...OF THE ESTEEMED LORD ESSEK THELYSS (UN: SHADOWHAND), FIRST OF THEIR NAME, HAILING FROM THE REALM OF CRITICAL ROLE, RESIDING, AT PRESENT, IN THE GRAND CRESENT. SINGLE.
[At precisely two, Ducky is at the entrance to the garden with a parasol, dressed in her grey striped dress, hair just so as usual. At first glance, she seems fine, truly fine.
Essek arrives with his own parasol, though it isn't one he got from here so the fashion if it doesn't quite match, but it's still beautiful even if some of the lacing has what might look like dicks. His outfit is tight black pants, a white ruffled shirt, with a simply patterned cravat, and a double breasted waist coat in a lovely teal with black patterning. The only thing that perhaps looks unfitting to his outfit is his ears which are decorated in beautiful silver jewelry (he doesn't care, he'll make his jewelry work).
Quietly he looks her over, seeing that she looks fine, but he also know very well how to seem fine when one is not at all.
"Come, the gardens are beautiful," he pauses only long enough for her to fall into step with him.
"As are you, Mr. Thelyss." Look, someone ought to take a moment to appreciate Essek's fashion sense and poise. She does fall into step, relaxing just slightly in truth--having him beside her makes everything seem the slightest bit less dire. "I trust the day has treated you well?"
"Oh," he half wasn't expecting a compliment like that from Ducky and to receive one was very flattering. Confidence in his looks is something he has in spades, but he still finds it a pleasant surprise. "Well, thank you and my day is better now that I am in your company."
He gives her a smile as they stroll in a moment of silence. "So, tell me about your acquaintance, her presence seems to have upended your day," he sees no reason to beat around the bush, they both know why they are here.
"There is...context...that I don't want to explain in the fullness of its depth at this point. A lady likes to maintain some mystery, you understand. But there was a point in time where my employer and I were under investigation by legal authorities in Gallery, and Honoria Crabb was the police inspector assigned to the case. Her and the world-famous detective, Madame Theresa Ferrier, who'd traveled across the continent to take the case. By the time Sir Mimley and I spoke to Crabb and Ferrier, they'd realized that perhaps the case wasn't as simple as it seemed from the start. We became allies. Cautious allies, but allies nonetheless."
She pauses, looking at some nearby flowers. "That isn't to say that Crabb approved of our methods, mine in particular. And if she judged me for how I worked, perhaps I deserved it. Perhaps I still do. But in time, she became a part of our lives, even when Madame Ferrier left Gallery. A partner in our work, sometimes."
That answers a great many questions he had about Ducky honestly. It gave him a clearer perspective on who she was and her methods, even if the woman herself was vague in much of it.
"And her being from your future makes things complicated because she.. ah, knows where your relationship has evolved for better or worse and you are unsure how to handle how out of control that leaves you feeling?" It was a guess, he felt that way about Jester. She knows things about him that he cannot even if she explained it all. It leaves him feeling out of control and off balance.
"For the better, apparently. Also, she has quit the police force, which I do approve of, but it says something about the state of Gallery that she doesn't feel it can be improved from within."
That isn't the part that bugs her the most, of course. Besides...
"The state of Gallery's irrelevant, here. The awkwardness of information imbalance isn't. I don't know how much I want to know, about those two years."
Essek nods, feeling empathy for the woman, because he is not in an entirely dissimilar position with Jester.
"My friend Jester is from my future as well, I find it.. uncomfortable to know she knows things about myself that I cannot know, yet.." he stops by a beautiful blue hydrangea bush, running his thumb over one of the petals carefully. "I asked her only to tell me if things were okay between myself and my friends. She assured me.. said that even Caleb and myself visit often. I did not ask further as I may never be that person since I do not know how much my time here will change who I am when I return," if they return.
"My advice is to figure what - if anything - is important enough to inquire about, otherwise reacquaint yourself with the people you are now."
"That is where I thought I'd stand on the matter, but I feel like I'm blindfolded and walking through a field littered with rabbitholes. And she's absolutely incapable of hiding her feelings."
