Closed Part at Table, Part in Memory

[Philomena]

14 Winter, 512
Hurston House, Zeltiva
--------------------------

The House of Dr. Killian Hurston was large. Too large. The table, long enough for what Minnie figured was fiftyish guests was at least twelve feet from the walls, and the room was so boisterous, she remained convinced that the servants would sneak up behind her when she didn't expect it, and she'd end up upending a soup tureen, as she'd done at Aberdeen's house two years before. She had scouted the table, found her seat already. She was mashed not too far from the head, on the left hand side, next to a fellow she'd never heard of. Everto. At least it wasn't a rich name.

She knew everyone at the party, but frankly, wasn't terrifically glad to see any of them. Some of them were not a bad sort of folk, of course. But none of them were people who would understand a comfortable silence. Minnie peered around to see if she could figure who her partner at the table would be. She wandered through the crowd with a teacup in her hand, trying not to stop in any one place too long, as it meant people tried to pull her into conversations, trying not to stay moving too long, as it made her ruse too obvious.

Finally, the dinner gong bellowed, and Hurston made some sort of obnoxious speech peppered with Ancient-Tongue witticisms. //Sweet Myri's bum womb, that man is a percher// Minnie though, trying to pretend to smile pleasantly. Ms Hurston stood alongside, looking lovely in a slender black dress with blue glass beads along its hems. Minnie looked at her own hideous old trap of a salmon colored gown. It made her look as if she was nauseous all the time, but she'd steadfastly refused to pay for anything else.

"So, in conclusion, as the Great Capo Verdo once said," and the man chuckled a mirthless self-congratulatory chuckle, "Lets dig in. Oh and do try the pickled ginger! Just in from the Eypharians, last week."

Minnie shuffled to her seat, and sat down, staring stupidly at the spread of forks, knives spoons.

//Petch me, a lobster fork. Oh petching petch. I can't eat a lobster without looking like a fool.//

Minnie seriously considered acquiring a sudden stomach illness. //No, no, Minnie Lefting. Don't let petching Doris Hurston see you weak. The bitch.//

She reached a hand absently up and twiddled with the neckline of her dress, closing her eyes for a moment.

[Ignotus Everto]

"Having a bit of trouble with the forks, dear?" a rather reedy voice inquired in a tone overflowing with a curious mixture of amusement and sympathy. If Philomena elected to open her eyes, she'd find herself seated next to a man of unnatural pallor, and even more unnatural thinness. Dark bags like those found on one who had decided to brashly toss aside such conventions as sleep for a couple days ringed his eyes, which were themselves quite lifeless and static, and neither pulse nor breath disturbed his body. However, the man at least had the common decency to blink, albeit at intervals much longer than that of an ordinary human.

If Minnie cared to look around, she'd notice that half of the guests were regarding the Nuit (for that was all the man could be) with varying degrees of pleasant surprise, while the other half were smiling politely and trying not to turn away or grimace at the sight of a talking corpse. A little more than half of those people were looking at him with outright hostility.

However, there was no debating that he was a very well dressed corpse. A cloak of jet black fur cascaded like liquid from his shoulders, and a silver-tipped ebony cane lay across his lap, whilst a loose wool shirt and pants of the cloak's color kept his emaciated form well hidden. "Don't worry," the Nuit whispered with a mock-covert grin and a casual lean in Philomena's direction. "I have no idea what the difference is between these blasted things either. Food's overrated, really, if you ask me." A wry wink accompanied the last statement,
as the cadaver shifted back into his seat.

Of course, that wasn't all that accompanied it. A gentle brush of ease emanated from him as well. Nothing major. Simply the vague sense that made some people feel like "I can talk to this man." Just a bit of an icebreaker. Some struck up a casual conversation about precipitation and its future patterns, some recounted a long-winded story about a Benshira, an Akalak, and a Symenestra frequenting a tavern together, and this particular man trusted neither, and simply induced the emotion directly.

