~~a mo-- no, I can't last a whole month, maybe I could... it's not making a deal, it's breaking one, would he take less?~~

Two weeks? It might not sound like the biggest thing, sir, but it's one of the most important there is to me.

[ooc; <3 I hope that's okay? He'll be selectively blind/deaf to anything presented to him and unable to say or write any. I'd go a full month if preferred but I had plans for a curse late in the month |D]|

You're such an addict.

Fine. No poetry for you for two weeks. A strict diet of prose. You might learn to love the old art of essays. You'll probably go for painting first, though.

Or maybe dance.

Now that would be something.

Come sign the papers, I'll add them to the file, and you'll be set.

~~I can do that. He's done much more for me, it's hardly anything in comparison.~~

It will certainly give me a reason to read something different. Thank you, sir. I can't say how much I appreciate it. I'll sign.

[ooc; midnight tonight would be preferable? <3 i don't think he could wait til the next switch without exploding, haha. thankyou :D]

A worthwhile expansion of thought.

I feel downright generous in this edification of, well, you.

Forms are waiting, triplicate and carbon paper--because no one knows anything without pretty colors.

I'm glad to hear that.

[pause]

The fountain would do. You pick the hour, as it suits you.

I can be there in about twenty minutes, if that's all right with you? All that really matters is it's before midnight, I guess.

That will be fine. Twenty minutes.

[ooc; assume or action, either is fine with me bb <3]

Neil runs most of the way to the fountain, though he doesn't really need to; it's just that his excitement about this arrangement lends an artificial urgency to his actions. As if the time he saves now will make midnight come any quicker. The thought, rather than slowing his pace, makes him push all the harder, heart pounding and lungs burning. It's a glorious exertion; and since Todd first lent him his heartbeat Neil has reveled in these sensations in ways he never would have thought to, though certainly he should have. He doesn't take it for granted now-- not only because the cost is so high, but because the raw regret he feels over forfeiting his life doesn't allow that sort of complacency.

It's more like fifteen minutes, then, before he arrives with flushed cheeks and heavy breaths, looking for the star.

When she arrives it isn't difficult to spot Neil, not only because there are only a few people milling about but because he is the only one who looks as though he is searching for someone, expecting of something. To a stranger it could be anything at all--a moment, a person, a change of the weather, anything. Having come here knowing what for, the star does not wonder as she approaches on mostly silent feet. The slight presence of light that emanates from her almost constantly, enough to be a pinprick of silver in the distance of any darkness, tonight tinges itself a bit warmer, and it is both interesting and strange to feel good about something. She has not felt that in quite some time, and however much this applies to her life even before she fell from the sky is something she tries not to dwell on.

Stars are not meant to walk like this and the world should not change to suit the thing that fell into it just because the circumstances were out of her control.

This, she knows.

It is some relief to her that she can do this one thing, make this one change, and in this respect she thanks Tristan Thorn of Wall. He could have left it to anyone. Rosella comes to mind, but for whatever reason, he left it to the star. Maybe he felt badly, she supposes, for having left without her. He did seem to have changed a little, though she could not put her finger on it before he was already gone. Now, it is too late to know.

But it is not too late to make use of a gift.

"Hello," she greets him first, pausing just a couple of feet away, a simple white box framed in her pale hands. All of her must seem rather light compared to the dark blue of a simple dress given to her by a shopkeeper who decided it couldn't belong to anyone else. Even the pale gold of her hair seems threaded with that silver quality of light, but it is the kind of shine that one catches out of the corner of one's eye more than directly facing it.

It doesn't take long at all to match face to name, for any number of reasons. The simplest being, of course, that she seems certain of who he is and who else would be looking? To say nothing of the fact that, knowing he's looking for a star, it's difficult to mistake her for anything else. The realization does make him catch his breath a little; though why not, here. And a faint, clouded memory-- that same unearthly light glimpsed through the fractures of teary lashes, nearly forgotten under the weight of a false and fleeting sorrow-- suddenly makes that much more sense.

"Yvaine," he says simply, with a slight half-bow because she triggers a reflex for respect, a little smile obviously tinged by nerves. It isn't that he doesn't trust her; just the suddenness of all this, it's too grand and good to seem entirely real, and half the time since she promised him his life he's spent expecting to wake up and find this all a figment of his imagination, or of a curse.

And yet, here she is; if he can remember this moment, he'll write a poem about it. In a couple of weeks, when he can.

"I..." He takes a step closer, with no idea what to say, trying not to stare at what she holds because that would be uncouth and ungrateful. Still. So close to something he's dreamed of for over a year, enthusiasm wins out again and he breaks into a wide grin.

"I just... I know I'm repeating myself, but thank you, again..."

