2021-05-10 - Pass the Torch and the Glenfiddich

May nights aren't quite summer nights -- but, with a good sweater on, the deck of the Vagabond is not as cold as it could be. Ravn Abildgaard may need to sleep with his socks on to stay warm on the small sail boat, but he doesn't mind; there's something inherently free about living on the water, something bred into him through centuries of archipelago ancestry. He likes the sound against the hull, the smell of the salty sea, and the noise of the seagulls.

And the evenings, spent in the aft, feet up on the seat across, a bottle of twelve year Glenfiddich next to him, and a book in his lap. Can't get much more peaceful than that. The small black cat napping in the prow seems to agree.

His phone lights up with a text.

How's post-hospital life? You feel like drinking some beer?

If Conner knew about the Glenfiddich he probably wouldn't be offering a six-pack, but he does not, so he does. He would never show up at someone's home unannounced, specifically because he has such respect for quiet nights at home with a book and a cat. Not that he owns a cat, but if he did he would respect the sanctity of the cat's presence. So he issues the invitation in what he hopes is the most unobtrusive manner possible.

Not that the ding of a text is ever entirely peaceful.

When don't I feel like a beer under the moon? Come on out, the weather is great.

The response is quick enough, and includes the berth number. Compared to the larger, more luxurious all-year-round houseboats, the Vagabond is humble. For one man and his cat, though, it's got space enough -- and Ravn is used to keeping it simple. He does dip under deck after sending his reply -- because obviously, he's going to be needing another shot glass. Yes, he's got expensive taste in whiskey; there's a reason Leon Gyre has started stocking a bottle under the counter, and so far, he's the only patron of the Pourhouse asking for it, too, the uppity git.

Conner finds it okay, and about 20 minutes later is knocking on the door with a six pack of some highly local beer in hand. "The weather is great," he agrees, in person, when the door is opened for him. He looks about with admiration and says, "This is really nice."

He hadn't known until getting a berth number that Ravn lived on a houseboat, but despite its modest state seems more than duly impressed by it. He's been tied to one property all his life...something about the sense of freedom implied by the boat is quite evident to him at first glance. Maybe he didn't always think he'd end up following in the family footsteps.

"Come make yourself comfortable," the Dane says. "The Titanic she ain't, but unlike the Titanic, I plan to keep her floating. Don't mind the cat -- it's not personal. She doesn't really like people at all."

That is the green glare of doom Conner is getting. Not that he's done anything but disturb the peaceful solitude -- but that, apparently, is a crime in the eyes of the small, black feline.

Ravn settles in the aft again, and gestures for the other man to join him. The seat is U-shaped, and probably four people can sit comfortably -- if they don't mind fighting a bit over foot space. His left arm is still in a sling -- Aidan Kinney's done a magical number or three on it, but a fracture will take the time it bloody well wants to heal. "So -- something up, or just feeling like comparing notes on aggressive renovations? I am thinking that next time I go down in that basement I'm going with a flamethrower."

Conner opens a beer and offers it out, figuring he'll do that to spare Ravn having to do it one armed. He goes for one of his own and says, "I mean. I'll always compare notes, but this is my awkward and fumbling attempt to 'hang out' with a friend. Not that I'm not curious about what you made of all of that. Or the whole thing with the carousel. Or elk-fish...as I think on it, we've ended up dealing with a lot of this stuff together of late. It may be the easiest conversational topic."

A wry smile, as he adds, "Unless you want to hear all about what it takes to reglaze a bathtub correctly, and the answer is: spend way too much time and money doing a terrible job before deciding to hire a contractor. As for your basement...I was hoping we removed the need to go down with any more weaponry. The smell seemed to go away, anyway."

Ravn doesn't look very sorry for the help; it certainly beats wriggling out of the sling, doing something, realising how much it hurts, wriggling back into the sling, and calling himself an idiot. "We really need a better hobby," he murmurs. "Maybe we could take up bowling. Or bridge. Maybe chess, if we want to get wild."

He accepts the beer and offers a small toast. "To elkfish, to bitey carousel horses, and to one mind screw after another. Did I hear you say sometime you're a local man? Can't imagine what it must be like, growing up here. Also can't imagine what it's like to reglaze a bathtub. I've got ten thumbs."

A smile touches Conner's lips. "Well. I do play chess," he offers. "And I'm always up for a game of it. Just in case that's a serious suggestion."

