[ 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."

Comments

[mechanicalswans]

"Planning to get a pet?" he asks, idly toying with her hair. "I could see you having a snake, mysterious and oracular and all. Or possibly a dog, but not one of those that women carry in their purses. Hunting or herding dogs."

[tragic_mask]

"Well, I used to have a dog. A great big bear of a dog. But no. Now I just go to look at the birds in their cages. It's very metaphorical, you know."

[mechanicalswans]

"I used to have hunting dogs," he says. "I suppose technically I still do, or rather the court does, but I wouldn't keep them in an apartment; so I have mechanical pets instead. Do you like birds?"

[tragic_mask]

"They're pretty, if useless. A beautiful part of nature."

[mechanicalswans]

"I'm quite fond of them."

He rests his head on her shoulder again. "I used to be able to turn into one. I can't, anymore."

[tragic_mask]

"Really? What changed?"

She imagines being able to fly, and losing that power. It's crushing.

[mechanicalswans]

"I was crippled," he says softly. "And the prosthetics I made to make up for it, they make me much too heavy as a bird. I would need to make something else, to compensate for that, and there is the trouble with being a metalworker. Anything else I could make, would make me even heavier and less able to fly."

[tragic_mask]

Oh, yes. She remembers now. "I'm sorry. I have never flown. Sometimes I wish I had wings, because I could see things from up high, from far away."

[mechanicalswans]

"It's wonderful up there," he whispers. "When the weather is nice, you can see very far--at home it was even more wonderful, the view over the mountains and the sea. And there's a certain excitement to being tossed by a storm, powerless but struggling."

[tragic_mask]

She closes her eyes again, imagining. "There is something romantic in the fight, I'm sure."

[mechanicalswans]

"There's something romantic, I find, in being powerless, but only if it's voluntary. I suppose it's the only sort of rebellion of that kind allowed to us--to me, anyway."

[tragic_mask]

"Seems a bit ironic." Melpomene's always one to pull out a literary term at an unexpected time.

[mechanicalswans]

"Irony," he says softly, eyes closed, voice devoid of emotion. "There is nothing I want more than to have an ordinary job, ordinary house, ordinary wife, ordinary life--and at the end of it, to die. And these things, I can never have. There is your irony."

[tragic_mask]

It's terrifying, the sudden drop. As she regains her voice, she runs a hand gently through his hair, brow knit.

"I know that one well enough."

[mechanicalswans]

"We should find a place somewhere," he whispers, as though afraid to say it properly aloud. "Someone else's world where neither of us is a god, and just... be ordinary, for a while. Take a weekend off, let a semblance of ordinary life take the place of longing, even if it isn't real."

[tragic_mask]

There's a silence. Then: "Where would we go?"

[mechanicalswans]

"Anywhere," he says. "The past, the future, any part of the world, any part of some other planet. Wherever people go, wherever no people go."

[tragic_mask]

"Well, we can't go into the past of this world, or I might meet myself." She raises an eyebrow.

[mechanicalswans]

"And we can't go to my world at all, unless you want my mechanical companion to accompany us," he says. "While I am in that world, I cannot leave her alone for so long. And ordinary people don't bring mechanical people with them on vacation."

[tragic_mask]

"That's true." She thinks. "What is it ordinary people do, exactly? I suppose the answer depends on where we end up, given that 'ordinary' changes from place to place."

[mechanicalswans]

He is silent for a long moment, studying the side of her neck.

"I know exactly where we should go," he says. "The most ordinary thing two people can do--we should go to Niagara Falls. We would need luggage, and a camera, and someone to send postcards to."

[tragic_mask]

She lets out a surprised laugh. "Oh, yes, and bright, disgustingly flowery shirts. Or are those just for Hawaii?"

[mechanicalswans]

"As long as the weather is nice, I think those flowery shirts are acceptable, even encouraged, on vacations everywhere. So if it is at least springtime, yes--I would not pack suits at all."

A pause. "Well, maybe one. In case of nice restaurants. But for the most part, flowered shirts, shorts with big pockets, and sandals."

[tragic_mask]

"Well, I don't exactly own any of those, so perhaps I should go shopping so I can be properly normal."

[mechanicalswans]

"That's what normal people do," he says. "Buy new luggage, and then things to put in it. But you have to leave some empty space for the souvenirs, don't forget."