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So very late. D:
Bag by bag, Poe had set up her own elaborate little corner of Esper Hollow to her very likings. She hadn't a hint of carpentry skills to build anything to resemble a traditional house, but she did have a creative streak and a good sense of where just everything of her interest could be found in the city that had been home for several months. So she made herself a colourful canopy between the trees, protected by a bright blue tarp overhead and veiled by a kaleidoscope of curtains. Gauzy, patterned or laced, they all radiated and rippled animatedly when she lit her paper lanterns while sewing new clothes from within the sling of her hammock most nights. Even in the quiet chaos that she had walked into here, Poe had settled in quite naturally in between fishing, urban gathering and aiding Ahren as best as she could (which in all practicality was little in comparison to the other attendees, but that evidently made no impact on her prior).
With most of her 'vital' needs met from the city, Poe's last few trips there had been delightfully frivolous and often brought back bags of seemingly random items. Today's contents had been poured out onto the firm dirt floor of her wannabe circus tent, and Poe herself sat next to them, separating clothes from jewelry, from the rest. Beneath the ripped remains of a black lace shawl was a tarnished silver box with a vine and flower design etched into its skin. Golden-green eyes lingered on it while a dark thumb wiped away a bit of grimy dust, polishing her spotty reflection. Drawing the box into the lap of her theatrical purple pinstriped dress, Poe pushed up a small latch and pushed the lid back on its hinges. Immediately a tinny tune sang out, a forgotten ballet for the plastic ballerina that turned stiffly on a stand in the center of the music box. All around the figurine were lipstick, eye shadow and blush cases, the palettes inside broken and dull, but no less interesting to their new owner. With wide, pleased eyes, the child-sized werewolf selected a pale pink blush and rubbed the pad of her forefinger in it, crumbling the brittled make-up to bring it to her mottled cheek bones.
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The sickness had lingered in his body, and it was still there. Little by little, and day by day, he got better. A cough lingered in his lungs, no doubt aided by the smoke he filled them with, but he was mobile. Most days Ahren spent his time working on the shack that he had told Laruku he would build. It was a solid structure now, with three rooms. That was done specifically because they could not share that common space anymore. Some nights, while he sat up in the starlight and studied the varying shades of darkness, he thought about killing him. Each night he prevailed over this impulse, though it lingered.
It was music that drew him from the forest, like a wild animal caught by some spell. He trailed back through the tree-line, smelling of smoke as if he had been born from some long forgotten god of fire, nude except for the ragged cargo shorts that hung from his hips and carried within them a multitude of odds and ends. One hand, attached to an arm scarred and ruined, pushed back a veil and admired the girl in the dress with the familiar smile of a lover, a brother, a bohemian who felt he had no right to speak of love dare he ruin the truth to that single solitary emotion. “What are you up to?”
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In a tower of steel Nature forges a deal To raise wonderful hell
Rough around the edges as he may be, Ahren was steady on his two feet again, leaving the looming threat of seizures and worse locked in the shadowy wood shack. It was a note of pleased relief that Poe seemed to coast on each time she came across him lately, and this afternoon was no exception. Her round face beamed at Ahren through their reflected images in the lid behind the turning ballerina, then turned over her shoulder to climb up his pale form and settle on his face. The blush stuck to her cheeks, highlighted by the lighter tones the freckled her face, giving her the unnatural glow best suited for a child's doll. But as usual, she seemed entirely pleased by the colourful decoration, and angled her head to show Ahren. "I found some great stuff in the city today," she answered him with the enthusiasm that would suggest she thought anything less than everything in the city was great.
She gestured for him to join her with a bounce of her nose that sent her flamboyant hair splaying over half of her face. "I grabbed another pair of pants that might fit you," she said while rummaging through the pile, giving up as soon as something more interesting stole her attention. A peach-pink scarf covered in little hanging coins jangled as she lifted it up with both hands to display. "Like this. This will be perfect for a good ol' bonfire dance," she grinned cheesily, dropping it in a heap at her side. "And this box, of course. And some make-up that seems relatively intact, inside of it." She returned to the subject that had lured him in to begin. The tune was beginning to slow, pangs echoing longer and hesitating in tow.