He nods, though, and says, "Yeah. I'm no Addington or anything, and my family's smaller, but we've been here for generations. I own the Broadleaf, which I inherited. My great grandparents built it. I left the city exactly once, to go up to Seattle for a semester at UW. Then my grandparents needed me and I showed up back here. I've known things could get weird since I was thirteen, but...well. This phenomenon of being real easy to overlook has always been a thing, and for awhile as long as I seemed to strongly intend to stay in with my books...stuff left me alone. Dreams, not always, but even they were pretty sparse. The moment I decided I was never going to learn anything that way, that it was time to interact..."

He smiles ruefully, and spreads his hands. But adds: "No regrets though."

Ravn studies the other man for a few moments. Then he can't help a quiet laugh. "You realise that barring a few key points, that could be me. I didn't hide in with my books -- went travelling instead. But that whole -- just staying out of things, minding my own business, don't need anyone, don't need anything. That was definitely me as well. Until I ended up here, and Gray Harbor decided to take over my life. I call it social invisibility. Just... keep your head down, let things move around you, be transient."

He sips the beer. The cat glares at them both for good measure, then tucks her head under one paw. "If you'd told me back in August what this place is like, I'd called you certifiable."

Connor starts laughing. "Like Isi and her friend? Amber was it? Thinking that we were having them on, at the least, and that we were dangerous, at worst? I probably shouldn't have picked madmen going after people with a hammer as my example. Not while holding power tools myself. She probably thought I was giving her the 30 second head start."

He leaves the cat alone. He doesn't even look at the poor kitty, as if gently respecting her wishes to have as little disruption in her life as possible. Or he's just focused on the conversation.

"You have people now though," he observes. "Everyone seems to know you, and here you are setting up a community center. That's a big change."

"No, I'm not," Ravn says with a smile. "We are. It's not my project -- it's Gray Harbor's. That's the whole concept in a nutshell -- it doesn't hinge on any one man, and no one man getting knocked on his arse by the Veil will stop it."

He pauses, and then nods thoughtfully. "I'm getting ... used to the idea. It's not that everyone knows me, Hawthorne -- it's that this little magic people community is so small and so tight that if you step out into the light, everyone notices. You've been keeping quiet -- give it another six months, and you'll be the guy asking yourself what happened and how come you do in fact seem to know half the town all of a sudden."

And then, the Dane can't resist a small smile. "Amber. I think. Isi -- is coming around to the idea. Which is good because the dreams will get her sooner or later if she stays. Amber, though -- not sure we got through to her. I'm never sure how to go about it -- feels like you're intruding on people a lot, like you're some crazy stalker turning up and having decided to force your beliefs on somebody. Every bit of manners I have insisting that maybe some twenty-something-year old girl doesn't want some weirdo with a foreign accent all up in their face. But we have to -- might literally be saving their lives, giving them a headsup before the shit hits the fan."

"I mean, kudos to you for even figuring out how to launch into that conversation directly," Conner says, tilting his head to one side. A ghost of a smile. "I mean. Turner and I tried to warn Xavier when he first came into town. I guess...you were there, for half a minute, at the library. We ended up sounding like Miskatonic Stereotypes, speaking in vague, ominous tones about the town and the forest. Then Joe walks in and he's just like bluntly telling it like it is. So I mean...I guess the rip-the-bandaid off approach isn't that uncommon, and she'll thank you later."

He takes a swig of the beer and adds, "We'll just have to try to keep an eye out for her in the meantime."

"Someone did the same to me. A girl -- still not sure whether she was trying to pick me up or just took pity on me." Ravn chuckles over his beer. "She showed me right there -- made my clothes stick to my chair. If I wanted to leave I could -- just, I wouldn't be taking my jeans with me. A day later I'm running through the woods with another guy, with the Headless Horseman in hot pursuit. Thinking to myself, thank you, Lyric -- because if she hadn't explained to me how dangerous all of this is, I'd probably have just stood there, wanting to have a good Karen-y word with that cosplayer and his very big broadsword."

Then he looks back at Conner. "I always feel like a complete idiot. You can see it in their eyes -- oh, fantastic, we found the village loony."

Conner chuckles and says, "I think I want to speak to your manager as a method for dealing with this crap seems to be Hyacinth and Vyv's province. We shouldn't take it away from them. It seems to work pretty gosh darn well for them, after all."

His eyes sparkle with muted good humor, broad shoulders shaking the way they always do when he starts laughing. His laughs are always near-silent, but they can be seen.

He shakes his head though and adds, "I didn't think of just showing them. I guess I could have zapped something. I wouldn't just pull out mental abilities on other people. Being able to get into people's heads requires high level ethics, you know? And even if they didn't, a sudden voice in your head isn't convincing. It just makes you think you've taken drugs."

