faderift | RIFTER ARRIVAL: Guardian 9:45

Oh, really. How utterly obnoxious for him to play dumb like this. What he was supposed to do was identify himself then and there, and she'd ask, dear God, Bartimaeus, how'd you end up here, and then he'd tell his story, and she'd commiserate, and then they'd get off on the right foot. Which was much better than if she goes Bartimaeus, at which point he'll go yeah and generally be unhelpful and uncooperative. But what a surprise, he's being unhelpful and uncooperative regardless.

She flicks a strand of hair out of her face, and she lets out a sigh. Well. "I can't imagine how low your standards are, that you consider a conversation with a clever and charming woman like myself to be torture." Anyway. "Are you all right? I doubt anyone's been looking after your welfare quite well enough - at least, not in the way you'd like."

"Oh, I don't know. As far as dark, damp dungeons go this is hardly the worst lit or the soggiest I've ever seen. Look, I even have my own straw pile to sleep in! I think that's what it's for anyway. The smell's a little suspect, if you ask me. I could go for some natural light, but one can't have everything. So barring all that, you people really know how to make a stranger feel welcome. Thank your master for me when you see him next, won't you?"

There's a narrowness, an intensity of focus, in the boy's expression that he can't quite help. He squints at the girl through the cell's door. Is he here too, he wonders? The magician Kitty had said was down just a few flights of stairs. If she'd somehow opened a path between there and here and they'd both fallen through it, exactly how wide had it been? What else had been caught in it?

Now, that's just too much. "I don't have a master," she says hotly. Which isn't exactly in line with the image she's trying to project here - sweet, helpful, not at all prone to punching people in the face when they get out of line.

But - calm. She takes a breath, and pushes her hair behind her ears. Sweetness, calm, decency. "Look," she says, "you did try to murder some people. Right?"

Murder is such a dirty word, and it's one he'd fight were it anyone else saying as much. It implies far too much agency in the whole situation when he'd just been abruptly stuffed into a body against his will and was only doing his level best to mind his own business and not get skewered by a sword. If you fell down a flight of stairs and saw a bunch of people hacking parts off spirits who looked like the guy you played cards with a few centuries ago, you'd jump to conclusions too.

But as it happens, he resents finding himself back in a room being interrogated by Kitty Jones so Bartimaeus says, "As a matter of fact I did. And I would've gotten away with it if it weren't for this thing getting in the way."

He gives the hand with the rift shard buried in it a derisive flap.

Her eyes go to the rift shard, even as her left hand scratches absently at the identical mote embedded in the back of her right. That is a little weird, isn't it? Him having one. Demons are solid enough - she knows that quite well from having had their awful little hands wrapped around her throat (and vice versa) - but in a temporary sort of way. They're always shifting and melting away, only as permanent as ice. Less permanent. Having something stuck in him, like he's a physical creature, seems just - wrong.

"How'd it get in the way?" She's altogether distracted from her previous annoyance now, far too focused on the curious condition he's in.

"It--" No. Come now, Bartimaeus. You've done this before and this time you aren't in a pentacle. She can't back you into a line of chalk this time.

The boy in the cell rolls over onto his side then. He props his elbow on the hard stone of the floor, sets his chin in the upturn of his palm. Not the glowing one. That hand remains right where it is flopped on the ground as if he can ignore that it's attached to him, thank you very much.

"Now why on earth do you think I would tell you that?"

"Why on earth wouldn't you?" She pulls her legs around so that she's sitting curled up. This shift of her position angles her closer towards him, causes her to lean forward - an unconscious gesture, but one that is unflatteringly indicative of her hunger for information.

"I'm hardly your enemy, after all."

Ugh. This again. The boy rolls his eyes so hard it's a wonder that he doesn't get a good look at the cell wall behind him.

"Well Kitty, I believe we hardly know each other. Why, who's to say you're telling the truth in this very moment? Oh certainly - you might seem like an upstanding, bright young lady with her head screwed on in the right direction at first blush, but who's to say you won't surprise me with some secret ambition in a moment I least expect it?"

Fine. All right. Fine. This whole charade is becoming far too annoying to maintain. She knows she ought to keep it going, but they're getting absolutely nowhere - or maybe they're getting somewhere, but far too slowly for her tastes - and so she shakes her head and answers him.

"I don't think we do hardly know each other. I think we're much better acquainted than that." She reaches up to push the hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. "You're Bartimaeus, aren't you? The spirit Bartimaeus?"

