Katou Yue (desperate_eyes) wrote in onewaythreads, @ 2017-11-01 19:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, katou yue, quentin coldwater |
Who: Katou and Quentin
What: Quentin finds a busker
When: Recently
Where: Everdale, outside of Kingsby Tavern
Rating/Warning: Probably language
Status: Complete
Katou didn’t often make his way to Everdale, but every now and then when he’d had a profitable couple of days, he’d make his way to the Kingsby Tavern for a hot meal and a cold pint; those weren’t things Katou got a lot of these days. And since half the people there had never heard of bands like Guns N Roses, he could play songs like Don’t Cry on his stolen guitar and people would think he was innovative or whatever. Which is exactly what he was doing now, not far from the entrance of the Tavern.
Kingsby tavern was one of those places Quentin found right away. Thankfully, his pockets were full of riches from both Fillory and Earth, so when he arrived in Preya he had enough to get by. Not to mention the crates of other items he brought with him from both his Earthly and Fillorian homes. He was settling here for the time being, though he did consider this the first step in his next great adventure.
So he was inside the tavern when he heard someone playing on a guitar. Something very familiar, he thought, as the melody became clear. He picked up his pint glass and headed out front to the seats there, and perched on a stool nearby to watch the young man play.
Katou became aware of someone watching him, and then glanced up. He didn’t stop playing, but he did make sure to try to make eye contact with whoever it was who was watching him. People were more likely to give money - or, better yet, a pint - if they knew that they’d been caught watching. And it wasn’t like Katou was playing for free here.
Well, okay, playing for free was exactly what he was doing, but that was only by necessity.
Quentin wasn’t expecting the eye contact. He nodded once, and raised his pint glass to the younger man. It was a good song, really. One he hadn’t heard in a long time. Quentin and Eliot had tried to teach some of the fillorian musicians how to play music from Earth, but it never quite sounded right. It was one thing he’d missed from his home during his days at Castle Whitespire.
He waited until the song was over, then moved closer to… what? Was there an official money in Preya? He hadn’t figured all of that out yet. Thankfully, the bartender at the pub (and the grocer here in Everdale) traded him for the things he’d brought with him. He didn’t exactly have any dollars to slip into the man’s guitar case. Did he? Quentin set his drink down on a nearby table and started to search his pockets.
Katou watched him dig through his pockets. After a moment, he let out a quiet sigh and gave a small eyeroll. It was entirely possible they were going to be here for a while. “So, you like that?” he asked, more to fill the silence than any wont of conversation. “I wrote it myself.”
A decided lie, especially given the tattoo of a rifle and roses on his right deltoid, visible with the black muscleshirt Katou was wearing, but hell. Pretty much no one in Horse and Carriage Town knew who Guns n Roses were, and he found people tended to give him more money if they thought he was man behind the music.
Quentin paused in his digging through pockets to stare at the young man for a moment. At first confused, then amused. This was a kid from his world--from Earth--and he assumed that most of the people in Everdale weren’t. Hey, it was a pretty good hoax if he could pull it off. Unfortunately, Quentin was from Earth. He also had a minimal amount of pop culture, 80’s hair band knowledge.
“So, are you Axel Rose, or Slash?” Quentin said, fingers wrapping around a gold coin from Fillory. He had quite a few of these left, so he tossed it into the young man’s guitar case.
“Oh Slash, definitely,” Katou said. Changing his face wasn't exactly easy. In order to keep his own look, he had to think about every detail - his fingernails, his skin tone, every hair on his head and eyelash on his eye - and he had to keep that image fixed in his mind at all times. But he'd stared up at the poster of Slash that Kira had let him hang in the gang’s squat long enough that remembering Slash’s face and his wild curly hair wasn't too much of a challenge, and he adopted that face now. “Lost my hat though. Probably why you didn't recognize me,” he said, grinning.
Well, that was surprising. Quentin’s eyebrows both rose at the sight of the boy shapeshifting. That was a kind of magic he wasn’t exactly used to. And the boy didn’t have to use any hand or finger movements to make this happen. Impressive. Quentin broke into a little smile. “That must be it. Well, Slash, it’s good to meet you. I’m Quentin.” And he offered the kid a hand to shake.
Holding Slash’s face and having a conversation was more effort than Katou was willing to expend, so he shifted back to himself as he grabbed Quentin’s hand. “Katou,” he said, because the guy might as well know his real name. “So, if you know GnR, then you gotta be from sometime in the modern world. What’re you doing in Horse and Carriage Town?”
Quentin shook the other man’s hand. He was skinny and tall, so his handshake was something akin to shaking the hand of Jack Skellington. Only slightly less bony. Quentin’s long, nimble fingers were good for magical hand gestures, but not exactly the heartiest of handshakes.
“I spent some time in another world,” Quentin explained. It was about as close as he could get to describing Fillory. (How had NO ONE heard of Fillory? It was like not knowing about Peter Pan, or something. Strange, right?) “I figured this would probably be the most like the other world. Now that I’m here, though, I’m realizing how much I miss New York.”
“You used to live in New York?” Katou asked, raising his eyebrows. He’d always dreamed of moving to New York someday. It never would have happened, Katou realized now. When he’d been alive he’d never fought for anything, and he wouldn’t have fought for New York either. But it had been a dream once.
“Bet New York was way cooler than that Fillorgy place anyway. When did you live in New York? You ever been to CBGB’s?” Katou asked. Of course, this guy didn’t look like he’d ever even heard of CBGB’s, but hey, you couldn’t always judge a book by its cover.
“What, you think I’m a Ramones fan, or something?” Quentin asked, breaking into a smirk. Sure, they were a little before his time (okay, more than a little) but he’d been to the club. Eliot was all about exploring different locations and trying new things. Especially when there were drinks involved. It wasn’t really Quentin’s thing, but he followed Eliot anywhere. (Most of the time leaving poor Alice at home alone.) Those weren’t exactly his proudest days.
“You bet,” Katou said. “And The Cramps, and the Dead Boys,” Katou said. “I’ve always-” Katou stopped. No, there really wasn’t a someday. Katou was about as dead as they came, even before Preya had saved him from what would definitely have been another death. He didn’t expect to see the world outside of Preya again. “I always wanted to go,” he corrected himself. “Was it badass?”
Quentin noticed the hiccup in the guy’s speech. How could he not? He cocked his head slightly to the side, considering it, then decided not to press it. He let a smile stumble across his lips instead and nodded. “Yeah, it was pretty amazing. Especially the night we got some Absinthe. Eliot was absolutely blotto by the end of the night.” Yeah, Quentin had been, too. And Alice had been disgusted with him when he flopped into bed around six in the morning.
“Absinthe?” Katou asked, raising an eyebrow. “That drink with the whatever that makes people hallucinate?” Most of his exposure to absinthe was what he had seen in Moulin Rouge, but he had always wanted to try it himself. He’d just never had the chance. “That’s badass.”
“Eliot was pretty badass back in the day.” Quentin said with a smirk on his lips. He missed his friends. Coming here had been the right decision, but it didn’t mean that he wasn’t allowed to miss them terribly. “I hope you’ll have a chance to try it someday.”
“Yeah, me too,” Katou said. He wondered if there was any in Preya. “If you find any, you should give me a shout. Name’s Katou. You can find me on that website.”
“Quentin,” the magician responded. “Me, too. I’ll see you around, Katou.”