2022-04-11 - Walkin' Home (From a Boat by the Dock of the Bay)

The waves slosh against the pilings, and at least two boats have conflicting music playing, but it's dark and people live here and so Della's quiet along the dock and up the ramp, even; she keeps an eye out for a recycling bin while she's at it. But once up and out, though she does keep her voice low, "I hadn't thought of Denmark as a particularly warlike country. Not these days. What's the military like? Is it... UN-related?"

"NATO," Ravn nods. "We're part of the Afghanistan and Iraq peace keeping forces. But you're not wrong. If you ask most Danes they'll say we've not been at war since the German forces in Denmark surrendered on May 5, 1945. It's not true -- we broke that streak when we joined in the invasion of Iraq with Dubya Bush. We've been sending armed forces out since. But it's not really war if it's out of sight, you know? Same as the US, fighting our wars in somebody else's country."

He may have a bit of bitterness there, borrowed from the human shipwrecks returning from the Helmand Province. Then he shakes his head because it's certainly not Della's fault that grown men end up in government programs to try to help them get a proper education in spite of them having regular breakdowns and flashbacks, or struggling to focus for more than a few minutes at a time.

The marina is quiet in the way of marinas; pop music from over there, classic rock from there, and the smell of three different barbecues. The season is only just beginning but that never stopped the true enthusiasts. "Where did you live before?" Ravn asks because it pertains to their previous conversation -- about safe streets. "It's strange but I've always felt more safe in the big cities because there are so many other suckers to mug that the odds of some crackhead with a knife singling me out just aren't great."

Her brows go up: Danes in the Middle East. Her low laugh -- not really war if it's out of sight -- has no humor at all. "Rough. I'm sorry. And glad they're getting help." Della hesitates rather than immediately following up, and in the end, it's superceded.

"Different places. Portland metro, back East most recently, Vancouver -- the southern Vancouver -- in my teens; that's how I wound up here for summer camp. Big cities, small cities, but never downtown. Not that there weren't drugs, and maybe even knives -- all right, probably knives, but mostly the metaphorical kind. What was your plan if one did?" isn't quite asking if one did.

"I was seven years old when I forked a bloke in the fork." Ravn smirks, a little lopsidedly. "Anywhere but this town -- you can do things like we can do, no one sees it coming because no one can do that sort of thing outside of movies. I've never really felt threatened because when you can create a distraction the way we can -- then buying enough time to get away is always an option."

He glances at Della as they walk. "Do you worry about it? A lot, I mean? I want to say there's no reason but I'm not blind to my privilege as a tall, white bloke. With the kind of power you have, though, you should be able to deter an assault with ease."

"Seven. Wait. Forked, is that like knifed? Fork as in," you-know-what? Della peers up at him, as though she could see the seven-year-old in dimly-lit profile. "Distractions and getting away, that's where I'm at. Bel--"

That is: "Do I worry. A lot? No. Am I cautious?" Her laugh is quiet; that's a yes. "I don't know what you mean about power, though. So far mine's been passive: being bit by a letter, hearing Grandma Black in my head. Seeing people doing things on purpose, now: making plants flourish, healing, your moving things around..."

"I planted a literal fork in his crotch, yes." Ravn offers a lopsided smile. "Bloke got handsy. That's the problem when kids run way from home -- not only are they away from their safe environment, they attract predators. That one probably remembered me for some time, at least."

He glances at Della as they walk. "I wouldn't be sure that yours is passive. Might be more a matter of you not knowing what to do, so you don't do it. Am I correct in remembering that you had some kind of impression off that letter back at Addington House? You say it bit you. But you don't mean that it literally grew teeth and took a bite out of your hand."

"At seven." Della huddles further in her coat, grimacing. "Ugh. Humans." She scans the sidewalk up ahead.

"That's what I'm hoping, anyway, that I'll learn. No, it didn't literally grow teeth," and by now she says this with such aplomb, "but that's how it felt. I've spent... far too much time staring at plants and telling -- then asking -- them to grow," her smile distinctly wry but not at all ashamed.