It was one of the most elementary tricks in Hypnotism, and it was one that the Nuit had perfected over a very long life, and an almost equally long unlife. "Ignotus Everto." he chirped, offering a hand clothed in a gleaming white glove of silk, while his grin softened into a genial smile. "And who do I have the great pleasure of being seated next to?"

Curiously, Philomena would find a faint of flattery flattery suffusing her. Ignotus was not a man of chance (unless necessary), and was quite determined to get off to a good start. And while a compliment would almost certainly bring pleasure in its own right, it was often superseded by nervousness, or, in some cases, abject terror in the shy. So why take chances? Again, it was not particularly potent; just enough to outshine any conflicting emotions. A little bit of an edge. That was all.

Ledger- ~85GM

[Philomena]

Minnie with the slightest, jangled start, turned, and opened her eyes, pushing her spectacles up her nose with a slowness that could suggest anything from cold disdain to mental deficiency, and anything in between. She peered at the man, with a vague, distracted air, the way that a parent might peer at a brightly plumed bird that child has asked about - //Hmmm... It seems familiar...//

Minnie's mind, on the other, the other playground for the man's ministrations was at once both easily jerked about, and difficult to navigate - the hypnotism is easy, the perception of the hypnotism's effects, perhaps, harder to predict. Two fingers prodded in - flattery, and approachability, both of them well formed and convincingly authentic in her little heart.

//I can talk to this one...// she thought //...oh petch it. Now I'll be expected to do so.//

Her face, to the close observer - but only the close, for Minnie was in the place of her greatest emotional reserve at the party - fell just slightly at that. Resignation, perhaps.

//He is flattering me? Of course, of course, but why would he flatter me before he knows my name? Wait... he probably does, just as I know his. Does he know my work?//

She lifted a hand, a slightly chubby hand. The skin on it was raw and red, the color and texture of a washer-woman's, and bore the same faint smell of harsh lye soap. Said soap had, perhaps, been partly effective, but not entirely, in its goals. Her fingertips were, each, a faint green-grey-black of hastily faded ink-stains, the color, combined with the red of her skin and the hideous pink of the dress, conspiring to make her look terrifically unwell.

She speaks, then, the first time. The bit of resigned confidence, and the flattery, leaves her voice, perhaps, a hint less apologetic and powerless than otherwise. Instead her voice came in a nasal, childlike drone of sound, muttered almost, and quiet, but its palatal vibrations making it pierce unpleasantly, "Doctor Lefting, of the Department of Literature. I have... heard... your name before? I have. But not... you are not a member of the faculty."

Her hand, at least, seemed confident enough, even beyond being flattered. The coldness of the man's fingers through the silk gloves neither startled nor displeased - they existed simply as a fact. Nuit are, what Nuit are. Minnie had none of the skill of the socialite, but she understood in the abstract the forms thereof, and once the Nuit took her fat-birdy little hand, she nodded slightly, just as one ought, though with a clumsy, ill-at-ease gracelessness, and waited, limp-dead-fish in the man's hand, to be properly released. There was something birdy about the whole aspect of her, her beaky-bony nose, her compactness, greasy irregularity of her hair, the way her eyes showed more iris than white. She looked, as it were, like a dusty barn swallow, perched into its shoulders against the rain.

[Ignotus Everto]

Fortunately for Philomena, the undead did not search for attractive mates, nor was this one fond of physical contact. Once the pleasantries were over, the professor's hand was unceremoniously dropped. "No, just a scholar. I suppose my only claim to fame is being rich, some might say, and giving those riches elsewhere. Namely the poor and dispossessed. Every season. I'm paid surprisingly well for my work, and more than half of it goes right back into the city. This season, it was the orphanages. The next, I think I will help the Denvali integrate. They deserve much more than ramshackle huts, don't you think Doctor?"