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The makeup had put a false blush on her cheeks, and through the powder spread glitter amongst her fur. That much he could see; those faint flickering light particles that burned like tiny stars. Moving towards her, the blonde settled at her side, eyeing the assorted goods she had gathered. Both hands took the cargo pants from her loot, turned them over a few times and decided they looked appropriate. “Thanks, Poe,” he said, and ogled her other finds with a smile. “Your war paint is very intimidating, by the way.”
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In a tower of steel Nature forges a deal To raise wonderful hell
She smiled pleasantly when he sat down beside her, in a small but open display of welcoming. Poe had missed having good company around on any kind of regular basis, more than she had admitted during her time in the two coastal cities. And Ahren was a particularly good brand of company in her eyes, making it all the more enjoyable to be living within shouting distance. The smile bloomed into a toothy grin when he complimented her 'war paint' and she lifted the side of her lip to bare a shiny canine, the facial contortion winking one eye. "Not that I really need it. I could intimidate a dragon with my warrior moves," she boasted with a lazy roll of her shoulders. Her hands fiddled between the little plastic containers, clicking them open and closed to browse the contents.
Some of the contents were identifiable as the individual markings on human female's faces in photos, while others were not so clear. But the tube of deep red lipstick stood out as the dramatic paint on their lips. A streak on her finger tip proved the colour too dark to show up on her black fur, arousing a curious quirk to her brow and a wandering of her gaze. If she had fur as light as Ahren's, this make up would be far more effective, she thought with a pointed stare at him before her next thought lit her eyes. "Now you on the other hand," she said slyly, turning the lipstick tube to open it further. "You're still looking a little worn out. And these are pretty rough parts, y'know. I'll bet a bit of war paint would go a long way to share of any baddies." Her lips twisted into an impish grin despite her best attempts to restrain while waving the lipstick between them, offering ever-so generously.
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He laughed aloud at the visual of such a small, child-like creature fighting a dragon. Of course, he could believe it. Whatever else she was, Poe was and forever would be a D’Angelo—the madness and the terrors that her family bred would always be there. On top of that, she had Eternity’s blood, and he was a monster almost beyond measure. Of course, these days, everyone seemed to be a monster. They lived in a more vicious world, and their children had begun to explore dangerous roads. Ahren was a prime example, but his generation was one too old for this new breed. He was a different kind of monster.
As soon as she fixed him with those eyes (eyes that were perhaps akin to those of a child in a Victorian painting, a girl who knows too much about her father) he knew what she had envisioned for him. Still, Poe was one of his closest friends and almost a younger sister, and he knew that indulging her was the least he owed her. One hand went down to support himself, and in the process was dipped into a pile of green paint he did not feel (or see, being he was so colorblind). Moving it and pushing a chunk of hair out of his face, he managed to streak it that same color before placing it back on the ground. “In the event some masked man comes out of the shadows,” he said, shaking his head slightly and leaning forward to allow her to reach his face more comfortably.
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In a tower of steel Nature forges a deal To raise wonderful hell
Poe truly was a vivid blend of both terrible and broken parents, but with a pair of rose-coloured glasses perched on the round bridge of her nose. In the day, she walked through worlds of lost hope and hot blooded lust, and at night she dreamed of murderous ghosts and love not only lost, but barely found at all. Yet she found joy in either realm, playing children's games with demons and dancing with the despaired. It was there that she often found Ahren, throwing stones at broken bones while leaving a trail of shattered glass and poetry in his wake. Anger as beauty.