"Floating a lighter or moving a coin is pretty much what I can do -- but it's enough to convince people that something here isn't quite right. Even if, like Isi, they keep looking for the hidden strings." Ravn nods. "As far as magic tricks go -- mine are mostly stage magic. I don't read emotions or heal, or set things on fire, or zap them. I steal car keys and levitate pencils. On the up side, though? I've done it all my life so when I came here, I was -- maybe less flabbergasted than some. I knew these things existed -- I just thought that I was the only one who could do stuff like that. Bit ironic, really, since I'm probably the least competent shine user in town."

Another glance up at the sky. "Hyacinth and Vyv -- they're used to being charge. It shows. But they're good people. Sure, they'll complain loudly about a stain on a fashionable jacket -- and then they'll pull your chestnuts out of the fire and make the dragon apologise for breathing out hot in the first place."

Conner's eyes widen in a way that's startled, and maybe a bit embarrassed. "No no no, I mean yes, I agree, I like them very much. I didn't mean to imply otherwise. Just that they're...ah...forceful people and..."

He exhales, flustered. This is why he turtled for so long. Social awkwardness, and sometimes meaning one thing only to watch something else come out of his mouth. He drinks his beer. Yes. Drinking is good.

As for Ravn and his magic tricks, he says, "And...shine use aside, you understand the...underpinnings. The...collective unconscious experience that's getting triggered when certain things occur. That understanding seems way more key to survival sometimes than any messing around with power."

Ravn shakes his head. "No, I didn't mean it like that. Just, they can be a little overwhelming. I never really noticed myself until other people commented on it -- apparently, Hyacinth has a reputation for eating her PAs alive, and Vydal is a nightmare in his own kitchen. But to me, they're just two decent people who've gone through a lot of the same stuff that I have -- if not more. In Hyacinth's case, a hell of a lot more."

Then, with more than a trace of wryness, he adds, "I'm not convinced that a lecture on archetypal hauntings would have done us much good back in that basement. I know what you mean, and I do try -- narrative is sort of my field, as a folklorist. But sometimes? Sometimes you need someone who can torch a ghost, rather than try to argue with it."

Well, okay, there was that.

Conner clears his throat self-consciously and says, "Then there's all the...dead dolls? The ghost...parts? Did anyone ever figure out what to do about that? Or rather, did you? I just looked at that one and my brain drew a complete blank. I feel like I was missing vital information there. Other than just sort of absorbing: yep. I'm standing under a carousel staring at a row of dead dolls who are also ghosts. This is fine."

There's an understated dryness to his tone there.

Ravn nods slowly, thoughtfully. "I know some of it. Basically? It ties back to something that happened here, in the mid-19th century. Would help if we knew what. The Baxters and the Addingtons have been at each other's throats ever since. I thought it was a fairly regular feud where some Addington got the upper hand by basically selling the Baxters, but it's more complicated than that. The way I understand it -- when a Baxter dies, a bit of the shine fades with them. And when an Addington dies -- a bit comes back. So the Baxter dolls, who are really kind of what remains of a hundred and fifty years' worth of dead Baxters? They're being kept around, to keep the Veil from closing."

He looks back at Conner, wincing a little at the subject -- what's a pile of dismembered people between friends? "There's a lot about it I still don't know. That no one person knows. I've pieced a lot of it together from talking to people on both sides, but I still feel like I'm only scratching the surface. The little girl is apparently a Baxter-Addington that's not supposed to exist. God only knows what that does to the Veil -- someone who can open and close it as she likes."

"I suppose they probably do not, either one of them, appreciate anyone digging into their family history, and I'll bet anything that could actually tell us more is not exactly sitting around in the public records waiting to be found," Conner says slowly. "But...surely an equal number of Addingtons have died. So why would the Baxters moving on close the Veil? Dead is dead. It's already happened, hasn't it?"

He winces too, yeah, okay, subject matter is awful.

At least they were only drinking, not eating.

"Either the Baxters are more prolific, or there's something else we don't know yet," Ravn agrees. "And, you're right -- until very recently, the two families didn't talk. The Addingtons kept up appearances while running the town. The Baxters pretty much -- just kept low, and a lot of them simply left town. It changed -- there aren't a lot of Baxters left alive, and the ones that are, obviously want to stay alive. And Hyacinth -- doesn't want to inherit an empire that's basically founded on dead people. She got them started talking. I was there, taking notes -- and I can tell you this much, not every Addington thought it was a great idea."

