2022-02-06 - Plots and Plans

It's Søren's fault. Søren will remain forever oblivious -- history student as he is, living on the other side of the planet, and participating in the educational program that Ravn is an online lecturer for. And he's the twenty-year-old asshole who, upon hearing that Ravn currently lives in the States, exclaimed, "Gee, you're so lucky! I bet the nightlife is really rocking, unlike this provincial shithole!"

By which he meant the three million people city of Copenhagen. Which, Ravn will admit, is not the navel of the world, figuratively speaking, but it certainly has a great deal more nightlife than Gray Harbor and its eighteen thousand residents, two bars. And then he decided to go have a beer at one of those bars because goddamnit, the kids get younger every year and today he feels not like thirty-one but sixty-one, give or take a few years.

He wanders in, leather jacket up around his ears, bullet hole in one sleeve still not patched, and scampers on to a tall chair at the bar. A couple of fellows in plaid shirts get a wave and a nod, and one of them winks back in a way that can best be described as 'cartoonishly secretive, wink,wink'. Then the Dane tells Davis the bartender, "The usual please," and starts fiddling with the plastic cigarette he's toyed with indoors ever since de la Vega reminded him, right here, that smoking indoors in a place that serves food is prohibited in the State of Washington.

Gray Harbor may not rock the nightlife, but beers at the Pourhouse has become something of a Saturday night ritual for Una, these past few weeks: come in, have a drink, sometimes meet a few people, sometimes play Candy Crush on her phone in the corner. It's not exciting, maybe, but rituals and routines are important.

Tonight, she's eschewed-- or perhaps been drawn away from-- her usual spot up at the bar, and sits instead at one of the tall tables, surrounded by a group of cheerful locals. Maybe her voice carries, maybe it doesn't: "I don't believe you! Eighteen seconds to chop through a whole log? Impossible."

She's wrong, chorus her companions. It's a failing she'll have to live with, though, because she's out of beer, and excuses therefore need to be made, so that she can weave her way towards the bar.

Davis reaches for the special (read: hella expensive) whiskey bottle under the counter when Ravn raises a hand and shakes his head. "Tonight I just want a draft beer, Davis. Something bitter and dark, like the bottom of my heart."

The bartender gives him a dubious look. "We sell beer, Abildgaard. Not therapy."

"This kind of therapy will do," Ravn tells him with a chuckle. Davis has a sharp tongue on him, and little mercy. He also makes a small fortune on the Dane's whiskey habits -- and if Ravn is going to be that way tonight, he'll find himself served a local microbrewery's idea of a dark stout that is surprisingly bitter and hoppy. It's actually not that great, but it's got a hand painted and -printed label, and hence, it is very fancy. Hipsters love that sort of thing and in Davis' book, Ravn is the embodiment of one such.

The Dane doesn't comment on the quality of the beverage served. You get what you ask for, so he's only got himself to blame, he reasons. Instead, he glances at Una as she makes her way up. "Johnson and Zapatero trying to convince you they eat logs for breakfast? Don't believe a word they're telling you. It takes at least twenty seconds."

"I'm pretty sure they'd drag me outside and demonstrate right now, if I let them," answers Una as she steps up to the bar alongside Ravn. "Or possibly they'd then make excuses about how they can't demonstrate right now, because... I don't know, the moon isn't full enough, the logs are the wrong shape, the only saw on hand is blunt. One of the above."

Amused, the redhead grins at the Dane. "It's kind of refreshing, actually. More interesting than 'I can beat that one level in the arcade version of Sonic the Hedgehog in twenty seconds'," clearly an exaggeration, "or 'I can turn a hundred bucks into a thousand in a day by screwing over other people in the stock market'. Seattle bars are shit. At least chopping logs serves a purpose."

Sort of.

"I can design the next Facebook in half an hour and give you the majority of the stock, if you'll lend me your cell phone and a hundred grand?" Ravn has been to Seattle too. Maybe it's where he acquired his up and coming techno hipster look. Maybe he's always dressed like this, and then some asshole had to go and make it fashionable in certain circles. Looking at you there, Steve Jobs.

