Work Text:
“They just need to be....pretty,” Laerryn says, gesturing helplessly in an attempt to communicate some ephemeral, nebulous concept of beauty that exists only as an idea in words in her head with no associated imagery.
The dwarf behind the counter of the flower shop smiles at her. Fuck, she hopes she’s not recognizable enough to be identified by random service workers. Probably she should have set her spiteful petulance aside and actually listened to Patia’s commentary on the public persona of the previous Architect Arcane. It’s only been a year. Surely she’s not recognizable.
“Are we aiming for a gift? For your mother? Or perhaps an apology of some sort? Sympathies on an illness?”
She has an illness, all right. Laerryn clasps her hands behind her back to keep them still. “No? No. None of those. They’re for... a person. I have an appointment this evening-- a meeting? I think he’d like flowers--”
She’s already spent almost an hour on her hair, and she’d switched between two jackets literally dozens of times. And then she’d got thoroughly distracted by a folder of rough sketches Nydas had left on her kitchen table a week ago, which had eaten up half an hour she didn’t have. Luckily Evandrin had Sent to her to remind her of the time, because he knows her upsettingly well.
So now she’s shifting from foot to foot impatiently, mentally counting seconds as this dwarf looks at her like she’s a small child.
“Is this a personal or professional meeting?”
“Personal,” she croaks out, her voice shifting embarrassingly high at the end of the word.
“And do you know what sort of flowers this person prefers? Colours? Scents?”
“Pretty ones,” she says, exasperated. They’re going around in circles. This is why she doesn’t like talking to people.
The first arrangement the dwarf draws her attention to is some sort of bright pink and white monstrosity that makes her take a physical step back. The next mostly greenery, strange plants and grasses with oddly coloured flowers and weirdly shaped leaves. It appeals to her on a scientific level and a fuck tradition level, but it’s not exactly pretty. He’d either love it or hate it and she’s not willing to live with that uncertainty. Eventually they land on a dense combination of delicate purple flowers and lacey white leaves with a cluster of long elegant blue flowers standing tall at the centre. There’s something there that smells almost like his magic. Which she knows for purely scientific reasons. She’s never met anyone whose magic has such a distinctly alien sensation to it.
“If you want something more customised you’ll need to send a message ahead of time,” the dwarf says. “I’m usually here by noon, if you Send, and otherwise we have a drop box at the front if you’d like to leave a note.”
“This is... a one time thing,” Laerryn says, blithely unaware of her future.
*
“Hello, darling!”
He’s leaning against a statue, silvery violet hair all slicked back out of his face, eyelids brushed with sparkling powder and shoes so shiny the setting sun glints off of them. His eyes are a startlingly deep green, something unnatural and mesmerising. She kind of hates that she always has to ask to see his real face. He’s still just slightly taller than her. It’s infuriating.
She glances around warily, but there’s nobody close enough to hear his greeting.
“Hi,” she says, once she’s closer. “I’m late, I think. Sorry. I-- this is gonna happen. You should just know that.”
“It’s a lovely view,” he says, and then winks because he’s the worst.
“You really just use up all the charm on your day job, huh,” she says, and then “Fuck. Ignore that.”
“You think I’m charming.” He’s far too smug and far too honestly flattered. She can feel the heat rushing to her face and her ears. Every time her ears twitch the delicate copper chains running through her earrings swing very slightly and it makes her hyper-aware that she’s dressed up specifically because she wants to look nice for this man.
“Infer whatever you want,” she says, determinedly keeping her shoulder straight.
His smile softens. “Usually I prefer hard facts. But maybe in this case I can make an exception.”
She is already making more exceptions for Loquatius Seelie than she knows what to do with.
She loses the battle with her body, hunches her shoulders. Eyes focused on the darkened windows of the Enchantment Guild off to their left she shoves the flowers in his direction. “Here. These. These are yours now.”
He accepts the flowers from her hands gently. “Laerryn, these are lovely. Thank you, darling.” He keeps calling her that.
There’s something happening to his cheeks when she looks back at him, a silvery sheen like mercury, darting across his skin and then vanishing.
I’ve reserved a table for us nearby if you’re still interested in dinner,” he says. “But that can be easily cancelled if you’d prefer something else.”
He tucks the flowers into the crook of his right arm, shifting them around a few times. Fuck. Of course he wouldn’t know what to do with them. She’s going to have to look at these flowers every time she looks at him, a constant reminder of the things his existence makes her feel, the things it makes her want to do. And he’s going to have to carry them around all evening. Probably crush them-- of course he isn't’ going to crush them, she can already tell he’s careful with the things that matter to him. He’s going to look at those flowers tomorrow and he’s going to think about her, and she doesn’t know how that makes her feel but it sure does make her feel something.
“Dinner is fine,” she blurts out, so that she doesn’t apologize for her stupid stupid gift.
“Excellent.”
They offer their arms to each other at the same time. It feels like the most awkward moment of her life, which is fucking saying something. Loquatius just laughs, and offers her his hand instead. She takes it, because there’s no one around to see and his fingers are long and elegant and cool, well-manicured and soft. She wonders if, as a Changeling, things like calluses and scars are foreign concepts. She wants to ask him, so she does.
The conversation takes them all through the walk to the restaurant and their first glass of wine. She desperately wants to take notes, but she forces her hands to still, keeps her focus intentionally on him as best she can. She doesn’t know, yet, if he can appreciate the effort she’s making, but it feels good to make it.
Once they’ve finished their salads, he smiles at her and says “so do you have any conscious control over your ears, or do they just do that on their own?”
Her hand flies up to press her right ear down against her skull. “What do you mean--” He’s laughing at her. He’s laughing at her, but it’s the way Van or Nydas laughs at her, mostly kind. She drops her hand. “I deserved that.”
“Only a little,” he says. “But let me assure you, I’ve answered every possible question about being a Changeling at least ten times.”
“Even the sex ones?”
He grins, startled and white and sharp. “Especially the sex ones. But you get a free pass on those.”
“You’ll probably regret that,” she says, meaning a lot of things.
“Maybe. But that’s a chance I’m willing to take. Besides, a sample size of one can’t possibly be a reliable predictor of results, and I’d hate to get in the way of science.”
Laerryn doesn’t say ‘I spent five minutes taking notes in the coat closet after you left,’ and she doesn’t say ‘I don’t like that you think you have to joke about being a science experiment because I’ve done some reading since we last met and I get why that’s probably not great for you as a Changeling,’ and she does not say ‘do you want to get out of here?’ but they’re all true.
Instead, she says “So why journalism?” and the worst thing is she actually kind of cares about the answer.
She walks him home at the end of the night, after dinner and too much wine and the awkward realization that neither of them really had time for sex that night if they wanted to get any rest before their respective early morning meetings --she was fine with that sacrifice, he was not.
“Are you going to kiss me goodnight?” he asks, smirking a little as he takes down the wards on his apartment. It’s dark in the little alcove by his door, moonlight splashing across the cobbles of the narrow walkway but not reaching them under the overhang. It feels like a little indulgence just for her, getting to study his form more openly while he can’t really see her in any detail.
“Yes,” she says. But--”
“I know,” he says, something fond in his voice, and she gets a close up view as the colour fades out of his skin and hair, his eyes darken, the black veins rush up across his face and down his neck. They go all the way down. She’d checked.
“Better?” he asks.
And it is.