Conall the Red, aka 'Mac' (ruadh) wrote in shadowlands_ic, @ 2017-09-05 21:31:00 |
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Entry tags: | cassius corbet, mac |
Who: Mac and Cassius
What: Colleagues and rivals(?) discuss the past and future
Where: Aboard the barge
When: 27 August, 1888
Ratings/warnings: Safe for work
Cassius had missed the arrival of Conall the Red to their gathering, but he saw the man when he emerged from a knot of appreciative listeners, having apparently just finished a recitation of something, to judge by the clapping and stamping of boots on wooden planks.
“I’ve missed your performance,” Cassius lamented, offering Mac a glass of his own very fine whiskey. “Pity; I imagine it was as informative as it was spirited.” Mac’s garb was as good as a declaration, and Cassius gave it the respect it was owed. The Summer Court had announced its presence here, and its blessing, and Mac was putting shared Scottish ancestry and Fae unity above Court politics.
At least, that was Cassius’ interpretation.
“May I offer you a drink? With my sincere thanks, again, for the generous gift. I never intended for you to do so much.” When Cassius had placed the order, it was with every intention of paying Mac for his services; perhaps, in a way, making a subtle point of his own social status relative to Mac’s, and a statement about which of them was marrying the Lady Una. Mac had outmaneuvered him entirely by making a gift of the entire cellar, and as a wedding present, which was either selflessly benevolent of him, or incredibly politic.
It was not that Cassius had any argument with the man. It was merely that Una lit up when she saw him, as she likely had for several thousand years before Cassius was born, and any man had to have some pride. Cassius had accepted the gift and the outmaneuvering, and would take his pride in knowing that it would be his place at Una’s side when she became Lady Ravensworth.
Mac waved away the thanks, ignoring the unintended faux pas and taking it in the spirit it was offered. He still didn't like the idea of Una marrying a vampire, preferring even his political spouses (he’d been married several times over the millennia) to at least have a pulse and warmer than room temperature. But he understood her reasoning and she was also Winter Fae, which had their own ideas on such things.
Whatever game Ravensworth thought he was playing, Mac was playing a longer one. Just because he didn't openly display his wealth and titles didn't mean he lacked either. If people took his persona as a publican at face value and underestimated him, well that was to their detriment.
“It was no trouble. If I don't rotate the stock periodically it will go bad eventually.” In circles such as these he typically kept his Scots accent to just a hint, a subtle reminder of his history rather than hitting people over the head with a cricket bat. Today it was slightly thicker and richer due to the theme of the party and the fact he’d been reciting ballads half the night. “I'd not insult Una’s intended by accepting money for such a thing.”
"It's something to think about, isn't it? All of us live side-by-side, and those like you and I must pay heed to other customs more than most, considering our positions in the House of Shadows, but we all still have our own separate traditions and rules." Cassius knew as well as anyone the rules about eating and drinking faerie food, and the need to remain free of obligation, but it was a learned custom for him, where for Una it came as naturally as breathing. The vampires, the werewolves, all had their own idiosyncrasies, and not all were widely known.
"I believe I'll learn a great deal from the lady, some of which I won't have been aware was ignorance. I'm looking forward to the experience." Knowing there might unfortunately be a tragedy he was treading on, Cassius nonetheless found himself curious enough to ask, "Have you ever married?"
“Aye.” Mac’s voice went soft and he was obviously somewhere else for just a moment, lost in the mists of time perhaps. Then he shook his head and was back in the here and now. “Thrice. Two times for politics and once for love. She was a bonny lass, the first time I laid eyes on her she had hair the color of fire and eyes of the sea. We were happy for a long time as mortals reckon, but all too short for me.” Una had understood, just as he’d understood when she’d taken mortal lovers. They came in the blink of an eye and were gone just as quickly, all one could do was enjoy every brief moment you had with them.
He glanced toward Cassius, curious now that the vampire had raised the question. “And you? In your first life perhaps?”
"No. I died too young. Perhaps if the nation had been less turbulent--but few of us were thinking of marriage in those last years." It was, as Mac had said, a memory from his first life; Cassius offered a brief smile and moved past it. Glancing automatically away to seek out Una across the barge, Cassius said, "I find now that I cannot regret it. This is a better match than I would have made as a mortal, in many different ways."
As Mac well knew, considering how long he and Una had been acquainted. And on that note, perhaps he could be convinced to share some of those secrets of her with Cassius. "How long have you known her? And how did it come about? I know there is conference between the two courts, but from what little I know, you lead very different lives."