"I can't do that, either." Ravn shakes his head. "I move things, bend dimensions. Nothing else. But I know people who read objects -- who can learn the history and emotions associated with an object by touching it. Those are often the same people who know how to read emotions in others. And in some cases, how to plant them. Some can affect emotions so strongly that they can induce horror, or calm an anxiety attack. The very strongest of these that I have known could create a space in which nothing shiny could exist. She called it a null-room. It was a very strange feeling to stand inside it."

"Oh, just bending dimensions," Della murmurs, laughter in her voice that speaks of a row of tildes. "Human TARDIS? Is there teleportation? Psychometry I've read about; you'd find people like that wearing gloves all the time." She gives that a couple of paces before, "The emotions part could fit the Addington letter, though it was," only the slightest pause, "awfully immersive. Emotions in general, you've got the Ridenow." Three syllables, and though the dimness doesn't reveal much in her expression, the emotions that inflect her voice aren't exactly happy ones. But. With another sideways glance, "For the null-room: what flavor of strange? Please tell me it's charm."

"I wear gloves all the time because of neuropathy, but yes." Ravn nods his agreement; he's noticed similar patterns, and no surprise either -- who wants to inherit the emotional state of any random object they happen to brush their fingers across?

He thinks back. "I only experienced it once. And ironically, given that letter, the person doing it was Hyacinth Addington. She built such a space in her house. Walking in there felt very strange -- to someone like me who has had the gift all his life, it felt like losing some of my senses. Suddenly I felt crowded -- because I lacked the spatial awareness I usually have. And everything felt weirdly heavy and dead, because no matter how hard I tried, nothing would respond to me at all. Usually, things don't move around me. But I feel that they can."

"Fascinating." Not the neuropathy, which got a single acknowledging nod (and which might get, like so many other topics in Della's life, some quality time with search engines down the road), but how that null room felt. "So not good, not a relief," Della reflects back to him, to see if she got that and the next part right. "Normally you feel like they can move around you, but it's responsive, not a 'they can come crashing onto me at any time' sort of issue? It makes me think of invisible cat whiskers," which lends her a smile.

Yes, Della looks both ways while crossing a probably-empty alley. There's a walk light coming up at the corner, too.

"That's a good way to put it." Ravn nods his agreement. "Like a cat losing his whiskers in the dark. That's what I felt like -- not that the world was wrong, but that I was missing some sense I always had. Like being blind in a well lit room, or losing your hearing at a concert, but less dramatic. Just knowing that something was missing."

He smiles. "It's good to know that we can, though. That there are people who can nix this whole thing so hard that not even the Veil gets a say. I can think of situations where that sort of thing could be extremely useful -- a bubble inside of which this whole reality warping effect simply does not happen."

The stop light goes dark. Ravn looks up, with that wariness that comes from living in this town for long; a dead light may be just an electrical failure in need of a maintenance guy or it may be the first sign that something is off and about to go a lot more off. He tries to not let it show; simply an awareness, an alertness that comes with spending a lot more time as prey than predator.

"Concerts," said on a reminiscent sigh. Della's the one who brings earplugs and spares, and even wears them, but also takes them out at times to get it all.

But: "Was it too uncomfortable to fall asleep in? Would it be safe from Dreams? We could put a memory stick in there." And while she's at it, "What did she use it for?"

Attuned to him more than the light, she looks up a beat later, though without his wariness. "That's..."

Odd?

"Think we better keep on walking," Ravn murmurs. "It may just be a bad light. Might be something else. Let's not find out." He who runs faster lives to run another day.

He shakes his head as he does keep walking, though. "She didn't say. She just showed it to Rosencrantz and myself. She had had a violin commissioned for him which she gave him -- in there. I was really just kind of there because I was following Rosencrantz around. There may have been a reason that it happened in the null room but if so, I missed it. Maybe she just wanted to see if she could -- Hyacinth Addington is very much the kind of person who responds 'says who' if you tell her there's something she can't do."

A small smile. "I honestly don't think I could have slept in there. It felt weird. Wrong."

"Let's."

