Don't Dream Too Deeply

Hadrian getting his latest Advent present. 

“This isn’t a stocking. It has weird toes. It must be a glove!”

The streets were dark.  They were always dark in London now, since the fall.  They were especially dark at this moment, back in the hidden corners away from gaslight and flickering candle.  The false stars above made sharp lines of the edges of buildings, towering monoliths of darkness that loomed.

Edda did not speak to the darkness, not right now at least.  Her small, thick form draped in wool and silk scarves, giving her the appearance of a mound of discarded scraps as she stood almost impossibly still on the cobblestone.  The light from a match flickered over her scarred face as the shadow she spoke to lit a pipe, dully glowing embers providing a small sanctuary of imagined warmth in the chilled air.

“Aren’t we all?” Came the response, drawled and slow.  The edges were ragged and unidentifiable, coarse with smoke and ill health.  The figure moved from where it leaned against the dirty wall, walking with the faintest limp toward Edda before stopping in front of her.  Tall, taller, a pole of a creature with stilts for legs that stared down as Edda stared up over her scarves.  “For the right price some of us actually find what we are looking for.”