INT - Kitty Kisses Cafe, Callisto, day
From the outside the building looks run down. Broken windows, a toppled table, and small grey animals skittering from the pile of trash and to freedom through those broken window suggest it to to be at best abandoned and at worst haunted. Still, the fence has cute little cat heads around the perimeter and there's an open sign on the door while Calliope is seated on the moldy couch made half out of dilapidated suitcases. At least her bright colors make her easily visible through the window as she pours....coffee? with chunks??? and grass?? into a cup which she sets on the disgusting sink nearby.
Dorian had never braved the doors of the Kitty Kisses Cafe before. He had walked by more times than he could count. He had marveled at learning the place was meant for public consumption. It was hard to believe, but, in that spirit, he made a late effort on behalf of his family to reach out to these neighbours. He had meant to, after walking by for months, almost years by now of having been in residence on the family's property on the island. Just to see what the place was about. Under one arm was a box that took up a fair length along his torso and from that same hand hung a handled paper bag of medium size. He raised a pristine alabaster hand to knock, having approached the door, but then thought otherwise and reached for the doorhandle. He'd turn the handle and finding it open step inside.
Upon entry he'd visibly boggle at the state of the place and look around. Dressed in a three piece suit made from costly fabrics, he couldn't feel more like he didn't belong. He might have turned back, but for the fact that having cast his eyes around, they landed on a particular denizen. A familiar face! He immediately showed a sheepish grin, as if it had been obvious he was thinking of retreating. Renewing the smile to something more fulsome, he fixed his silver gaze on Calliope and called as he began to walk over, "Ho there! I did not exactly expect to find you here! Dorian Windgrace."
He'd put his free hand upon his chest as he reintroduced himself, or announced himself, as it were.
Calliope's eyes go wide and she hops up to her feet, the sudden movement sending more creatures scattering than his opening of the squealing door had. A bright red lizard vanishes under the sink after a roach as she stands to pick up the cup of mud she'd just sat down. "I'd offer you a drink, but I don't think I serve your brand here." Her free hand tucks a lock of hair behind one ear as she smiles sweetly. "What brings you in the Kitty Kisses Maid Cafe? Did you see our hiring sign?" There was no hiring sign, but this does not slow her down as she offers a formal curtsey, low and with a bowed head, the cup's tipping not spilling any of its contents when the mud was so thick. "Dorian Windgrace? Shall I offer you my name or had I already?" When she straightens her smile is teasing but pleased.
Dorian looks with some surprise when actual vermin scamper, but he doesn't spook or anything. He does his level best to forget that had happened, though the effort does not quite take. Even so, he returns to the curtsy a bow and one, apart from being burdened with the parcels he carries, that he'd perfected in an era when it was common. He laughed about her offer of a drink when she said what she did, but upon realizing that there was a chance to also resort to formal introductions he was set at a kind of ease. Enough that it made him laugh a quiet chuff under his breath again, and that mirth was lingering in his voice when he answered, "I am very curious about what sort of drinks that are served here, if I am terribly honest. And while I am pursuing such honesty, allow me to request just how you would like to be addressed, milady? For my part, Dorian suits."
He grinned, and didn't explain what he carried in one arm, not yet.
Calliope's neck cranes as she looks past him and into the back rooms which are partially obscured by curtains. "For customers we have the coffee, which is mud from the yard." She tips the cup again. "Water." She points to the sink and its rusty nozzle. "And fresh squeezed fruit juice!" When he's seen what she bleeds in combat, golden glowing sap that smelled like honey and mango, and everything else in this place is ominously unappetizing, this may seem a suspicious option if one hadn't seen the surprisingly well taken care of greenhouse behind the 'cafe'. "Call me Calliope, it's safe enough for friends and the familiar. Though I do love a good nickname, Art. I'd offer you a seat, but then you take home more than you meant. I did mean to ask, how did your sword come out?"
Dorian sniffled through more laughter at being called Art and reminded of her proclivity for nicknames. He didn't correct her, nor seem to mind at all, and rejoined, "Miss Calliope, I am happy to report my blades came out very well. It is my intention to learn how to fight properly with that sort soon. I have only trained in the Royal Navy and battlefield, so it should serve me well to see how it's done elsewhere. I am also very glad to lay eyes on you again. How did I find you here, of all places?" He apparently found her resplendent enough not to think she looked suited to, however comfortably she fitted in among, their surroundings.
He didn't deign to sit, but shifted his weight on his feet to stand at ease. While he wasn't a large man, it was apparent to the keen observer that he was well built for fighting, even under the suit. His shoulder to hip ratio, the way his musculature filled the suit: there wasn't a wasted ounce of him suited to anything but activity. Strange as his surroundings were, he seemed be getting more than, rather than less at ease, the longer he lingered.
