the marquis de Carabas
21 January 2014 @ 10:18 pm
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.]
 
 
the marquis de Carabas
06 January 2014 @ 09:38 pm
spam } roundabout

[There are two rats. Neither of them have names but what are known to themselves, and both of them were, until recently, terrifically annoyed at being removed from their perfectly amenable existence and deposited on the Barge, where there are no other rats and also no real gravity (the kind that exists they don't wholly believe in).]

[After a significant period of negotiation, a deal has been struck: they will stay, for the purposes of errands, company, and general nuisancing, in exchange for food and protection. As such, the marquis de Carabas has placed a charm on them, so that should anyone or anything threaten them, they grow to twice the size of the threat.]

[They run around on their own a decent portion of the time, but it's more energy-efficient to ride with the marquis, so he can be seen more or less everywhere he goes with a rat on his shoulder or in one of his multitudinous pockets. The CES is a dimly-lit forest when he visits, drifting mist obscuring one's view of the path ahead, and he consults with them on the most interesting direction in which to proceed. On deck, they run the railing ahead of him and pause to criticize the others on board with their beady eyes. In the halls, they scuttle from door to door underfoot, tails twitching, seeking out shadows. In the gardens, he tends to the beehive in a distant sort of way and will definitely not tell anyone how he knows how to do this. The rats keep away in his pocket for this period, because they were not born yesterday, thank you.]


private; snow & dean )

video } public

[The aforementioned rats are sitting both on one shoulder, looking with an air of intense disapproval at the communicator. Technology: fuck it. The marquis looks amused at their annoyance, as he generally does whenever anybody is annoyed about anything. At least it's friendly amusement.]

What's always baffled me about this place is how inorganic it is. No - pests. [One of them looks at him with extreme displeasure. He shrugs. What?] An ordinary ship would pick something up at port, especially with all the cargo taken on. Even for a ship that's not technically a ship, enough other things come on board - entire alternate universes, for example - this level of sterility is impractically perfect.

And boring.

At least there are bees now.


( ooc; THERE IS A BEEHIVE IN THE GARDENS NOW, I JUST FORGOT TO SAY ANYTHING ABOUT IT, THE MARQUIS AND THE EMPEROR STOLE A BEEHIVE. yep. )