The world has moved on, as all things do in the service of time. America topside, this side of the door, busy and bustling. New York always gives him whiplash like todash. There's nothing more mundane than a city. Civilisation in a can. The banality of mankind is so relentlessly prosaic it loops, in time, into something exotic. The sort of phenomenon that still manages to interest him, enough that he finds himself inclined to dress appropriately for it. The routine continues, on and on. Somewhere around the park, on a bench near the fountain, @asteritm sits alone with her breakfast. The dark man appears beside her like a card trick. Walter, who is sometimes Flagg, who was once her lover, and a hundred other names, a hundred lives shed like snakeskin beside roads lost to time. One moment the space is empty, the next he's there, settled in like he's been sitting there all morning, arms spread across the backrest, one ankle crossed over the other knee.
A black briefcase sits next to his polished shoe, inconspicuous as it gets. It's a bit past nine in the morning on a working day, and he's a working man. All's well in America. If you glance, you might find him handsome in a way that makes you just a tad nervous, like the skin is a masque. Looking at him for too long creates questions better left unanswered, and looking away creates different ones. It amuses him greatly to see her succumb to this. She might've tried to sneak a peek, then looked away, then tried again. ๐๐ก๐ ๐ฐ๐จ๐ฆ๐๐ง ๐ฐ๐ก๐จ ๐ฐ๐๐ฌ ๐จ๐ง๐๐ ๐๐ง๐๐ฌ๐ฌ๐ ๐๐ฌ๐ค๐ฌ, โ Are you a dream or a nightmare? โ
The world has moved on, and time's a bitch. There had once been a court where the cosmos collapsed upon itself. Not literally, of course. Literalism is the refuge of unimaginative men. Its halls were space, its throne was time. He remembers the shape of a queen, and what a fun gal she had turned out to be. He remembers worlds whose suns have since gone dark, and doctrines rising, dividing, mutating, devouring one another in the shadow of a great imperium. It is the nature of man-made dynasties to collapse, rotting timber turning to ashes โโโ the great powers of the cosmos fare no better; they simply decay more slowly, stagnating in the dark between ages until they're forgotten.
His eyes devour her, but his face remains perfectly, politely, eerily devoid of any one particular sentiment. The query sounds all but torn from the depths of her being, and he doubts she was consciously aware of what she was actually asking, curiosity like a half-remembered dream itching at the mind. โ Everyone is what they are to whoeverโs looking. โ He's holding a cup of to-go coffee, but instead of a name, it displays only a smiley. He makes no move to drink it, and it looks more like a prop than a treat in his hand. โ Here's a question for you, missy. โ Lilly. His mouth does not form the syllables of her little name, but she might hear it regardless. The breeze has that way about it here. โ I want you to think about it, really think about it, the way you'd think about whether you locked the door this morning, which you didn't, by the way. โ He tilts his head, then, angling himself toward her. The bench creaks. โ Are you relieved to see me, or disappointed? โย
