mattersverymuch | 18 ɂ text & spam

text, day one of port

[Text, because sound can be a quick recipe for disaster in a place like this; sent out as soon as the thrumming in his bones tells him where they've come. This is profitable, he thinks, but does not advertise this line of thought as blatantly as he once might have.]

This has been my home for hundreds of years, and I know how to survive.

[That's all. He'll let people come to him, or he'll go to them - or let it stand as a boast.]

spam, throughout port & wibbly time

[There isn't time to touch every part of London Below as he wants to. He must skim everything, getting a blurry view of what he's known for so long without the ability to zoom in.]

[He stays at Market from start to finish, trying to ascertain whether or not he is a stranger in this Below (and he is, which stings in a way that a lost connection to a person never has), and then blending in terrifically well. He trades for Knacks and nightmares, notable as the man walking around Regents Park with a sack of sweaters slung over his shoulder. If there are alliances to make, he makes them, because time is obviously of the essence.]

[Then he hops trains, one after another after another for a full day. The sound of their movement makes him smile in a way that almost isn't mean, but not quite,]

[Other than that, he can be found in the light places and the dark, from the perpetual twilight under Mornington Crescent to the bright animal dim of Oxford Circus to the dimmest and most familiar sewer; he acquaints himself with everyone he can from the Barge who now think they belong here. He learns who they would have been if circumstances had been different, and likes them better as a result of this possibility.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Not as strange as you could be.

[He shakes his head, waves his hand.] No. Her. The city.

You get a lot of pie-making dead-wakers down here?

Oh.

What's she saying now?

I mean, not as strange as you might be unescorted.

[Cocking his head at the still air of the underground, the marquis makes as if to listen. He's not listening, of course; just moving in time with the Undercity, which is all he needs to do.]

[Then he turns to Ned and grins wide.]

She says welcome.

[The Piemaker stops dead, listening intently to Below as hard as he can manage. But it's no use: he's out of step, not in sync, and not a part of this world.]

I'm happy to be welcomed. And I'll do my best not to...y'know. Litter, or dump toxic waste or anything that would hurt a city.

Oh, she wouldn't mind that. Litter is part of any city. Just try not to overthrow any barons or anything by accident.

[He thought about what it might take to overthrow a baron, but could only turn a perplexed shrug back to the marquis]

I don't actually...know how to do that.

I think you probably could without trying very hard if they were getting in the way of the right thing to do. You're that sort of person.

[This is, like, 60% a compliment.]

...Thank...you?

Thank you. I only...do what comes naturally.

You're naturally heroic. I think most people consider that to be a good thing.

What are you naturally?

Self-serving, of course.

I guess that should've been obvious from the start.

18 ɂ text & spam

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