looking for london

[offthebeatenpath]

Commissions were one thing, and Em had gotten comfortable with the process from the initial conversation about what the client wanted all the way through to delivering the final product. She did her best, one piece at a time, and only taking the work when she felt she could do what she'd be promising to do.

This wasn't any different, right? But sitting in her room, staring at her signature at the bottom of a contract to design a London-themed tarot deck, or worse the deposit check they'd given her for supplies and such, she couldn't help feeling like she was in over her head. This wasn't one piece; it was seventy-eight. Seventy-nine if she included a Happy Squirrel, and eighty if you counted a design for the card backs. But it was one piece, all seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty paintings being parts of the whole.

She had some ideas, but she needed more. She needed to see London with new eyes. Not only the parts she'd seen and remembered already. She needed to come up with something that wouldn't speak only to her, but to anyone who'd use the deck. The thought of wandering all over London alone to see what she needed to see made her stomach churn even more than the scope of the paintings she'd agreed to do. She didn't think she would be the only one who'd have a problem with that, and she couldn't ask the boys to go with her all the time. And Jag would want to, if the alternative was her going by herself.

Rather than stew (no pun intended) over the problem, she went to the kitchen for some chop vegetables, boil water meditation. By the time she put the tartiflette in the oven, she thought she'd come up with a solution.

The boys and Dutch she talked to in person, but she also sent texts or emails to pretty much everyone in her contact list, asking if they would be interested in helping her with a project. What she was looking for was people willing to show her something of London. Whether that was an iconic landmark or some hidden quirk you really had to look to see. Where they went when they had an afternoon free or a tourist trap with the queues to go with it. Prime nightlife or private retreat.

She got lucky. Not only were friends willing to help, but some introduced her to their friends to expand the circle even more. The messenger back she carried almost everywhere always had a sketchbook or two in it, but in this case, the phone's camera was more helpful. With plenty of reference photos, she could hole up in her room and paint for weeks.

~*~*~*~

"Thanks for helping," she said, not quite meeting their eyes as she smiled with her gratitude. "Everybody has such different ideas about London, I never really know what to expect."



[Open to friends or friends of friends, which should be most characters, I think. If you want to thread and there isn't an obvious connection, hit me up via email or slack and we'll figure something out.

Threads can be anywhere in London your character might take Em. If you need ideas, Visit London and Londonist are good for more obvious things, and Hidden London has more weird, wacky, trivial stuff. Just specify and/or link in your TL, so I know where they are.]

Comments

[offthebeatenpath]

"Whatever's easier for you." Fin was doing her a favor; it was the least she could do. "I'm just looking for inspiration, and there's no way of knowing where I'll find it. I just have to hope I'll know it when I see it."

[prince_of_nymphs]

"...Right," Fin replied, scratching his jaw, unsure of what to do. "I suppose we'll start where few get to go then," he decided, opening the side door to take her backstage.

[offthebeatenpath]

"Behind the scenes." Em smiled, letting him lead the way. "Appropriate in a way. The tarot's about seeing what's behind the curtain."

[prince_of_nymphs]

"I must admit, I don't know much about tarot," Fin confessed, leading the way to wardrobe first.

[offthebeatenpath]

"For a lot of people, it's about using archetypes and symbolism, identifying patterns to provide new perspective about one's life. Sort of like a Rorschach or those storytelling pictures. But that's a fairly academic explanation, and doesn't explain people who have a real gift of Sight." Which was hard to explain, even when Em could talk about her mutation freely. "I've been reading the tarot since I was five. I have a hard time not seeing parallels to the cards in the world around me. Designing a deck for other people, though, that's harder."

The theatre world, like the carnival one, had both a public face and the inner life, and Em had never really had a chance to see theatre life. So she was open to whatever Fin showed her. "In some ways, the tarot's like watching a play and understanding all the parts that go into it that aren't actors on the stage playing their roles. If that makes sense?"

[prince_of_nymphs]

Fin nodded a little, letting them in and pushing a rack of large dresses to one side to give them room to walk around.

"I think I can understand that. ...So how does the art effect it all?" he asked.

[offthebeatenpath]

"Art effects people," she answered, not sure exactly what he was asking but hoping what she had to say made some sense. "Like language does. Sophocles isn't Shakespeare isn't Molière isn't Ibsen isn't Williams, if you don't mind me beating the theatre analogy half to death. And some people are going to be drawn more to one kind of art than another.

"For this deck, all the art has something London to it, so what people feel or think about the city or the parts of it in the pictures will... shape their interpretations of the cards. Only maybe with a new perspective." She paused, taking a couple of pictures with her phone, although she wasn't sure herself what details had prompted her to frame them as she did. She'd figure it out later, though.

"Right now, the more I see, the more possibilities I have to play with, to find the right images for the entire journey."

[prince_of_nymphs]

"I see," Fin nodded, understanding the idea, if not fully grasping the concept.

