[ with weyland in nyc ]

[tragic_mask]

They step through the door, and find themselves on the cracked sidewalk outside of a lively bar. A sign glows: "Blue Owl."

It's nighttime, but the city still glows with all kinds of light, and shakes with the noise of honking, shouting, music, the clinking of glasses, all blending together into the cacophony and symphony of the city.

Melpomene looks around. "Well, we're back... Right where I started."

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[mechanicalswans]

"I hope I'm not disturbing your solitude, then," he says, and takes another drag on the cigarette. "That you're in the mood for at least a small bit of company tonight. Your hair is very shiny in the moonlight, you know--quite beautiful."

[tragic_mask]

"No, no," she says, pulling him towards her to bask as well. "Solitude doesn't have to be enjoyed by just one person at a time.

[mechanicalswans]

He wraps his non-cigarette-holding arm around her waist, leaning lightly against her.

"We've got shared solitude, then," he says. "Alone together--there is us, and then there is the rest of the world, outside this park. Let the rest of the world stay out there."

[tragic_mask]

"Yes," she says, leaning her head on his shoulder, "It's quite poetic, really."

[mechanicalswans]

"There are moments of poetry now and then, I have found."

He leans his head against hers, relaxing. "There just isn't always someone to share them with, or a reason to mention them aloud, that's all."

[tragic_mask]

"It's good to seize them when they do come around."

[mechanicalswans]

"Live for the moment," he murmurs. "Enjoy them, but not cling to them to the avoidance of newer beautiful moments. And... I find it helps to not try to write the poetic moments down."

[tragic_mask]

"A hard thing to tell someone like me," she says. "I always want to immortalize the moments with words. It seems they last longer that way..."

[mechanicalswans]

"But your words are more beautiful than mine," he says. "Mine are a craftsman's words, while yours are your craft. There's a difference."

[tragic_mask]

"You're right about that."

Melpomene sits on the grass, pulling him with her. "Come sit with me. The grass here is like a blanket, and you can see the fireflies better, flickering in the darkness."

[mechanicalswans]

"See what I mean?" he asks, settling in beside her, one arm draped lazily around her shoulders. "Even something so simple as that, you make into poetry."

[tragic_mask]

She rests her head on his chest, watching the night lights.

"Well, that's how I see things. Poetry is... truth. Or maybe truth is poetry. Or both," she muses.

[mechanicalswans]

"It makes it more permanent," he says softly. "A man can do things--wondrous, or cruel--but if there has been no poem, no song to tell others about it, it's almost as though it didn't happen. How many people have lived without living, because they had no poems..."

[tragic_mask]

"Poetry makes a man immortal... and makes him a hero, or makes him the villain, depending on the way the words are spun."

[mechanicalswans]

"And sometimes both," he says.

He takes another drag on his cigarette. "Mine managed a bit of both. A little weighted toward the hero side of things, but not pure."

[tragic_mask]

"The flawed protagonist?" she murmurs.

[mechanicalswans]

"Like that, yes."

He blows a smoke ring, and watches it float upward in the moonlight.

"But the flawed ones, I find, are more realistic and interesting than those who never struggle with themselves."

[tragic_mask]

"The flaws are what make them interesting. Like Turkish rugs, or something."

She watches the smoke arc upwards, follows it with a ring of her own.

[mechanicalswans]

"I think that's what people want of their gods, too," he says, contemplatively. "If your gods are too perfect, you'll feel like you can never even compare--not that they ought to be comparing themselves, but it's human nature. They want to feel that their flaws, their moments of weakness don't make them too imperfect."

[tragic_mask]

"So that explains it then," she says, a touch wryly. "Why we're not omniscient, and the rest."

[mechanicalswans]

"I don't believe that the God of Abraham can exist--and not just a matter of workplace rivalry, but because no living thing can be perfect. Nothing at all can be so perfect, not even a god."

He smiles. "But here we are."

[tragic_mask]

"Certainly it is possible to live in a perfect moment. Even as a god."

She shuts her eyes, and listens to the chirping of unseen grasshoppers and the wind.

[mechanicalswans]

"Its perfection would only be marred by its finite nature, but if it lasted forever... that too would make it imperfect."

He kisses the top of her head lightly, before taking another drag on the cigarette.

[tragic_mask]

She agrees has nothing to add, so she lets the comfortable silence seep in.

[mechanicalswans]

It's a very comfortable silence, to him.

Some silences are awkward and vulnerable, and need to be filled for fear of giving too much away. This one is much more familiar, more gentle, and he knows that that fact should make him uncomfortable, and yet... it doesn't.