He chuckles and shakes his head. "And in Gray Harbor, I think the equivalent line goes something like, I can tell you who's winning next week's lobster match, I got it from the lobster's pinchers this morning."

"Don't you dare," one of the men at the nearest table calls out. "Besides, it's gonna be my Bessie. She's got the sharpest claws this side of Humptulips!"

Una's nod-- not to mention her snort of laughter, the roll of her eyes-- confirms that Ravn's summation of Seattle is a realistic one. The mention of lobsters only seems to increase her mirth: this chuckle is significantly more fully formed.

"Is there a local prognostication lobster? Like... like the octopus that predicted that soccer match," try the world cup, "or-- well, for a timely reference, Punxsutawney Phil."

In 2022, hopefully Phil's prediction was for an early spring.

"Because there should be."

"If there is, someone probably tied sporks to his claws and put him in the fighting ring," Ravn murmurs and sips his beer. "And thus, we shall never be able to find out if he saw his shadow when emerging from the depths, no doubt in pursuit of someone's dropped sandwich or hot dog on the marina. Gray Harbor Phil doesn't have the same ring to it, though."

He looks back at the man at the table. "And Bessie, well, Bessie's not very big, is she now."

"Your girlfriend oughta tell you it's not the size, it's how you use it," the lumber mill worker retorts with what he probably thinks is a mischievous wink (it's an interesting facial contortion at any rate).

"My money's on Zapatero's White Angel," Ravn returns with a grin that's half amused, half troubled. "She's big, she's white, and she's mean. I don't think crayfish are racist much, but those white mutants are bloody terrifying. And smart."

Una glances over her shoulder to regard aforementioned man, letting out another snort of laughter. "Alas," she says. "We'll never know what mysteries could have been revealed to us. Too busy getting them to fight for sport."

"Mutant white crayfish definitely sound terrifying. I'd definitely rather not run into one in a dark alley. Good luck to Bessie, and to White Angel. May the best lobster-- crayfish-- win."

"They are mutants," Ravn says, lowering his voice in a not too subtle hint that if he wanted to join the conversation at the table, he'd have sat down at it. "They're all females, and they breed by parthogenesis -- which means that they are mutants. Apart from that, though, they're just, well, somewhat large, white crayfish. Though they do seem to have some kind of hivemind intelligence, and I really wish people wouldn't try to bring them into the fighting games. Someone's going to have an accident once they realise what the fighting games are about."

Una shakes her head, exhaling a long breath. "That's... yeah." Not the most intelligent comment she's ever made, and maybe she realises it, because as she toys with a coaster abandoned atop the bar, she adds, "I assume there are smart people studying them. Not that that helps with the whole fighting ring thing-- which still makes me laugh. This town is great." Also crazy. Also un-great. And maybe that's audible in her tone, too.

"I'm sure there, and I'm sure that whoever they are, my name is on the list they're debating handing over to some local thug for knee cap breaking." Ravn can't help a chuckle; he knows that tone in Una's voice so very well. He loves this town. And at the same time, he hates it. It's never boring, that's for certain. "I tried to keep them out. Started a rumour with August Røn and Aidan Kinney, actually -- that they're not even good to eat. After all, half the point of lobster fighting is eating the losers after the fights, right? Didn't work. That's not how the story goes -- and every time I try to go against the narrative, the narrative just ploughs right over me. Believe me, I'd not be involved with -- " air quotes " -- 'illegal lobster bloodsports' if I had any kind of choice."

He shrugs and sips his beer. "Still, beats the alternative."

"Right," agrees Una. The Revisionist: she remembers this. "The narrative's pretty powerful, I guess. So-- we just roll with it. That's just the way it works."

Catching Davis' attention, she orders another beer (nothing hipster-y for her), idly tapping the coaster she's purloined against the top of the bar.

"How are you, anyway? Still haven't got that sleeve mended, I see."

