2021-01-08 - About A Girl

It's an odd feeling, pretending that everything is normal. A strange discrepancy, the kind which one probably just has to learn to accept in order to live in Gray Harbor and not skate from one breakdown to the next. Shit happens, explosively at that, and then -- life goes on. Because that's how Gray Harbor somehow manages to keep the wheels turning: You shrug and lick your wounds, and then you move on. Survive another day, survive another year. August Roen is not wrong -- it's not about winning the war, it's about surviving the battle. It's about getting out of the minefield with as many friends and limbs intact as humanly possible, to chalk up another day, another little victory over the dark.

And survive the battle he did. They all did. The ghost of Benedikte went for Gina Castro and Itzhak Rosencrantz, but barring a scratched abdomen for the latter, she failed to harm them. She herself was turned into a rather messy paint job for the Black Bear Diner -- one that Ravn was honestly grateful for waking up from the dream before he had to actually clean up. Some jobs don't require a mop and bucket -- think more along the lines of burning the place to the ground and starting over from scratch.

Was it real? Fuck all knows.

The Dane's feelings are real enough, though, and he strolls into Rosencrantz' garage, violin case under one arm and carrying a bag of sandwiches. The first time he did this Ravn worried about the dietary reservations of Jews but since then, he's seen Rosencrantz order burgers and, well -- he made sure to order sandwiches with beef chorizo instead of say, pork salami, but apart from that, he's not so concerned anymore. Being kosher is apparently not just about not eating pork -- and Rosencrantz seems to take it all fairly lightly. Ravn is a chronic overthinker, but by now even he figures that Rosencrantz is the kind of bloke who has his own arrangements with the Man upstairs.

"Anyone home?" He wanders in, looking around for signs of the mechanic or other customers, and plonks the sandwich bag and violin case on the table in the corner. How a garage is run is not something Ravn knows much about; he's wondered, sometimes, why there never seem to be a lot of people coming and going, but then, this is a repair shop -- not a supermarket. Presumably, people leave their car here for repairs or a pimp job, and pick it up a day or three later. They don't sit around waiting for the mechanic to finish. The Dane has a vague idea that the garage caters mainly to the slightly more fancy jobs maybe -- more pimping someone's vintage car with love than changing the brake fluid on some soccer mum's SUV.

Hopefully Rosencrantz is not too busy today. Talking to Seth Monaghan about guilt and why he should not feel it got Ravn a good part of the way, but he's not entirely at ease with the situation yet. It might be easier to get that sense of resolution with the man who literally killed her. Insofar that it is even possible to kill something that's already five years dead.

The place may seem like it should cater to a more upscale clientele (and to be fair, Itzhak is Byron Thorne's personal mechanic, so in a way, it does), but Itzhak's got an Accura up on the rack right now, going through balancing its tires. Decidedly unglamorous for Gray Harbor's most glam violinist-mechanic. The pneumatic wrench goes VRRR! VVVVVRR! as he wields it, an absent expression on his lined face, just doing stuff he's got to do. Thinking about any number of things else.

That noble-nosed profile turns sharply in Ravn's direction, and there's a delicate, not-quite-heard flourish of violin music. "Well hey there stranger," he says, eyebrows lofting and mouth quirking. He catches sight or maybe smell of the sandwiches and grins. "Complete with bribes, no less. Gimme a minute to finish up here."

"Gotta justify stealing your time somehow," Ravn says with a small grin and plonks himself down in the corner. He's still sporting the leather jacket with the slashed sleeve, its looks not improved by the assault of random flying kitchenware at the diner; it does him no favours unless the intent is in fact to look like he picked it out of a dumpster somewhere.

