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]

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."

[prince_of_nymphs]

"People aren't supposed to do a lot of things, but-"

He laughed then, quiet but bright. Despite his ragged and tired appearance, the smile he wore then was still warm. "I know about- About Jag. And given what good friends you are, I assume you know more than I do about him. ...And he, in turn, knows things about me, things I imagine he's not shared, being such a good friend to me and all... So I'll ask this instead. Are you worried you'll go mad, or simply worried you'll be perceived as mad?"

[offthebeatenpath]

"And I've met Winter." Which probably told Fin she knew more than Jag would've shared.

"Both are possible." Em shook her head, almost laughing. "It's a precog thing, or maybe just me, focusing on potential futures, including all the ways things could go wrong. But I've known a couple of others with the Sight, going crazy isn't all that far a trip."

[prince_of_nymphs]

Fin nodded in understanding, observing her a moment longer, then finally looking away, his pale hazel green eyes studying a framed program on the wall as he spoke.

"You're lucky then, to have Jag. I imagine if you slipped, even just a bit, he'd gladly catch you."

[offthebeatenpath]

"He already has." Halloween was rough, and Em didn't like thinking how bad it could've gone if Jag hadn't been there.

"But a simple reading isn't going to send me over the edge, so... you ready to see what the cards say about you?"

[prince_of_nymphs]

"No, but I've always been far too curious for my own good," Fin grinned.

[offthebeatenpath]

"So've I." The phone went back in Em's bag, replaced with a tarot deck. "But I'll only see things related to what you want to know, so if you focus on something specific, it should be okay."

[prince_of_nymphs]

Fin nodded, falling silent as he considered what he really wanted to know.

Would he ever live again? Was he ever not going to feel so strangely hollow?

At first being dead had suited him. He had his eyes back, and the world had seemed bright and perfect. ...But as time ticked on he found himself feeling empty and lost- And he was starting to truly hate every moment of it.

"Do I... Do I say it out loud?" he asked.

[offthebeatenpath]

"No. I don't need to know what it is." Em set the cards between them. "Just think about what you want to know while you shuffle. When you feel like you've shuffled enough, I'll throw the cards and see what I see."

[prince_of_nymphs]

Taking the deck, Fin shuffled slowly, treating the deck with care. He only shuffled and cut the deck a few times before passing it back and waiting to se what she'd do next.

[offthebeatenpath]

Turning over the first card, Em remembered what Winter had called Fin: Fae Willy's dead lover. But Death was about transition in the tarot, and what Em saw felt alive. Continuing to lay out the cards in a pattern that only made sense to her, Em shifted her gaze, seeming to look through the cards as much as at them.

She was reading for a friend not busking, so she didn't bother with the easy chatter she would normally fill the space with as she peered into the cards. "Magic has taken a lot from you," she began finally. "But it has more to give. New life from your hidden past. Family maybe? I can't tell. You look... more vital... dynamic."

She frowned, a crinkle forming in her brow, her gaze losing focus as she tried to look deeper, see more, searching for Ariadne's thread to tie disparate images together.

[prince_of_nymphs]

"My family?" Fin echoed, thinking of his sister- And then his father.

He watched her, wishing he could see what she could.

[offthebeatenpath]

One hand brushed lightly over some of the cards she'd lain out. Then she drew another, and one after that. "Maybe? I can't... Just going by the cards, it should be family, but metaphors don't always work that way. And... there's an unknown... the unknown? A stranger maybe?

She shook her head again and took a deep breath in and out, visibly pulling herself back from the edge of the rabbit hole. "Sorry. If I See it, it'll happen, but interpretation's not a science, and it's never straightforward."

[prince_of_nymphs]

"That's alright. ...Thank you," Fin said softly. "It was more than I'd have known on my own."

Certainly worth keeping in mind.

[offthebeatenpath]

Remnants of what she'd Seen flickered at the edges of Em's mind, and she gathered up the cards into the deck before she could give in to the urge to keep digging. "Anytime. Really. What's the point in having a gift, if I don't use it to help friends?"

[prince_of_nymphs]

Fin nodded, then watched her for a moment.

"Do you read them for yourself as well though?" he asked curiously.

[offthebeatenpath]

"Too often, depending on who you ask." Em had been hearing it for years from Sabine. But it was easier, turning to the tarot for a lot of things.

"Like trying to see if I'll be safe if I go out, since I got shot. I would've texted to reschedule today if I'd seen something, but I didn't, so here I am."

[prince_of_nymphs]

Fin nodded, and fell silent for a moment before speaking again.

"I know what that's like," he said. "Not- Not being shot, I can't imagine what that's like, but- Being attacked, feeling unsafe every time you walk out the door. Everything feels like a threat suddenly. ...It does get easier though. The fear fades a little, in time."

[offthebeatenpath]

Fin probably understood better than most, and Em only had a vague idea of what he'd been through the past year or so, just that it was a lot. She nodded too. "I don't like not knowing. And I don't want Jag to worry any more than he does."

[prince_of_nymphs]

"You can't control how much others worry, sadly. Just be glad he doesn't have enough pull to get you a body guard," Fin smiled. Not that he minded Phouka, he loved him like family, but it had felt excessive at the time.

[offthebeatenpath]

Em laughed, but it wasn't a happy sound. "His boyfriend offered. I think... I think Jag kind of wanted me to say yes, but he would've hated someone following him around as much as I would, so... We compromised. I try not to go anywhere without someone I know close, and he tries not to worry too much when I do."

[prince_of_nymphs]

Fin nodded a bit in understanding, offering a brief and sympathetic look.

"Oh, bugger, I've a meeting in twenty minutes. Let's finish the tour and I'll get a car to take you home," he offered.

[offthebeatenpath]

"Oh. I don't want to keep you if you need to be somewhere." Em didn't like being, or even thinking she was an imposition. "And Jake's playing across the way. I'm supposed to meet him when we're done. I just... Thank you for showing me around."