milliways_bar | (no subject)

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sinric the wanderer

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It will be the first Christmas for Poirot since his passing. And he is not sure what he is feeling. He was not one to make a big deal of the day, even before Hastings moved to Argentina, even before Japp's death and Miss Lemon making her way out of London with the Blitz and choosing to not return. He rarely even set foot in church despite considering himself a devout Catholic. But the holidays always meant there would be something. A gift from far off quarters, an unexpected card, even on one occasion a mystery that required his presence. All that is gone.

But did Poirot truly expect to find any of that in the afterlife? Thus his uncertain feelings.

No matter. He will sit for now, sipping a brandy in front of the fireplace, reading a work by Ariadne Oliver (another sorely missed friend).

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There's a man with long blonde hair sitting on the carpet by the fire, cleaning a flute with an oil rag. His actions have a ritual air, of someone who has made a habit of caring for his belongings.

He happens to look up in meet Poirot's eye, dipping his head in a polite nod.

"Bonjour." Poirot did notice what the man was doing out of the back of his eye, of course.

"Good evening, sir." Sinric smiles softly, dipping the scrap of cloth in a small bottle of fragrant orange oil, carefully polishing the wooden surface. "Are you enjoying your book?"

"That is a good question, my friend. Madam Oliver, she was a good friend and an astute observer of man. But her books leave much to be desired." By which he means her mysteries.

"Her gift for seeing the world does not translate well into the written word?" He asks, somewhat sympathetically.

"She is the writer of mysteries. But while she can aid in solving one in the real of the world, she cannot create them effectively as often as I would like.

"And her main character...he is quite unbelievable." She marks his place and closes the book.

"That's dreadfully disappointing. It's hard to enjoy a story if you don't find the protagonist of value." Sinric nods, sympathetically.

"She insists that she made the mistake of creating him in the first place. If she had known her fans and her publisher would insist she bring him back again and again, she would have done something else.

"But I do not think she tells the truth entire. She likes him more than she would admit." He shakes his head as she could see him.

"But I talk too much of this book."

Sinric chuckles and shakes his head. "No, please go on? I've never meet one who writes such stories for their livelihood. Much less one who has those who hark on her every word so that she can't stop."

"Ah, I would tell her that she must stop. Or at least that she must find a new detective instead of this Sven Hjerson. She even writes of Finland even though she has never been to Finland." And that she was unwilling to go only shows Poirot that the choice was wrong.

"But I am not the writer. I was not even able to write about my own cases."

"You think she would do better to write that which she knows?" He asks, thinking of his own writings. "I suppose it is different for those writing stories of fiction."

"May I ask what you do, sir?"

"I think she perhaps should have written at least of the detective English. As did Mrs. Sayers and Mrs. Tey." Even if he finds their stories to be a bit hard to read sometimes.

"And I myself? I too was a detective, but not the fictional sort."

"Perhaps it is the exotic she finds her readers crave?"

"I have a dear friend who is also a detective. It sounds a fascinating if frightening life."

"There were times that it was dangerous, oui. But it served a great need in the world as well, and it was well worth the risk." And usually, the greatest danger was from letting Hastings drive too fast.

"And it brought you happiness?" He asks, very gently. The past tense hasn't escaped is notice.

He considers this. That is not the sort of question he was usually asked.

"I strove to make the world a better place. I strove for justice. It did not always make me happy, since even justice would not bring back the dead. But I enjoyed the challenge. The puzzles."

"Even if the dead cannot be brought back, at least they can be given peace." Sinric nods. "That is a legacy one could be proud of."

{ooc: sorry!}

"It is indeed." Though there are times he wishes he could have done more the times more than one person was killed.

"And what do you do, sir?"

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