"Making a decision I ought to do something about it and actually doing something about it are two entirely different and unrelated matters," Ravn sniffs with an air of mild embarrassment. He touches the bullet hole with a fingertip. "I did think about going to see that new tailor about it -- the Indian lady who's renting into the Bauer Building. Then I realised she works for the rich and famous, and that owning a piece by her is apparently a bit of a statement, and now I'm thinking maybe I should just buy a new jacket. I really have no wish to make fashion statements. On the other hand she seems nice enough and I imagine that settling down in fluorescent white suburbia must feel like the extreme end of nowhere. She mentioned living in New York previously, that's rather a change."

He chuckles. "I'm all right. Decided to go out for a beer because fuck that student of mine who thinks living in the United States means you're essentially playing real life Grand Theft Auto. You?"

"I was considering going in and applying for a job with her," admits Una, just short of sounding bashful. "I know she's looking for staff. I'm just not sure I necessarily fit the high end... atmosphere? I tend to be more... eclectic than fashionable." Not to mention, she's not fashionably thin, though if this is part of her reasoning, she's not given to highlighting it. "It still baffles me that she'd end up here, even though I get that that's... Gray Harbor. This is not exactly New York."

"Foreigners-- I mean, not you- are weird. People tend to have such specific ideas about this country. I guess our media doesn't do us any favours, there. I'm good. Allegedly job hunting, but..." She gives a little shrug.

Ravn sips his beer thoughtfully. "Maybe you should, because of that. I mean, she's here. I get that she does most of her work by word of mouth and rich people flying in for a fitting. She's still going to need someone to do the paperwork, mind the phones, and know which company in Seattle to order silk from. And that someone should not sound like a cosmopolitan super star, not unless she wants to pay triple for everything."

Una's beer gets slid across the bar to her (she helpfully puts the coaster back down for it, though it's not as if this would be the first time a cold glass has touched the wood, nor the last). She thanks Davis with a nod, distracted enough by Ravn's point that it prevents her from (immediately) using her words.

Finally: "I hadn't thought of that, but... yeah. That would make sense. I can certainly sound professional, not to mention local. I guess I'll have to drop in my resume and see."

Ravn glances over his shoulder to the table behind them. Voice low he murmurs, "If I've learned one thing in almost two years here? It's that the locals really aren't very impressed with big city folks coming in, telling them how to do things. The Casino and all -- it's like a separate world, and the locals don't want anything much to do with it all. The tourists? Walking money bags. It's like that in any country town, I think. Hell, my own home town is like that -- people who sound like they're from Copenhagen, or they're German? Fleece 'em, bloody tourists."

He chuckles. "That Parvati certainly is high class. Watching her walk through town is like watching a peacock among country chickens. You have to wonder what the hell she wants here -- but it's probably the same as the rest of us. Not sure why, but this place just feels right. I don't think she's realised how things work yet -- but she will, soon enough. And when she does, it might not hurt for her to have someone like you around either."

"I expect it's probably like that in any tourist town," agrees Una, with a dip of her chin in lieu of a properly deep nod. "Even in Seattle... we laughed at people who wanted directions to the gum wall, or whatever, and if there was money to be made off of them..." And there always is.

Her laugh doesn't quite edge into bitter, but there's a seriousness to it: a solemnity, beneath the mirth. "There's that, too. Fuck. I've only been here... two months? Less. And yet."

"Once you know what's going on, you're practically an old hand," Ravn agrees and trails a gloved fingertip around the edge of his glass -- the posh sod isn't drinking out of the bottle like a proper lumber mill worker, he's got to have a glass, yessir. "How is Della doing? Speaking of people who are probably in for an aha! experience, sooner or later, I mean."

"Calm and composed and ready for any kind of weirdness, now: that's me." This time, Una's laugh is a little more genuine. Maybe it helps that she's paused for a moment to sip at her beer (also in a glass, but that's because it's something on tap), and to roll her shoulders back.

"I keep wondering if there is a way to deliberately trigger things in people. Because... surely it would be better to do it in a controlled way? Nothing too traumatic? If she's going to be like us, and I think... maybe. I don't know."

