IN THE PARAMETERS OF CANVAS, THE COFFIN OF THE FRAME -
the art of wreckage, how to figure ourselves in the ruins of what we can't traverse.
The dance of dark hooves against cobblestone.
The back alleys of Denocte weren’t pretty. That was the wrong word. If Locust had to pick one, she might call them tantalizing, in the way that most dangerous things had a strange sort of attraction to them. They were dark and serpentine, with each winding street leading into three others and crossing over a few more, and, compared to the brightness of the markets and the more hospitable parts of the court, at night they were almost too dark, if primarily because the awnings and overhangs and balconies blocked out a decent portion of the sky, and the stars were muted in cities anyways. The moon hangs somewhere above her, pale and terrible, coated in a fine layer of hazy clouds; it looked sickly, like that, and blurred. Out on the water, she could see it well enough to make out the dark indentations of its craters. Now, it looked like a dull reflection of itself, peeking out from behind the jagged spires of tall buildings.
Locust and her pearls, which glimmer and catch in their smooth and subtle way whenever she passes through a segment of dappled light, are more than a bit out of place here. (A rat skitters across the alleyway in front of her, pausing momentarily to sit up on its haunches; it stares at her, gives a soft squeak, and disappears into a pile of discarded crates, which have been thrown haphazardly in a pile alongside a bent-up gutter pipe.) Despite her rugged occupation, she has always been in possession of more than a streak of vanity, and so she’s never much looked like a pirate – even now, when it’s probably dangerous to attract attention, she is clean (from the first proper bath she’s taken in months, complete with plenty of sweetly-scented soap and oil), the troublesome coils of her hair had been tamed into neat curls and braids, and she walked with a sort of attention-seeking deliberation, the sort that came from either boredom or ignorance, and she liked to think that she wasn’t much of the ignorant type. A sway of her hips, a toss of her hair – to make those pearls clink, or the knife at her shoulder – a serpentine momentum that catches the light on her metallic coat.
It’s been harder coming back than she thought. (Of course, she knew that, even before she arrived; it hasn’t been easy coming to Denocte since before the accident, but somehow that pit in her stomach that opened wide whenever she returned to the Night Kingdom, the only land she’d ever called a home for any substantial period beyond the vast expanse of the seas, felt like it was growing wider and deeper with each visit.)
She turns a corner, and she finds herself staring at her destination; it’s closer than she remembered, but she supposes that it has been a while. (Locust racks her brain, for a moment. She hasn’t visited this one in a while, and she thinks that it might be because she couldn’t bear to go back. Was it before….?)
The bar’s a dive, but a pretty one – all dim, dark lights and strange, cheap decorations, bottles filled with little lights that hung on strings from the ceilings. Plants she’d never seen before. Wood carvings, crystals…
And she still remembers the bartender, who turns to her with a knowing smile and odd white eyes. (They’ve always unnerved her.) The rest of him is a collection of blacks and violets, like something out of the night sky. “Locust.” He greets her pleasantly, and his voice – still sounds strange. She used to think it was the alcohol, but there was something about the man’s presence that had always felt off to her, like it belonged to something otherworldly.
A mage, or something. She didn’t know. Or care. Denocte was full of things like that, and it wasn’t her job or her business to worry about them.
“Hey, Jeremy.” Jeremy. Such a subtle name for such a strange figure. He regards her with a warmth that she doesn’t know she’s missed until it’s focused on her, and she supposes that’s one of the things that makes him a good bartender. Always good at listening. Caring. Or pretending to, at least. He inclines his head, looking behind her expectantly.
When he doesn’t see anyone, he looks back at her, blinking. Locust looks away, with a faint shake of her head, her eyes flickering momentarily to the wooden floorboards. “You’re alone tonight? That’s unusual.”
“Not alone all night, I hope,” she mutters, with a curl of her lip. If she stumbled upon some interesting stranger, and one thing led to another, she’d hardly complain – she could use a distraction. She looks back up at Jeremy, dragging in a long breath, and adds, “You know how the sea can be, Jeremy, for people like us…”
He nods, slowly, a flicker of understanding in those empty white eyes. “Tell you what. I think I remember what you like – let me make something special for you. On the house.”
She looks at him skeptically, but finally concedes with a somewhat suspicious nod, provoking a soft chuckle from the dark man. “Thanks, Jeremy.”
For the moment, Locust goes to linger by the window, watching passer-by and glittering pygmy dragons; there are a few other patrons, here and there, murmuring between themselves. One of them is reading a book. There are cushions and blankets that look tantalizingly comfortable, but Locust is far too jittery to use them. In the near-silence, she can hear the faint hum of music from somewhere in the back, but who or what is playing is beyond her; it doesn’t sound much like anything she’s ever heard before, and she’s heard lots of music on her travels. There’s something about it that makes her think of rain, dancing along the ridges of a tin roof.
She just looks out, occasionally locking glances with a passing stranger, and sighs.
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"Speech!" ||