He watches the other man work with the mildly fascinated expression of someone who has ten fingers out of which twelve are thumbs -- someone you probably shouldn't trust to change an electrical fuse without an assistant and a seeing eye dog. For someone who has no technical aptitude whatsoever, there is a certain fascinating appeal to the idea that you can pick up a power tool and fix things with it. Ravn's idea of how to use a pneumatic wrench would go something like 'hit things with it like in The Sims and hope that something nice happens'. On some level it's hard to not feel a little -- clueless, watching.

Itzhak moves with practical, graceful assurance around the car and around the tasks he's doing, bolting the Accura's tires back on. Hard not to notice, though, that his body language has perked up and his step has a spring in it now. If this was a cartoon he'd be emanating a musical staff and lots of notes. 'Blue Danube', maybe, like 2001 except with gravity and a skinny beaky guy in coveralls.

He tightens the last bolt in a whizz of the wrench, sets a hand on one of the tires, and that music flourishes silently again. Itzhak is investigating his work with his Song. Whatever he senses must satisfy him, for he hangs up the wrench and yanks a rag out of his back coverall pocket to wipe his hands. "Washin' up!" he calls, and vanishes into the head to do that and strip off his coveralls. Then he's back, hands clean (he has some miracle soap in there, made with finely crushed walnut shells, that always makes the bathroom smell like a pleasantly mild mix of walnuts and goat's milk soap), sauntering over with that crooked grin.

"Great to see ya, pal." He pours himself some coffee in a mug. The mug is new. It's bright blue and covered in colorful Yiddish insults.

"You're in a great mood today," the other man observes with a chuckle; he's certainly not going to complain about it. He crosses one leg over the other and leans back, making himself comfortable. That's definitely one thing that tends to change for Ravn, all depending on how 'safe' he feels in an environment -- the more he feels that he has a right to be at a given location, the less restrained his body language. He must feel like he's part of the regular clientele here now, lounging like that. "Something great happen, or just happy with life in general?"

A question hangs in the air there, unspoken; last time Ravn dropped by the garage the other man was decidedly unhappy about something that he very obviously did not want to discuss.

"Got my guy back home and my straight boyfriend bringin' me lunch, what's not to like?" Itzhak flashes a teasing hitch of his eyebrows at Ravn. Damn, those things are garrulous.

As he sits down, the shirt he's wearing is revealed to be faded, old, possibly a size small, reading "NYC Midtown Reptile Expo". The hem occasionally rides up over his belt and reveals a line of bright pink, brand new scar. "Whadja bring me?" Itzhak, ignorant of that, is getting into the bag like a raccoon into a trash can. "Oh man, smells like chorizo, my fuckin' favorite." When he's hungry, everything is now Itzhak's favorite.

"Your favourite is 'food'", Ravn points out and glances at the other man as his shirt rides up. The Dane winces slightly at the sight and, without thinking about it, touches his own arm where a meat cleaver bit into his flesh just before Christmas. The two incidents are not related; but their origins are, and the still tender scar on his own arm reminds Ravn of just how vulnerable they are when the Veil drafts them for some of Gray Harbor's very unique live action storytelling. He could have lost a hand. Itzhak could have been ripped open. Sometimes, one is reminded that one is indeed very small and squishy.

"But speaking of boyfriends, I'm glad that whatever was going down is sorted out. De la Vega came through on the brownies promise, did he mention? I didn't think he actually would." Ravn grins slightly. "He looked like whatever happened was rough. I didn't ask. He comes across as a very private person. But I'm glad that whatever happened, is done with."

Itzhak notices Ravn looking, and just shoves up his shirt for him. Are his abs on Easton Marshall's level? No, but they sure ain't half bad. They're marred forever, now, or some would say enhanced, by the four bright pink clawmarks raked across his belly. "Not gonna lie, I wasn't so sure at first I got out of that with nothin' falling out, you know what I'm saying?"

He shoves his shirt back down. "Ya fiancee's a real bitch." Then, appetite not spoiled in the least, he unwraps a sandwich and tears into it. Chomp. Swallowing, he looks altogether smug over the brownies. "Yeah he told me. He always keeps his promises." He tips the sandwich back and forth, then, in a handwobble. "Yeah, it was rough. Real rough. But now he's home and I get to take care of him."