It wasn't a conscious decision, of course, that led Ignotus to repeat his own words in a casual conversation. He had assumed the orphans long dead. And certainly nowhere near such a cosmopolitan party. Besides, thirty years was time enough for a phrase to regain its freshness!

The Nuit's voice dripped with self-satisfaction, but then, in his mind at least, why shouldn't it? He worked hard to get to where he was! Nobody gave him the slightest assistance. If anything, they did everything in their power to make sure he was dead before his time. And now he had outwitted and outlived them all. Who would have thought, in the end, it would be the same art that freed him forever from the curses and cuffs of the fishermen's boys that would make him so wealthy that he was now providing aid for the very children he grew up among?

Of course, it wasn't enough for Ignotus that he thought he was amazing. No, everyone around him had to agree as well. Luckily for the Hypnotist's ego, respect and awe too, could be manufactured.

[Philomena]

Minnie drew her hand back, into her lap, now, with a bland, poorly composed smile. Seh scanned the man as closely as her clumsy skill would allow, trying to catch the hints of mannerism, of speech, that tell one how to effectively melt into the background of another person's speech. The clothes... showy, arrogant. More the sort of clothes one buys, perhaps, to prove that one can, more flamboyant than fashionable. Minnie was not an expert on fashion, not by a far cry. But the life of a professor was a social one, and one learned to tell, perhaps the difference between one who wishes to be respectable and one who wishes to be noticed.

//Well, I should be able to understand that, after all. I'm not exactly a petching jolly-shift wearer, am I, with my castoff dresses?//

As she said so, she tugged thoughtlessly at the scarf - almost the same shade of salmon, but irritatingly not quite - wrapped around her neck. A red scar peeked out the corner, and her birdlike hands fluttered about the cloth, resettling it. The man began to speak, and Minnie actually felt herself relaxing, almost, at first.

//Ah, he's simply pompous. Pompous shouldn't be too hard, Minnie. Just like a magic professor, they don't want you to respond, just nod and smile, and seem awestruck. We can manage that, we can --//

And then she stopped, abruptly.

To a very discerning eye, it would, perhaps, be immediately visible - Minnie has experience in remaining empty-faced in social gatherings, that being her natural mode in such a place, but not perhaps a natural gift for it. The slight tautening of the muscles of the face, the sudden sharpening of the focus of the eye, even, under the hideous salmon frock, a little catch in the inhalation of her breast.

Her bland smile was perhaps just a little more pasted on, now - but then, the pasted quality was not so unnatural given the artificality of her entire repertoire at a dinner.

//The poor and dispossessed... no... no. That's silly. Its not an uncommon phrase. Its in Lancome, after all isn't it? "These hungry streets devour no food, but the bodies of the poor and dispossessed." But... then, there is that little rhythm to it, the way he scoops through the word poor, almost like a poor opera-actor, I... oh hush yourself, Minnie. That's silly. But... he is a Nuit...//

"Yes, Mr... Ay-ver-tow? Is that how you say it?" Her voice, though kept carefully within the bounds of her University intonations, is not the voice of an actress, just a common code-switcher. And the code-switcher, she will always out. The last name, unfamiliar to her, she stumbles through not so much... mispronouncing it as saying it the way it might be pronounced by a Dock-boy or a Loving-girl. Not someone who grew up on The Hill. The way, perhaps fishermen's children might pronounce it. She stumbles past the name quickly, though, sounding nervous to offend.

"Yes, I... Dr. Hurston has spoken of such things, too, houses and better streets. A start, I think, but I have wondered... if we wish to make them part of the city, we must teach them to be Zeltivan. Teach them to sail Zeltivan ships. Make shipper-students of some of their children."

The use of the term 'shipper-students' for children who attend the University on scholarship dates her a bit - it is a term now out of vogue - and perhaps in a subtle way classifies her - someone of a higher class of the proper age would certainly know the term, but would have used it mockingly, in general, or condescendingly.

