World: Subreality
Scene: Refuge, a friendly cybercafe. Valeska is Grantaire's daughter. Which Grantaire-- entirely depends.
Players: Zephyrine, François = Abby; Valeska = Daisy; Darcel = Amy; Sebastien = Laura
Zephyrine slumps into a chair. "I don't think I like existing."
Leska climbs into her lap. "I do!" Too damn cheerful, that one...
Darcel grins and leans on one. "No, but not existing doesn't look too thrilling, either."
"At least those who exist have a chance to exist happily. Sometimes." Sebastien shrugs. "Most of the time, it's bad, but when it's good, it can be very good."
Darcel shifts to drop into a chair. "Well. It is that, on occasion, when it suits the world to be good tempered. Which isn't often. That dame's a worse mother than Medea, though I can't blame her, with such a horde of vermin for offspring as humanity is. The rest of the time we just make do. The lot of mankind. Makes for poor stories, but since when has truth had anything to do with that?"
Zephyrine resettles Valeska gingerly on her lap. "Truth? Truth is beauty, I thought they said." She glances wryly up at them. "In any case, we've got somewhat out of touch, it and I."
Leska squirms as soon as she's resettled. She glances at Darcel hopefully. "Stories? I want to hear a story."
"Truth has very little to do with anything," Sebastien answers. "Not beauty, that's sure enough. I know someone who's beautiful and a beautiful liar, and no less beautiful for the lies in his mind or on his damnable tongue."
Zephyrine casts Sebastien a look half-sympathetic, half-envious. "That's right, I'd forgot. Well, what do poets know."
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing," Sebastien answers with a sigh. "And, sister, you wouldn't want it if you had it. It's a right pain in the rear."
Darcel shrugs and folds his arms, still grinning. "Stories, 'Leska? Trouble is finding one that isn't sordid. Can't trust Fairy Godmothers and Prince Charming has eight girls spinning him ill fitting robes in towers." Turns to regard Sebastien and Zephyrine, chuckling. "God help us all. Not that he will. Kills the melodrama."
"Melodrama? I'd be grateful for melodrama." Zephyrine slouches further in her chair. "Most of the time it's more of a farce."
"Farce? No. That'd be if we were all running about with hardly any clothes." Sebastien shrugs. "Not that that doesn't happen, in this city, but not to me, and, as you're my siblings, I doubt it happens to you."
Leska gets displaced by Zeph's slouching, and is forced to squirm yet again. She stares at Sebastien with big, round eyes. "Sometimes my friends go swimming in the river with no clothes at all. But I don't go, 'cause I can't swim."
Darcel tilts his head back. "Not yet. Without my sanity, without direction, without purpose and without any damned reason-- none of which'd be worth running after should I discover them missing."
Sebastien nods morosely. "I find that clothes go after sanity, after reason, but before purpose and direction."
"Pauvre petit," Zephyrine says a tad dryly, and tosses her hair out of her face. Shifts a little, attempting to get more comfortable without overly inconveniencing the Offspring.
Darcel murmurs with some amusement. "As long as we've got that in the proper order."
Zephyrine declaims ironically, as though finishing his thought, "Order above all things!"
"It's not so good as you think, sister," Sebastien says a trifle irritably. "You'd like to think it's more than just sweat and nastiness, but in the end, it's not, and you wonder why, maybe, or you wonder why you drank so much as you did and added that bother into the whole business. But it happens again. God alone knows why."
Darcel direcs a wry grin at Sebastien. "Deja vu and absinthe?"
"What's all this?" inquires François, wandering in. "What happens, and what's this about order? H'lo, gentlemen. Sister. Enfant."
"P'pa! ...François." Leska clambers off her current perch to run and embrace François' kneecaps.
"And idiocy, don't forget idiocy." Sebastien shakes his head, staring at the table, then looks up at the new arrival. "Ah. Brother. You know all about idiocy and meaningless repetition of stuff that'll get you killed, don't you? I need sympathy and these two think I've got it good. It's not that good. Tell them, would you?" He blinks at Valeska. "At least she doesn't think I'm her Papa."