“That’s true enough.” Mac raised an eyebrow at the blatant attempt to gain information about Una, amused. “We do at that. Encountering another Sidhe, especially of our rank, on this side of the veil is not common since humanity learned to work iron. You might say we’re each a bit of home to the other. As to how long I’ve known her, that’s a story for another time. But ask her about the time we dined with the Roman general Gaius Julius Caesar one day, if you want to hear an amusing tale. I’ve no love for the Romans but he was an extraordinary mortal indeed.”
Cassius' eyebrows rose, but he couldn't discredit the story as fae mischief any more than he could gullibly accept it as truth. "Iron," Cassius repeated thoughtfully, the thought crossing his mind not for the first time. "It is a problem, isn't it? Not for us, but--what's a problem for one is a problem for all, eventually."
Negotiations between the Ravensworth Coven and Una had included those concerns, but Cassius didn't know if his was the only group searching for ways to combat the challenge. "Have you had any success in holding it off, may I ask? Or have you concentrated on finding ways around it?"
He'd shifted from Una's affianced, speaking with an old friend of hers, to an MP of the House of Shadows talking with a colleague. Cassius had meant what he'd said: What affected the fae, and faerie itself, would affect them all.
A snort was Mac’s reaction to the question. “King Canute I am not. Humanity is clever and resourceful. Prohibiting something or telling them they shouldn’t investigate it is the best way to get them to do exactly that.” Trying to turn back the tide of human advancement, hah! “To do what you imply you’d need something even more traumatic than the black death, reducing humanity to wandering tribes of hungry mouths just trying to survive. All of this,” he gestured at the airship, barge, and city on either side of the river, “would collapse and I don’t think you would enjoy the process very much. No, Lord Ravensworth, you’d be better off pursuing the opposite course of action and trying to speed things along. Perhaps in a century or two humans will find something that works even better than iron in doing what they want.”
Of course, if things got too bad before then the Fae might not have any choice but to pursue the course of action he advocated against. Better a decimated humanity than a decimated planet.
It was an approach Cassius had never considered, and he gazed at Mac openly before murmuring, "Now there you may have something. And perhaps sooner than a few centuries, if we're fortunate."
The way Mac spoke of humanity, as willful children, wasn't far off. Cassius thought of Adrien Green at the Institute, warning him that he could not steer the ship, and wondered if Mac had it right. If rather than trying to return to past days, the best solution would be to make iron obsolete.
That was a gamble, however; a hope that whatever came next would be better than what they had presently. "The problem for many is the iron on and in the ground, is that correct?" Cassius indicated the airship hovering placidly above them. "What if we simply sent them into the air? They're already reaching for the clouds and the heavens; if we encouraged them in that direction, would it make it easier to breathe down here?"
“And the poisons they’re sending into the land, sea and sky.” Mac agreed, feeling very old and tired at that moment. Perhaps he’d make his way to his estates outside the city for a few days after this. “They’re getting better at recognizing the danger, slowly. But they don’t have any way of stopping it without stopping what they’re doing yet.”
Any reply Cassius might have made was interrupted by a burst of laughter and noise from nearby, where Mac had been reciting. There was someone in his place now, not anyone Cassius knew but recognizable as Night Watch by the discreet dark coat, on-duty armlet covering his left sleeve, and the silver-tipped truncheon which had been ceremonially peace-tied with a strip of borrowed tartan.
If the poem he recited was a known one, it wasn't something with which Cassius was familiar; he suspected the boy was extemporizing, judging from the few short pauses and rare, brief fumble. That was confirmed once Cassius heard enough to grasp the subject matter, which seemed to be a romantic ode on the theme of supernatural cooperation and unity.
It was an appropriate theme for the occasion, woven together through stanzas addressing the strengths and virtues of various officers of the Night Watch, all finding a common bond in their brotherhood. Several of those officers were present and known, which was what had led to the outburst that had drawn Cassius' attention, he realized as another such pointed, cheeky couplet made the crowd hoot with laughter at the expense of a tomato-red constable standing nearby.
Cassius' thoughts turned away from the sky, and the sea, and the question of where to put humanity. For the moment, humanity was clearly here, toasting comrades with a carrying voice that rose upward as it reached its conclusion.
"It seems you've been inspiring," Cassius remarked dryly. "Or that one of the constables has hidden aspirations of being a poet."
“Ah, young Bertram.” Mac responded in an equally dry voice, taking in the scene. “Aye, the lad has the ear but not necessarily the common sense.” He watched as more than one of the constables muttered in their cups and shot dark looks at the younger man. “He’s been by the pub a time or two.”
"Indeed." Cassius turned away from the recitation and noted the depleted state of Mac's drink. "As I should be, one of these days. Shall we sample another of your excellent vintages and say hello to Kessinger and Black? After all," he pointed out, amused, "it's rare to have all of us in one place without any argument. We ought to enjoy it while it lasts."