He steeples his fingers and looks back at Conner. "You know what's the most confusing part of this? There's more than one story being told. It's not just this feud -- there's also Baba Yaga warning us about storms. There's the elkfish, whatever they are. There's -- all kinds of things. It's chaotic and a lot of it has nothing to do with the rest. But it's up to us to sort out what's what, and what's an immediate danger."

"There might be one common thread. The little girl wants to close off the Veil by letting the Baxters move on. The elkfish that talked to us wants to eat shine and claims we don't really want any of this anyway. It's like...there's a greater power struggle going on, and it's all linked somehow but we're in the middle of it."

A pause. "I liked Baba Yaga."

And then he asks: "What was the deal with the angry lady who had her throat slit? I mean. Obviously the slit in her throat hasn't slowed her down any. She seemed agitated about the spirits being let out of the sawmill."

"The Exorcist." Ravn nods, thinking back. "Apparently she was in charge of the whole -- ghost business. Until she quit. Right there, in front of us. Heaven only knows what she's doing now."

He dips into a pocket for a packet of cigarettes and lights one, leaving it on the empty seat in case Conner wants one as well. "This is a part of the Veil that I don't know very much about -- there's a couple of folks who do, but for some reason they never felt like telling anyone else a whole lot about it. Basically? If you die over there, you may get recruited into some kind of ... job. Usually one that ends in -ist. The Exorcist and the Revisionist are the two I've had any dealings with. There's also some others -- job titles that end in -or, like Doctor. I've heard a theory that they're manifestations of the actual Veil powers -- that they're the source. But I don't know how much faith to hold in that -- I'm more inclined to think that perhaps they are genuinely bad people who applied for the job for the fun of it, because they enjoyed causing suffering."

Ravn sighs. "If all of these people -- them, us, all of us -- some day manage to pool our information, we'll probably have a collective duh! moment when the pennies drop. But until then? It's this great web of overlapping stories and realities, and the only thing we know for sure is that we're all only seeing our own little corner of it."

"It doesn't help that so much of it seems to run on the very logic of the dreams we get swept into," Conner says, grimacing. "You don't get scraps of information written out neatly for you. What you get is magical figs and encounters with talking elk monsters. I imagine the entities here have every interest in obscuring the truth further. If that collective penny ever drops, they could be in trouble. The town could actually try to come to some sort of accord on what to do about them, if anything. We might know better how to protect people from them. No, it's definitely in their best interests to keep things confusing and symbolic. If they're even capable of doing anything else."

A pause, then he asks: "So the Ist and Or people are always uniformly bad? Agents of suffering? There's no helpful ones?"

"The Ists aren't bad, per se, from what I have seen," Ravn says, shaking his head a little. "The Exorcist, both times I've seen her, has been trying to do -- whatever it is she does, but it seems to involve keeping the status quo among the ghosts. The Revisionist -- heaven only knows why he or she started screwing with people's lives in the first place, but it does not seem to be malicious as much as just not having the first damn clue how humanity actually works. Some of us approached them about the stories that had been inflicted on us, and they redid them. In my case? I got one I found tolerable instead -- that's why I'm now running an illegal lobster fighting ring, crazy as it sounds. Vydal had his story removed entirely. So -- not malicious as much as clueless, or working towards an agenda no one understands."

He looks back. "The Ors, on the other hand -- everything I've heard about them is bad. I'm inclined to think that they either are the ones we call the dolorphages, or their direct agents. They want us to hurt. That's the part of the Veil that HOPE is trying to counter -- because the one thing we do know about these pain eaters is that altruism is anathema to them. The rest? I want to know, I want to understand, as much as you do. But we probably never quite will. There's just too much, and as you say, there are also too many entities on the other side who either don't speak Human, or want to keep us confused."

Connor's eyebrows shoot up at illegal lobster fighting ring, and he seems quite amused by that fact. "I didn't know it was illegal to fight lobsters nor did I know lobster fighting was a thing at all so...I guess I've learned something new today." He doesn't seem offended by it or anything, but it's definitely a surprise. A kind of funny one, at least to his ear.

He takes the bit about the Ors under advisement, and nods thoughtfully about altruism being anathema. He'd already caught on to the fact that managing his fear, as much as possible, was a smart idea.

"If that's the case," he says slowly, "then maybe your impulse to be real careful moving about the center alone is a good one. It may not be that specific patch of ground was haunted so much as...bad actors trying to stop altruism before it begins. Because the center could become a real haven, a safe port in the storm, if that's the case. There could be a lot of reasons why the pain eaters don't want it to become what it's meant to become, and if that's the case...we probably should expect trouble for awhile."

