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[Well, look who came out of his sulk! Sei looks mildly amused and seems to have contracted a chronic case of shirtlessness, so please enjoy the nasty burn scars up his left arm and the chiseled physique.]

...You know, where I'm from, there's usually a lot less small children asking strangers for candy and a lot more dark rituals and insanity-causing booze on Halloween. I'm gonna go ahead and say this is an improvement. The costumes are the same either way, though.

[Just saying, he finds this all mildly mystifying.]

But hey, nevermind that, I had a more important question; who does a guy have to sleep with around here to find someone willing to make a piano? And while I'm at it, what's the music like where you're all from? I could stand to despair the state of the arts some more.

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Everyone knows that the arts have been deteriorating for centuries. That's the way we like them. As for dark rituals, though, I'll stick with candy. It's at least a fun way of losing your soul.

[Sei's eyebrow twitches faintly at 'losing your soul', but he snorts and smirks instead of following down the path of his (totally rational) anger.]

I'm still contractually obligated to whinge and moan about the whole bloody thing, you understand.

As for the candy, I've never had much of a sweet tooth, but if they keep dipping strawberries in chocolate I might have to start.

Well, yeah, I guess the slow degradation of society is a depressing thing to watch, but it doesn't change.

Or is that what makes it depressing?

Anyway, good food is always better than bad magic.

Such is my lot in life. I guess I'm gonna have to get used to it...it comes with getting older, after all.

[...Sei you look like, just over twenty, don't say shit like that.]

Bad magic can make for some interesting parties, and I'm going to claim whoever thought of dipping fruit into chocolate was some kind of witch, but I'm not complaining.

Kind of early to be saying things like that, isn't it?

Or is that part of the dark rituals? If your rituals include chocolate-dipped strawberries I guess I can see the appeal.

I'm over sixty, don't let the face fool you, kid.

If they don't, they should. I've kind of fallen out of those circles, so I'm afraid I don't know the details anymore.

Kid? [Excuse you.]

They have circles for that? is there one for recovering dark magicians too? I bet we could send some people their way. Maybe start a chapter here in the city.

You're, what, in your forties? I reserve the right to call someone twenty years younger whatever I please.

[Sei, no.]

I don't get the recovering dark magician card, I'm afraid, I have other circumstances that prevent me from membership. [Like not being human.]

Thirties. [He's torn between feeling too old and feeling too young now.]

And I'm also a hero. Experience and skill take priority over age.

[He's almost crossing his arms at that. Tony knows what he's doing, thank you!]

So you're a current dark magician? How do people become dark magicians anyway? Is there an application somewhere? Do you have to take special personality tests to make sure you're dark enough?

[CLEARLY in a significantly better mood than last time, Dorian replies.]

And I thought you were out of that business. [He flashes a smile.] As it happens, there is an instrument shop in the Fire Sector that has already made at least one. [Yup Dorian got himself a piano very early on.]

Can't a man show off on a day when every shirt he owns is in the wash?

[Sei, who lets you live on your own? but, shrug.] Fire Sector, huh...I'll have to have them make it to specifications, these long legs of mine are a problem.

[Knees. Knees forever banging on things. Dorian you don't understand his suffering.]

Edited (I swear to you I can html) 2013-11-02 02:48 (UTC)

[No, he won't understand, because he is short. And somewhat annoyed by that fact. JESUS BASIL HE WAS EIGHTEEN COULD YOU HAVE WAITED A FEW YEARS UNTIL HE WAS DONE GROWING.]

As long as it plays music, any effort or price is worthwhile.

Of course. I wouldn't dream of maligning any other piano...with the right hands, they're all capable of creating something lovely.

But regenerating the bruises on my kneecaps doesn't actually make it hurt less.

[Sei was already over six feet tall at eighteen, Dorian, you're just short.]

[yeah like sei fucking counts]

No? I heard suffering for your art makes the result better. [not that anyone Dorian knows has suffered for their art or anything.

aside from all of them.]

Pretty sure bruised knees don't actually register on a grand scale of suffering.

[He's arching an eyebrow. Do you really want to get into his suffering, Dorian, you've seen it.]

[Dorian raises his own eyebrows. Of course he doesn't want to get into Sei's suffering. Other people's suffering is infinitely boring to Dorian. It was a joke, Sei. A joke with a lot of black humour underpinning it because he knows the real measure of suffering—not anything serious.] I prefer not to use scales for suffering. I never know how to weigh mustard gas against fire bombing, you see. If I play with scales, I like to play them on a piano.