"Well, there's what I usually do once they do start to open up to the idea of something weird going on. I show them. Usually I hover my lighter in the air, let them feel for themselves to tell that there are no strings, no mirrors. Sometimes, it's enough. A lot of us come into town knowing that we are weird -- we just don't realise that we're not alone, and that you can talk about these things without being carted off to a place with bars in the windows."

He toys with the glass, tracing its rim with a gloved fingertip. It absolutely fails to produce any melodious crystalline notes -- probably because it is mundane glass, not crystal. "I suppose that we could do that. Expose her in a controlled environment, such as your living room. I mean, if your ghost decides to get a word in, it'll only confirm what we're saying."

Una's nod is long and slow. "And," she supposes, "the worst that happens is that she forgets it all, right? It's not like she then ends up thinking we're all crazy." The way she sucks her breath in, she's giving this plan serious consideration.

"It would... help, if she was in on it all. I mean, it's not the worst thing in the world, but it would make things easier."

"I'm sure you've noticed by now, yeah." Ravn glances around. The lumber mill workers and other folks sitting around keep to themselves -- in part because small town and outsiders. In part for other reasons. "We end up sticking to our own kind a lot. Because it's easier when everyone understands what you're on about, where you got that cut, why you are doing the bizarre thing you're doing. It is a little funny -- a lot of us have almost nothing in common otherwise, but this is such a big deal that it doesn't really matter who you are or where you came from, or what your position in society is. Trailer trash or millionaire, we're all in the same boat once the Veil starts acting funny."

He taps his lip with a gloved finger. "If Della's not ready to remember -- yeah. She'll find a way to rationalise it away. Maybe I'm just that good a stage magician. Maybe she had a fever and just imagined seeing a floating lighter. Or maybe she caught me using invisible strings and I'm just an ass who won't admit to it."

Slowly: "Money and power and-- I mean, none of that really matters, when it comes down to it. In a Dream, or otherwise." It's not so much that Una is piecing things together, exactly, but perhaps more that she's agreeing in a somewhat repetitious way. "I had noticed. The way we stick together. And how different everyone is, too. I have to think... Della moved here. She had no particular reason to do so. Only the barest of connection."

It's either a Sign, or Una is desperately hoping for it to be.

"Ok. I think... I think I'd like to try this at some point. I apologise in advance if this ends up being another case of turning someone named Della against you."

"Worst case scenario: I'll open a support group for Dellas Hating Ravns under another name and cash in on special membership deals." Ravn offers a lopsided smile; it's clearly not a big concern.

"You're right, though. It doesn't matter who we're supposed to be. Once you got some faerie prince planning to let his minion weasels eat everyone's faces, it doesn't matter if you're the chief of police, or some random dee jay, or for that matter, me." He nods and recalls the moment; three men, two guns, and a literal horde of brain weasels. "I've been -- a number of things in my life. Out of all that? The only thing that matters here is that if you need a lock picked in a dream, I'm the guy who can do it in a snappy fashion."

Una smirks around the rim of her glass, eyes bright with amusement.

It's after she's swallowed her mouthful, and wiped her mouth with the back of one hand that she gives proper verbal consideration to the rest of what Ravn has to say. "Though it may help if you can-- right. So skills matter, but wealth and fame not so much. It's very egalitarian, really."

She hesitates, and then: "... do you think you could teach me how to pick a lock? I mean, most of the time a useless skill, maybe, but..." But it'd be cool.

Ravn laughs softly and sips his beer. "Sure. It's really not difficult -- assuming that the lock is not a modern electronic affair in which case you're either a hacker or you're screwed. Mechanical locks are more a matter of patience and getting to know how it's supposed to feel than any great theoretical knowledge. I'll be happy to show you -- because we are all in this boat together, and the more skill we have between us, the greater our overall survival rates. Besides, it's fun. How are you with picking pockets?"

Una looks pleased: genuinely pleased. Maybe it's just the thrill of the illegal; maybe it's the fulfilment of some childhood dream. Who can say.