"People keep finding me in the strangest of places. At least this time I'm not having to crawl my way out of a corpse's chest." Suddenly she frowns and considers the house. Its rot, the pale and stained tiles with veins of black running through them as if they were chipped and rotten teeth, "or perhaps that too is where you found me as well." When she smiles again it's not for him, her gaze seeming to go through him entirely. "Perhaps it's best not to dwell there." By the time she refocuses on him, her eyes are a vivid purple with threads of gold running through it. "Would you like to go hunting with me one day? The wilds have all manner of creatures who are not swordsmen themselves, but might be crafty teachers all the same."
Dorian watches and listens with all of his attention, with a smirk fixed on one side of his face from the time she mentions being found in strange places. Who was he to talk to, who'd met her in tunnels below the city proper, and in the Seiiki talking to a jikininki? Her strangely changing eyes are noted, and again, not outside his ken enough to put him off. Warmly, he answered, and nodded, "I should like that, I think. But I should warn you, my father hunted with dogs, and liked my presence little. In spite of that, and him--I must admit, I am not the poorest of hunters, even so. In any case, my point is that dummies can only do so much, even with the richest of imaginings. So a chance to put my senses on that particular edge... well that sounds like a wonderful way to spend time." He concluded with a very overdone wink. It was not just unsubtle, it moved across his whole face like a tidal wave from left to right, as that one eye closed in an absolute broadcast of the action.
He even appended, "Do you know who the proprieter of this place might be? Since you seem so at ease here, I mean."
Calliope clasps her hands together, the pair coming around the cup to hold it lovingly between her entangled fingers with that wink, the broadcasting of it making her smile grow wide. "Have you ever been hunting with a hound like me? I'm sure for all your father's failings, your education in hunting wasn't one of them, when it runs wild in the blood and beating hearts. Appreciated, practiced, it hardly matters, when for mortals what is life but the greatest hunt?"
Dorian chuffingly balked at her naming herself a hound, and was shaking his head no at that concept before he could push words from his lips. It would take a moment because she spoke to something primal and alight at his core, so much so that as he heard her his glamour weakened and his eyes flickered with a golden flame for a few moments. His brother AND sister walked closer to their gods these days and drew him in that direction as well, though he was the least faithful among them. His exposure to that realm was not of his own doing, so much as he found himself there, and appealing to aspects he could wrap his mind around when he did. And they shone through him, the oppositional forces of Iod and Cthugha in such moments as when his gaze went glimmery. He smirkingly answered, "No, I do not think that I have, milady, and neither would I deign to call you such a creature. I must ask, if that is what life is to mortals, what is it to those beyond the bounds of that limitation, I wonder? Is one predator and the other prey?"
Calliope laughs, sudden and bright as he refuses to call her such. The golden glow only adding sharpness to the sound when her eyes fall on him again. "Only because mortals look down on beasts, it becomes an insult, but I was never that and I know that beasts have something mortals weep and beg for. I have a purpose and wyld hunt, it burns in me as bright as the sun itself and I will never stop chasing my prey even if it runs me to death. There are other immortals whose answers are not mine, I could speak for them but...Isn't it more fun to find those answers yourself?"
Her eyelids lower, hiding the glow behind lashes. "I find it more insulting you would think those hunting dogs are lesser than the upright creature who could not see the potential in the blood, in life, in pack, and in you when I can see the worlds held there." Finally she considers his last question and moves towards him with a wavering stride. "We feed each other and we feed on each other. Each of us no matter how great or small is both predator and prey when we're all tearing out pieces of each other to make ourselves feel whole.
Dorian couldn't help that he shied from her gaze for the first time after she mentioned being insulted. Neither could he admit that he'd only brought it up because after accidentally harming one of his father's beloved hounds who'd dodged in front of his deadly aim, that his father had forbade him from hunts. It was a failing that had cost him any love from that half of his parentage, as far as he could tell. He'd long since sublimated that particular sorrow to something that was quickly converted to fuel the thermals he soared upon in his everyday life.
He usually drifted up there, as far as his psyche was concerned, no matter his company. His siblings made for welcomed peers. Few beyond them were valued as such, though he mingled among the people readily. Perhaps it was her eyes alight like his own, though she had shielded that light, or just something about the kinship of their natures calling to one another, but this Calliope even in the dodgy dingy spot where he'd found her, was certainly a flame he could comprehend. So it was that after taking her answer in, he rejoined, "Well, that is truer than true. And.... I suppose even if I had an answer from anyone else, I would still search for mine own. My own, I mean. Ha. Hahaha. You know... I was going to give this to the shop, but.... I think maybe I brought it just because I was going to make a friend. Please, take this with my compliments."
He'd hold out the box and the bag both, then think better of it, moving to put them at her side on the luggage flanked sofa. He fussed enough to open the lid of the box, showing a phonograph inside. The bag he set beside it held several shellac albums, swing, blues and classical compositions, among his favorites.