As they walk, Della moves slightly away from him, not towards: enough to swing her arm more freely, no more keeping her fingers tucked in her coat pockets so the beer bottles -- so classy! -- don't move about. She slips the strap of her purse over her head, cross-body, and in the tail of that motion tucks her phone in an inside coat pocket. It barely takes any time at all, and that because of dealing with buttons. Practiced, then.

Even so: "Commissioned a violin. That actually sounds good? That's quite an undertaking." Calm, calm, nothing to see here, nothing abnormal to hear here, but check the crossroads twice. Things happen at crossroads, it's said, some even involving a fiddle.

"It's a beautiful violin. He named it Rimon." Ravn smiles lightly. "Rosencrantz' one true love, that violin."

He doesn't comment on Della's little adjustments; they're familiar, in the common-sense way of never carry your phone or wallet in an easily accessible pocket. Don't carry a bag in a way that makes it easy to grab and run. And if you see a sign warning tourists against pick-pockets, never feel for your pocket. The pick-pockets linger around such signs to wait for exactly that -- he should know, he used to be one of them.

"It made me think about it myself," Ravn admits. "To have an instrument built for you. It's kind of something."

"'Rimon.' As in," Della makes another little adjustment: "'Rhymin''?" For all the play on words, it's also serious. Sources are. She glances at Ravn, then beyond him, to the road.

It's all quite quiet. The music from the marina is long gone.

"Is the draw to have an instrument just to your tastes? To have it meant for you from dot? Or that someone might see... to give you both?"

"As I understand it, Rosencrantz lost his own violin during some bad things that happened in town a few years back. A number of people ended up sacrificing things very important to them, to banish the ghost of a serial killer. Hyacinth had this new, beautiful instrument made for him because of that." Ravn pockets his gloved hands as he walks. "It was before my time here. Given the things I've heard -- I'm not really sorry about that."

Maybe he's caught on to Della's habit of checking things. "William Gohl is the name you want. That was the serial killer who came back and had to be banished again -- but not until he'd killed a number of people. The bloke we talked about at Addington House."

Della doesn't ask again, though she slides a look up to his expression, the way he carries himself, before looking back out at the street.

Were there always this many lights?

"Sacrifice." It deserves a few steps all on its own.

"Gohl. 'Ghoul.' I"m glad," slight lean on the 'g,' "that, apparently? it worked. I also hope the violin-maker lives a long and delightful life, and makes many more. We need that."

"I'm not convinced we're alone in the streets tonight," Ravn murmurs. "But it may not have anything to do with us. Something is screwing with those traffic lights and lamp posts, or is it just me seeing things?"

He says that in a tone as if he might not be very surprised if Della was indeed to inform him that she sees nothing out of the ordinary. It's that kind of town. He's that kind of person.

No need to step up their walking pace, though. Often better to play along, to pretend not no notice, to not show fear. "All in favour of luthiers leading long and productive lives in which to birth even more beautiful instruments. I am quite fond of the violin I own but who knows? I might need another some day. And if I do, I would not be sad to own an instrument as fine as Rimon."

"Not just you." Della adds just as quietly, "In a plausible deniability sort of way."

"She has that name to you, too... Classical? That is, you play classical?" For the moment, violins can beat out serial murderers. Maybe it's the flicker. (Flicker flicker.)

"I do." Ravn smiles a little (I see nothing, go on with your business and let us go about ours!). "Rosencrantz is more of a bluegrass and jazz man. We tend to meet on the bluegrass since that is what I prefer as well, but I was taught classically. Of course Rosencrantz is a performer who regularly plays at Sitka on the Casino Island, and I play in my garage, but you get the idea."

"Does he. ...Hm. Don't think I've heard you, yet." (Darkness isn't flickering.) Or been there, yet; I've heard it's a bit of an occasion destination," and there's that smile in Della's voice, Della who stays close to home but for that walking.

"I go sometimes, specifically to see Rosencrantz perform." Ravn nods his agreement; a shared, wry sentiment: Not everyone's made for the glittering limelight, seeing and getting seen. "And no, you would not have -- we soundproofed the garage because all of Oak Avenue does not need to hear Aidan Kinney learning to play the drums nor me torturing cats. Listening to somebody playing can be nice. Listening to someone rehearsing the same bit over and over is aggravating."

