That’s the Italian Epicene – Narciso, sometimes Narcisa. They say he came down the Cumaean Way, and he wears the skirts of a gentlewoman as often as he tips the hat of a gentleman. Sometimes exquisite white, sometimes emerald green, but tonight he’s in a suit of midnight blue with the spotless gloves of a magician.
I? I went across the zee, to feast on foreign dainties. I’m not a zailor – I know I don’t look one – but I’m a gambler and a lover, and to resolve a quarrel with a sweetheart who doubted everything, I resolved to deliver the impossible. I sat with Mr Apples, a tiger, and a defrocked priest, and won us a ship. My sweetheart’s gone, alas! Back to surface and sunshine. Back to a sea that’s blue. But our ship’s still in the harbor, and the black zee calls.
To Hunter’s Keep! Redolent with sweet-smelling lavender and thyme. I met three sweet sisters – Charities, I called them, goddesses of charm, beauty, and creativity – and they told such stories! Such secrets, which I stored in my heart – then twisted later into tales of terror, to make genteel people swoon in their parlours. It’s a wonder, what you can make in Fallen London, if you’ve a few secrets to start. Even silk whispers. Even a dull diary can be transformed thrice over.
Ah, but don’t let me distract myself. A pathetic fate awaited the last Narcissus to distract himself. We’re toasting, aren’t we? To beauty! To artifice! To persuasion, and the power of a story. As the man said: to everything deep, dark, marvellous.