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 Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 7:30 am
// Amadeo & Venice (and anyone else you wanna bring)
// Late afternoon, a bit brisk and on the dreary side
// Local coffeehouse & sandwich shop
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For a child of his apparent age, Amadeo had always been a touch more patient than one might expect. Mind you, just now, that patience was being tried.
The blond youngling sat, half-hunched over a saucer and a delicate piece of china, fingers curled 'round the cooling container of liquid in a lackluster fashion. Golden eyes were affixed, unfocused, to the fog-touched glass before him, where the name of the shop was scrawled out in intricate script, the metallics embedded in the paint a ploy to draw the eye and call the passerby in from the breeze. It was a tactic that, the Dust sourly noted, had not managed to beckon forth his guardian.
The man had placed him here an hour or so ago, telling him to stay put until his errands were finished, and Amadeo had assumed that it was the sort of business that his mercenary papa did not want assistance with. Some ridiculous notion that more violent business was not to be discussed outside of certain confines, elements of security that children wouldn't comprehend and all that rigmarole. Frankly, the youth found the entire concept exciting, and had more than once attempted to cajole the other to take him along on a job. These pleas had been met with resounding negativity, and in fact, the dustling had been strictly prohibited from making such requests. Heh. Not that that had put a stop to them, the boy had simply attempted to employ a childish level of subtlety into expressing such desires. Someday... someday.
Once more, he made note of the time, gaze flickering to the unfriendly face of the massive clock behind the counter, its hands plodding along at a dismally slow pace, the ticking of the seconds announced to Amadeo with thunderous clarity, even from his place at the low table by the window. Thumb and forefinger fussed with the edges of his crimson coat in a distinctly fidgety manner. The boy was ever so bored, and he truly didn't care who was aware of the fact. Huffing his disapproval weakly, he cupped his hands 'round the cup of spiced tea that he'd abandoned moments before, willing a tactfully subtle heat into his palms...a delicate endeavor, as his attempts at home had more than once resulted in soot-stains and scorch-marks, to the utter delight of his caretaker.
Releasing a long, low breath as steam wafted up from his beverage once more, he sat back, tenderly removing his fingers from the porcelain. Lips thinned into a displeased line as he noticed the ashen smudges on the white china, and he tossed a look 'round the shop to see if anyone had noticed, before bringing his hands up to cover the evidence, thumbs smoothing over his sins to wipe away the touch of grey. He hadn't stained the cup...thank the spirits for little miracles. Tension leaving his shoulders, Amadeo gingerly took a sip of the re-warmed liquid, taking a moment to savor the tones of jasmine, orange and clove.
Thank goodness. The last thing he needed was Nadyris giving him a public scolding.
Again.
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 1:57 pm
There was a soft scratching at his bones, an incessant pawing at his attention that was nearly beginning to drive him insane. It had started at first as a little tug on his consciousness, a subtle little tug to look away from the book in his hands.
Venice sighed, thumbing the page absently. The cup on the table next to him had long since gone cold from neglect. The swan had always been easily consumed by books, after all, and where better to do such a thing than a coffeeshop? Thankfully the demure business was not blooming this time of day. The dust could count on his fingers the number of patrons currently tending to coffee and end-of-the-day sores in their own private corners. He'd been left on his own as was the usual routine and found his way to the coffeeshop, though Wren had always made a habit to wait for him before heading home. The man had a routine too after all, and it was not at all a hard one to figure out, even with no words being spoken out loud.
After all, the man hardly favored Venice a child of his own, or himself a guardian in any sense of the word. Instead they had come to terms with the simple explanation that they were brought together through a series of coincidences. Venice was welcome to stay at Wren's place, but there was no interest in dependency on either of their parts. Wren gave him money and a warm place to sleep, and Venice gave him space and thanks. It was an unsaid agreement on both of their parts. Something to make their relationship simple, clear, clean.
Venice pushed himself from the reverie as the tugging returned, a gentle surge above the warmth of the coffeeshop. His wings fluttered subconsciously beneath the short cloak, stiff from so long in a state of practiced stillness. After all, it was not a common sight, a child with wings. Then again, it was not at all a common sight, a child with white hair either. Venice closed his eyes, and the soft fluttering began to slow minutely until the wings were again like stone beneath the deep blue-black of the cloak. When he opened them again, his eyes fell on the people surrounding the inside of the coffeeshop. Or to be so much more precise, the lack thereof. It wasn't long until he found the source of his minds discomfort. But it wasn't until he saw steam begin to rise from the still cup, and dark stains appear where the boy's fingers had been that he decided to indulge his curiosity and the strange tug on his conscience.
The swan's movements were elegant, gliding and quiet. It was though he were uninterested in drawing attention to himself with brash actions, and instead approached with subtle care. His fingers ghosted over the rim of the empty chair across from Amadeo, dark blue-black eyes surveying the creature across from him with mild intrigue.
"May I join you?" He asked quietly. His wings, like still statues coming to life, gave a brief flutter as though to accomodate the curiosity. After all, his self-control was nearly flawless for his apparent "age", but intrigue outweighed such a trivial thing at the best of times. And that was not always for the best.
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Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2012 12:06 pm
He had of course, in all curiousness, surveyed the contents of the coffee shop before claiming his perch at the window. Not that he'd looked long and hard at any one shopgoer, as people oh so rarely interested him. The patrons here had warranted no more than a perfunctory glance, a nearly habitual check of a self-imposed perimeter, and then Amadeo had begun to sink into a world of his own thoughts, finding the goings-on just beyond the glass mildly more engaging than the exhausted clerks and chatty housewives that were the most frequent clientele of this establishment.