"Maybe for Una's birthday," Della says, adding as half-afterthought, "If that's where she'd like to go. One of his nights." Also: "Good for you. Now that you mention it, especially! Is there any way that violin and drums are compatible together? In a way that's not boring for one of them? Maybe something raucous."

"Probably need a guitar and a bass too, then you've got a bluegrass group. Throw in a Scot on bagpipes and you got a Scottish folk band." Ravn grins quietly. "A lot of older folk music translates surprisingly well to modern instruments. A lot of older instruments translate well to modern music too, if you can convince the snob playing them that anything written after Mozart is art."

He quirks an eyebrow at Della as they walk. "So that's two questions right there. When do we abduct Una to the piano lounge, and do you play an instrument yourself?"

That gets a laugh; "If. Although," Della mentions, "the group would take away from the whole 'the two of you playing together.' If you like that sort of thing. I don't actually know much about Aidan, really," is an invitation, though she must have at least glimpsed him and his clothes going by.

(Not up ahead, but to the side, a light slowly begins to gleam once more. Not a flicker, but as though it were on a dimmer switch, rising.)

"As for when, well. I don't actually know her birthday. But I'm sure we," slight, humorous lean on the plural, "could connive an occasion that would let me treat her. Although I suppose this could be just 'let's go hear him play' and slip the rest in later?" As for an instrument, "I've spent quality time with the piano, though not for years. I've been known to sing. And," deadpan, "there's always the cowbell."

"And we always need more cowbell." Ravn smirks and tries very hard to not notice that light -- or lack of it -- that seems to creep from lamp post to lamp post, much like some bored ringwraith following them home in the shadows because nothing else is up and Sauron retired anyway.

He nods his agreement with the plan, though. "Abduct Irving. Hit the piano lounge some night Rosencrantz performs. Could probably talk a few other people into assisting? Irving thinks of herself as just the lady who bakes cookies but she's a lot more than that, isn't she? Kind of the steady rock in the whirlpool that's Oak Avenue. Here's to hoping nothing horrible comes out of Brennon's greenhouse in the end."

Della's a little more visible at noticing: sidelong glances under her lashes, that check for the mundane as well.

"Absolutely," more than that. "A few other people, but not too many, so we'll all fit. Not that everyone will say yes." While she's at it, Della inquires dulcetly, "Is this likely to be a sprinkler situation?"

"More likely a when we get around that corner to Oak Avenue we make a run for it," Ravn murmurs back. "Although if something really wanted us, you'd think it'd make a move. You, Jules, Irving, couple of people more? Pretty sure Ariadne Scullins would love to go. Alternatively, we could suggest it to Irving and let her decide the guest list."

This glance at him has pinned-together brows, Della reassembling data. "So... sprinklers weren't just an accident, I take it." That's what she gets for only having a snippet of the story. Which doesn't mean that she doesn't note, if only with a not-quite-blink, Jules' name; Jules' first name. "Pish-posh," she teases. "Let her decide the guests for an excursion for her to enjoy, what is with these newfangled ideas."

Ravn laughs softly. "I'm not exactly Mister Social Butterfly, don't expect me to know how to plan a party."

Then he shakes his head and actually looks -- guilty, or at least embarrassed. "The sprinklers were me, I think. I was startled. I felt my power lash out and then there was water everywhere. I've had trouble finding my limitations lately -- think I'm moving a chocolate bar off a shelf, the entire display explodes, that kind of thing."

A quick smile and -- Della doesn't wind up replying until after he's finished with the sprinklers, and so then her, "I'll take care of it, talking to Una," is substantially more serious. "Ouch. I'm sorry. The way Monroe described it, it was a great time. But that sounds..." her shoulders hitch up, and for once, she's not tracking the lights. "'Exploding' is hardly a quiet, scenic hovering. Is there anything you've been able to practice on, or with? Not a dead whale," for all sorts of reasons.

"Oh, it was a fun evening." Ravn makes a little grimace. "I've been trying hard to -- well, get a grip. I don't quite intend to go around ruining every bar I visit, you know?"

