JADIS (knifed) wrote in raveled, @ 2017-06-18 16:19:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | ! decade: 1970s, ! decade: 1980s, ! log, bellatrix black lestrange, rodolphus lestrange |
prompt 18-vi: wanderlust
WHO: Rodolphus & Bellatrix
WHAT: Travelling
WHEN: 1971-1981
WARNINGS: Sunburn, stubbornness
Mexico City They'd been in the hotel room less than four minutes and Rodolphus was already deep into chapter one of his trashy vacation novel. "...and there's also a couple of other cathedrals on the way to Teotihuacan." Bella waved a hand in front of his face, unfazed. "Are you staying here?" "No," he said vaguely, reaching up to capture her fingers. A moment passed in the long turn of a page and the heat of two sun-soaked hands. She smelled like leather and amber and perfume, baked into clean skin. "I want to come with you." New Delhi "It's not for sale," the shopkeeper said, twisting the end of his thin mustache. "I only brought it out to show you because you said you were enthusiasts. Madam, I have a different one inlaid with rubies that you would like." Bellatrix pursed her lips. "Hmm." "Do we look like tourists?" Asked Rodolphus, squinting under an immaculate visor. He held up a pawn. Raw mango, weighted. A new grain every time a piece was smashed. It was large, even in his fist. "Why isn't it for sale?" "The work put into developing the curse on the white king took decades. It's priceless -- and a family heirloom." Bellatrix smiled pleasantly and shrugged. "Well, if it's not for sale, I suppose that's that. Shall we?" • "I've got it." His whisper was soft; the sharp chunk of a freed lock was not. "There's another one inlaid with rubies," Bellatrix mimicked, a gloved hand reaching through to pick up and pass back each piece. All that was left was the white king. "Thoughts." "He could have been lying." She muttered a charm under her breath, then shrugged. "Even if not, it's worth the risk. We'll figure something out if it starts to --" "Wait." Rodolphus caught her elbow. "Weights." From one of his many pockets: a magnet. Into their pockets: one chess set, lightly used. Not for sale. New Orleans "It's a joke isn't it?" Rodolphus considered the crawdad hanging from his finger. He couldn't make heads nor tails of it, except in the most literal sense. "You don't really eat them alive." "Researching foreign customs was your job." The smoke swirling from their corner table was so thick she could barely see him -- once it cleared, she grinned at the expression on his sunburned face. "Just know if it kills you," she lifted her sazerac in a mocking toast, "I've counted eight places by the hotel that do bargain necromancy." Alexandria The lost library of Alexandria was only lost to muggles. The reading rooms smelled like papyrus and sun and hummed with preservation spells. The original Book of the Dead wasn't for sale, but for once Bellatrix had nothing snide to say. "Look." This was the kind of excitement not even Rodolphus could contain. He hid the shake of his hands in a pair of visitor's gloves, then gently slid open a scroll. "Bellatrix. I've never seen arithmancy like this." "I know," Bella strolled over to peer at the hieroglyphs, but after a few seconds, checked her watch. It was day three. She opened her mouth to remind him about the carpet dealer and the hamam appointment. He was still examining what looked like the scroll's table of contents, expression rapt. She closed her mouth and slipped out the door. • Tap tap tap. Rodolphus looked up reluctantly, face to face with an enormous pair of spectacles and two distorted eyes behind them. He was reminded unpleasantly of a nightjar and stared. "Sir." She said, her tinny voice carrying. "Sir, I implore you to return in the morning. We must lock up." "But I just got here," he argued. The cleric flitted around him, scooping scroll after scroll into her bony arms. "Wait, what if I just borrowed—" Two yellow eyes stopped him dead in his tracks. • Outside, in the dark, scrubbing day-old stubble with his palm, Rodolphus realized he'd been reading slightly longer than he thought. "Hm." He lit a cigarette and glanced at his watch. Bellatrix appeared with a pop. "You can't sleep here," she said, rolling her eyes. "You'll be arrested for loitering." "How do you think Egyptian prison compares to Azkaban?" He offered her a cigarette and tugged lightly on a loose curl, clinging to the heat of her neck. "I'm not breaking you out of either," she said flatly, lighting it with the tip of her wand. "They open at five, so… four hours and fifty-two minutes." A hand encircled his wrist. "Let's go." Beijing "Over here," Bellatrix peered at him through the camera, trying to frame a shot that adequately captured the beauty of the Great Wall without muggle tourists. "Mm, actually, I've changed my mind again. How about there?" She pointed fifty feet away. "Bellatrix." Rodolphus paused to stare disapprovingly as