"I'm glad." That Rosencrantz managed to keep all his bits in their designated spaces or that de la Vega is home and getting taken care of? Probably both. Ravn reaches for a sandwich of his own and carefully unwraps it in that way he usually does things when he's not paying attention to exactly how he comes across; carefully, meticulously, and a little too well manicured.

"She was," he agrees quietly. "I don't know if that was... real. Odds are it was just some crazy meat doll that the Veil cooked up for shit and giggles. I guess I won't know unless some day the real thing comes knocking. But it says a lot that I can't tell the difference. I'm still sorry that the three of you had to see that, though -- and well, deal with it. Even if I'm not very sorry about the outcome."

"How could you ever tell what's a real crazy murderous dead fiancee from a fake one?" Itzhak says, reasonably enough. He quiets down long enough to demolish that sandwich without mercy. The only way you can shut Itzhak Rosencrantz up: by shoving something in his mouth.

He settles back, drinking coffee out of the mug that visually shouts Yiddish abuse. "Eh. Don't be sorry. Wasn't your fault. Not any more'n anybody else's demons coming out." Itzhak sips a little more. "I was sorry to see just one thing." Suddenly, he's looking Ravn in the eye, the way he never does. His eyes are clear light gray, streaked and flecked with green and amber. "I was pretty sorry to see you so scared of her, you were about to get yourself carved open from throwing yourself in her way."

Ravn freezes for a moment in sandwich unwrapping; only for a second but long enough to notice for someone who's come to know the Dane pretty well. He very carefully unwraps the rest; keeping his hands steady and still and his eyes focused on what he's doing. "I want to make excuses for her. But I went through enough therapy about it after her death to know that there are no excuses. She was jealous. She feared that somehow, other people might 'steal' me. I often found myself trying to avoid situations and people that would upset her, because it would inevitably go bad."

Itzhak seems at his ease, sprawled on the loveseat, manspreading like a pro. But there's coiled strength in him, tension that is so very seldom actually at rest. Has Ravn ever seen him truly, utterly relaxed? He got close when they shared that bottle of Glenfiddich, and when he got himself so high he just passed out at the park's gazebo. (Even then, there was the feeling to him that he'd leap up and fight. Possibly hilariously, but fight.) Easy to imagine it takes that kind of self-medication, with strong drink or drug or rough sex, to achieve for him.

He lets Ravn focus on the sandwich, while telling him some hard, bald truths. Tension, despite his relaxed posture, simmers in him. It has a taste, and that taste has a name: fury.

"First boyfriend I ever had," he says, his own eyes down on his coffee. "He was older, a lot older. I was seventeen, messed up, hurtin' real bad inside. Startin' to do some bad stuff, too. He liked that. He loved that, actually, it turned him on. He was this respectable normal guy, mid thirties, he worked doing something I always thought was pretty cool, restoring medieval paintings and maps and stuff like that. Told me all the time that his life was boring and he needed someone in it like me, who was young, who had fire in his belly. And who could get it up five times a night, but I digress.

"I was only one of his boyfriends. He had others. He'd said it was fine if I dated whoever I wanted too, but when I tried?" Itzhak shakes his head with a rueful, bitter smile. "Somehow it wasn't so fine. Somehow then he was always on the phone to me sobbing about how he was gonna lose me because he was old and boring and those other guys I liked were young and hot. Always some major fucking emotional emergency with him. But he'd never actually go out with me too much. We did a few things, like we both loved reading, he got me back of house at the New York Public Library--that's where he worked--for a pretty great tour. We'd go to classical concerts, saw Yo-Yo Ma that way, saw Itzhak Perlman too. That was fine, but go to a folk punk show? Fuck no, was I crazy, he's not gonna do that. Go out to Central Park on a gorgeous day and just kinda be with each other? Pffft, no. Wrench on a car, absolutely fucking not. Either we did what he wanted, or we didn't do."