Zephyrine sighs. "Evening, twin. Don't mind me, I was being facetious. --oof," as Valeska bounces off her. She grins crookedly.
Darcel squints up. "Gentlemen. Bah. Hello, Brother."
François stumbles slightly, and leans down to pick Valeska up, chuckling. "Hey, waif." He looks over her shoulder at Sebastien, quizzically. "You having troubles again? What is it I'm supposed to be telling 'em, exactly?"
"An Apollo in the bush is worth two in the hand," Sebastien says dryly. "Or they wouldn't want him if they had him. Or something."
Leska squints at 'bastien. "I haven't played with you ever, Monsieur. I know my Papas when I see them."
Sebastien blinks. "Let's keep it that way, petite. I don't want a daughter."
"That's for them to decide, isn't it?" François says mildly, and then grins. "Neither did the rest of us, particularly, brother. Kid grows on you."
Zephyrine shakes her head, resettling herself in her seat. "Madness," she remarks to no one. "But oddly consoling madness."
Leska snuggles drowsily against François' shoulder, contented. She knows she's wanted. Lashes flutter slowly closed, and she begins snoring lightly.
"Listen here, sister. He's not a nice man. You think he's rude and insulting when he's sober, wait 'til you see him drunk, hope to God you never see him drunk. You think he's got a temper? Pray you never see him in the morning with the poison of worn-off alcohol and hatred of himself and you and everything else. It's not a pretty sight. He always is, yes, but not then. Not then at all." Sebastien breaks off, shaking his head. "And I forget, all the time. I forget the ugly parts when I look at him, even when he's not good at all." He glances at François. "Tell me. Do you have this problem?"
Darcel unfolds his arms to tap his hand on the table, serenely. "Or Apollo. Can't argue with Olympians, they either strike you down with thunderbolts or orate on Great Things over your head. Keeps things in order, such as it is." Tilts a glance at Zephyrine. "Sanity, sister, is the least consoling thing of all." Just to be vague.
A dark flush creeps over Zephyrine's face, but she doesn't drop her eyes. "I didn't say anything, man." Decides they can all use a drink, and flags the formless waitperson impatiently. "Look, I'm sorry you have it rough, all right?"
François blinks once or twice. "Not that problem, no." He eases 'leska down on a couch near the door, and comes over to kick out a chair.
"Didn't say anything, no, and you're not that sorry, are you, sister, because you think you know what you want." Sebastien sighs. "Sun gods are nothing but trouble."
"The rest of the brood being utterly delightful." Darcel mutters ironically.
"How do you know what I think I know?" Zephyrine is defensive. "Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I'm all agog to have his children. Idiot."
François grins across at Darcel, leaning folded arms on the table. "There's that."
"You're my twin sister, aren't you?" Sebastien asks rhetorically. "As for the rest of the brood, I've been spared the pleasure. I don't imagine that Zeus is any sweeter than his cherished son. He's forsaken Leto but would make Niobe out of any woman fool enough to criticise his Republic, him and Diana, whom I also haven't met."
"I have," Zephyrine mutters.
Darcel half grimaces. "Mam'selle Diana, God help us, Amazon extraordinaire." He gestures indiscriminately. "Make up an entire divine pantheon between them, not to mention generals and polemarchs and imperators and anyone else whoever waved a flag for no better reason than that it makes you a bloody good target for martyrdom. Hyperion to a mob of satyrs, not but that the fellow who said that wasn't a half deranged prince- if there's any other kind, and Apollo-- he, she, they any of that gorgons' field of fair haired statues'd have him on the guillotine before he stammered it out, and most of them not so merry as Bacchus' lot. Fools and not worth saving, as if he'd listen. And as for what's wanted, well, that's simple: it's what can't be had or doesn't exist, because once you've got it, it either turns out to be something else entirely, and then you don't know what to do with it, or else vanishes in a puff of smoke, in true style of the divinities, who don't have much to their name but all the crumbling marble in heaven and Olympus to fog our eyes while they get away. Everything's patched together, and badly, at that."