[ooc; jgfsdg pardon the lateness i totally passed out a while >>]

Some of his nerves she can sense just by looking at him, and it occurs to her that she isn't as bad at reading people as she thought. Tristan Thorn had a way of aggravating her to the point that she couldn't even read herself of course, and that being her main comparison, she supposes she shouldn't be surprised. It is a thought she had on the way to this place of meeting, that the thing she offers is too great to be believed, but the item itself will prove its worth and authenticity, so in the end she feels no need to knit together an explanation that might support it more in any man's eyes. Let its action be the proof.

His bow catches her unexpectedly and it is the strangest thing to feel both so very new and so very old all at once, to be aware of her heart beating in a human chest, and the way her human fingers frame the white box housing something precious and singular.

"You're welcome," she replies but it could be courtesy over something as simple as a smile even though it isn't. It is less that she thinks of life lightly and more that she finds herself aware that thanks can so quickly become some near-cousin of guilt if one feels too indebted, so she treats it with a quiet normalcy, not for lack of reverence but because there are many things about life that should be expected. To have it, is not one of them, typically, but perhaps here it can be. She has seen lives unjustly taken for centuries and others simply lived through without appreciation for them, which ultimately she feels amounts to the same kind of waste. For just as long, she has not had any effect on those lives one way or the other, though often enough she wished she could even if she had no idea as to how or what might come of her own involvement; a star with no real place on the earth, because stars are meant to shine and guide from a distance. Immortals seem often to have that in common.

"Here, it's...I suppose you eat it," she frowns briefly, not having really looked for instructions, but some things are implied. Even she thinks so as she stretches both hands out, palms open with the small white box perched there. Unassuming, understated, but not a trick, and in her own way, the star is eager to have it out of her possession--the last connection here between herself and a boy from Wall she could not make sense of for the life of either of them. Perhaps she was not meant to, she muses privately but as soon as she thinks such a thing she has the immediate contradiction that says it isn't that simple. But most things aren't.

He hesitates just a moment before reaching for the box, not disbelieving but rather bowled over by the immensity of the gift. In a way he's glad they aren't so close; it's easier to justify as something impartially miraculous. More or less. Gently, he takes it from her, cupped in his own hands; small and light and delicate. It seems appropriate.

After affording it a moment's contemplation he looks up to meet her eyes, not certain what more there is to say; she's so earnest in her graciousness that any further repetition of his thanks would just sound forced and faltering.

"I'll put it to good use," he promises, almost before he thinks the words. The past year has given him some perspective, and though he feels it's still true that he lived more in the months leading up to his death than in the years before it, he was by no means at the end of what he might have experienced. He has the City, now; and though it's not the same, he won't make the mistake of giving it up again.

Relief is both a surprise and welcome when the poet uses his words with thought, with care. Even had he thanked her, she would not have seen it as forced or faltering but because the gift-giving item came into her possession without her having done much in the way to earn it herself, she would feel it to be inaccurately accredited. Yes, she gives something grand, something priceless but it is in all truth at no cost to herself, so too much gratitude would be something she cannot much work with, nor knows what to do with otherwise, so the promise is all the better. That very thing reinstates the feeling that she is giving this to the right person too, but this she keeps to herself. A more patient star, a wiser one maybe, or just an older one would have waited perhaps, persisted in a more thorough search, but even with all her hundreds of years, Yvaine sometimes feels young.

Especially here where she feels she knows less and less of herself every day.

But Neil gives her something back, even if he doesn't know it.

The opportunity to experience what it is like to change someone's life for the better. However literal it is, that is all the more reason to recognize it. She could not do this, those long decades in the sky watching ill upon ill befall people who did not deserve it, or people in bad places who had no way of knowing a light waited just around the next corner. A star's song, though beautiful, though transporting, cannot reach those beneath the heavens, unless of course the star herself is there, but at the time this seemed first a fancy, and later on a bitter distance as she turned away.

"I know," is what she says to him, because it is what she intuits, and so rarely does she intuit things about humans she knows she must believe it. A moment passes, filtered with evening breeze and the dim sound of others in the periphery as blue eyes settle on the hands now holding the box. Something else should be said, it occurs to her, but it takes her another second to catch onto her own thought, her own meaning. "I hope your time here may be as you want it," she tells him, quiet but not frail, strong but between the lines. There is much to be had in that wish, that hope; circumstance of course, but hinging all of it as so often it is, is time. She has the feeling they both know it. No one better understands the finality of days or even years like someone who has already lost them, except perhaps someone who cannot lose them.

