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After Sitting o'er the Cove

And so they had went on to get food. Pendour had gone for a salad, herself, not because ehse wasn't hungry, but because she genuinely enjoyed the fresh crunch of what so many people sadly dismissed as rabbit food. In fact, even while following her well-ingrained table manners, she'd managed to devour it in only a few minutes. She’d gone for a beer as well. With all the mixed talk of hope and tragedy and new things it just felt like that kind of night. The drink lasted for longer than the salad, but not by too much.

There was only so much they could talk about magical affairs in a restaurant, after all, and their earlier conversation had her itching to go to space. At the earliest convenience, she picked up the tab, as promised, and then ushered the two of them out into the nearest empty street corner she could find.

“Well, time to look for this ring,” she said. That was the practical excuse, although she wasn’t sure if she needed one. To be fair, it sounded like these rings were quite important, but she really just wanted to see this place. “Are you still interested in coming with me?” She really hoped so, and he hadn’t implied otherwise, but it seemed important to check and not just to whisk someone away.

She looked up at the sky with a determined set to her jaw, although even the brighter stars, let alone Neptune, were a bit lost in all the city light. “Do I just swear, then?” she turned to the more solid Scholomance instead.

Pendour raised a playful eyebrow as a soft smile slowly lit up her face. "Okay. All right. I just didn't want to kidnap you across the solar system if you were tired, but to be honest I'm very glad for the company," she said. He was good company, too. He was entertaining under the cynicism and she hoped that her wonder could be a palate cleanser after their chat. Luckily, from what she could tell, space seemed to know how to make pretty things.

She reached out to take his hand, then squeezed. She didn't want to loose him in transit. She gave a quick nod at his instructions. She didn't see how the simple oath was tacky in any way, but she would let Scholomance have his thoughts on that. It was the first time she'd sworn her oath at all, and she closed her eyes from a moment, trying to clear her mind and think about the planet Neptune and her goals all in an instant.

"I pledge my life and loyalty to Neptune, and to Pendour. I humbly request your aid, so that in return I may give you mine," she whispered.

The smell of a far-gone aquarium hit before she opened her eyes. Maybe it wasn't an aquarium. There was less of that distinct fishiness and more just salt and rot. Pendour took a deep breath of it anyway and loosened her grip on the other knight to more of a regular hand holding level before she cracked an eyelid to look around. Soon she was staring.

It was huge. That was the first thing she noticed. It was huge and in a way it was beautiful. Pendour looked up, first. A row of arches shot up hundreds of feet overhead. Several of them had crumbled in the middle, and Pendour found herself thinking back to architecture lectures and hoping that they were just for show. Above that was what she could only imagine was the sea, some lovely gray-blue expanse that sent dappled light down below onto the cobblestones.

The ground level seemed to be entirely made of cobblestone. There was some texture variations on the path, actually, and on the distant walls that carved out what could maybe be called a courtyard, and in the smaller arches and especially the decorative stone flourishes that showed up from place to place. Once you looked closely, maybe there were things that should have been mosaics, but everything now was bleached the same shade of white. It was also, she realized pretty quickly, dry. There were channels around that had to have been for water, curving at the sides of those walls. Several of them led into what looked like a deeper bowl of sorts, the cove, perhaps. Pendour on Earth was a cove, after all, but she couldn't quite make out what was going on in that angle from this area. In fact, the only thing that stood out among layers and layers of bleached white stone was a giant slimy patch of algae that was hanging from one of the walls, but even that was on the other side of the place. The two of them had appeared at the bottom of stairs that curved upwards towards yet another level that she couldn't make out at all.

"Oh," she said, her eyes opening wide and her smile staying right where it was even as her nose wrinkled. "Well." She looked over at her guest. "Welcome to Neptune."

Pendour raised an eyebrow and tried to give a disapproving look at the comment about the odor of her wonder even as the corner of her mouth twitched into a smirk.

"That's-" she she started, and then trailed off, shook her head, and turned away towards the stairs. She paused before taking a step up and hovered her fingers over the stone banister even longer before gently laying her hand flat. Against her palm, it was as cool and smooth as river rock. It was strange. Despite the fish smell, this had all the trappings of a sacred place, and yet apparently it was hers.