Ravn listens quietly, picking apart his sandwich (and even eating bits on it, but let's be honest here, he's a picky eater even when not combating emotional turmoil -- there's a reason he stays thin in spite of living off junk food most of the time).

"She made me feel normal," he says at length. "She did all sorts of exciting, flamboyant things. Photography. Art. Dressage. Travelled everywhere, lived with the jet set. Told me that I didn't make her feel bad about wanting to live, about having ambitions and wanting to achieve things. I fell into that -- she was this colourful, vivid person who for some reason had the patience to be with a dry and dull academic like me. I lived through her, she made me feel like I could be interesting and exciting too. She changed me into someone interesting."

He shakes his head. "She turned me into somebody I was not, and I let her, out of gratitude that she'd bother in the first place. That's not a healthy basis for a relationship. But more so the fact that I never told her anything about how I used to run away as a kid and as a teen. How I used to steal cars and pick pockets and make an ass out of myself. I didn't want her to know those things because I knew she'd be -- disappointed. I was this perfectly malleable, quiet, colourless canvas for her to paint on, and for a while at least, I really thought I could be that guy. But was the same kind of situation. Either we did what she wanted, or we didn't do."

Itzhak's nodding. "You knew you couldn't tell her who you really were. You knew she wasn't actually patient. Everything, fuckin' everything was about the pressure to be what she wanted. She didn't got no interest in you, not really. She saw someone who would twist himself into a pretzel to make her happy." He grimaces, lip curling. "Mine, the same. There's a reason he was thirty six and I was seventeen, guys his own age already knew he was a jackass. He had to find one who didn't know yet. Who was dyin' for some older man to approve of him for once. And, at the end, who was gonna be really easy to get rid of."

He's quiet a moment, sunk into bad memories of a bad person. "He didn't even go to my recital," he says with a thin, forced smile. "Said he had a migraine. For all I know, he really did."

Setting his mug down, he sighs and rakes both hands through his curly black hair. "I don't get on with therapists too good. Had too many of 'em who were court-mandated. But one...one told me one thing that stuck with me. Oh, I hated her, she saw right through me, and I couldn't fuckin' stand it. But she told me one thing. She said, 'Itzhak, some people are gonna try to make you small, because you scare them with how much power you actually have. Don't let them make you small.'"

He looks at Ravn again. "When I saw the way you looked at the dybbuk of your dead fiancee, I knew she made you real damn small. And that's when I knew I was gonna kill her."

"I went to talk to Seth Monaghan about that," Ravn murmurs, still looking at his no doubt very offensive chorizo sandwich. "I figured that if anyone'd know to feel after... that. He'd be the guy. I told him what happened -- that she showed up in a dream and attacked people. That she's a very big part of what I've been running from those last three years. How she blamed me for her death, and followed me until she eventually caught up with me, here. He said -- well, basically he said that if I'd spent three years running from the hell she wanted to give me, maybe I shouldn't feel guilty about being happy she's dead. And he's right, you know? She made my life hell while she was alive, and then she made it hell while she was dead, and now I'm -- free of her? I'm glad you killed her. I'm glad none of you hesitated in the slightest. That it was never a question of right or wrong -- she was wrong to the core, and she had to go."

Itzhak's smile is real now. "Seth fuckin' Monaghan," he murmurs, and shakes his head as if in wonder. "Look, you can feel guilty. God knows I can't tell you not to. You can feel all the stuff you gotta feel, and it's about damn time, right? That you get to feel everything you got to feel? That it's..." he pauses, searching for the words, "that it's important you feel everything that's in you? Happy, guilty, whatevah, you get to do it all now and ain't nobody can stop you."