Then he blinks and looks at the woman next to him. "Dead whale? Do I even want to ask? Exploding whale?"

"Not unless it deserves it," agrees Della, with only a little flicker (of light) of humor.

"And yes. Dead whale. Fifty-odd years ago. The... Oregon Historical Society? put out a remastered -- remastered! -- video for the anniversary, which is how I heard about it. Apparently a whale washed up on a beach and started rotting, and the engineers," Della says that with great affection, "got it in their heads to blow it up. One can only suppose the structural cohesion at that point wasn't that great for dragging out to sea, though the skeleton at least -- " never mind that. "Anyway, boom. And of course there had been a crowd gathered, so they all had a whale of a time."

"... A whale of a time." Ravn has to chuckle.

Then he shakes his head. "That happened in my home town in 2010. A large whale swam into the fjord to die. They tried for weeks to get it to clear and swim off but it kept beaching itself and eventually died. It was more than a hundred years old and it was going to die there, damnit. They didn't blow it up, though -- they boiled the meat off the bones and put the skeleton in a museum."

"Over a hundred," Della marvels, along with a belated, "Poor whale." She adds, "Guess they learned from Oregon's lesson. This sounds much better. Although... I can only imagine the smell. Was it when you were there? Did they wind up feeding a lot of pets?"

"I honestly have no idea." Ravn laughs. "I wasn't at home at the time -- but it was all over the newspapers, all over the country. The world's oldest fin whale on record, the rescue effort, and the subsequent knife fights between educators and academics all wanting the skeleton. I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of museum directors were turned into cat food in the process."

"How could they tell how old..." but this time, Della stops herself. For the skeleton dispute, "That sounds amazing," with what threatens to be a full-throated laugh except for how she tamps that down, too. "I can just see them." It leads to some happy, silent steps (and some lights that get brighter on their side of the street and darker on the opposite side, only to reverse themselves in slow sine waves).

But. Speaking of. "Ravn, you should know that this 'treat Una expedition' is absolutely not a bribe to get a cat into our household."

"No one wants a cat, no one likes cats, it would be a terrible shame if a cat decided to move in?" Ravn smirks. "Yes. I can see that. End of the world. Really, who likes cats?"

To be fair, it's still up for debate whether his cat likes him.

"Indeed. The local shelter certainly doesn't like them; if they did, they would keep them." Della shakes her head, hair swinging. (The sine waves continue.) "If one did move in, I'd wonder about keeping it indoors. Not every cat," which is to say hardly any cat, "is like a Kitty Pryde."

"Which circles back to what you said," about what he asked, "about worrying," her worrying, "about assault and the like."

"I'm basing this entirely on my own experience," Ravn murmurs. "But this town? This is the last town on Earth I'd want to mistreat a cat. Last year, people died for abusing cats. And I mean it literally, as in, people were found dead in dumpsters, chewed to death by kittens. I have a very healthy respect for my cat. I love her too, but -- have you seen the Uncat? Looks exactly like Kitty Pryde except she's the size of a lynx. She is Kitty Pryde -- in a manner of speaking. She's what happens when some Veil entity decides that an abused stray should get a shot at getting even. Kitty's just a cat with a grumpy temper. The Uncat kills."

Della's nodding, not exactly with surprise. But: "It isn't just humans. What about other Veil entities? Dogs? Mind, the ones I've seen on leashes have been just fine," on leashes, with their humans, away from cats. "Do cats get that same protection from them?" From Dreams?

"I think that if it can think -- it can be affected. Cats and dogs and horses -- they probably dream less vividly than us, but I think the same happens to some of them. That they can shine, and if they do, they are subject to the same things. Kitty's kittens -- from before she was spayed -- turned out to be Veil things. There's nine -- the same three, repeated three times. One set tries really hard to be normal cats. One set tries and succeeds most of the time. And one set we had to get rid of, into the Veil, because they were abusing people in turn." Ravn makes a face. "The Uncat took that last set and took it -- home."

Della's eyes widen, darken, and it's not just the lack of light; there's a subtle lift in her step. "Really," is all but a whisper lest she interrupt. Even at the end, after her own pained wince, "The power of three," might as well be capitalized in its own right. "What happened to the other two?"