Edited 2019-03-02 19:27 (UTC)

So maybe that last part was a little too all over embittered to really fly over her head undetected, but it felt good. He'll take what jabs he can get while rolling with the punches:

"What gave it away? The stunning good looks or my sparkling temperament?"

Kitty nods, quite satisfied with her powers of deduction. For all that this back-and-forth has been quite silly, it's gratifying to learn that you can recognize someone based on nothing but their voice and their bad attitude. Even when it's been months since you last saw them. Proof that she's far cleverer than most people give her credit for.

"The looks threw me off a bit, actually." She tilts her head very slightly to the side. "Your human guise doesn't usually look like that. You look older than you usually do." A beat. "The attitude is exactly the same, though."

"Well your hair's grown back out," he snips right back. Don't talk about his human guise as if you know anything, Kitty. As if he owes her any explanation. As if-- "Speaking of exactly the same, all you humans look identical. It's a good thing you said your name or I would have never recognized you."

And for good measure: "For the record, I preferred it short. It made you look far more grown up."

And then because, Hold on a second, come to think of it--: He squints at her, suddenly very suspicious indeed. Something in the boy's face closes entirely, and while it's very hard to lean back while lying on one's side with your face propped in your upturned hand, Bartimaeus somehow manages it. "How long have you been here?"

Short? She reaches up and touches her hair, frowning uncertainly. Has it grown out that much since she left him standing in that courtyard? She doesn't think so. She's even cut it back once or twice since she's gotten here, hasn't she...It certainly wouldn't be the first time that a demon's said an odd thing just to confuse you. Still, it's an odd odd thing to say.

"It's been - about six months now. Why?"

For a moment the boy's features narrow still farther. Then he looks about the cell as if only now seeing it. Then he looks at the hand with the shard pulsing it it. Then he looks back to Kitty Jones.

"Huh."

Well isn't that something.

There had been a question in there, a question that couldn't be answered by some grunting, but apparently she's not getting an answer to it. Figures.

Bartimaeus is being dreadfully uncooperative, and so Kitty tries to switch tacks again. See if this might get him to be a little less sullen.

"I've been doing what you said, by the way." Which sounds a bit silly, when it comes out of her mouth. Rather childlike. Which is bloody irritating, but what can you do. "Reading. Everything that I can. Not back home, obviously, but here. History, politics, all about these cycles of violence and hatred - 'cause it's like that here, too. Even though it's a different world, with different people, they still fall into the same patterns."

"Well isn't that reassuring."

The dripping sarcasm is automatic, but the boy in the cell doesn't seem terribly fixed on making it as biting as it could be. In fact, he seems rather distracted as he peels himself off the stone floor and sits upright. He spends a moment wiggling the fingers of his sore hand--

Six months. That doesn't exactly hang together like it ought to, but let's face it. That's apparently going to be a regular thing. So, time to get a few sneaking suspicions out of the way from the get go.

Bartimaeus turns to Kitty and gives her a good evaluating squint. Awfully fresh, isn't she?

"You were awfully quick to jump to conclusions, weren't you? What made you think to come down here to see me?"

She wrinkles her nose in response to the sarcasm. She'd found all of that awfully interesting - but it's dismissed with scarcely a word. Never mind that she's been here much longer than he has.

For the first time, she lets herself feel the first prickle of disappointment. When she'd spoken to Bartimaeus before, it had been exciting. Invigorating. He'd sparked in her so much curiosity, so many thoughts she'd never considered before. Oh, he'd been obnoxious and frightening and boasting and dangerous, but he'd also been like a breeze cutting through the miasma hanging over the Thames on a hot day. Is this hostile, surly creature really the same demon that had inspired her?

"Why wouldn't I?" Maybe an appeal to compassion will return him to his former state. "Humans, they get people sticking up for them, but nonhumans often don't get the same care. I heard there was a spirit stuck down here, I wanted to make sure it was taken care of."

"My, what a bleeding heart you have, Kitty." But more importantly-- "However, seeing as you're of a mind to be so helpful. let's take a moment to clarify a few points, shall we?"

The boy twists around to face her, rearranging his limbs to sit cross-legged. He's quite straight backed now, focus cutting away from the prospect of poking the metaphorical wound of all of this and toward-- well, he isn't quite sure yet, honestly. But he knows potential when he smells it.

"Am I to believe that, as far as you know, I'm the only spirit being held by the Inquisition? If so--" The dark eyed boy cocks his head thoughtfully to the side. His attention on her is quite keen now. The last time they'd spoke she'd been very honest indeed about what she did and didn't know, who she'd been taught by and what her intentions were. Also, hadn't she been a little sharper in the face? If he didn't know any better (because what he suspects is fundamentally not possible) and if he trusted his ability to gauge the age of bright eyed teenage girls, he might almost say...