[Ignotus Everto]

Philomena's look of resignation had, due to its similarity to what she was feeling before speaking to the undead dining beside her, sailed over Ignotus' head. That was already an awful mistake on his part. However, Ignotus was, in many senses, a predator, and if there was one thing predators were quite good at, it was sensing fear. Perhaps it was his encounter with a very special Konti during the quest to Sahova that made him so sensitive to surprise.

A quick nod regarding the pronunciation of his name. That was unimportant. What was important was measuring every last drop of sweat on the woman's brow. Did she have the Konti's abilities? Was she just afraid of Nuit? Was it something he said?

So intent was Ignotus on analyzing his target, that he had forgotten to blink. Nuit were known for a rather unsettling stare, and with Ignotus appearing to be appraising a piece of clockwork with Philomena, it was easy to see why. The mention of shipper students brought him out of his trance, however. "I suppose. They may not want to become Zeltivan, however. Teaching them to sail never hurt someone, however. And shipper-students..." the wizard grinned, "There's nothing better."

Ignotus had never been rich until recently. Whilst the term was common enough when he was a boy, especially in the Library, it was nothing to scoff at. "I was a shipper student once, if I dare say among this lot." Ignotus murmured with a giggle.

A little joke between them. Something to make her feel like they were at the same level. Augmented, of course, by a thin fog of Djed twisting around them. She could talk to this man. They were of the same class! Not just ease this time, but openness hung on Ignotus' voice. A soft whisper in the back of Philomena's mind. Relax and actually converse... Where was the hurt?

[Philomena]

A servant ronuded the table, boredly, a girl of perhaps fifteen, her occaisional remarks revealing a set of mildly rotten teeth. She had in her arms, a tray filled with slices of raw, cold tuna, and tiny bowl filled with tiny bits of pickled ginger in the middle. The smell of it filled the room, exhuded each time the little silver spoon carved a few razor-slices of it out, and carried by the breath of those guests closer to the head who nibbled at it on lentil-toasts with raw tuna-fish. Minnie hated the smell. She had eaten the stuff once before, it was something like a mix between a blown rose and a bladderwrack, with the texture of the bones in a pickled herring. She watched the plate go around, and sighed.

The man beside her... she could not say she relaxed. There is what one thinks and wishes, and then there is the habit of years, the knots of neurosis, which would take a good long time to undo. And neurosis said - parties are terrifying and unpleasant, and very dangerous. But, she did feel a certain lightening of the load on her heart that the name had made. And whoever he was, whatever he was it paid to be pleasant.

"Oy..." she muttered under her breath leaning just slightly toward him, "A good day to be a Nuit, Mr. Everto - they'll leave your plate empty, I imagine. How people get it into their heads to eat that stuff is a great mystery to me. When did you study at University? Have you been on faculty? I... you'll forgive me, I..." she blushes just a touch, but there's that little whisper - //Don't worry so much Mins. He knows street-blunt speech, this one does//, so she manages, "You know, it is so hard to tell a Nuit's age. For all I know we could have been colleagues - though... you are East Wing, nae?"

[Ignotus Everto]

Ignotus laughed, perhaps a little too loudly, if the wrinkled noses and narrowing eyes of the guests immediately surrounding him were any indicator. "Aye, that's true. I suppose it makes them feel 'refined.'" the Nuit sneered, "Balderdash if you ask me. I grew up among fishers, if you waved that trite in front of any of them, they'd laugh in your face."

When she asked him questions regarding his age and time in the University, the wizard had to stop and think. How long had he been studying? "That's... A good question..." Again, Ignotus stopped blinking and began to tap absentmindedly at his chin as he tried to pin down an exact date. After five ticks had passed and the answer still eluded him, he decided it would be better to simply give a rough estimate. "I suppose I started about... Fifty years ago? There are gaps, but that seems about right."