"Amen," is all Zephyrine has to add to that.
François waits for a plausible pause on Darcel's part before saying peaceably, "'Tisn't Zephyr's fault you got landed with a bad one, brother." And, to Zephyrine, "If you can manage to keep it that way, more power to you. Just don't ask me to place bets."
Zephyrine reddens again. "Well -- as long as I'm in Herself's reality, there's no need to worry about it, is there." She is still slightly defensive.
"Not her fault. No. Not anyone's fault, and he's landed with me, too, isn't he?" Sebastien chuckles ruefully at his own joke. "If only predestination worked, I'd be a happier man." His eyebrows raise when Zephyrine speaks. "Stick with Diana. She's safe. Lord knows she only slept with hounds and Callisto."
"So far," Zephyrine rejoins, slightly dourly. "I will, thanks. Not that I'm likely to be given much choice in the matter."
Darcel twists his features into an odd, amiable scowl. "Shot down Orion, though, and she liked him. Not that that wasn't Apollo's fault. As for choice--" he shrugs "when you're stuck with it, you'd usually like to give it away, but no one'll but it, or even take it for free. The rest of the time, it hides with virtue and honour and all the other scantily fleshed fugitives from this world."
"Right, so you two come out even, at least." François grins crookedly at Sebastien. "As for mam'selle Diana, you two are welcome to her. Baffling woman, by all accounts."
Sebastien looks quite alarmed. "And be shot for observing her at the bath? Thank you, but I'll keep my Apollo. At least I know his flaws."
François quirks another grin, waves a hand at Darcel and Zephyr. "Was talking to them. Didn't think you were that foolhardy."
"Ah, no, I'm far more so," Sebastien says airily, then buries his face in his hands.
Zephyrine leans over to squeeze his shoulder, comfortingly. "There now, brother. It'll be all right."
Sebastien shrugs, not necessarily to dislodge her. "It'll be what it's supposed to be."
Darcel leans across to swat Sebastien on the shoulder. "Hell, brother, it's not so bad. Could be worse, anyway."
"Could be worse," François agrees, more softly.
"True. I could be pregnant. Or destined to try to live happily ever after," Sebastien muses. "How'd that work, anyway?"
Zephyrine twitches at the first suggestion.
Darcel grins at her, teasing. "Ah, sister, the brats could look like him."
"I should be so lucky." She frowns. "Though little britches over there didn't turn out so badly, I suppose," with a not unkindly glance at the sleeping Valeska.
"God only knows," is François's reply to Sebastien, rueful.
"With our family's luck? Not likely." Sebastien grimaces, amused. "They'd be just like their maman, who has the misfortune to look like her brothers."
Zephyrine wrinkles her nose. "Which fact rather renders the whole question academic. You lads can get away with looking like this."
Darcel leans back in his chair. "And if you were a curly-haired darling, how'd you ever pass in trousers?"
"And how much fun would that be, really?" Sebastien grins.
François chuckles at Darcel. "Don't ask."
Zephyrine picks at a fingernail, not smiling. "It's not fun. At all, really."
Darcel shrugs, ruefully. "Most things aren't, sister. Passes time, though, doesn't it?"
"Better than marrying, I'd bet." Sebastien stands up, walks away from the table, and bows. He is remarkably steady on his feet for a man purported to drink incessantly. "I must be off. Laurels to water, lilies to gild, purses to make into sows' ears. Fare well."
Zephyrine glances up with a bit of a grin. "'Night, 'bastien."
François chuckles. "Evening, twin. Take care of yourself."
Darcel snorts. "Don't water the purses by mistake. Evening."
Sebastien nods to each in turn. "Sister. Give my love to your statue, brother, and be glad he's as good as he is. Water the purses? I'm more likely to gild the laurels. Good night." He departs.
"I read a fairy tale like that once," Zephyrine muses as he goes.