What a funny pair, she thinks, peculiar perhaps the better word, and she smiles a little at him. They can part ways, but in his own way, the boy seems so careful with his words and gratitude as to need time of his own in this instance, so she does not immediately take her leave, lingering in case he has anything else to say, though she hopes he understands that he doesn't need to. Yvaine expects nothing of him but for the poet to uphold that promise of his. It will be more than enough.

Looking down, there's a certain distance in his eyes; though not a sorrowful one. Even knowing rationally that life here is wholly out of his control, that there's no way to keep the curses at bay and no way to predict when and how one might leave, Neil has the sense-- driven more by willpower than any knowledge of destiny-- that neither he nor Todd are going home, ever. He knows there are days and years ahead of him; good and bad, curses and blessings, friends he's yet to meet. The glimpse of a man he thought he'd never have a chance to be, reconsidered in the light of a new future. Things he can't say or even properly consider, the awkward and immeasurable experience of being young and in love. It's idealized and romanticized, certainly; and pressed for it he'd have to admit that he doesn't know, can't know what the future holds for anyone. But it is the habit of the young to believe their own immortality; and though Neil knows all too well how misleading that can be, granted a second chance he intends to make things work.

This remains inchoate and unexpressed, save as a gleam of joyous determination in his gaze as he raises it again to meet Yvaine's, his will to live deep and suck the marrow out of each day, the affirmation of something he's believed for a long while now but has only come to wholly understand recently.

His fingers folded around the box he smiles back at her, wordlessly overwrought. Emotionally he's too raw, too frenzied with a joy that's been built up in secret over time, to speak; the sort of thing that climbs mountains and cries over the rooftops with the sheer joy of being, unable to be contained by the patterns of language and thought. It's entirely the right matter and the wrong mood for poetry, the emotion meant to be reflected upon in later tranquility. He'll get there in time. For now he'll simply live it.

"I should," he begins, a little color to his cheeks for no obvious reason, and pauses, shifting a little in his stance, feeling almost electric. It isn't that he's eager to shake her company-- far from it-- but he wants to run and leap, to howl with bacchanal fierceness. He nearly laughs at his own inadequate tongue. "I should probably get home, so Todd doesn't catch me coming in with it. I wanted to surprise him," he explains, in a low and conspiratorial tone.

Her nod to him is almost imperceptible but no less sincere for it.

"Go," she smiles. Though she doesn't know enough of her own smile to recognize the feeling of it or the result, this is the smile of an old friend despite barely knowing Neil at all. Some of it comes of the gift being proffered and accepted, and some of it simply comes of one being a star and the other a human, and a boy at that. There are stories in every world, fairytales or bedtime yarns that invoke the kind of magic here, adorning it with extra flares of shine and enormity, but there is none of that additional pomp here. The gratitude is too raw and the relief--for her--is such an exhale as only happens with the deepest of breaths. "And take care," she adds while turning away, glancing over a blue-cloaked shoulder. It carries a weight to it, bevels at the edges as the things that mean more than one, maybe more than two things tend to. Neither condescension nor a warning, one may sum it up as a wish and nothing more, careful not to forget, however, what the wish substantiates.

She doesn't mean to take care of the mushroom itself, after all. That goes without saying. There is what follows: the life returned. This is what she refers to and she neither lingers physically nor dwells mentally on whether or not the poet understands. He would not have made the promise he just did otherwise. For some this gift is too grand, too good to be true and even, if it is true, somehow undermined by her willingness to give it, but Yvaine will never see it that way. Sometimes the most any being can hope for is that once in a while good things happen to good people, or non-people as it were. This, she believes she has witnessed tonight and if she must justify her relinquishing of the life with something earned on her own behalf, then that is what she would say. Of course, there is no one to ask, so the point is moot as much as a point can be, but she tells herself that is fine too. Supposing she does ever return to the sky, she ought to get used to it again. Even among her sisters with their mother the moon, even then in the midst of countless other souls, there was loneliness and if not that, the stark reality of often being alone. Easier to be the benevolent stranger, simpler, and this instance at least has given her reason to walk away with her head held high and her own heart a bit softer. The light around her departing figure previously a barely-there shimmer does fairly glow now, a full-body halo of silver-gold in the dark.

♕ |[39]| And pay meet adoration to my household gods

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a bit later than late in the day...more like sunset...

<3

<333 ty for the comment btw i HAD been refreshing but /braindistraction ioejwdfkls

np. And I like action, so why not? <33

It sings to me sweetly from the trees and in vowels...

It sings to me sweetly from the trees and in vowels...

It sings to me sweetly from the trees and in vowels...

It sings to me sweetly from the trees and in vowels...

It sings to me sweetly from the trees and in vowels...

It sings to me sweetly from the trees and in vowels...

It sings to me sweetly from the trees and in vowels...