Which is something she usually admires about Crabb. But it makes not learning things hard for someone like Ducky.
He can understand that feeling. At times Jester gets frustrated with him and Caleb for not being from the time she is from, for being cautious around each other still, for not being further along in this repairing of a relationship.
It's difficult and makes him sometimes choose to avoid her when it comes to Caleb.
"Then take it one careful, felt out step at a time. That or ask," there was not much else for it to be between the two unfortunately. "At the very least, you find her trustworthy yes? Then she is unlikely to be intentionally false." Anything from one person's perspective is liable to have things inaccurate.
"Singularly worthy of trust. She's...good, Essek. Morally upstanding in a way I used to think no one could be. I once said there was no man who couldn't be compromised. She's no man, though."
Of course, there's so much she's not saying there, about how she sees herself in comparison. Ducky is not morally upstanding, and one of the parts of this situation that is screwing with her the most is the idea of having Crabb's trust and approval and friendship, without knowing how she earned it.
"And you find yourself at a loss for how your relationship has progressed as it has?" He feels that way about Jester. How did she forgive him - maybe he should wonder if he ever lost her trust.
"Such people can be.." he lets out a wistful breath, as if searching for the words before the right ones settle in his chest, "so agonizingly striking, altering you to your very core. Perhaps she was your influence to change?"
He understands, he is not a good person either - never has been, yet somehow the Nein inspired him with mere friendship and trust to at least attempt such things. To learn to have a moral compass that he's never cared to have before now.
"Or perhaps I have her fooled into thinking I've changed." The fact that this is a genuine concern from where Ducky's standing really does say something. She pauses, looking at Essek quietly for a moment.
"You truly do understand the matter, don't you? I thought you might be a kindred spirit, but I didn't realize how deep it might go."
He can understand that concern as well. But if he can change this much in a matter of months, he can imagine Ducky getting dragged into similar circumstances with her own better person after years.
"Indeed, there's something lonely about it all, is there not? Easy to get swept up in the comradery and trust those better than us offer," it doesn't feel deserved, maybe even something used against them at first, but then it changes and it's striking.
From that comment, Ducky intuits Essek didn't have a close partner in his work, the way she'd had Mimley. A mirror tilted to another angle, but perhaps similar means.
"I'm not the person she knows yet, and perhaps I never will be, here. This place might require me to keep my sharpest edges. To work using the twisted means she always hated."
"This place I believe needs a mix of right and wrong to overcome, subterfuge and standing upright. Perhaps you are assuming the worst of yourself because you are finding fault in comparison."
He gives her a long look as they start to walk through the gardens again, offering her a plucked hydrangea that is of a more muted purple. "Do not think you need to be brightly colored to be appreciated."
He thinks on it for a long moment, breathing in the floral scents that dance on the air around them. They are sun warm and soft, unlike anything back in Rosohna or the Biting North.
"Not particularly, but I do not believe anything is impossible. Perhaps we need to think from outside ourselves more.."
Maybe ask one of the other gods when they show for help. Pheme is clearly not the only one, she couldn't even stop the man child of a god that flooded them.
"Perhaps. And there's still plenty of unknowns and information to gather, here." And that is what she's good for, isn't it? "There's a thought I've had about how Thumos is a power source, and we need more of it to make any moves."
Casting the most subtle of glances around, he sees that his own servant is a modest distance away, out of ear shot but not eyesight, no one else seems close enough to listen in. He doesn't trust the servants, they most obviously work for Pheme.
With a lowered voice, "And yet everything here costs it, she keeps our reserves crippled by taxing us for basic living, even my magic costs thumos. We will need great quantities to overcome the basic need of it."
“Speaking of business, I plan to open one, with the support of a male sponsor to lend my work legitimacy. Nothing too fancy, but something that will be of use to both locals and our sort.”
A central location for her to gather the gossip from.
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[He was very glad to offer it to her, he knows his own head is muddled with Caleb, but that would not color the logic he often operated under.]
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She's good at seeming fine.]
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Quietly he looks her over, seeing that she looks fine, but he also know very well how to seem fine when one is not at all.