Darcel inclines his head. "'Course. Art does a damnedly poor job of imitating life, but life manages to wear the same gaudily painted veneer as art. Fairy tales, too, minus a few flying carpets and golden dust."
"Talk of irony." François shakes his head. "Ah, well. It all works out in the end, one way or another."
Darcel thrums his fingers on the table. "One way or another. So when the witches've run off with the princes, all the damsels are stuck in a bog and the hero's trying to work out why his sword's turned into a turnip, the divine nursemaids shut the book and leave that irascible infant, God to dream up more impossible trauma for we mortals. So it goes."
"So it goes." Zephyrine prods her hitherto untouched glass. "Turnip, eh? Something like that. Something equally embarrassing. It always works out to embarrassment, doesn't it, for someone?"
Darcel shrugs. "Embarrassment or misery or some other hallucination of bad drama. Damned if I know. Whatever suits divine whims."
François rubs at the back of his neck, grimacing slightly. "Or someone's anyway." He pauses, then reiterates, "Could always be worse."
Zephyrine sketches a warding sign. "Don't say that, brother. You'll invite disaster into all our laps."
Darcel agrees serenely, "Could. And usually is." Slouches lower in his chair. "Bah-- as if that one needed an invitation. Comes pounding on the door expecting solace just when you've sold your spare bed to pay the rent and realised that you can only afford to eat once a week."
"Oh, was that disaster?" François grins wryly. "Funny, I could have sworn... But I digress."
Zephyrine smirks at him, absent-mindedly. She turns her glass thoughtfully, then, "Advice, brothers mine? For what that may be worth?"
Darcel flicks a grin at him. "Digress? You? Apollo forbid-- as he does." Turns his head. "'Course, if you want it. It isn't doing me any good."
François laughs; then to Zephyrine, "For what it may be worth, surely."
Zephyrine slouches back in her seat, pensive. "Should I have told her? The Prouvaire girl?"
Darcel tilts his head, in contemplation. "What, and spoil the masquerade? It's your secret. Mam'selle'll find out eventually; women always do. Pandoras, the lot of them." He grins, teasingly. "And you can deal with her shouts of admiration or remonstrance for not confiding in her earlier when you want to or when you have to."
François nods in agreement. "When you're ready. What's a week or a month or a year either way? 'Tisn't her business, it's yours."
Darcel shrugs. "And God knows people dabble enough in each other's business as it is. Makes for nothing more than hoarse voices in arguing. Which is why people gossip. Gives 'em a reason to talk in whispers."
Zephyrine takes a breath, and lets it out again. "That's what I thought. What's the worst she can do, anyway, if she doesn't like it?" She shrugs, then adds ruefully, "D'you know what the stupidest thing was, to have made me angry? That she talked to me as if I were a man. D'you know? Comforting. You know how girls are with men, there, there, dear, you get so upset over nothing..." She makes a patting motion. "Annoyed me no end. Isn't that ridiculous?"
Darcel leans on an elbow. "At war with mam'selle's maternal instincts? God, utterly ludicrous, of course, but most things are. Porcia patting Antonius on the head and telling him she'll see that Shylock doesn't get an ounce more than his pound of flesh, no matter how he wheedles. Emotion doesn't make sense, since it broke pact with logic on the day the pair argued on whether it was best to terrorise mankind with equations or tantrums."
François chuckles, shaking his head. "Utterly ridiculous, sister, but then most things are. Don't worry over it."
Zephyrine grins crookedly, pushing her fingers through her hair. "Ah, I won't. Not worth the effort." She yawns widely, then. "God."
Darcel folds his arms, descending into an odd pile of limbs, still grinning. "Or Hypnos, or whoever happens to be in error this time."
"It's always one of 'em," Zephyrine agrees drowsily, and rakes a hand through her hair again, and drains her glass. "Think I'll be on my way. I've had about as much of this day as I can manage." She pushes slowly to her feet.
