“Perhaps you’re right,” Eglantine muses, but their attention is very suddenly diverted by the approach of the Curious Captain.
“Absimiliard!” Eglantine springs to their feet, beaming, and embraces Absimiliard firmly, laughing in delight. “I’d hoped to see you here.”
Absimiliard’s slightly dazed – slightly haunted – look vanishes as Eglantine rises and embraces them. A more happy look, and a smile, spread.
“We’re talking food? Meals?” They come over to sit in an empty place, joining the two. “I must admit I’m quite fond of a feast, and even a formal one, but I think I like something like this better.” The Captain grabs a mug of beer from a passing zailor who tugs at a forelock and heads back for another. “Good woman Larissa, best hand in training mirrors on an enemy I’ve had aboard my Hussy,” Absimiliard comments as the zailor heads off.
"Absimiliard!" Appolonia says, greeting her with a smile, and noting that she has switched to her splendid gown.
"How was the meeting with the Fathom-King?"
"I’ve managed to meet Eglantine while you were about your business!" She grins at them both.
"They were just talking to me about …" She pauses, considering. "… About relationships and dinners. A new metaphor. Like love is like drowning - from The Drowning Feast - but instead that love can be like a satisfying meal, something to be savored and enjoyed, without fear of its ending."
“The Fathomking … .,” they pause, considering, “is a complex subject – befitting a title of His Complexity. Our particular deal is agreed on. The remnants of the once sapient Principles of Coral for sufficient drowning pearls to buy me access into the Taimen Clan’s books.” A laugh, “Some few extras tossed in for my own profits as well – I have a compatriot who will readily trade me solace-fruit for them, and solace-fruit sells well here in London, despite it’s ridiculously high prices.”
Absimiliard considers the metaphor a bit, rolls it around in their head. “Well, there are multiple kinds of meals, and foods. Perhaps some love is like a meal. I’d wager the sleeping around Veilgarden I did was more like a quick bite from a food-cart in the street, or whatever we can grab here.”
Then, “But oh, the Drowning Feast…,” a pause, “I do not think that easily lends itself to a metaphor, especially if one becomes a drownie at it instead of merely supping as a guest as I have done. It seems deadly, singular, delicious, and a permanent change to one’s life into a new and different state.”
Offered in a deceptively light tone, “Perhaps some loves can be like that as well.” A sigh, “I suppose one can hope. It is all that is left in my box once all the evils of humanity have been unleashed,” Absimiliard’s metaphors always seem to end in classical mythology – and tragedy.
"The Drowning Feast… yes, I’d agree, it defies metaphor." Eglantine wraps an arm around Absimiliard’s waist, and squeezes gently. "But we’ll have to see to that hope business, won’t we?" They laugh, and beckon to a small figure, that of the ever-present Bertie, who grimaces horribly, but brings over an oilpaper package.
Eglantine opens it, as Bertie leaves quickly, and holds up some slices of dried apple. "Like the hope of food, and here it is!" They offer some to both Absimiliard and Appolonia. "A sudden bit of sweetness. Like some meetings, yes?" they giggle.
Appolonia takes a slice of dried apple.
"Thank you. I daresay all this talk of eating has made me a trifle hungry."
A few bites. Easy to savor and enjoy.
"Very sweet. Yes."
"The drownies sing to me of a ritual. Bring the right fish to them, and they will let you join their feast as a guest, and feed you a bit of seafood so strange and wonderful, sharp as lemon, sweet as syrup, and show you a vision of your future. I may try it. It sounds tremendously memorable. And I am eager to see how close our production was to the reality of it."
"Though a scholarly friend told me that eating at the feast can make you a drownie yourself if you eat the wrong thing."
She lowers her voice to a whisper. "I doubt this is true, but they said they had heard that the ones who have drowned and shall be made drownies are served a bite of the Fathom-King’s bride, and that is what transforms them."
"I can’t think that is right. Surely a man - a king - would not let his wife be bitten by so many strangers. Even to make a choir so large in his service."
"Do either of you know what is true?"
"I suppose we always must be careful what we eat. Plenty of trouble followed eating an apple once."
She has finished her slice.
Absimiliard laughs, “I see we move from tragic Greek mythology to Edenic myths, while passing through what seems to be Neathly mythology as well.”
They too reach out to snag a few slices of apple from Eglantine’s oilpaper package. As Absimiliard nibbles at one they offer, “Regarding the Fathomking I can offer a few things, some pure supposition, others things I believe. The Principles of Coral spoke of the deal the Flukes made with the Bazaar when they came here from Axile. It told of how they forsook Love as part of their price. I heard of how some flukes took in rage to the Unterzee to become the Lorn-flukes. I know others stayed in London, hidden below. One, at least, forsook it’s place and became something else – the Principles of Coral. One other do I know of for a certainty, that one married the Fathomking.”
The Curious Captain then pauses for a moment, finishing off a slice of apple and taking a nibble at the second piece in their hands. “More speculatively; I know the Fathomking is deeply private, but I have heard he was once a man, and in feasting on His Wife he became He – if that makes sense. I do not think their union knows much of Love from her side – though I have never even seen her.”
Then, with absolute certainty, “But I know that His Complexity knows deeply of Love. I know He Loves the creature that he is espoused to. I have heard his voice, tormented with His Love of Her.”
Her voice and face then brighten, “I think they are tragic. But I do not think they are anything other than singular. There is nothing like them I have ever heard of. I think His Complexity even spans across the nearby planes of existence that border so close upon our own – consider the ever-shifting Unterzee, His domain to be sure. He must see beyond just our world.”