Well. It doesn't hurt to be careful. And for some reason, that flicker of uncertainty has him skirting away from the obvious questions: Why did you try to summon me again? And here of all places? That makes the most sense, doesn't it? That somehow, something had gone strange and crooked with how she'd last dismissed him and now here she was in a different place entirely, snapping him back out of whatever formless inbetween place he'd gotten stuck in. That, he thinks, almost makes sense.

But what if none of this makes sense?

It would be a real shame to be the one to give her ideas, wouldn't it?

"In which case," says Bartimaeus. "I wonder if you have any theories as to how I'm here now."

"All I know's what I've been told."

She reaches up and gathers her hair behind her head (is it too long? She feels self-conscious about it now, which is stupid, because what's a demon know about style, anyway) and lets it fall.

"I haven't got any way to confirm it, or deny it. No one has. But what they think is that - The realm you came out of, the greenish one that the other dem- spirits came out of with you, is called the Fade. It's where all magic comes from in this place. It's also where all dreams come from. So what they think - what they say - is that we were at some point dreaming versions of ourselves that manifested in the Fade. Then magic brought those dreams to life. And that's what we are, essentially - a sort of new version of ourselves, born out of our own imaginations."

So, there. The complete story. How's that for helpfulness? (Not, it must be admitted, all that great. The story sounds completely ridiculous, and it only half makes sense. But she still stares at Bartimaeus once she's finished with her shoulders squared and a face that reveals no embarrassment at all.)

For a a moment, he says nothing at all. Motes of dust kicked up from his ealier shifting swirl dreamlike in the dim light of the cell then alight gently back to the cold stone floor from which they were first stirred. There is the distant sound of a door opening, then banging shut. From the center of the small dark room, the narrow faced boy with the knobby knees, the slightly too big hands and long, delicate fingers, simply looks back at Kitty. His eyes are very dark and the world above them is so very far away.

Then:

"Well if that isn't the barmiest thing I've heard in my whole life, then I don't know what is."

She'd actually thought that it took. For a single, mad moment, she really thought he was listening to her. A frustrated grunt looses itself from her lips, and she shakes her head -

"Believe me or don't. But it's what I've heard, and for my part, I don't see any reason not to believe it." Then, with a shake of her head - "Here, they think everything about our world is mad, so I don't know if we're really in a position to judge."

"Who's judging!¹ I don't doubt that's what they think is going on. And hey, maybe pieces of it are bang on. How should I know? Waking up out of a magical fever dream might explain why you're here, but I don't have anything to do with dreams so unless the bottom suddenly fell out of the Other Place - which would be difficult, seeing as it hasn't got one - and I punched through it in transit then--"

A pause.

Hm. He regards the miasmic glow of magic in his palm.

You know, saying it aloud like that (and not hearing it from out of the mouth of a girl who wouldn't know a binding rune from a lewd hieroglyph) and suddenly it does seem a little less unintelligible.

"Well never mind. Let's move on to the better question: Is the person, place, or thing making swiss cheese out of everything present and accounted for?"

1. Any more than usual.

Edited (I consistently forget to take the extra line break out before footnotes WHOOPS) 2019-03-09 17:07 (UTC)

Do demons not dream? She didn't know that. Makes sense, though, she supposes - she never once came across a demon sleeping in the course of any of her burglaries. She wants to ask more, but - Well. More important things.

"Swiss cheese?" She shakes her head, puzzled. "D'you mean the person who brought us here, or...?"

Behold: a far more interesting turn of conversation that conveniently involves him interrogating her instead of the other way around.

"This isn't a pick and mix, Kitty. --Unless of course it is, I suppose. Yes, that's exactly I mean. Who summoned us here? Was it on purpose? If so, I can't imagine they got what they paid for with you. No offense, but you're not exactly an Afrit now are you."

He's got a few bones to pick, you see. Preferably out of his teeth after finishing with the summoner in question.

"Neither are you," she replies tartly. And then she wonders why she feels irritated over that comment. Ugh, Bartimaeus has the most frustrating ability to get under your skin.

She tries to release her frustration with a long breath. Be helpful. "And no. There's no summoner. Not as far as we know. If there's anything, it's this." She raises her hand to show the green fleck. "We can control portals with these - portals into the Fade. So these things- they seem to be what drew us here. But if a person was involved...they haven't made themselves known yet. Which, by this point, they ought to have done."

RIFTER ARRIVAL: Guardian 9:45

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