"Seth fuckin' Monaghan is a pretty decent guy who's got some nasty relatives and made some bad choices. Who the hell am I to judge? We don't get to pick our families." Ravn nods. Then he looks up, finally, blue-grey eyes meeting hazel. "That's what I was struggling with the most, though -- that I didn't feel anything besides relief that she was dead, and a bit of embarrassment that other people had to see that, and deal with that."

He hitches a shoulder and smiles lightly. "It made me decide that these are my people, this is my place. Going home just confirmed that feeling. Don't get me wrong, I had fun giving Hyacinth the tour and watching her geek out over balustrades and supporting columns, but it also cemented that feeling that I've moved on to another chapter in my life. I'm not applying for US citizenship but I am applying for permanent residence as opposed to breezing through on a tourist visa. For good or for worse, Gray Harbor's my home now."

"'Nothing', also a valid option for stuff to feel." Itzhak salutes Ravn with the mug. "Shit, you don't gotta be embarrassed, but I get it. If my ex boyfriend showed up like that, I'd melt from fuckin' mortification. Which is stupid, right? Like how's that work, 'Jesus please don't notice that I was seventeen one time and a real schmuck took advantage of me'? But that don't exactly stop it." In fact he's turning a little red right now, just thinking about it, and scrubs at one cheek as if to wipe away the flush.

The news that Ravn's here to stay, though, makes his whole hard-worn face transform into something sublime. "I should yell at you," he murmurs, "should tell you you're an idiot, get the fuck outta here. But I ain't. I never will."

"Yes. You and Alexander Clayton, and everybody else. I'm an idiot for staying, but I am staying." Ravn's smile grows wider and a tad lopsided before he takes a bite of his sandwich and chews for a moment. "I'm sort of past justifying that decision to myself. Yes, I've very possibly made the worst choice in the history of mankind, but this is the first time in my life I've felt that I actually belonged somewhere. If I walk away, travel on, then there is no point. I've already found what I was looking for."

He shifts in his seat, resting one leg over the other and looking at the other man. "I'm pretty much moved on to practical things now. More permanent place of residence? Talking with Aidan Kinney about maybe shacking up together somewhere. He likes to cook, I like to clean, we both hate how empty our current place feels. His girlfriend went back to England -- she's some kind of nobility there and there's some family obligation involved, but no matter how you look at it, long distance relationships are bloody lonely. I wanted to ask you about that place you talked about -- couple of single guys, or, well, mostly single guys like us don't need a lot of space. Wanted to ask you about helping me pick out some kind of ride that covers my needs too -- nothing fancy, just some advice on what I should look for. And I guess I need to sit myself down and make up my mind as to what I actually want to do here, but I've kind of been juggling some ideas with de Santos."

"Well it's a good thing you don't need much space, because there ain't much space there," Itzhak says, wry, but grinning at Ravn suddenly talking about his needs and shit. "More than ya trailer or ya boat but it ain't exactly big. I'll find you a car. Deciding what you wanna do, ehh, this I can't help you with, unless what you wanna do is play violin with me." Then he's nervously rubbing his thumb over the smooth surface of his mug, looking away. "Uh, listen. I'm glad you, uh, don't mind, that I a little bit wrecked the ghost of your dead fiancee. I mighta been worried." Who, Itzhak, worry?

"You mean the sea zombie who was trying to eviscerate you at the time?" Ravn's tone is no less wry. "I'm not sure what else you could have done in a situation like that. Once people are trying to disembowel each other, it's a little late to sit down for a round table talk, don't you think? She's gone. She died five years ago. You killed something that was already dead."

He reaches over to rest a gloved hand on his own violin case a moment. "Playing with you is definitely one of my top priorities. I am enjoying playing with someone else far more than I thought I would. What I meant about plans, though, was more work-related. De Santos and I are kind of talking about doing something community-oriented, maybe. If my theory that the Veil draws in artistic, empowered people with a darkness inside holds true, then Clayton is right that the homeless and the broken are cannon fodder here. We're debating ways to maybe help some of those folks help themselves get back on their feet. Not charity as much as a community effort."