The undead smiled faintly at Philomena when she remarked on the difficulty of tracking a Nuit's age, "Don't worry about it, dear. I have trouble telling too, sometimes."
Another nod regarding the East Wing. "I studied language for a short while, but my heart and soul go to magic- Literally." Another short chuckle. The joke would be lost on most nonwizards, but there was always a chance that Minnie knew what Djed was.

[Philomena]

She nods thoughtfully, chuckles at the mention of fishermen. The little tickle of Djed in her mind, combined with her nervousness sent her into a little tittering iggle, and perhaps loosened her lips too much.

"I think I'm not meant for all this, honestly. I grew up in the Kennel, you know, so I was eating whatever your fishermen cast off at the end of the day. Whole-bread was a luxury, white bread unthinkable, I had it... maybe thrice in my life. This strange business of taking perfectly good bread and overcooking it and smearing it with something that stinks... well, it feels awfully backwards to me, honestly."

She heard herself say the words, and they tickled, nagging at the back of her mind, but there was that other thread... //Minnie, you're alone here, noone else at this table wants to hear you. Don't drive away the only person who doesn't think you're a bore, simply because you're nervous about some childhood escapade.//

She smiled, thus, and chuckled, just slightly more inhibited now, at his little joke. She did not know magic, but she did know poetry.

"Like the Ballad of the Animator's Apprentice:

My lassie is a curvy lass, her locks are long and naughty,
I loved her long in a room alone, for she need not bring her body,
My other loves, had needs, and souls, and soon grew foul and fickle,
My Djeddy-lass, wished none of this - and she knew just where to tickle,
For mine is the heart that beat in her, and she ne'er can wish me trouble -"

She blushes, but smiles, "And then it only gets saucier from there - they probably dun' teach 'at one to the young mages in East - they'd ne'er get their real homework done."

[Ignotus Everto]

The smile on Ignotus' face only broadened when Philomena mentioned growing up in the Kennel. "Ah, another child of the slums! I really must apologize for not being able to haul in more as a boy- Casinors can be so very expensive to maintain. Even more so when they're used." A twinkle in the Nuit's eye, a steepling of his fingers. "It does my heart good to see I wasn't the only one who rose above the station they were born in. Though I confess, the more I spend around these people, the more I suspect half the things they do are just to confuse those at the bottom."

Another pulse of Djed, this one slightly stronger than the others. Another suggestion. She and Ignotus were the only sane ones here. The rest were... Outsiders. It would almost certainly manifest in different words in Philomena's mind, but the spirit of the message remained. Us versus them. It was entirely subliminal, of course- but that was what made it so potent.

Minnie's poem brought another peal of laughter from the Nuit.
"I'll have you know not all Animators use their children to pleasure themselves!" Ignotus exclaimed with a grin. "Mayhaps they don't teach it in the East Wing, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't. Might motivate some of the lazier students."

Evidently, bawdy poems of magic and shared mockery of the idle rich had drawn some attention, as Mrs. Hurston, who had by then meandered near their table, decided to interject a perfectly good conversation with, "Found yourself a gent, have you Minnie?" The nickname was used mockingly. An expression of contempt instead of affection. She gave Ignotus a quick once-over before smirking and saying, "He suits you." The implications were obvious.

While Ignotus was usually quite tolerant of corpse jokes, this was a different matter. He disliked being used as a tool for ridicule, but he also saw an opportunity in the woman's spite. "A shame you can't get along as well with your husband as she can with a dead man."

It was only perceptible to the sensitive and extremely observant, but power rippled from Ignotus. For the briefest moment, it was as if a draft of electrically charged wind washed over the room. Almost in time with it, those that heard Ignotus displayed some degree of amusement. Some laughed, some snickered into their sleeves and kerchiefs, and some simply smiled. While Mrs. Hurston stood there, red faced and livid, Ignotus took the short cover of laughter to whisper to Philomena, "While I shouldn't use magic for parlor tricks, our hostess seems to have an ego that needs deflating. But how much?"