"I... can't say I've ever tried picking a pocket." She's leaning forward, though, interested and intent. "I suppose that's all about... timing? And quick fingers."

"And distraction." Ravn chuckles; he gets it, the thrill of it. "Of course you have to be quick and light, but the real trick is to keep people's attention somewhere else. That's why pickpockets usually work in pairs -- one thief creates a distraction while the other works. Ever walked along a boardwalk or plaza and seen two people suddenly start a loud argument over seemingly nothing, in the middle of the crowd? That's a good time to hold on to your wallet because it's the third man you won't notice."

Una taps a finger to her mouth in consideration, and then grins. "That makes sense," she says. "I've definitely seen that happen. People-- well, most of the time most of us don't have all that good of a spatial sense of ourselves anyway. I don't, anyway. What a fascinating collection of skills you have, for a folklorist."

"Folklorist is what it says on my stationery," Ravn murmurs with a slightly sheepish smile. "I lived on the streets for a while. I was one of those kids who kept running away from home because fuck parents and rules. I'm no master criminal, but I've done my share of grifting and petty theft. I stay on the straight and narrow these days but you don't forget what you learned as a kid -- and here, it comes in handy now and then. I'm no good in a fight and I certainly don't have the kinds of shine that some people do, but give me a bobby pin and I will get us past that door eventually."

Una's amused-- in a relaxed, easy kind of way-- by that sheepishness, and clearly interested in the rest of what Ravn has to say. "I suspect if we were all good in a fight, we'd either never need to fight, or we'd end up fighting things just because we can," she supposes, at the end of it. "I'm no fighter, but I expect it's easy to get into that mindset. Having lots of different skills between us... makes sense, I guess."

"I have felt like -- well, like a burden, a few times. Only one man's ever said something to that effect, though. The rest of us understand that we're kind of in it together, and we have to look out for each other in there. But it still can feel that way, when everyone else is doing magical and wondrous things, and all I can do is -- talk." Ravn tilts his head a little, and then chuckles. "And then I remind myself of the most violent Dream I've been in. A literal army of the dead, flanked by two Aztec deities. One of those puzzle dreams where you have to find out the right course of action or you will be ground into paste by the endless onslaught. Most people don't know a whole lot about cyclic fertility rites, you know? The fertility goddess wanted us to kill her -- that's how the Aztec year ends, and starts, with the death and rebirth of life. Sometimes, the thing a dream needs for us to survive is something obscure."

Una frowns, an expression less 'poor Ravn, feeling like a burden' and more 'that's a shitty feeling' (if, indeed, that much can be discerned from the furrowing of a brow, and the drawing in of a pair of lips).

"Ok-- so that sounds like it could have been ridiculously dangerous, if you hadn't been there, because how the hell would people figure that out? But I guess that's the point. You were there. You were supposed to be there." Fate.

"Anyway, I'm not sure I have any particularly useful skills, but-- I'll make it work."

"You've got a level head and a curious mind. That's a damn good start from what I've seen." Ravn hitches a shoulder lightly and sips his beer; he seems intent on drinking it, hoppy and bitter as it may be. "A lot of the time -- at least in my experience -- the real issue is keeping your shit together and not run around like headless chickens. It's easy to panic -- a lot of these dreams try to hit us where it really hurts. Conjure up our personal demons. I had one -- where myself, and two others were transported back to my great-grandfather's time as a Nazi collaborator. The other two were respectively Roma and First Nations -- not a good skin colour to have in 1940 in Denmark. Being queer, not good either. It was pretty traumatic for all three of us, and I'm still kind of struggling with the same kind of guilt you have about Asshole Irving."

A smile, however faint, acknowledges Ravn's first comment; Una will take it, accept it, even: this is all true. It's the rest that has her sucking in a breath, and then exhaling. "That-- yeah. I think I'd find it harder to keep my shit together in something like that, when it's personal. There have certainly been moments..."