"The three that try very hard to be normal cats live with August Røn out at his plant shop. They are, to the best of my knowledge, doing fine. Occasionally, a can of tuna teleports itself to one and opens itself, but apart from things like that, they don't do anything odd. He's not worried about them around the baby so it has to be all right -- even if they're technically little Veil monsters." Ravn smiles. "Little mackerel tabby Veil monsters."

He glances towards downtown and then says, "The second set got adopted and they're not quite so successful -- they are trying to be cats, and they live like cats, but they kind of forget sometimes. That's when you'll see a tabby chew through a steel door because it wants what's on the other side, that sort of thing. But they're not malicious -- just, well, they have powers."

And then he glances towards the old industrial part of town. "The third set, the ones we had to send into the Veil, were adopted by a family whom they abused quite badly. Feed us, entertain us, serve us, or the kids get it. That was less than pleasant to deal with."

Teleporting tuna. Della, charmed, allows herself a quiet chuckle; the mention of the baby doesn't dampen her mood, not here, not with its father's care and surrounded by cats. Tabbies. Little mackerel tabby Veil monsters that they are.

For the other two... she follows his glance, both times; "Impressive. Though difficult. I hope they're in a home that handles them well." That's the first. The other one, frankly, "That's awful." Forget understatement. "I don't like to think of cats, or cat-shaped beings, being cruel; it's bad enough that humans sometimes are. Though maybe it's not so much 'cats as bad as humans' as that the behavior in both stems from something else entirely." The important question: "The family, how are they? Do they remember?"

Ravn shakes his head. "Most of them don't. The mother does. She will not tolerate cats near her anymore. I can't say I blame her."

Then he smiles. "I think Irving met one of them? She talked about that -- her and Ariadne met one of the almost-cats, at the Murder Motel. Said it was a tabby with too many teeth, that sounds like one of the Evergreen kittens. They're little monsters but they're not unfriendly. They just want to be cats."

"Nor would I," says Della, flatly. Her exhalation isn't just a sigh.

(Flicker.)

"Something else to add to the list. Good to know. At least they can't," unless they can? says her glance, "teleport."

"Have you run into an old book by... I want to say Jane Yolen, but she's written so many; it might be someone else." Since she's choosing to not dig out her phone. "At any rate, our heroine runs around with archetypes and they, or at least one becomes more human by association with her; in the end she has to choose whether to keep living a good life that's more and more human, or to let them go back into the wild. The cats reminded me. But it's been years."

"That does not ring any bells in specific -- but it is a literary trope I've seen elsewhere. Have you read Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince? The fox tells the prince the same thing -- that if you tame him, you must keep him. And sometimes, it is not a favour to tame an animal, particularly if you cannot stay and take care of it after you have taken its freedom." Ravn nods. "I suppose it's a kind of Stockholm Syndrome that it refers to. That you can get so used to something which isn't necessarily the best choice for you, that the familiarity of it seems safer than the unknown, even if the unknown is supposedly better."

Still keeping an eye on those lamp posts. Just in case. "Pretty sure the cats don't teleport. They're just cats with -- well, powers like ours. And we don't teleport that I know of."

Her nod says yes, but she also listens; she has a nod for teleportation's lack, a half-smile for the disclaimer. "That makes sense. Particularly if you cannot stay and take care of it, after you have taken its freedom," seems to deserve repetition, if with new, slower, intonation. "It's been a long time there too, but from what I heard you say... if it's like Stockhom Syndrome, it's addressing the would-be captor with reason, isn't it? Not necessarily not to capture, but to not abandon afterward: if you're going to do it, never let them go." There's not that much emphasis to the last, one way or another; there is a pause.

"It's unilateral. And then there's the whole consideration of the quote-unquote best choice." Della's never lived on the streets; refocused, she doesn't watch them now.