She glanced back when Scholomance managed to start talking sense. "I do like the arches," she said. It was a good thing that she did, as the arches seemed to be everywhere. There were smaller ones, still quite large, that curved around inn layers and might have even been aqueducts. Another layer held up the stairs she was standing on now. Very little about this place was in straight lines, she was starting to realize. Then, of course, there were the giant arches that seemed to be holding up the sea, which she eyed again, this time with a small frown.

"Well, I don't know if those collapsing is exactly nothing to worry about," she said. "There must be glass or something up there, but it still seems like this could all come crumbling down at a moment's notice and wash us away." She shrugged and kept walking up the stairs. "Anyway, remember what I said? Darkness and death are very fashionable at the moment. Dour charm is probably included in that, and I'm guessing your wonder doesn't smell like rotting fish at least." She was trying to make him feel better, but her own wonder was lovely even in this faded out state and as she looked around more, something warm was forming in her chest. "I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that."

After that, climbing the stairs took her breath for a few moments, but she eventually reached the top and got a better look at the structure that was looking out over her wonder. Two more arches of a sort twisted up into a stylized groin vault, but it wasn't holding anything up. There were walls, again covered in faded out mosaics, but they only reached about waist height. The rest was open air, as much as something could be in this bubble. It was a pavillion, she realized, and a big one, several stories tall. There were smaller, similarly styled buildings off to the left, and a somewhat less magnificent structure off to the back, but for the moment Pendour ignored those and stepped through one of the gates into the pavilion itself.

It felt bigger on the inside, but not quite imposing. In the center, another curved set of stairs curled up to a raised platform. A stage. Of course. Pendour glanced backwards with the same half-disapproving smirk. "Well, maybe you were right about the parties."

Pendour took a few more moments to admire the stage, with its pure creamy stone that was still white as white and not bone pale like the rest even after all these years. The stairs curved down in welcome and her heart fluttered, but when Scholomance spoke, she turned to him long enough to raise her eyebrows. She quickly looked back away with a little sigh. She called her ocarina and cradled it in her hands, running her thumb over the smooth ceramic.

"Your singing would be better," she said matter of factly, even as she took a few steps forwards, "But that is not your responsibility. It's mine." She walked up the stairs, still slow, still savoring all of it, and then she went staring again once she reached the top. "Oh, you can see the lower levels from here!" They stretched out below, certainly not in their full glory, still impressive enough. They were huge. The cove was dry as the aqueducts that spiraled around it and fifthy. She could see mounds of something standing out against the smooth from here, but just where the water was supposed to be had to be at least the size of this entire top shelf. Then there were more arches and more dried out river beds swirling through it all.

There were, however, no memories sparked by the view. Pendour flashed Scholomance a small apologetic look and put her ocarina to her lips. The tone that followed wasn't bad, although the tune was simple.

Hot cross buns. Hot cross buns. One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns.

Still nothing, of course. She walked over to the edge and sat down, dangling her feet. "Well, it seems I need more practice."

"It's true." It was a new voice, and Pendour started. Someone was at the top of the main staircase. A man. His hair was as black as hers was white but they had the same seafoam eyes, and he had scales on his slacks and Neptune symbols running up his arms the same as she did. "But you're here, which is a start." He smiled. His words were smooth, but there was a hint of one of the rougher British accents in his voice. He cast a glance at Scholomance. "Your friend is quite obvious, though."

Pendour tried to give Scholomance an urgent, confused look, but he had turned his attention to the strange new man and she was stuck baffled on the edge of the stage. He was talking to the man as if it were perfectly natural to run into other people thousands of miles from Earth in a dead, deserted place like this. Scholomance seemed calm, at least, so she logic-ed that it probably was perfectly natural, but it was still quite strange and she sat there blinking.

The man turned from her to Scholomance and walked over to him until he was close, then closer than a proper distance. "Do you?" he asked. "That raises the question of what you want, doesn't it?" He ran his fingers through the front of his hair and raised an eyebrow as he turned back to Pendour. "I can't imagine dealing with friends or enemies reeking of such death, but that's Saturn for you, isn't it?"

Now the look that Pendour shot Scholomance was apologetic. "I promise it's fashionable!" she said softly, and she hopped down from the stage to get closer to the two.

"Well," said the man, "I was a Knight of Pendour, yes, but that was then, this is now. I'm Irving."

