#vilisus

"i'm not getting paid to make good decisions, so why bother with them?" Michael grins, rolling his eyes to one side with a tilt of his head. @Errol

"Well, I mean... I can't argue with that logic." Errol smirks playfully at the other before pointing one thing out to Michael. "Then again, there's a difference between good decisions and smart decisions. I could care less about good and bad, but please don't make any stupid decisions. You may not get paid for smart decisions, but darling, stupid decisions only make you miserable."

      An Indian woman steps out of an old townhouse late at night, slowly taking the steps as her grey eyes look to the lamppost down the way. A small top hat appears in her hand out of nothing, the second her foot touches the sidewalk. 

      Giving the hat a light twirl she places it on her head, her long straight her fizzing as it shortens into curls, her skin darkening in seconds as her insanely long heels flatten, leaving her with an almost comfortably casual combat boot, jeans & even a tank with the added bit of fishnet accents.

      Death pauses thoughtfully, a faint smile curving over her lips as she looks into the distance to her right. As if pointedly not looking to her left, pausing to listen to what secrets the soft wind may hold. Choosing a direction at random, the Endless, heads to cross the street, her stance relaxed & unrushed.

Myriil was actually hoping to run into someone today. He had been going to a club for a while now on open mic nights just to hear this singer his friend thought he would like. And boy wasn’t his friend right. He loved the voice that came out of the other male. And after some recon on his part, he had learned the other male’s name was Michael. 

It took some time but My had learned of where Michael might be and so he took the risk to leave his apartment and be there. And sure enough, Michael showed up.

      “What do you mean ‘you already have a bard’? Do you know —” Jaskier took a deep breath, trying to follow the innkeeper along as he moved away from him behind the bar. He only took two steps until another guest blocked his way by accident. “And you’re not listening to me,” Jaskier added, defeated. “Great.”       That was not how Jaskier had imagined his stay during the journey to Novigrad would go. The innkeeper had said it would just not pay to have more than one bard perform in his establishment — if you used the word with some liberty because it was barely more than a pigsty and smelled a little like it, too. The only inn or tavern in the small village, as well, which made it even more frustrating that he was supposed to step back and pay for his ale with coin. Though, seeing how well this was going, who knew what a performer was to expect. Maybe all you got was dirty water with a slice of bread.        Nevertheless, Jaskier felt cheated out of a free beverage and a spot in the spotlight. Even if that spotlight was natural moonlight, falling through a large crack in the wall.       Stopping here had definitely been a mistake.

      “Could at least have told me who you chose to sing for you!” Jaskier said, loud enough he was hoping the innkeeper heard him. If he did, he didn’t care to continue the conversation. All the man did was grunt and wave his hand in a dismissive gesture that Jaskier assumed was for him but couldn’t be sure. The man wasn’t even looking at him. “Unbelievable.”

But right now, his eyes are wide and he looks like he can’t believe what he’s seeing. He must be looking at something pretty out of the ordinary, for it to get that kind of a reaction from him... In fact, he’s stunned enough that he doesn’t know how to react. But eventually, with a voice filled with disbelief, he finds himself opening his mouth to ask-

“Hey... am I seeing things?”

Human cities were loud, crowded, stinky and otherwise just unpleasant places to be for a fae. Metal made up much of every structure, and pollution filled every crevice, it was for these reasons he rarely ventured there, instead opting to stick to the outskirts, in abandoned buildings he glamoured and charmed to be more comfortable, he even heard of fae living in the sewers below his feet. Even as a literal troglodyte, Vali could not stand such an environment. It was easy enough for him to simply glamour himself to appear more human, though something would always slip out as strange or non-human; maybe his eyes would flicker back to their original slits and deep black sclera, or his sharp ears would make an appearance, or his scales and carapace would catch the light in just the right way to expose his true nature for but a few seconds, enough for keen eyes to notice. For this reason he avoided mingling with humans, coming out mostly at night, during rainy or cool nights to excuse him wearing multiple layers of covering. Vali collected the essentials within the market -- sweet foods and meat, medicine, something to smoke. He cringed at how the plastic bag felt against his skin, he could feel every unnatural component of it, how far removed it was from the oil that it was technically composed of. Not only was everything covered in metal in human cities, but also more and more as time progressed, plastics. 

He quickly retreated from the inner city, to the slightly more rural outskirts of the suburbs. An old, run down abandoned manor sat at the end of the street, the shrubbery overgrown over the gates and walls. A willow tree slowly set to work forcing it’s roots through the concrete of the driveway. Any scent of human habitation long passed, when Vali discovered this place a week earlier, the only remains of human life were that of squatters. He was half way up the driveway when he caught the scent of another -- not human, not animal. Almost---plant like? But alive, moving, he smelled them first but he heard them next past the willow tree and in a small forest of young trees opposite the manor. Vali dumped his groceries on the front step, staring nervously into the darkness. He could very clearly see a figure in the treeline, small and pale, hunched over against a tree. As Valeriu approached, it became clear why the figure did not move, attack, or really do anything. They seemed wounded, but he could not make out any outward injuries. But the stranger was definitely fae in nature, and obviously different from many he’d encounter, being slowly poisoned by human places or suffering attacks from other supernatural creatures was not unheard of when living in a city. 

There was something calming about Central Park. The fact that there were a few sections that, if you were in the right place, at the right time, and had the right disposition, you could walk straight through to Brakebills was also pretty great. Well, Quentin supposed, it was more the idea of it that was great. He hadn’t felt like going back to Brakebills for a while now. Ever since he had woken up in the infirmary, he had felt... wrong. He knew it was probably just his mind readjusting to being alive after coming so close to death, but he was currently left floating in the water after a storm. Tossed and turned and unsure of where the shore was these days. 

Which, might have been one of the reasons he was spending so much time in the park these days. Flitting between campus and Kady’s apartment. Existing in either world until it became unbearable and then switching once more. Plus, there was something about the trees in this particular part of the park... It was shady, the grass lush and longer than the daintily manicured fields. There were wildflowers, and a little creek running as an off shoot of the lake. It reminded him of the best parts of Fillory. The forests he had walked in while under the centaurs care. 

He rubbed his arm at the memory. 

The healers had done their best with him, but they had nothing on the magic of the centaurs. His arm might be “healed” but the cracks still itched and burned like new skin. He scratched at one of the deeper scars once more barely feeling his own nails on his skin even as he left red raised welts in their wake. 

He kept walking along a little pathway until something sparked along those same barely healed veins in his arm... It was like he had brushed his fingers over an electric socket! HE looked up and locked eyes, or thought he did, with someone so pale... He thought it was the White Lady for a moment. But there was no way she was in New York City... and then it was gone, but shocks still skittered under his skin. He made his way off the path and into the long grass. Nothing was disturbed, but he felt... Magic. Not that the whole world wasn’t drowning in it at the moment, but this felt... almost like Fillory.