A smile and low giggle crept up from her throat as he streaked his hair green, just as welcoming of the man-made liquid masks as she. "Don't you just hate it when that happens?" she stated more than asked, while edging closer to Ahren and adjusting the tube of lipstick. Pressed between delicate, hard-nailed fingers, she started at the center of his top lip and followed the sleek black line of his lips, only to find that the thick substance clumped unevenly to the pale, short fur of his muzzle. It was a look that simply would not do for her finest client, particularly when risking masked men and dragons. So she used her thumb to smudge the waxy makeup into the white, ridding it of clumps but she quickly found, it melted away the refined definition that the purse-lipped girls in dingy photos had. "Well. You just might be scary enough to frighten half of the company around here when I'm done with you," she said with a blunt honesty that was shed soon enough for simple glee as she brought the tube back to his lips, repeating the action until his mouth was smeared red and extended into his cheeks like a horrific cartoon clown crossed with the Red Riding Hood fable. Or possibly the Joker.
"Lovely," she crooned, capping the lipstick and adjusting the green streak in his hair to cover more ground. She eagerly grabbed the musical jewelry box, turning its mirror to Ahren.
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Maybe, once upon a time, he would have been an artist. Carving his name into concrete, firing bullets through windows and crying out revolution. He was a madman bum, setting fires to cars and writing his own scripture in blood. It surprised him, sometimes, that this bohemian angel would be his companion, his sister, his lover. Then again, he couldn’t have wished for better company. In the following weeks, when she vanished like the autumn people so often do, her presence would be sorely missed.
He could feel her using the strange smelling substance, and then felt her fingers trailing along his mouth. Then she began playing with his hair, melding it into twisted locks that tumbled around his face unevenly. It was not until she offered him the mirror that he had indication of her results. She had painted him a wicked smile, one that seemed offset by the rest of his pale face. The red was remarkably bright, nearly the same color as his eyes. That color, at least, he could see. “Well, it’s certainly something,” he offered, and cracked a grin. The red jaws made it seem twice (if not more) mad then he had ever imagined. “You think that’s enough?”
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In a tower of steel Nature forges a deal To raise wonderful hell
Poe held a great appreciation for the small, ridiculous things in life. Or maybe it was just the ridiculous in general, that very often came in small packages. The human world was full of it, useless, flashy things that had no use beyond a smile or a snort, but had a way of tinting the
Poe kept a distinct appreciation for any and all of the little things in life, particularly those that held no more credibility than being simply ridiculous. Quick smiles and childish giggles were like complimentary colours to the ghosts and ghouls that she chased when the sun went down; opposites so far flung that they gave balance on the tightrope that she favoured so much more than the sturdy, hard ground below. Ahren’s weight fell to one side, allowing Poe to lean into the other, and they moved gracefully in a shared intuition. A turning yin and yang, the pale man and the dark lady, suspended in their balance. That and many other things brought a broad smile to her face, pinched in the corner of her eyes in agreement with his devilish mask.
“Almost,” she replied soundly, setting down the music box and picking up one last plastic disk. With another brush, she picked out a dark, smoky grey shade amongst several others, and rose to her knees before Ahren. “Close your eyes,” she said in a tone both puckish and tender with some residual memory of eye-closed trust months passed. A couple of soft, even strokes covered his brow to lower lid. It was only when his eyes opened again that, with an indiscrete stare, she noted that it was really only meant for the upper eyelids. Still, the pleased posture quickly returned when she took in his new look overall. He looked truly sinister, a smeared painting of the perfect, cheerful women and jesters she had seen many times on walls and books, gone wrong. It was a delightful balance between the worlds by her standards, and she beamed at him. “Now you’re done. Between the two of us, we could scare off even the most dreaded souls.” They really could protect each other from anyone, as he had told her in a feverish craze. Grotesque, dreamy heros.
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If he had realized it sooner, he might have chosen her over her aunt. If he had known then what he knew now, the world might have changed. All he had left was a broken family, scattered across the world. All he had left was a dying man who was his companion, his lover, the thing he hated in himself. All he had was the knife, the addiction, the flame and the absence of feeling.
Above all this, all he had was this moment. So he smiled, laughed, and grasped one of her hands in his own. They really had nothing but here and now. Here, in this circus tent of painted-faces and costumes, they were invincible.
They were crazy to believe this.
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