LADS, CIRCLE UP!

smiles , grateful for the opportunity to search for a cat that doesn’t exist.   makes all the right sounds , offers up the best responses , manages to keep his act convincing enough to warrant success  —————————-  entry is granted , and Eggsy walks in , all slow and purposeful.   

immediately , the boy notices the   ornaments   :   scattered around like a show-room replica , a museum within a place of comfort.   but moves on , from all of those  –  where would he sell them  ?  how can he even nick such large , obtrusive items   ?  

into the garden he goes , and Eggsy plays the role of an owner worried to death looking for his precious cat , even calling out to it as he takes this opportunity to scour the perimeter.   cameras , non-existent.  a window into the basement , poorly covered , could provide means for entry and exit.    alarms , present , but oddly enough , switched off.   he doesn’t think too much into it.  

sighs , and wipes non-existent sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.     ❛    tea sounds good , thanks.    ❜     he’s not a tea person , by any means  –  but this opportunity gives him ample time to scour the inside of the home.   re-enters , sitting at the kitchen counter , every gaze purposeful , hidden behind fake gratitude.

❛    sorry for takin’ up your time.        can’t find poor Willow anywhere , I hope she ain’t lost.    ❜

you might think him droll, the sort of simple that is assumed of cheery dispositions and belts strained against the gut. he is, however, no saint nick. he is but a knight who serves his king with the sun in his smile and more kindness and wisdom than most who flock to his majesty’s court. but there is no need to expose his holy duties to this young lad! 

“and what exactly are her markings? should we come across her ourselves? his majesty is very fond of animals, as it were, and has a whole bestiary in the north country. if she is seen we might also call upon you, gary.”

remy vc; well u fuckin look like you been in ur grave for 20 years mAtE

arthur isn’t promising shit, but then he’s always had a bit of a communication problem with death, yeah? seems every time he goes about tryin’ to say hello death is that arsehole that shoves him away harder than an american trying to shoulder their way past a queue. 

                            i am… how u say… goddamn losing it lads

This is what my brother’s commands are like. He speaks and I can almost see it, the ribbon snaking out of his mouth, yellow and black, coiling through the air to enter me at the place in my back which was made for him, made for the receipt of quests, made to ingest his desires and make them manifest. There is no sound but the ticking of this ribbon into me, the slow click of a king’s calligraphy, holes in the shapes of divine letters slotting into my sinews, whispering angelic and severe, locking my joints in place. His ribbon susurrates in me, insists that an object is required, a child stolen away to the bottom of the sea, to Annwn, the other country, which is west, and there are kabbalistic coordinates which burn themselves into my corneas—but it doesn’t matter what the object is. There is always an object. He always requires it. His hunger for them is never quiet. Nor does it matter where they are: they are always west, they are always out, they are always beyond, they are always in the otherworld, which is only to say the other world, anything that is not circumscribed by these walls, these floors, these steels and stones. The ribbon wraps my lungs, sets my constraint: nine days without breath, as near to the limit of my capsules as makes no difference—and this does not matter, either. Everything the ribbons demand extends our limits, no matter what those limits are. If I could hold my breath for ten days, the ribbon would demand ten. Retrieve object. Return. Simple as stone. Execute. The ribbon disappears under the plates of my armor, under the beetle-carapace of my second skin. I turn on golden heels. I walk in a straight line, unaltered and unerring until the air is so full of salt my joints cry out.

This is all I am.