"It's also using kindness instead of force, when appropriate. We have six little mackerel tabbies in Gray Harbor who aren't really cats at all. But they want to be cats and we want them to be cats, so -- why not let them be cats?" Ravn offers a lopsided smile. "They were rescued and fostered by humans. They love their humans. They don't get catting right 100% of the time, but the worst I've heard of them doing is occasionally chew through something they shouldn't or steal canned food. On a scale of inconvenient kitty thief to Cthulhu appears in the bay, you know? I like kitty thieves. Kitty thieves don't break reality, they just nibble a bit on its edges."

The Dane eyes the lamp posts down Oak Avenue almost as if daring them to flicker too. He's not really surprised that something is slightly off. He opened a window into another reality, for them to look at a dead city on the back of a giant turtle, in an ocean that never existed in this galaxy. Is it surprising that when you draw the curtains, sometimes more than sunlight slips in? Motes of dust, shadows that are not quite shadows, a stray thought from another multiverse. It's usually harmless.

It's the usually that makes him wary, of course. Most mosquito bites are harmless too, except the one that gives you malaria.

"Of course let them be cats," and Della takes that smile and raises it, just a notch. She hears him out, adding as a side note, "My intention wasn't to dispute that, only to explore the comparison." Then back, not without wistfulness, "Kitty thieves nibbling on the edges... that I like." Her footsteps are quiet; they don't slow or speed.

"Getting close. What do you think, do we have time for the matryoshka story you didn't know?" Without catching malaria.

"The short version at least?" Ravn chuckles. "It's a folktale -- one of those that exist in some variety in most cultures. A merchant's daughter -- the youngest of three, of course. A stepmother who hates her, and makes her life miserable. So she runs away into the woods where she meets a bear. The bear is terrifying, of course, but it tells her she can live with him and be his maid. She's alone and desperate, so she agrees -- also, talking bear, not something you encounter every other time you get lost in the woods."

Ravn chuckles. "So she moves into the bear's castle -- because of course he has a castle -- and her main task is to air out all the duvets every day. And never ever go look at him in the dark. She pulls an Eros and Psyche, of course, and finds out that he's a handsome young prince. There are various endings where she ends up proving her love and rescuing the enchanted prince but the really interesting part is that when she shakes the duvets out the windows feathers and down fly everywhere -- and becomes the snow that lands on Earth. So the girl is in fact in Heaven, and the enchanted bear prince who saves her is either some kind of pre-Christian pagan deity, or a Jesus stand-in."

Trust a folklorist to tell the boring, academic version.

The academic version?! Watch Della protest!

After several amused 'Of course's along the way, "Duvets and down and snow. So we might as well conflate the last two, pre-Christian et cetera and Jesus stand-in; and the visuals are lovely, her shaking them out and the transformation into snow." She gives those visuals an extended pause, as though admiring the slow-motion illustration.

And then Della lets herself ask, "Is there much of significance in the longer version, or is it just color? And... does the story happen to address how she gets more feathers and down, rather than living with limp, cold duvets that everyone freezes under? That's the real magic."

"It's an origin story -- where does snow come from? -- mixed in with the classic fairytale structure where the good, God-fearing, humble girl wins in the end, while the evil stepmother and sisters are punished." Ravn makes a little face. "I'm not as fond of those stories as I was before I started to consider their purpose: The long-suffering youngest sister is rewarded for being kind, patient, and suffering nobly. The message there is to accept your fate. Remain kind and caring and patient, but also, take any crap that people in power throw at you, because you will be rewarded in the end. It's a cultural gaslighting, a feminine ideal of a caretaker who will accept her lot in life and let others walk over her because she expects to be rewarded in Heaven."

"Fair enough," origins; Della can provisionally accept that; but then -- she's staring up at him, a furrow developing between her brows, her mouth pulling in a curl of distaste. But also energy, because, "When you put it that way. I like the malicious being dealt with," third litter of cats or otherwise, "but that's taking advantage of loving-kindness. And it ties in with," so much more that she's heard and experienced.

Yet, having cut herself off, she doesn't stop there: "But in the story she has agency; she does run away -- maybe she was trying for a nearby town when she ran into the bear? -- and she chooses to live with the bear and do a different sort of work. He may save her from the step-family, but there's still more she has to do. ...Unless the choice to live with the bear wasn't a real one, it was that or death. The story isn't also implying, is it, that she died by suicide and then had to work her way through Purgatory to get that beauteous heavenly reward?"