a man in a brilliant yellow pineapple shirt crossed the camera's line of sight. "It's a wall. It looks exactly the same there as here." "Fine." She took the photo with a huff, catching him mid-disapproval. "Now let's ask someone to take both of us." He looked for a moment like he might say something, then instead gave a cursory look around. A middle aged man with a yellow shirt was setting up a tripod. He must know what he's doing. "Imperio." Biting back a laugh, Bellatrix handed the man her camera and strolled over to the edge of the wall. She gave Rodolphus a sideways look. "Smile this time." Stockholm. "I'm going back to give that ghost a piece of my mind." "After dinner." "—and before I freeze. Why did they make us sit outside again?" Rodolphus consulted his travel book. Surströmming. In a devoted sidebar, the author had entreated the reader to respect their limitations and avoid this regional peculiarity. Naturally, the Lestranges considered this a challenge. "Our meal is apparently quite pungent." "Well, I doubt it's bad enough to make us sit here." With a disdainful sniff at locals and their customs, Bellatrix pulled the fur-lined cloak higher around her neck. A second sniff coincided with the waiter's arrival. Her gaze slid from the greyish fish to the beige side dishes. "Oh no," she croaked once he was out of earshot, eyes watering. The assault on their senses wasn't limited to the fish. Apparently unable to comprehend what they'd been served, Dolph concentrated his displeasure on a grey-brown lump that disintegrated as he attempted to pick it up. "Is this supposed to be a potato?" He shook the mush off his fingers, trying not to breathe. Bella tried to nod, choking on gulps of beer. "You know, I don't know if we can do this." She pushed the platter of fish a fraction of an inch further away from her and towards him, as if it would make a difference. He recoiled visibly, reaching for a glass of wine that wasn't there. Rodolphus knew he only had one way out of this: "Giving up already?" Her eyes narrowed. "What did you say?" "I'm just a little surprised." "Surprised!" Bellatrix yanked the platter back and stabbed her fork through a piece of fish. Her face had taken on a slightly greenish tinge. "You're surprised? I'm not giving up, you're the one who can't tell what's a potato!" It took an excruciatingly long amount of time for the fork to be lifted up to her mouth. "Delicious," she croaked, taking shallow breaths. "You should have some." Moments like this wrought genuine awe for Bella's sheer tenacity. If only it had also wrought more time to compose himself. "Ugh." Bordeaux "We could really revitalize it," Bellatrix said enthusiastically, stepping around some rotten wood. Day six of touring wine country had led them to the property—a mess of crumbling buildings, overgrown grape vines, and an owner far too enthusiastic to part with the whole thing. "Wouldn't that be fun?" Rodolphus, unable to conjure words that would adequately convey his scepticism that any part of the decrepit property had ever had enough vitality to "re", stared at her, then around them. His brow simply wouldn't unfurrow, no matter how determined she looked. Thoughts rose of thousands of photographs inhabiting boxes in an abandoned darkroom. Then of hundreds of rare and expensive stamps mouldering in a display case covered by linens. "Bellatrix." "That's my name." She lowered her sunglasses to peer at him, either feigning total ignorance or genuinely believing that this time, it was different. "Well? Someone's going to snatch this place up while you're dithering! That's enough, we're getting it." "We—" he gestured between them, "—are not getting anything. But I hope it amuses you for a little while." The resolute line of her mouth suggested this thorn in his side might amuse her longer than that. Brazil The air was so humid that the Lestranges could almost feel steam rising from their skin; above them, the thick canopy of the rainforest was filled with the squawking of parrots and toucans. Bella adjusted her hat and flicked her wand at an errant mosquito. "Maybe we've been holding the map upside down," she said helpfully. Their guide had been gone for several hours now, and she had insisted they'd be fine without him. "Maybe we have," Rodolphus said, his naturally dry affect positively soaking in the blasted weather. Perhaps it was the environment that drew from him the very slightest accent of irritation that 'we' had not snatched the map out of the guide's hands, berated him for picking the "easy" path, and then promptly gotten them lost. 'We' had argued for nearly twenty minutes over whether a Zed was a North. And as in most arguments 'we' had not won. Bellatrix eyed him for a moment, and then chose (for once) to neither dwell on nor respond to the emphasized word. The map was duly rotated. "Then let's take… the left fork." She paused. "Are you coming?" "Always." |