She breaks off, sipping at her beer instead. "I guess we have to learn to live with it all. The guilt. Else it will keep haunting us. Literally."

"Live with it, but also reject it." Ravn taps gloved fingers on the counter absentmindedly; a tic, perhaps. "I'll accept blame for any racist shit I do or say, whether through ignorance or carelessness. I will agree that I have white privilege, and other privilege, and that I benefit from them. I will not accept the blame for things other men did. I am not a Nazi collaborator. I'm not a slave owner. I'm not a crusader. And you are not your ancestor either, his actions are his. It's what we do today that matters. That, and acknowledging that just as we benefit from privilege -- being white, male, whatever -- there are people who don't have that advantage, and we should not be dicks about it."

Una presses her lips together, and then parts them again - but only so that she can chew at her lower lip with her front teeth. "... right," is what she agrees, eventually. "It's the rejecting guilt bit that I still struggle with. I know it wasn't me, but I'm still benefiting, most likely, from the shitty acts of my ancestors. Their money bought me my house. But... that's not my fault."

"I can trace my ancestors back to 1180." Ravn puts his glass down. "And as anyone who thinks twice about it will realise, the only way you can do that is if they were people whose names got written down in places important enough to be remembered. They weren't peasants and fishermen and brick layers. Eight hundred and fifty years of opression, which I'm benefiting from. Believe me, I know all about how that feels -- and I still refuse to accept that it's my doing, my fault. Neither should you. Until the day we get to pick our parents, we don't inherit their guilt. We do inherit the responsibility for what we do with our privilege."

Eyes wide (1180 was a very long time ago, and as an American, she tends to consider things that happened two hundred years ago as notably old), Una hesitates-- and then nods. "That's valid," she says. "Easier for me to say than to fully believe and take on for myself, of course, but valid, and true. Eventually, I'll get it to sink in properly."

1180 is almost a millennium even by European standards and it's not the first time Ravn has seen that look on someone's face -- not in the US, and not at home, either. "I had to -- come to terms very quickly when we found ourselves standing in the lobby in 1940, yes." He nods. "I'm still struggling with it, emotionally. But then, sometimes, you have to be rational. Practical, even. Beating you up won't make life easier on the Quinault Reservation. Finding those stolen goods and returning them actually might."

"I'm... not surprised." Una may even be faintly relieved to know that Ravn is still struggling with it: certainly, she sucks in a breath, rolls her shoulders back, and nods. "Rational and practical, right. Which-- we really do need to make it to Addington House one of these days. I haven't turned up any further clues anywhere else, so far."

"Well. I can probably pull some weight there. Half this town still thinks that I am dating Hyacinth Addington." Ravn smiles, a little wryly. "I can place a few phone calls. And if they refuse, well -- I'll call Hyacinth, maybe. They do guided tours in the tourist season, shouldn't be impossible to get them to do one out of season, too."

"Useful connection," says Una, with a wry up-tilt to her tone that manages not to sound like a question. "That... would be helpful. He's not being too active, my asshole of an ancestor, but it feels like... what's that mythical sword, the one that hangs over your head? Like things are just waiting."

"The sword of Damocles." Of course the folklorist knows. "Hangs in the hair of a horse's tail and all you can do is pray that it does not break while you're sitting in the king's chair."

He finishes the beer at last (and probably will not order that brand again next time). "I don't like the idea of pulling weight like that, taking advantage of Hyacinth's name. But I will if it'll get us ahead on Asshole Irvington -- because she'd understand. She's like us -- and she's seen things we can't even begin to imagine. You and I think we have it bad, coming here from somewhere else -- imagine growing up in this town, as a kid, with the Dreams."

"That one!" There's a whole rabbit hole that could be gone down about the original reference, given the whole king's chair but either that hasn't twigged, or Una is deliberately avoiding that particular pitfall.

Besides-- she's got her thoughtful face back on, finger tapping against her mouth again. "I can't even imagine," she admits. "So... if it will help, and she'd approve, then that's good."

It's a plan, anyway, or at least the beginnings of one. Asshole Irving's day will come.