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Xellos: Topic: Forgetting
When he comes into the pub again for the first time in (Lady Bright, it must be) months, his smile is not a sociable one, but the serene little closed-eyed Metallium smile that isn't worried about how to fulfill any unexpected orders to kill (or worse, incapacitate) any given person. The pink glasses are not in evidence (they're in a pocket), and neither is the frilly apron with the chickie on it.
There's a minor ruffle in the kitchen when one of the new staff demands to know who he is and where the Dragon-Lady's gone. Only a few moments of being silently and blandly smiled at sees the man re-assigning himself to dishwashing duty, though, and Xellos spends the rest of the evening on the hibachi displays of knifework and blending across from the bar that the pub hasn't seen in a good, long time, during weeks of sandwiches and pastries and pub food, his face in a pleasant mask. He shouldn't be angry with Ivonka-san for letting the place forget what it ought to be, but by the third time one of the waiters asks him what today's specials are, the third time he says (snarls, by this point, however frozen in polite tones), whatever they ask for, he is.
Every so often, he pulls Iago away from the bar, click-clicking away on his new cast into secluded corners, and just folds himself into his arms, breathing him in with their fingers laced until he's steady enough to face all the eyes again, sliding his fingertips for reassurance into the pocket of Iago's apron, just big enough to snugly contain one little hiding cat, just in case. To keep from doing that every five minutes or so, he spends a lot of time with his weight all on his newly re-broken leg, occasionally bouncing gently on it. Sometimes he turns the night before, the night of breaking it, over meditatively in his mind as his hands fly (and, if the truth be known, his ethereal tendrils, because two hands alone, however fast, really can't whip together multiple dishes at once), and sometimes he just laps gently at the sweet, sustaining pain of it.
There's a minor ruffle in the kitchen when one of the new staff demands to know who he is and where the Dragon-Lady's gone. Only a few moments of being silently and blandly smiled at sees the man re-assigning himself to dishwashing duty, though, and Xellos spends the rest of the evening on the hibachi displays of knifework and blending across from the bar that the pub hasn't seen in a good, long time, during weeks of sandwiches and pastries and pub food, his face in a pleasant mask. He shouldn't be angry with Ivonka-san for letting the place forget what it ought to be, but by the third time one of the waiters asks him what today's specials are, the third time he says (snarls, by this point, however frozen in polite tones), whatever they ask for, he is.
Every so often, he pulls Iago away from the bar, click-clicking away on his new cast into secluded corners, and just folds himself into his arms, breathing him in with their fingers laced until he's steady enough to face all the eyes again, sliding his fingertips for reassurance into the pocket of Iago's apron, just big enough to snugly contain one little hiding cat, just in case. To keep from doing that every five minutes or so, he spends a lot of time with his weight all on his newly re-broken leg, occasionally bouncing gently on it. Sometimes he turns the night before, the night of breaking it, over meditatively in his mind as his hands fly (and, if the truth be known, his ethereal tendrils, because two hands alone, however fast, really can't whip together multiple dishes at once), and sometimes he just laps gently at the sweet, sustaining pain of it.