"Illegal lobster fighting ring sounds like Fight Club but with seafood. And that's pretty much what it is." Ravn can't help laughing softly at the sheer silliness of it all. "I don't actually do anything, you realise? The Revisionist rewrote reality around me so that no matter what I do or do not do, I'm on this pier a couple of nights a week, with a group of flannel shirt wearing lumber mill workers, watching lobsters and crayfish pretend to fight, and then we eat the losers. Supposedly illegal, but it's not like the GHPD is going to waste manpower on some guys covertly eating lobster on the marina. If the Revisionist was malicious they could do so much worse -- I think they honest to God just don't understand how people work, and they lifted most of their ideas from daytime TV."

Then he sobers because while the idea of combat crayfish is funny, the dolorphages are not. "The way de Santos and I have been approaching the whole HOPE thing is -- it's a declaration of war, and we know it. They know it. De Santos has been trying to do this for a long time -- and they bloody well killed him. He got better, obviously, but they're not going to be pulling their punches, no. That's why we're trying to make everything bullet proof. Take a key person out? Won't matter, it's all volunteer based, somebody else can step up to fill their shoes. Hit us financially? Our lawyer and accounting are in Seattle, out of reach. I have no doubt whatsoever we'll get hit hard and often. But the alternative is ... just being good cows in the pasture, and I for one can't do that, not knowing what they've done to people here in the past."

"I'll have to come down one night. Just for the seafood," Conner says, and his shoulders start shaking again, eyes crinkling at the corners, sparkling. "And no, no I think worst case one of them might want a bribe of lobster and hot melted butter."

But he sobers too, and when Ravn says outright he knows it's a declaration of war his eyes widen in respect. That someone already died doing it has him taken aback, but then his jaw firms stubbornly and his shoulders square and it's clear that something about that has angered him. That someone would have to die for doing something that in any other town would be a simple act of good.

"Alright. Well, now I think I need to do a lot more than I've been doing. Before I leave tell me where to send a check, and I'll help fortify us there too. I'm all in on this now." He was just casually in before, but it's just another symptom of how that day in the basement carved a change into him.

"I'd be willing to maybe sacrifice a prize fighter on the altar of appeasing the law," Ravn murmurs with a chuckle. Absurd? Yes, it is. Some crazy story in Gray Harbor is absurd? Don't clear the front page of the Gazette, it takes more than that make news around here.

He studies the other man a moment. "I'm not going to say we don't need money, because of course we can always find ways to spend more money. But the thing we really need, if you really want to make a difference? Warm bodies with hands that can use tools. We have a couple of financial backers who guarantee that rent and utilities are covered in case that we don't receive enough donations directly -- and we did in fact just receive a sizeable donation from a private citizen. What we can't do, however -- is hire some private constructor to just bloody well bring the property up to spec. We have to follow this narrative that we're trying to impose on the Veil -- the eighties movie montage in which all the city gets together and does everything by hand in spite of overwhelming odds and probably a corrupt mayor too."

The Dane offers a wry smile. "You've seen me trying to change a light bulb. People who can use their hands are worth their literal weight in gold, I swear."

Conner laughs and says, "As well I've been forced by circumstance to learn. I had a maintenance guy for years, but now I don't, and I haven't wanted to hire one. So...I guess sometimes things work out in people's favor, too. Not that I'm not struggling a little to learn everything, but I'll get there. I guess now I'm inspired to keep at it all the more. There's something satisfying in doing it myself anyway."

This, though, means he'll be down there a lot more often than his sporadic, shy attendance of the previous month. He can do his part to impose an 80s montage. But he nods, thoughtfully. "So it's like a ritual. Only...story-as-ritual. And you can impact other things around here through story-as-ritual, and everything is trying to impact you the same way?"

"Well, that's my working theory -- I've heard others voice something similar." Ravn nods slightly and shifts his weight on the seat, letting one hand hang over the railing of the boat -- too far down for him to get wet fingertips but it's a comfortable position. "Some people think that the less malicious parts of the Veil might try to communicate -- through the stories. You've heard the line about the only way out is through the dreams -- there's always some kind of narrative. So our take is -- if they can write one, so can we. The real deal breaker will be whether we can make it work for us on this side. On some level it can't not work -- our narrative is uniting people and trying to improve life. It's very hard to put an end to something that with such a fuzzy definition -- and that is quite intentional."

Ravn pauses. "And I'm lecturing again. I do that. It's a subject I am passionate about, and I tend to let it run away with me sometimes. How are you for a whiskey? I live on a boat so I can afford a proper scotch." He nods towards the Glenfiddich bottle. "It's the one thing I will never agree with Americans on -- what proper whiskey means."