[Come on, Sei. It's a light conversation about pianos. Mockery rather than melodrama. Fun.]

Of course. It's a good time for music, anyway--did you ever go to New Orleans? 1920s?

[Yes let's take the topic back to music.]

The jazz pianists abused those poor instruments so, but I'll be damned if they didn't sing sweeter for it after retuning. I've heard people claim even a mandolin has a heart...

[Pause.]

Wait, no, the mandolin breathed fire, nevermind.

[Dorian laughs.] I had moments, but I mostly spent the 20s in the companies of the Fitzgeralds, Dorothy Parker, Hemingway—the American expats. The ones who knew how to have fun, I mean. Not marble statues of men. [Eliot.]

[And he sighs, sounding truly smitten.] It was a thing of beauty to hear jazz coming out to greet us all.

The big names were never my sort of people. I've spent the years in and out of speakeasies and riverboats, tracking down cults up and down the Mississipi. Why not a single one of them was out to coasts, I couldn't tell you.

[He laughs, warm and genuinely friendly.] But I heard Armstrong on those boats.

[Dorian whistles, charmed at the thought.] I would have killed to meet Armstrong. Or Ella Fitzgerald. They knew how to make music that stirs even dispossessed souls. I will admit, I wasn't exactly enamoured of America's choice to put a ban on alcohol. [a beat] Not that it would be hard to get if you were in New Orleans.

The ban was in name only. The speakeasies owned the cops, after all--and it wasn't illegal to get drunk if the booze should magically come into your hands.

[A beat.]

I wonder if I can still pull off that water-to-wine trick. It tastes better with blasphemy.

Are there so many universes that celebrate a-- "Halloween," was it?

I didn't think it'd be such a universal constant for children to dress up and collect candy or... Souls, as the case may be in your world.

[durn neighborhood kids. why, back in his day forty thousand years ago, they didn't have any of this halloween garbage. and kids got along just fine! they had to trek across the galaxy (uphill both ways, of course) just to get home and they were thankful to not get incinerated by their enemies! people these days, i tell you.]

Oh, the children aren't the ones doing the collecting. If you love your kids, you keep 'em inside on All Hallow's Eve.

[What's that? Sei can't hear you over the sound of your OLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLD.]

[a short, faintly-stunned silence-- soon broken by surprised laughter.] Ah, yes, very frightening! You're really in the holiday spirit, I see.

[he's getting the hang of this "halloween" business now!!]

I wasn't kidding. Child sacrifices aren't as popular anymore, but there are plenty of things that don't mind eating kids that get stronger that night.

[This is his serious face, Qilby. Do you see it?]

[aaaand his smile falters, but doesn't quite slide right off his face. you'd be hard-pressed to find him at a time when he isn't smiling.]

Ah, so... Not a holiday, then. But on the bright side, I imagine you're enjoying what must be a vacation in this world.

[but don't think he hasn't noticed those scars-- it's kind of hard not to notice them. qilby's kind of got problems with his left arm, himself. hey, sei, it could be worse: you could've lost the thing completely!] So I don't suppose those scars were acquired here.

In Dreaming, right after I arrived. [He holds up his arm--they're healing, it's clear, but it's ugly. What's also visible now is the black rose tattoo on the back of that hand.]

Which was a hell of an introduction, but I've had worse than my own memories fucking me over.

[Even if he had lost his arm he'd grow a new one, Qilby.]

I... Had no idea Dreaming was quite so dangerous.

[he'd had his chances to explore, of course. but for all his insatiable curiosity, death and dreaming did nothing for him: death holds no more secrets, after all, and dreaming... well, the ones that occasionally visit him at night are quite sufficient enough.

qilby's reticence over the matter is apparently not unfounded; those really are nasty scars. that's one thing he's happy to let others experience in his stead.] I would recommend staying clear of portals with strange engravings. Have you let anyone look at those? Those sorts of wounds are tricky if left unattended.

It's healing as well as it will. That what did it was...particularly nasty.

[He shrugs, running a hand through his hair. He won't bother to explain there's no point in seeing a doctor; after all, he knew what it was that had caused this.]

Dreaming made it real. It wouldn't be dangerous if your dreams weren't out to kill you, I'm lead to believe.

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