quote_gentle_unquote | * [semi-closed post]

Susan is still struggling, but she's established a little routine, specific to Dark: every morning, she goes to her favorite room - the one with all the rugs - and retrieves several bottles of alcohol. These, she ferries down to the cafe and arranges them on a corner table, where she sits for the next hour or so, passing bottles to anyone who needs a full one, and measures from the bottles to anyone who would prefer just a drink or two. By now, she's got a sense of the regulars, their preferences (though she cannot always accommodate these - it really is the queerest assortment of libations), and how much they require, but she always brings an extra bottle or two just in case.

Today, she's tireder than normal, and moving slowly. Her tea was running low, and so she's rationing it. She's even on the verge of capitulating and getting a cup of coffee to tide herself over.

[Primarily intended for Dionysus and Lan Wangji, but if anyone wants to play out the awkwardness of the daily alcohol retrieval I'm all in!]

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Susan's expression softens. "You didn't," she says. "You were lovely." She even smiles a tiny, bittersweet smile, tinged rueful. "And even if you hadn't been, no one ever knows what to say about that sort of thing. Most people splutter."

"But thou art not most people."

"I believe it might be rather hypocritical of me to splutter," Susan says. "And besides, you said I ought to be honest with you. That rather narrows down the things one might say."

"Is there any other honesty thou wouldst have?"

She glances down at her lap, and then back up at him. "About our sisters? Or more generally?"

He spreads his hands. "Whatever thou wouldst have."

"Do you know how they're holding up?" Susan wonders. Annoyingly, she's begun to care about the people coming to her for drinks as individuals on their own merits rather than simply (largely) as people important to Lancelot. Something about the forced proximity has left her moving beyond her earliest impressions of them. "The people who need drinks. I imagine it's ever so humiliating, to have to come to me each day for an allotment, and I haven't wanted to draw attention to it. But you're close with at least some of them. Are they weathering this storm?"

Laertes looks down at her carefully inventoried bottles, and the two that she's allotted to him. "They're enduring," he says after a moment. "It makes them uneasy, to treat liquor as an urgent need to be managed and rationed. They had rather see it as a careless pleasure; to think on how much they need, rather than how much they want, fills them with shame. And I worry, too, about what may befall them when the season shifts--for they may surfeit in their relief, and do themselves mischief by it."

Susan's eyes fly up to Laertes's face. "I hadn't considered that," she admits. Her mind is whirling again; largely thinking aloud, she continues, "I haven't a great deal of knowledge about dipsomania. I really ought to, since I'm doing this, but with all the dreadful stuff that's been going on, I've just not had--- and anyway, surely it shan't be like all the refeeding issues in the past decade; it's not as if they've stopped drinking entirely. But..." she frowns. This seems a worry that one can't truly prepare for, unless one wishes to alienate the very people she is trying to help.

Dipsomania--from dipso, thirst. He grasps her meaning. "I'll speak with them," he promises. "Those I know, at least."

She relaxes, barely perceptibly. "I just want everyone to be all right," she says, and then gives a harsh little bark of laughter. "And an end to this month. Do you suppose the attack on Magnus was a consequence of Dark, or just a horrid coincidence?"

An icy bolt of dread goes through him. "The--what happened to Magnus?"

"I'm not entirely sure - Lancelot said he found him pinned to the ground in one of the halls, run through by a queer sword he couldn't recognize."

"When?" Laertes's mind is racing--he's been delinquent on supper deliveries, due mainly to melancholy and migraines; he ought to have known that Magnus had been hurt--

Edited 2024-04-04 00:06 (UTC)

"It must be a week ago now at least," says Susan, trying to sort out when exactly it happened. She's usually much better at mental math, but the days do so run together during this season.

A part of Laertes wants to gather up his bottles, make his excuses, and flee in search of Magnus--but if it's been a week, then surely there is nothing to be gained by rushing to Magnus's side. "How does he?" he asks instead. His face is ashen, haunted. "Please. He is my friend."

"I don't know him very well," Susan admits. "And perhaps he might have a different story for someone he's close to. But I came across him yesterday afternoon and he seemed in good spirits and fully recovered. Lancelot said his wounds were already much recovered by the time he left him that day."

"That eases my heart," says Laertes. His heart is still racing, but the keen horror in his eyes fades, and a measure of tension goes out of him. "No doubt mortal wounds cannot trouble an einherji, the son of Frey."

Susan doesn't know about that. "It's possible," she says, and tilts her head. "If you should like to see for yourself, I believe he might be set up in the greenhouse again today. He told me he was... a, ah, 'harvest dude' now?"

"No doubt making himself ready for spring, and thence for Frey's summer." He rocks a little on both feet, heel to toe. "Forgive me--I do not mean to cut short our conversation. But with thy leave, I would go to him, and see what cheer I can offer."

"Of course," says Susan; she can hardly begrudge him that. But she looks up and catches his eye. "Laertes?"

He meets her gaze and holds it. "Ay, Susan?"

"I meant it, you know. If ever you need to talk... you might find me."

"Let me offer thee the same hand in friendship," says Laertes. "I may not know what to say, but I can promise to listen."

"That's all anyone can ask," says Susan, in that busy way she gets when she's having an emotion. She's got a tiny heartfelt smile. "I do hope your day improves."

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