Names. She could do names. "I'm Sadie," she murmured, trying to be helpful. "Sarandon if this is official." Now just a few paces from the men, she looked from face to face, still feeling that she wasn't quite on the right page. "There's more of us?"

Pendour blinked rapidly at the newfound conflict. She shot Scholomance a bit of a mom look for his comments. Irving tensed up visibly, reminding her of an angry cat, although she saw a bit of a twitch in his eyebrows, as well. She wondered if he knew about the west, or guns. If he had also been a knight, what did that mean?

Sadie's face softened as Scholomance curled up in a corner. He was maybe being a little dramatic, but she did not really want this strange new man to get between her and her mostly helpful friend. Still, he was at the moment demanding her attention, so she gave it to him.

Irving gave her a sharp nod. “Yes. Or, there were more. That is more accurate, perhaps,” he said. “Knight of Pendour is a title and a position. I held it once, but no longer, and as my blood runs in your veins, you are my heir.” His slippery smile faltered for a moment before he said, “Granddaughter.”

She’d been fiddling with her hair as she listened, but at that she froze and all of the feelings seemed to drip out of her chest as she looked into his sea green eyes. The ones that matched hers. “You’re from my bio family?”

He didn’t seem to understand. “We’re family, yes,” he said, and Sadie nodded.

“Okay,” she said, and went back to smoothing her braid with only a little more tension in her fingertips. Genes weren’t important. Genes weren’t supposed to mean things like magical powers. Well, that would have to go in the pile of things to mull over later, as there wasn’t much Irving could do about it.

“I have remained here to be your teacher and guide,” he was saying, then paused. “Let’s see.”

“Oh, um,” she started. “The ring! That’s what we came for. The signet ring. Do you know where it is?”

He nodded, the confident grin back on his face. “Oh, yes, that’s probably the best place to start. It’s downstairs, in the bedchamber. I’ll show you.” Then he turned with a flourish and headed, finally, down the main staircase.

Pendour let out a tense breath and turned to Scholomance with knitted brows. “Is this, um, normal?”

Pendour blinked once. “What?” She blinked twice and frowned at the other knight. “No. Ew.” A moment passed and then her eyes went wide and her lips curled and she looked altogether more horrified than she had at any point during their talk on death and maiming. “Is that what you think he meant?” She shuddered and stepped to within a few feet of Scholomance. “Please stay with me.”

Joking. He said he was joking, and she relaxed a little, although there was still something inside of her that that was rubbed the wrong way and on guard. She tried to listen as he talked a bit, seeming much more surprised about the term grandfather than about the fact that they had just talked to a ghost.

“Oh. Well, he must not be my first generation grandfather, then.” She pursed her lips, trying to decide what would be worth sharing from all of the thoughts about family that were now swirling around too tightly in her chest. “I’m from a closed adoption, which means I don’t know very much about my biological family, but from what I do know and just the genetics of it,” her fingers were already wrapped in her white hair, which she held up for emphasis, “I don’t think that he would be.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t think I want him to be.” That would open a few cans of worms that her school counselors had mostly gotten closed years ago.”

She took a deep breath, counting to five as she exhaled. “My personal issues aside, the ghosts are normal? That is something that I was not expecting.” She glanced over to where Irving had headed down the stairs. “At least he’s being helpful. We did end up getting lost.”

Pendour stared at the figure of her ancestor, even as she slowed and tried to let him get ahead. Should she ask about their relationship? Would that be rude? How long have you been dead? No. That wouldn't do at all. She would leave the question and the answer that she did not want to know at all waiting in the smelly air.

Scholomance's calm answer gave her enough comfort for the moment, and she went back to nodding sportively until he mentioned the Negaverse. At that, her eyebrows shot up and she blinked three times. "Um," she said, and this time she was too quick and forgot to be quiet and her voice skipped across the marble floors. "Weren't we just talking about how strongly you disliked the Negaverse?"

Her eyes fell, again, on his empty sleeve, and she wondered how many stories this man had in him.

She did not see Irving stiffen, but her wondering was cut off by his words.

"Sarandon." That was sharp, but by the time that she looked up, he was smiling. "I think that we need to talk. Inside." He had made it to the bottom of the stairs and now began to walk more quickly by the edge of what had presumably been the cove.