[ 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]

"You keep your walls up," he explains quietly, "as I let mine down, but keep the right to deny, in the future, ever having done so. You may keep your walls up, and I don't mind it, but do you know... all this time, all this talking, and the only thing I know about what you love and what you hate is that you prefer sad songs? We have a lot in common, though, all the same. The heart of things, wanting to be ordinary, you'll admit to, but..."

He smiles, shaking his head slightly without lifting it off her shoulder. "Do you have the tequila because you prefer it, or because you like it the least and that's all that was left?"

[tragic_mask]

"I was going through my stock alphabetically, actually."

[mechanicalswans]

"You see?" he says. "I like beer normally, for casual drinking; Atlantean wine if I am truly looking to forget. I will have wine with dinners, as appropriate, but otherwise prefer my drinking to be utilitarian--Scotch, or vodka. Get the job done efficiently."

[tragic_mask]

"See what? What am I supposed to see?"

She blinks. "I like to at least enjoy what's going down my throat. Since it takes more than a few drinks for my body to take notice."

[mechanicalswans]

"It doesn't hurt to admit to liking or disliking something, that's all," he says with a light shrug. "If you don't want to, that's fine, I will stop."

He lights a cigarette. "Given a choice--my tastes are extremely predictable. I don't like the cheaply-made and mass-produced. I don't seek out expensive things just because they are expensive, either. I like things well-made, classic. Old-fashioned, sometimes. But occasionally nostalgic, and that's where the trouble comes in."

[tragic_mask]

"Remembering the good things can be pleasant. It makes it easier to deal with the bad, I think." She watches the smoke float away.

[mechanicalswans]

"I met a girl in the bar," he says, and takes a drag on the cigarette, "who reminded me of a girl I owed a favor to a very long time ago. So she talked me into giving her a favor, and... it was fairly embarrassing. I wouldn't have done it were it not for nostalgia."

[tragic_mask]

She raises a brow. "So you'd rather forget things as you live them? Have a night, then leave it behind forever, and start fresh in the morning?"

[mechanicalswans]

"I burn away some of my memories," he says, "when more suitable materials for crafting cannot be found. Some, I would never give up, but some are... expendable, you could say? That one will be burned someday."

[tragic_mask]

She blinks. "Hm. I wish I could recycle some of my memories. But then, sometimes I think I couldn't do without them. Be myself, I mean. The tortured, poetic soul I am."

[mechanicalswans]

"Surely you have so many, by this point, that you have forgotten a few, or wouldn't miss a few if they disappeared. Not the ones that shape you in large ways--I would not give up memories of my brothers or parents, and the only way I would ever give up a single memory of my wife would be to trade it to have her back again. But the dull summer afternoons when there's nothing going on, or waiting for trains, or whatever it is happens when you're waiting for other things--those are expendable."

[tragic_mask]

She's clearly thinking about it, or maybe just looking at her empty glass. "Maybe. Though I've gotten some interesting stories out of people, waiting for the train."

[mechanicalswans]

"But that would be something to remember, not just standing and waiting. The standing and waiting, you don't need. I've made things out of standing and waiting, and didn't miss the memories at all."

[tragic_mask]

"What have you made?"

[mechanicalswans]

"You get out of it what you put in," he explains. "If you put in waiting, you get out--you know how when you are waiting, it can feel like an eternity, when really it has only been ten minutes? I have made a device that distorts the perception of time. You can appear to move so quickly that someone else will not have a chance to react, because for them, they are feeling the stretched-out time of waiting for a train."

[tragic_mask]

"Wow." She thinks about it. "That's a powerful device."

[mechanicalswans]

"It should be," he murmurs. "I burned through the equivalent of... about two solid years of standing around, for it. It makes it worth it, in the end, if you can get some use out of it."

[tragic_mask]

"And you did?"

[mechanicalswans]

"...well, as far as making a device, yes. I haven't had the occasion to use it much yet. This is what we do--there are cycles of fighting and of building weapons. So we build, and eventually we will use them. And I have the advantage."

[tragic_mask]

"That can be important," she says, pretending to know anything about the matter.

[mechanicalswans]

"That's why I like taking commissions," he says. "I get new ideas, or... people will ask for something, and it will lead to something that I have never tried before. So I charge much less for projects that inspire me."

[tragic_mask]

"If I charged, I'm sure I would do the same." She nods.

[mechanicalswans]

"When you could either..." He pauses, opening his eyes and glancing up at her. "Either do another story about someone who loves someone they cannot have, or a truly novel tragedy--are there any completely new tragedies? I would think there are only so many bad things that can happen to people, but an infinite number of ways to express them, to turn them into art."

[tragic_mask]

"There are different ways of telling the same story," she says, slowly. "All the words in all the languages can be put together in different ways."

[mechanicalswans]

"You are about the how," he says, and gives another light kiss to the side of her neck, "and I am about the what. The difference between words and metal--but I find it intriguing."