Itzhak snorts, laughing. "Yeah yeah, usually it don't got nothin' to do with rationality. I wouldn't blame ya if you felt some kinda way. But hey, you're good, then I'm good." He drains the coffee while Ravn talks. "Mm. Yeah," he agrees about the homeless being cannon fodder. "'specially if they got Baxter blood, which I bet a lot of 'em do. You know I known de Santos since he was a petzeleh and I was a fresh ex-con. Glad you're friends with him. You couldn't ask for a better."

"De Santos is a good man -- and he's very invested in the whole idea that altruism is anathema to the Veil. A view which I tend to share." Ravn shakes his head slightly, smiling mostly at himself. "He makes me feel... That if I want to keep thinking of myself as a pretty decent person I need to get my ass off my hands and do things? If there's anyone who can spearhead some kind of community effort, he's the man for the job. On a more personal level for me? I'm definitely capable of helping people study, or write resumes, or read tenement contracts."

He pauses slightly and folds the sandwich napkin into a neat little square. "You know, it was nice to see Clayton and Hyacinth talk to each other about it. In a civilised fashion, I mean. That really is a big deal in this whole mess -- the Baxters and the Addingtons. The more they can talk and act rational, the less people end up in woodchippers, I figure. I don't want anyone to die, and I really don't want to picture Hyacinth as someone who wants to sacrifice people to the Veil."

"Mmm. Not what I think about Over There." Itzhak's mouth flattens. Then he gets up. "You want some coffee?" Is he avoiding the subject? Is he anxious? Is he cranky? Well who the hell knows!

"When do I not want coffee?" Ravn looks at the other man, studying his expression. He folds one leg across the other and leans back a little. "So which part of that bothers you? That Baxters and Addingtons are talking, that I don't want anyone to die, or that I don't want to wake up to the realisation that Hyacinth actually is just as bad a person as one is prone to think the first time one's introduced to a bossy, rich girl?"

Itzhak grunts. "None of the above."

He refills himself, brings Ravn over a cup, sets it down for him. Sitting down, he regards Ravn evenly, or as evenly as he ever does anything, this wild unicorn of a man.

"The Veil. Over There. On the Other Side." Itzhak makes a funny little tossing-away gesture. "It ain't one thing. People talk like all there is to it is the Bad Men, but that's just not true. The things I seen over there?" His eyes go unfocused, memory flooding in. "Some of 'em been pretty fucking bad, but some of 'em? Rashka," that new nickname he's decided now belongs to Ravn, "they been beautiful. Incredibly fucking beautiful. It's just like this side, over There. There's a lot of bad shit and there's a lot of good shit and more than either, there's just shit that completely does not care about us."

He refocuses on Ravn. "You ever been? Not in a Dream, just...stepped across, or been pulled?"

Ravn shakes his head. "Not as such. But Røn took me out back on his property once and just let me look in -- and yeah. It was very alien but not nightmarish. A kind of forest landscape that definitely was not on Earth anywhere. Some large insect-animal with a kind of insect guy riding through a glade, while the hummingspiders were flitting around the flowers. It wasn't terrible at all, just an entirely different world. The otherworlds of fairytales and folktales are like that too -- they're not inherently evil, just very different. Evil is a choice that we make, or someone on the other side makes. This place feels evil because of the them -- the ones Clayton calls the dolorphages, the pain eaters. The ones who are involved in the Addington/Baxter deal. I see it more like -- there's a carcass in the woods and the scavengers have gathered around it, but that doesn't mean that the woods are evil. They're just woods."