Calliope follows him to the sofa, neck craned as if her nose was leading her to look down in the bag as he pulls out the contents. The intensity in her expression fades, replaced by soft curiosity and then a warm smile. "My wife was needing music and here you've delivered exactly what I would have gone hunting for tomorrow, a fine gift indeed." She looks at him from the corner of her eye, studying his expression indirectly once the titles are examined. "And perhaps I will allow one pleasant thing to remain in this place of mine meant to drive all others away so that you might come back by again." What goes unspoken is a new aim for tomorrow's hunt, finding a gift for the giver.
Calliope's hands return to her cup, passing over the mud until both cup and contents are transformed into a chalice filled with a pale gold drink, bubbles rising from the bottom and breaking the surface so the ripples reflect the light from outside the windows. As if an illusion of dross were broken, though it was reality reshaped instead. "For your kindness. I'd hate for you to get to the shop with a dry throat." The faint scent of fruit rises from it, grapes and pear. "Keep the cup to take along with you, so sorry there's no lid."
Dorian was watching as the gift was appraised and seemed satisfied when it was accepted. There wasn't even a stray blink when she mentioned who it was for, just grinning when it was appreciated. Grinning that split his fair face in two, showing straight white teeth, and sparkled in his eyes too. He was pleased that his new friend was pleased and that rested at ease on his face. He'd step away from the offering, shoving his hands in his pockets, and reply warmly, blithely, "I am delighted to share. Robert Johnson's 'Kindhearted Woman Blues', 'Rhapsody in Blue,' and anything by Bo Carter, Charley Patton or Benny Goodman. They're all the hep jives, and danceable, with a few slower pieces among Satie and San Saens for when you want something less.... new world."
He hadn't quite paid attention as the cup was transmogrified, so that when he turned to look he was astonished. As his hands were free, he'd reach to take the shining fragrant cup, so out of joint with the surroundings outside Calliope herself. Looking upon it, his face betrayed some amount of wonder that there was something so palatable calling to him inside of it. He looked at her eyes as he raised it to his lips and drank deeply from it, draining it to its dregs while maintaining eye contact for much of it. The last few gulps he did close his eyes for. And he looked into the bottom before pulling it away from his face, then asked, "Truly, this cup is for me?"
His siblings were the sorts to rake in such offerings. They were more marriageable, and sought after in most conceivable ways. They fronted the powerbase of the family, too. Dorian was comfortable as the spare though he grinned awkwardly at being the recipient of such finery.
The names of the songs are filed away, plans to play them while Julius is out first to prepare a proper introduction to them for her in order. "To keep or abandon as you want. Sit on a roof and throw it at the police if you're so inclined!" A laugh follows, full of playful mischief. "Should you, I'll come bail you out as well, for the gift of making this small island a little more..." She licks her lips as her eyes look to the sky despite all the building between her and it. "A little more." When she looks back to him she sees him staring into the bottom of the cup, there's only the pale shimmering drops remaining, with no bitter taste. It was exactly what it seemed to be, and with a golden cup left in hand. "Though best take it now and leave while you can, before I decide to collect you to add to my garden."
Dorian had pulled his eyes from the bottom of the handsome cup to gaze her way once more. When she mentioned that she was sparing him the tedium of collecting him, he laughed and shook his curly head. It persisted for a few moments before he explained, with that laughter now running through his voice to cast the urbane Englishness of it less guarded, by being a bit breathier, "I am not one to ignore a lady's warning. I who have always been possessed of a lady sister. Miss Calliope, what an unimagined and absolute delight to find you here. I knew we were kindred spirits from the moment I saw you fight. Well.... I had hoped it anyway.. You have only to let me know when the hunt is ready to find me there at the starting gates."
For all the swordmasters his money could buy, a kindred spirit was something else. Given his martial exercises were usually executed on his own, finding a companion in them, well that was the sort of thing more valuable than gold to someone like him. He could buy anything else, given his brother's openness with the family purse strings. Dorian may have been the most Spartan among his kin on the isle, with inventory being the cost of his expenditures this day, given he'd been raised as the soldier, but his excitement in explaining the music had been very real. Bending to give another bow which displaced hair that he had to swipe back when he stood to his full height of something just over six feet, he backed to the door after, admitting, "That was a most delectable vintage. Not something I thought I'd find here. I think maybe I can be served here, afterall." His punctuating grin was cheeky unto yielding dimples in his stubbled face.
He was in the midst of one more wink and step backward when his treads upset a couple of critters whose scurrying set his hand on the door and self launching out of it. He'd often felt like he was living a fairytale on Callisto, and his experience this day and the other recent ones had done little to unconvince him. Bound likely toward the docks, in search of things more mundane to allow him the space to parse what had just happened and pull from the experience pure gladness at having found a fellow hunter, he called over his shoulder as the door swung shut, "Mine is the big house just up the hill there."
He had quirked his head toward his home before stepping through the threshold and called over his shoulder just to let her know in case she didn't that it was the place to find him. Thereafter he'd beat a path townward, his sister had recently given birth to a child and was in need of fresh flowers, however full of them her room already was.