Eglantine nods thoughtfully. "As ever, you are a font of knowledge," they note lightly. They nibble upon a piece of apple, looking contemplative. "Loving someone, even if there might not be love from them in return, is a transformation in itself. No doubt one he thinks worth it. Especially with the waters and their song for company ever after."
Their eyes are a little dreamy. "The Drownies sing of such peace down there. Perhaps by giving up so much, they gain one last thing that cannot be taken away - peace, the easing of pain, down where the waters cradle all." Eglantine has listened too long to Drownie-song, perhaps, or brought something back in their heart from the Drowning Feast, for their usual merriment is not something that would give a person reason to suspect that the peace of the drowned might be dear to them.
Appolonia nods, looking at Eglantine thoughtfully. "Their songs are so compelling. Beautiful. And yes, a sense of peace sometimes, but also sometimes of longing. A peace from physical pain, but not I think from every pain of the heart."
"Or maybe you have the right of it. Maybe the longings of the heart ease as they sink deeper to the floor of the ocean. Maybe there is a great peace there. A peace entire. And it is only as they approach the beach or the surface of the water that they remember to hurt. I had not considered that."
She turns back to Absimiliard.
"That is more than I knew about the Fathom-King. Interesting. So, she might have loved him very much, as much as he loves her, if Love were not forbidden to her kind. Perhaps she does in deep secret. Or wants to and will again some day. Theirs is surely then one of the stories for the Bazaar’s Crimson Book. A love that is forbidden."
"Maybe it is her influence - the fluke bride - who creates an aura around her at the deepest depths in which Love is not felt, denied to her and to those around her. And that is why they sing of a peace that is entire. And the Fathom-King too is at peace by her side, but remembers how powerfully he loves her when they are apart."
"Their story would make a wonderful opera. Whether any of that is true, or it is just speculation."
“A powerful opera to be sure – a dangerous one to author or be involved in performing as well. I should be very cautious in seeking His consent before undertaking something like that. His Complexity is a Very Private person – several times I have been rebuked for too much curiousity where our affairs have intersected.”
Lord Gazter returns to the festivities, but skirts away from the crowds choosing instead to stroll around the edges of the fanfare.
edited by Lord Gazter on 8/24/2016
"Well, I suppose one doesn’t live underwater because one loves public attention," Eglantine observes wryly. "But the Drownies… I know their potential well enough, I think. One of them approached me to make a song for her, in fact."
Their smile is a little grim. "There’s someone out there that will have cause to regret hearing it, I think, when it is sung at last. A zailor who thinks his deeds are long forgotten…"
"Ah, see - I do not think she would ask that of you if she did not long for something. Perhaps, in this case, vengeance. But, that is an honor to write a song for one of them. They are fine singers."
She pauses, looking thoughtful.
"So, how did the two of you meet? Not you and the drownie. You two."
She looks at Eglantine and Absimiliard, smiling.
“I’m sure we saw each other socially somewhere or the other, but I think the first time we actually met was like most Londoners. Just two individuals of a deliberately indistinct gender running into each other for coffee at Caligula’s and wondering how in the world the gossips are going to handle describing the encounter – you know, like everyone.”
Absimiliard’s tone is wry, her grin completely jesting.
“Oh, yes,” Eglantine agrees, “but I think we caught each other’s notice a little before that - you recall? I had that friendly little tussle with Miss L, and you came to watch?” Eglantine laughs. “Chance encounter for coffee is a better story, though. That was a very short fight, and not exactly my most stellar moment in terms of things I can boast about.”
“At that lamp-post she gives calling cards out for her fights? Yes, I’ve not forgotten that.” Absimiliard smiles, “But I think I noticed you before that, from that time I came waltzing into the Salon, someone said something and I responded with something like ‘… and for all you know I could be a man with a scandalous taste in dresses as easily as a woman.’” Absimiliard grins at that.
“I forget precisely what they were saying, but I vaguely recall it as being sexist,” looking to Appolonia, “Eglantine chimed in, taking the side you’d expect.”
Looking back to Eglantine, “I’m fairly sure that was before I came to watch Lamia and you spar.”
“Oh yes, I recall that. I didn’t care to guess one way or the other about you, because I’ve always been open to both guesses being wrong.” Eglantine laughs. “But you certainly do make yourself noticed, wherever you go.”
Appolonia smiles as they talk about their history.
"Well, you do have a lot in common, I think. Charming. Intelligent. And, enjoying notice and inspiring curiosity, for the reasons you mention."
"At some point, I will have to visit that salon you mention. It sounds like a place to meet all sorts of interesting people. And a bit more my style than watching fisticuffs on a street corner, if I understand your tales."
“You’d like it there, I think,” Eglantine agrees. “A chaotic sort of place, but certainly one with the most interesting people you’re likely to meet.”
They pause, as the Mutton Island breeze changes, and look to Absimiliard. “Will you come to the high points, and speak to the winds?” Eglantine asks. “I know you felt you must, sooner or later.”
Hearing Eglantine’s question to Absimiliard, she looks thoughtful.
"Ah, I imagine you two have some adventure planned together."
"I can leave you to it, if you’d like. I must, at some point, actually catch a splendid fish to give to the drownies if I wish to see a Drowning Feast before I leave the Festival. And I suppose that requires learning to fish."
"Here." She gives Eglantine her card. "It was very nice to meet you. Please don’t hesitate to call on me if you wish further conversation, or a bit of chess or coffee."
She does not immediately leave. She lingers, at least momentarily, enjoying their company and the warmth of the fire.