"I think all of those interpretations are valid," Ravn agrees. "But what I would have liked would be something like, once upon a time there was a girl whose father married again. Her stepmother and stepsisters were a bunch of bitches so they fell in a river and drowned. The girl met a bloke she liked, and lived happily ever after. Moral of the story: Bitches feed fish."

That takes care of the brows; they arch upward instead of down, and now Della's laughing. "As long as the male bitches -- the dogs -- do too. ...I'd rather that the steps get redeemed without the girl bearing the emotional labor and/or punishment, but that would be a less exciting and rather longer story. What does it say about the father that he picked them? It would also be nice if the mother hadn't had to die in the first place; maybe they could have had an amicable divorce and the girl could have gone to live with her. But then again... there's a lot to be said for a story that shows someone with an awful family getting out of there and learning new behaviors and living a dramatic-or-otherwise good life. Maybe, but maybe not, a non-traditional life."

"I'm all in favour of then they divorced on amicable terms and everyone lived happily ever after with their new spouses and weekly visitation rights, and alimony was never late." Ravn laughs softly. "It would make for a boring story, of course. But it's something I have in mind always as a folklorist -- what is the purpose of a story. These poor abused youngest sister Cinderella archetypes almost inevitably redeem the father of any responsibility for what happens in his household, and instructs the humble youngest daughter to bear it all in resilience and expect her reward to happen by events outside of her control. It's social control. Most folklore is -- life instructions, good or bad, intended to protect the familiar society from dangers of the unknown."

Alimony gets a low laugh from Della, too. She tilts her head. "Redeeming the father makes so much sense. He gets away with being written off as a mechanism." And then there's a pause. "Could the Dreams be giving life instructions too? Not just the dolor- and possible... joy-phages? And, if so, to what end?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Ravn admits. "When it comes to Dreams I think the only thing we know for sure is that there are more than one kind of creatures creating them. The dolorphages want us to suffer. Plain and simple. They want us lonely and miserable and scared. The others? Are they trying to teach us things or trying to communicate? It could be either. Both. Neither. I was in one last night where the whole purpose seemed to be to eat popcorn and watch me and Scullins be awkward about the fact they obviously expected us to do some kind of rom-com montage."

"More than one kind. Mm." Della nods to underscore it. 'Scullins,' though, takes a moment before she can place it with an under-her-breath, relieved, "...Oh, Ariadne." Back to the topic: "That does sound awkward. So what did you do, bail? Chew scenery and ham it up?"

"I will treasure for the rest of my life the vision of a pissed off Ariadne Scullins wearing only a kimono jacket barely long enough to make it not criminal, armed with a bo staff, going Kool-Aid man on a Japanese paper wall in order to kick Veil macaque ass." Ravn laughs softly. "I also hope to God I never see her come at me with that expression. If she does, I'd like to be buried at sea."

Bright eyes. "Excellent. I still haven't really talked to her -- out of the hospital, anyway -- " but now... with fake solemnity, Della makes as though to take notes, "Would you prefer a pyre or just a whole lot of weights?"

"Just tie a rock to my ankle and throw me in, no need to get fancy." Ravn nods solemnly.

"Fair. I think they're doing construction down," Della points that-a-way. "Chunk of concrete, good to go. Me, I'd want at least an interesting-looking or somehow meaningful rock, if it's going down that way." She laughs. But, speaking of going: "Thanks for the company, Ravn. I think we've just about made it. All in a night's work?"

"And no one got eaten by shadows." Ravn nods his agreement. "I'll stay the night here in Number Three all the same. Just in case there is something lurking about. The true art in this town: Live long enough to end up picking that rock for your viking funeral."

He offers a small smile. "It's been a good chat. Don't be a stranger, all right? That's the one thing that kills you in this town -- trying to go the distance alone."

(Flicker.)

"There you go," Della says with the ghost, quite a live and active ghost, of a grin. "I'll see what I can do." And with a wave, she's heading up Five's walk and not-quite-hopping up the stairs.

(Dismantling her protections, though, that waits till she's well inside.)