He looks at his coffee cup and picks it up, cradling it in long, gloved fingers. "My cat is a bit like that too. She's just a cat, but the Veil did something to her. She's a little smart, a little mean, a little -- cat. Whatever caused that whole mess with the murderous kittens and the three different copies of the same litter of murderous kittens, though, it wasn't trying to be evil. At least not from the point of view where tossing kittens into a cardboard box and dumping them is a perfectly shitty thing to do. A lot of the time, evil is just consequences of other people's or creatures' carelessness or indifference."

"You read Watership Down? I kinda think of this town like the warren that the men were keeping. Yannow, why go out and hunt a rabbit if you can get a bunch of them just living where it's convenient?" Itzhak shakes his head, putting out a hand at Ravn, palm down. "No, listen, you don't gotta convince me of the roots of evil. We legit study that in Hebrew school." The mention of the cats thing makes him pause, though. "...I think I thought I was in prison during that." He flushes, remembering that he slightly a little bit lost his shit. "Uh, anyway. Except, cat prison. Which was the point, right? The point that, that animal ghost or whatevah was trying to make. It wasn't evil. It just had enough of people's shit. But that's kinda what they call 'incompatible with life' for us. Still, my point is, there's a lot that's wonderful. Honestly, genuinely wonderful.

"When I first went across...it was amazing. It was beautiful. It changed somethin' in me." Itzhak says that, looking at Ravn intently, needing him to hear him, talking with those big inked hands--then he realizes he's being way too serious, and shies away. "Well," he mutters, "it did. And nobody believed me."

"I believe you," the other man says quietly. "Just because I haven't had that experience myself doesn't mean it's not real. You're talking to someone who literally grew up spending most of his time with dead people because the living were too busy with their own troubles. But yes, I did -- Richard Adams is one of my favourite writers, though I never did manage to get through Shardik. Cowslip's warren is a pretty good analogy. Though so is Efrafa -- where the rabbits live in so much fear of man that they create their own little hellish fascist kingdom. There's people here who definitely live in so much terror of the Veil that they could fall into that, too."

Ravn grins slightly. "Be El-Ahrairah, the prince with a thousand enemies -- take life as it comes, tackle problems when they arise. Screw everything, eat all the lettuce, flip death off."

"Sometimes," Itzhak murmurs, low and dark, "that's what I hear, when I hear people say, don't use the Song, don't you dare, They're out there, They'll come. I hear Efrafa." He lifts his head. "They'll come no matter what because that's what They do. We're already in the fucking warren. I'm gonna bite as many motherfuckers as possible before the snares get me."

Then he lifts his eyebrows, saucy as hell despite the grim thing he'd just said. "El-Ahrairah, huh?" He pronounces it with a rasp at the back of his throat on the 'hrair', like it's a Hebrew word. He even says it with the Hebrew lilt. "Well, I sure could do worse."

"I try to pick and sift through the advice I get," Ravn replies with a small nod, recognising that feeling of self-inflicted control that some people do indeed apply, in order to convince themselves that if they are just good, then the dark doesn't come to get them. That they can bargain with evil, keep their side of the deal and expect the same in return. "I don't need to use the shine to pick a pocket -- I'm actually better at doing it with my hands anyway. I can pick up my car keys instead of levitating them -- no need to be frivolous. But I can't -- and won't -- turn off that awareness of where my car keys are, or start to drop things just because I get go of them at an inopportune moment. I'm not a fighting man the way you are, but if we rewrite our entire lives to avoid trouble..."

He pauses.

Then leans back a little and laughs. "Then we end up like some asshole who spent a couple of years or three avoiding human contact beyond the most superficial because he didn't want to deal with trouble. Some jackass who convinces himself that he's happy because he's not unhappy. But there's so much more to life than that. I'm going to screw everything, eat all the lettuce, and when Death comes, try to cheat his black Inlé cottontail, too. Figuratively speaking, of course, since I don't really do hookups and I'm not very fond of lettuce, but you know what I mean."

Then he puts the coffee coffee down and taps the violin case while arching an eyebrow. "So, in honour of that... Are we going to start with Bright Eyes today?"