François blinks, then nods affably. "Take care, then. Don't trip over anything. Or anyone. Keep to the left. All of that."
Darcel speaks from somewhere in his folded arms. "Or else it's the general incompetence of the world. Either way--" he deigns to lift his head for farewells. "Whether or not it's had enough of you is another matter. But clocks are easily ignored. They only grouse in dings and dongs. Evening, sister."
"If I've any luck to spend, I'll get home in one piece. G'night, lads." She pauses to sock François in the arm and ruffle Darcel's hair, before heading out.
Darcel tilts his head, his hair really no worse than before, just in a different state of disarray. "So dissipates the crowd."
François leans back in his chair, stretching slightly, with a small sigh. "So it seems. I can think of worse ways to spend an evening. Though none more peculiar."
Darcel chuckles. "No? We could've had Apollo of Olympus in here berating us on using his sacred name in reference to mortals. Or be assaulted by a horde of vicious green fairies. Peculiar enough, though hardly classed as pleasant. God knows, if you have to look yourself in the face, it might as well be with the reassurance that it belongs to someone else."
François laughs. "True. True." Muses a moment. "At least we're a companionable soul. God, imagine if he had to spend an evening with several of himself. Or, actually, no. Don't."
Darcel turns his eyes heavenwards. "Arachne's stiff fingers, no. The government may be safe and secure in its dotage, they'd kindle into a futile blaze and end up in a mound of golden political ashes."
"And then where'd we be?" François shakes his head. "Best not to contemplate it."
Darcel mimics the gesture, unconsciously. "Left to sweep up the mess and Explain, as somone always is, to their ultimate ruin. Gods, demons and anyone else who ever managed to maintain a noble expression for more than ten seconds make a poor mix. Stirs up the myths to amuse the peasants, but doesn't work in practice. Like most theory."
François pushes both hands through his hair, as Zephyrine did earlier. "Isn't that the truth," ruefully. He glances over at Valeska, curled up asleep on the couch, and half-grins.
Darcel turns his head to follow the gaze and smiles. "And some things that work in practice turn the theory books upside down and still don't read properly."
"Which is why no one's yet successfully published a handbook for life, I suppose. Pity." François muses a moment. "Engaging brat, isn't she."
Darcel flicks his eyes upward again. "If they did, they'd expect us to read it, memorise it and obey the rules." His expression softens a little. "Very much so, all things considered."
François glances at him, with a wry grin. "Going to be hell when she gets to be thirteen."
Darcel shakes his head, laughing silently, ruefully. "God and his prudish harem of nuns. Heaven help us. Already stares at Apollo like-- God." closes his eyes and turns a reflective glance over his grin. "A matter of who lives that long."
"Does she? Oh, Lord." François looks worried of a sudden; then chuckles, wryly. "Runs in the family, I suppose." He shoves a hand through his hair once more, and sighs. "Yes. Whoever lives that long."
Darcel lifts one hand and lets it fall, mildly amused. "May all the demon hordes of heaven and the martyr saints of hell help him then. Or her." He shrugs. "Worse things to inherit, though not many." Tilts his head back. "And between bolts from the heavens and life running roughshod over everything, and everyone, from Cleopatra and her snakes to peasants and their potatoes, it's beyond me."
François chuckles and nods. Couldn't have said it better himself. He sits up a bit. "Well, I ought to go." Glances at the child again. "D'you want to put her in bed, or shall I?"
Darcel shrugs again and spreads his hands, peering at the sleeping girl. "Either way, brother. It's the same thing, more or less, isn't it? If you're not inclined to play at philosophy and the nature of reality, and if we did that we'd all disappear in a puff of illogic."
François grins. "Comes to the same," he agrees, and rises. "I'll leave you to it, then. Goodnight, twin. Don't let the maenads bite -- to misquote poor 'bastien." He starts for the door: pauses, and adds with a lopsided grin, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
Darcel turns a mirror grin on him. "When you think of something, be sure to tell me, and I'll avoid it. Good night to you."
François chuckles again, and goes out.