So when the delicate-seeming swan-child approached him, it was quite out of the usual. This shop was a place where people seemed primarily engrossed in their own realities, passing others, and occasionally interacting with them, but all in all each person was self-contained, barely daring to go outside the magical little bubble created by counter-space and a warm, soothing beverage. That someone would seek him out was cause for mild astonishment. Fingertips self-consciously encircled his teacup once more, on the off chance that any of the ashen marks on the china had lingered. Golden eyes met blue-black, and a thrum of something entirely uncanny ran down the dust's spine, as though there were an echo somewhere within the silvery-haired lad that conspired with Amadeo's very being.
"Sure." It was casual enough, tapping nails upon the surface of his cup, taking a long sip of it as his gaze remained affixed to the newcomer. Now that the other had called attention to himself, the fire-child's gaze was rather studious, noting the subtle flicker of motion 'neath dark fabric. Curious. It was as though some small animal, perhaps, was trapped therein. Though Amadeo knew full well that was unlikely, but coupled with such striking features...
...the snowy-haired boy quite reminded him of a bird.
And a little of his violin teacher, even if not so forward.
"So what are you?" A pointed question, but it was one that the dust was fond of. People came up with such marvelous answers, even the ordinary looking folks tended to reconfigure their replies when asked 'what' instead of 'who'. Though for someone like the ethereal child before him, Amadeo would hardly be surprised if the answer was unlike any other that had come before it. And the fiery dustling found himself rather keenly desirous of that answer.
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Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2012 4:46 pm
Venice watched the stranger with vague curiosity, though all of it was muffled beneath the regality that he claimed and used like a cloak, a shield. He pulled the chair back just enough so that he could sit comfortably, one leg over the other, arms resting on knees with hands knit together in a calm and delicate way. "What am I?" He echoed mildly, his eyebrows raising just minutely to accomodate a brief swirl of surprise. "My, but you are very forward, aren't you." He mused quietly, his lips turning upwards into a small smile that immediately consumed the surprise.
In a way, Amadeo's question was a fresh breath of air to him. When tasked with the chore of menial conversation with humans, He was often asked who, why, when. Friends of Wren would ask him how he knew the man, how he'd been taken in, who he was. An orphan? A stray? A long lost relative? But, no, that last one was denounced almost as soon as it left their lips. Venice had become acquainted with short sentence answers. Yes, an orphan. We met in the forest. We made a deal. No, we are not friends. He could not count how many times he had been asked to repeat them again for different faces, so Amadeo's question was welcomed with both relief and intrigue.
But then, just what kind of answer was he supposed to give? What was he? Venice blinked away the sound of the coffeehouse in the background, tuning his own overripe thoughts out as well. They would do little but hinder the conversation if he chose to dwell in them any longer, and Gods but he was not interested very much in spending all of his time in his own head.
"A swan." The answer was simple, and Venice raised his eyes to Amadeo with level interest. His wings flared briefly beneath the soft fabric that did well to hide them from drifting eyes. The white feathers fluttered gently, jutting out towards Amadeo briefly before recapturing the stiff stillness of a statue. "But most call me Venice." His tone dipped into amusement, lilting and soft against a practiced air of regality. "And you?"
It only seemed fair that he get an answer in return.
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Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2012 5:10 pm
Amadeo snorted softly, entirely bemused by the other's manner, one that was almost alien in comparison to his own. Venice seemed distant, as though he intentionally held himself aloft, a mannerism that, to some extent, the golden-haired dustling had detected in his guardian. Even in the strangeness of it, it bore that comforting familiarity. Mind, the snowy-haired boy before him conducted himself with an eloquent confidence, as though he were a decade older than he appeared. Irritating, endearing. The two traits calmly disputing territory as the red-clad child answered a likely rhetorical question. "I ask what I want to know." Golden eyes bored into the other as though Amadeo's very gaze were a silent challenge.
It was really a far more complicated question that he had concocted, as the sturdy child had contemplated his own existence a touch more than any youngling of his seeming age ought. Whilst his guardian had patiently answered questions best he could, the mercenary could not give answers that he himself retained ignorance of.
A bottle wreathed in flame, a child born from the embers. There were more like him, and so long as Amadeo possessed that knowledge, he was content in it. However, the other bottle-born entities, his fellow dustlings, were far more mysterious to him, the other beings given this miraculous awakening... Their elements seemed nonsensical in comparison to his own. For Amadeo was fire, to warm, burn, and consume. All else sparked life into a vivid curiosity, the inquisitive desperation of a teetering toddler in the able body of a ten-year-old. Of the others he had met thus far, this swan-child was by far the most exotic, and that terrible, driving need to know was eating away at him, even as he calmly brought the delicate china to his lips, taking another small sip of his newly warmed beverage.
The snowy-haired boy's answer gave birth to a smile on Amadeo's features, tiny though it was, just a ghost of the expression. A flicker of wonderment had passed over the boy's oft-stoic features, at Venice's display, never before having seen one of his own who "Fire." He very casually turned his hand over, and a swirl of flame appeared in his cupped palm, tendrils of smoke coalescing with the seemingly sourceless orange and red hues, warmth emanating from the boy's fingertips. If there was one thing in the world that caused the golden-haired dustling true joy it was his element, the very core of his essence.
"And the name's Amadeo."
And those were wings. Leaning ever so slightly forward, attempting his utmost not to look too terribly eager, golden eyes narrowed, before flickering back to the other boy's darker ones. "Can you fly?" They seemed a bit small for that, but perhaps...if those wings grew. Well that was an exciting prospect.
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