( one impossible task at a time )

[dieneidio]

Right, so.

In Xanadu, there's this garden - quiet, a little apart from the daily grind of the rest of the city. It's a memorial garden and as such it has its fair share of statues, some notable and some less so. The name of one of these reads Gates Enfys Keel Eddings above a simple inscription and two dates, and this isn't the way Enfys imagined

Comments

[nottopromise]

Quinn thinks of these people. Statues are what is left of them long after they're nothing but ashes and memories. He thinks of them and thinks of those that do not have statues. What becomes of the unmourned?

Here, Enfys. Have a friendless and mostly quiet would-be writer just passing through (it's complicated), studying these statues, including that of Mrs Eddings.

"Did you know her?" he asks, and almost immediately after regrets asking. Regrets and regrets not.

[dieneidio]

"Can't say as I did- well, yeah, but not really, per se." Which averages out to 'sort of', maybe, and either way isn't the clearest of answers. (People don't generally come to Enfys for a straight answer, though, so Quinn can console himself with the knowledge that this is just the continuation of an established pattern. Does he like patterns? Who knows.)

She slings an arm around the statue of this woman she didn't know (but maybe did), leaning in to snap the picture. (She does bunny ears for the second shot, in case anyone was about to mistake this for something meaningful. God forbid.)

"I'm Enfys, by the by."

[nottopromise]

He's fond of patterns, so long as doesn't end up utterly confused by them. While his nature may not be that of suspicion, he has the sort of feeling this will be confusing.

He's taken aback by the decidedly not sentimental bunny ears. Not in a bad way. It's different. His fingers slip into the back of his hair, scratching the low of his nape for lack of anything else to do. He'd like a cigarette.

"Quinn," he says softly, and a pause follows while he toys with the thought of actually asking. Enfys, like the statue. "...How do you know someone, but not really, per se?"

[dieneidio]

Dragging her thumb along the inscription, Enfys smiles up at him like she's testing an edge.

"Gates Enfys Keel Eddings. Gates Enfys Keel Llewelyn. See? That's how."

And she doesn't do this, she doesn't have these moments, it doesn't- it's not a thing, it's not going to be a thing, she's just going to take some stupid pictures and sit here for a while and then she's never going to think about this again.

That's exactly how it's going to be.

[wellforted]

He's not sure what paths bring him by the garden today - he's been here before, paused to shake his head in bemused grief and fondness more than once, and just as often simply to wonder at who put it there, who could have cared enough, in this strange, still-unfamiliar place - but the sight there catches him up, leaves him, for a moment, sense-memory thrown back (not so many) years and years to - his college days, when he still stumbled like someone whose head never quite managed the trick of growing into his too-tall body. (He was worse as a teenager, but it took reaching middle adulthood before the ungainliness, the sense of somehow not fitting rightly in hos own skin, ever truly faded away

[dieneidio]

If there's anything Enfys was expecting less-

-actually, there's nothing Enfys was expecting less than this. Earlier, she'd wondered about the name, the explanation - the history that the inscription hints at and the way she thinks this sculpted woman seems tired around the eyes. She seems to have underestimated the multiverse's penchant for black comedy in assuming that she'd have to go on wondering.

He recognizes her, which doesn't make sense (although it should, probably) until he tells her his name, and then she has a thousand questions, suddenly, none of which are really very appropriate. So he married her? How did he pull that one off, magic? Were they happy? Did she really take his name- she kept his name, they must've still been married, how did that happen? How did that work?

"That's a ridiculous name," she says, patting the ground beside her. "Sit down, Gary."

[wellforted]

"Maybe it is," he says, with another smile and a laugh that's more like the wind knocking itself out of his lungs (it kind of feels it, too), "--sure," he adds, almost afterthought, and he sits down, casually as he can (as loose-legged as he can, he's so surprised and bewildered he couldn't stiffen with tension right now if he tried, although he's waiting for the universe to prove him wrong on this, like it always does, always has with Enfys involved), setting himself facing her, one shoulder resting against the leg of his wife

[dieneidio]

"'Tis," she agrees, studying him like she's trying to puzzle him out - a physical attraction is no trouble to imagine, though the knowledge that he's her dead alternate's widower (she thinks) dowses that before it can even exist, but connecting herself (or some other self) to the concept of marriage is a little bit too out of this world for her. All the way out of it into his- no, really, was it magic? Did he use magic? Is he an Enfys-charmer? Like with snakes? Is that even a thing? That's not a thing

[northseaflotsam]

Apparently it's a popular spot. This one checks a little when he sees her sitting there, a subtle double- or possibly triple-take, and then says pleasantly, "Afternoon."

These coincidences are much more fun when they happen to other people.

[dieneidio]

"Mordred?"

...he probably didn't expect that.

[northseaflotsam]

That does make him pause, and his expression is just as entertaining as it ever was, if a little less appalled. "I think you have the advantage of me." Not that he sounds surprised by the fact. (He did meet Mrs. Eddings, after all.)

[dieneidio]

"Right," she says, after a moment, nonplussed. "Wrong irritable wee bastard, got you. If you were married to her as well, mate, I'm tossing you back right now."