milliways_bar | (no subject)

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[OOM: One commission, two gifts and an unexpected visitor. Small warning for a bit of blood and gore.]

Weyland returns to the bar sometime later, when he has recovered enough to appear calm again, and he carries the gifts he has made up to the bar. It looks like it's going to be another Atlantean night.

He takes a seat at the bar, and waits. There's one person in particular he's waiting for and several others he'd be very happy to see, but really any distraction would be welcome.

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He collects a parasol from the bar as well, and offers it to her.

"Assuming I won't burst into flames at the touch of sunlight... yes. I'm feeling brave."

She gives him a look, through the smoke.

"Let's hope not."

She goes to the door and pushes it open with her free hand.

He walks along with her. "I don't sunburn, actually. Nor burn from fire, so that may be the reason for that."

"That sounds... extremely useful, in your line of work."

"It is," he agrees. "I used to be able to burn, but that was a very long time ago. I suppose it's just my element, now."

She tilts her head as her feet splash into the shallows.

"What changed?"

"I don't know," he says. "I just can't, anymore. Oh, if I try I can manage superficial burns, but they never stay."

He reaches into the leather pouch and pulls out what looks like an origami bird made of silver, about the size of his hand.

She leans in to look at it, intrigued.

It probably looks a bit like something that some overpriced foreign design house might make and sell for holiday ornaments or decorative paperweights. It looks solid enough until, with a small smile, he throws it at the lake as though trying to skip it across the water--

And unfolds itself, origami-like at first, but then--somehow--much more ornately, until finally, a large metal swan stretches its wings and untucks its head out from under one of them.

Melpomene applauds.

"Beautiful."

"Ah, you like it?" he asks with a small smile, as he motions the swan boat closer. It paddles its feet below the surface and ducks down at the edge of the water, stretching one wing out as a bit of a ramp to climb aboard.

"I was hoping you would."

She steps cautiously onto the wing, wondering fleetingly if it will break, before casting that worry aside-- if Weyland means it to be sturdy, it's sturdy.

"Of course. I don't think I've seen a thing you've made that I didn't find amazing."

She smiles and turns back halfway up the ramp. "My critics are somewhat harsher, it seems."

"I have to admit, I haven't seen much of your work, but I can't imagine that it's anything less than brilliant," he says. "You work with people, a much more difficult material than metal. If anyone criticizes your work, well, I can't believe they would do anywhere near as well."

"That's true," she says, wryly. "Many have tried, though."

"There have been plenty of people who've criticized my work," he says. "But I know it's the best, and that's all that matters, I suppose."

"It's hard, though, if it's one's whole life."

She steps into the boat gingerly. "I guess that's why I have to find something else that's meaningful, or all the criticism will make me feel worthless."

"It's definitely not easy," he says, waiting until she is off the swan's wing before following her into the boat. The bench seat is comfortable, considering it is all of metal; there's not a huge amount of room in the boat, but certainly enough for two people.

"If you have something like that, something that isn't a job but rather what you are, it's very hard to separate. So you have to have confidence in yourself and your abilities."

She takes a seat.

"I do have that, anyway."

"You are the best there is at what you do," he murmurs, taking a seat beside her, "the best there could possibly be at it. It's what you are, it's in your blood."

The swan settles its wings into a more comfortable position and pushes off with its feet, swimming slowly and gently toward the middle of the lake.

"You're right," she concedes, looking down at her reflection in the water, through the ripples of the boat's wake.

"Has your work not been going well lately," he asks, "for you to care what your critics might think?"

She runs a hand through her hair, smiling wryly.

"I just find that people are more and more obtuse, and less and less appreciative. I suppose that's egotistical of me."

"If it's any consolation," he says with a rueful chuckle, "I can barely even give my work away, here."

She tilts her head.

"I doubt that, somehow."

"Why is that?" he asks. "People don't seem to want things made, or if they do, they go to other people for them. I don't have the reputation."