"I imagine most people would just be painting landmarks. Yet you choose to go a very different direction," he noted, and it was an odd thing to say, but he meant it as praise.

[offthebeatenpath]

"Oh, I'll be painting landmarks too." The deck's publisher would probably insist on it, even if Em hadn't planned to include them anyway. "But the tarot's as much about the every and the unexpected as it is the big and life-changing. This is one way to show it."

She laughed, a little embarrassed to admit, "And I wanted to see parts of London I might not think of on my own. I associate tourists with work, so my own sightseeing is usually off the wall."

[prince_of_nymphs]

"Ah, I see. ...You busk, right? Like Jag?" Fin asked curiously.

[offthebeatenpath]

"Not like Jag. He's amazing, even his street performances." She meant as compared to what he could do with the circus, or when he didn't have to hide his abilities, but really Jag was amazing for more than just that, and you'd have to be fairly obtuse not to see she believed so. "I just... tell fortunes and sell some sketches, that kind of thing. But yeah, busking. I started out with a carnival when I was a kid."

[prince_of_nymphs]

"And the fortunes you tell, is that real or..."

Given what he knew about Jag, and his own strange little family and self, he wouldn't be surprised at all to learn fortune telling was real as well.

[offthebeatenpath]

"Oh, that's real. I inherited the Sight from my grandmother. There've been Seers and Mediums going back in my family... hundreds of years." It was the truth, and also part of Em's patter when she was busking. "Unless the cops are asking, then it's strictly for entertainment purposes and everyone knows is just for a lark."

[prince_of_nymphs]

Fin nodded, looking thoughtful, then wetting his lips with a flick of his tongue.

"Would you be willing to do a reading for me?" he asked curiously.

[offthebeatenpath]

"Sure." No hesitation in that. Em rarely had qualms reading for anyone. Except...

"I usually skip, uh, relationship-y readings for people I know. Unless it's something really important. But other than that, yeah. I'd be happy to."

[prince_of_nymphs]

"Oh, my relationship is nothing I have questions about. I'm perfectly content, in that regard. ...My question is more related to my, uh, health," he admitted.

[offthebeatenpath]

People should be happy with the one – or ones, if that's what they liked – they loved, and Em smiled hearing him admit as much.

"Then yeah, I'd be glad to. Now if you want, and pretty much whenever. Just... whatever you ask, make sure it's something you're ready for the answer. Genies don't go back into bottles all that easily."

[prince_of_nymphs]

Fin smiled at that, and nodded. "Let's finish the tour first. I don't want to delay your work or interrupt your creative flow. I know I can't stand it if I have to pause what I'm working on to focus on something else."

[offthebeatenpath]

"I do get kind of tunnel-visioned when I'm working," Em agreed. The tarot overrode most everything, though, if she tried to read the cards. "If anything, the cards would pick up both what I'm doing and what you wanted to know, but then untangling what I see could... Anyway, yeah, lead on."

[prince_of_nymphs]

Fin nodded, smiling and continuing on. He didn't rush, moving from space to space and lingering just a little, making sure Em had time to take everything in. They couldn't be on stage with the rehearsal going on, but Fin led her to the back row so they could watch a bit, before finally leading the way to his favourite place. The dressing room that had been his last time he'd worked here.

[offthebeatenpath]

Em took pictures and notes of the things and spaces backstage that caught her eye, and pulled out her sketchbook to quickly capture a glimpse she got of them rehearsing without disturbing anyone. The dressing room was quiet when they got there, but she imagined it could be a flurry of activity when a show was on, or about to start. Or an oasis from that activity, if you needed it.

"Could you sit at the make-up table?" she asked, already seeing the image in her head. "The reflection in a mirror shot is kind of cliché, but it's still a good one." But then he might think... "If I use it in the deck, I won't paint it as you. Generic faces only to appeal to more people."

[prince_of_nymphs]

Fin hesitated a beat, then sat down. he looked at himself for a moment, noting how ill he looked. Sunken eyes, slightly grey skin... Photographers tended to like it though, it looked good on film.

His gaze shifted from himself to Em, watching her via the mirror.

"I miss painting," he admitted. "I feel like I just never have the time anymore."

[offthebeatenpath]

Sabine was the photographer, not Em, and Fin's ghastly looks would've appealed to her Goth sensibilities as well. Not that it mattered when she was looking for a reference to paint from. But if he hadn't said he wanted to know about his health, she might have check with the tarot anyway. Fin did not look well at all.

"I'd go crazy if I didn't paint. And I'm a seer, so anything I can do to avoid crazy, I do."

[prince_of_nymphs]

"Is that a genuine worry you have?" Fin asked curiously, resting his elbow on the vanity, but still watching her in the mirror.

[offthebeatenpath]

"Wouldn't it be for you?" Nina had understood, but it could be hard for those who didn't have one eye on the future to grasp sometimes. "It's a trope for a reason. People aren't supposed to know what's coming."