"Come, the gardens are beautiful," he pauses only long enough for her to fall into step with him.
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He gives her a smile as they stroll in a moment of silence. "So, tell me about your acquaintance, her presence seems to have upended your day," he sees no reason to beat around the bush, they both know why they are here.
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She pauses, looking at some nearby flowers. "That isn't to say that Crabb approved of our methods, mine in particular. And if she judged me for how I worked, perhaps I deserved it. Perhaps I still do. But in time, she became a part of our lives, even when Madame Ferrier left Gallery. A partner in our work, sometimes."
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"And her being from your future makes things complicated because she.. ah, knows where your relationship has evolved for better or worse and you are unsure how to handle how out of control that leaves you feeling?" It was a guess, he felt that way about Jester. She knows things about him that he cannot even if she explained it all. It leaves him feeling out of control and off balance.
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That isn't the part that bugs her the most, of course. Besides...
"The state of Gallery's irrelevant, here. The awkwardness of information imbalance isn't. I don't know how much I want to know, about those two years."
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"My friend Jester is from my future as well, I find it.. uncomfortable to know she knows things about myself that I cannot know, yet.." he stops by a beautiful blue hydrangea bush, running his thumb over one of the petals carefully. "I asked her only to tell me if things were okay between myself and my friends. She assured me.. said that even Caleb and myself visit often. I did not ask further as I may never be that person since I do not know how much my time here will change who I am when I return," if they return.
"My advice is to figure what - if anything - is important enough to inquire about, otherwise reacquaint yourself with the people you are now."
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Which is something she usually admires about Crabb. But it makes not learning things hard for someone like Ducky.
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It's difficult and makes him sometimes choose to avoid her when it comes to Caleb.
"Then take it one careful, felt out step at a time. That or ask," there was not much else for it to be between the two unfortunately. "At the very least, you find her trustworthy yes? Then she is unlikely to be intentionally false." Anything from one person's perspective is liable to have things inaccurate.
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Of course, there's so much she's not saying there, about how she sees herself in comparison. Ducky is not morally upstanding, and one of the parts of this situation that is screwing with her the most is the idea of having Crabb's trust and approval and friendship, without knowing how she earned it.
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"Such people can be.." he lets out a wistful breath, as if searching for the words before the right ones settle in his chest, "so agonizingly striking, altering you to your very core. Perhaps she was your influence to change?"
He understands, he is not a good person either - never has been, yet somehow the Nein inspired him with mere friendship and trust to at least attempt such things. To learn to have a moral compass that he's never cared to have before now.
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"You truly do understand the matter, don't you? I thought you might be a kindred spirit, but I didn't realize how deep it might go."
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"Indeed, there's something lonely about it all, is there not? Easy to get swept up in the comradery and trust those better than us offer," it doesn't feel deserved, maybe even something used against them at first, but then it changes and it's striking.
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"I'm not the person she knows yet, and perhaps I never will be, here. This place might require me to keep my sharpest edges. To work using the twisted means she always hated."
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He gives her a long look as they start to walk through the gardens again, offering her a plucked hydrangea that is of a more muted purple. "Do not think you need to be brightly colored to be appreciated."
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"Do you think overcoming a goddess is a goal that is possible to achieve?"
It's a slight subject change, but a valuable one. Her world doesn't have gods who take an active hand in matters.
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"Not particularly, but I do not believe anything is impossible. Perhaps we need to think from outside ourselves more.."
Maybe ask one of the other gods when they show for help. Pheme is clearly not the only one, she couldn't even stop the man child of a god that flooded them.
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With a lowered voice, "And yet everything here costs it, she keeps our reserves crippled by taxing us for basic living, even my magic costs thumos. We will need great quantities to overcome the basic need of it."
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She shakes her head slightly.
“Good for them. We need people like that aligned with us.”
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"Yes, if we can also generate business among ourselves more, we might be able to amass more instead of it going towards the locals and our kind lady."
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A central location for her to gather the gossip from.
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He would need to accumulate thumos to afford anything, but he would nonetheless be happy to to support their local accumulation.
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