citylogs | [ open ] kaveh's permanent catch-all

Perry seemed well-cared for. [ as in, well, fat, much in the way of a very happy cat. kaveh has seen those. sumeru doesn't lack in happy cats, and people happy to spoil them. ] I had an assistant of a sorts - Mehrak. He was made from a core of a piece of technology I'd brought back from the desert; he couldn't speak, but he had his own personality. I miss the way he would follow me around. It's strange, what you don't realise you'd miss.

[ kaveh's fingers run themselves over the fine fabric of the dress. it is beautiful. it's heartbreaking that it isn't being worn. ]

And please - I don't have the body shape for the dress. [ kaveh's gaze is contemplative as it flits back to ghost. ] But you'll need something for your hair. A mere ponytail wouldn't do, and you'll need your back bare for how low it's cut. You can leave that up to me, though. I wouldn't trust you with an iron.

Oh, not you too. Isn't it enough that I — hey, what do you mean you wouldn't trust me with an iron?

[As distractions go, it's a good one; whatever justifications and rationalizations might've been turning revolutions in her mind and just waiting to be offered up in defense, they all quickly go by the wayside in favor of her just sputtering.]

Who says I'm even wearing it, anyway? Maybe I just have it here to look at. Or — or under protest, or something.

It's your dress - why wouldn't you wear it? You'll agree that it's too beautiful not to be worn. Besides, didn't you commission me to make fashionable the dimming of lights?

[ with a pleased lilt: ]

If a venue is to be decorated and shown to the public, then there must be people to attend and make merry. You would be dressed perfectly for it. After all, you'll need fashion to promote something fashionable.

You'll recall I also made the salient point that the project would need a representative to act as its focal point. And I very decidedly made that person not me. I go to venues to work, not to —

[She falters, just for a second, not fast enough to catch the rest of her sentence before it leaves her mouth, but fast enough that she already knows it's a stupid thing to say to begin with.]

— be a part of them.

[Oof.]

I'm sure there's a girl somewhere in some world and some circumstances who's meant for a dress like that, but it isn't me. Things like that just...aren't.

[ kaveh goes very still. he looks. ghost is at the doorway to her own bedroom. she straddles the jamb as if she is a half-existence on the eve of the day of ancestors, a fata morgana never quite destined to be.

kaveh's low heels click across the wood of her floor. he stands before her. ]

Says who? You?

...There's a term, in chess. Zugzwang. It's a word for being in a position where it would be better not to move than to do anything else, except you're forced to move anyway. No matter what you do, the situation gets worse.

[It's a good word, tailored for a very particular meaning and a very particular situation. The kinds of words you could build a whole chapter on, from the strength of them. Breathtakingly efficient, to have such a vast array of meaning wrapped up into two easy syllables.

She stares at her toes. It's not a good thing to do, but it's easier than looking at Kaveh.]

Any way I answer that question will only make things worse, won't it.

Yes, but not in the way that you think. Did you know, Ghost, that whenever you're not particularly happy with what you have to say for yourself, you look down at your toes?

[ kaveh says, and he says this softly, as soft as dust. as soft as a tale told at beneath the evening light tucked in against the long line of a well-worn blanket. ghost ought not be looking down the way she does. kaveh's heart aches at it. it reminds him a little of a third floor of an ill-fated party, the pulled hood of a self-made cavern. ghost seeks to make herself so small and so invisible that she becomes her namesake.

kaveh puts his hands on her shoulders. he turns her bodily around. ]

Right. Luckily for me, and possibly not for you, my usual partner for senseless arguing is not on speaking terms with me. So you'll have to do instead. Argue with me, Ghost. Present your arguments as to why that dress isn't for you, and I shall argue against it. But we'll do this in the kitchen while I'm making sure the stew doesn't turn into some kind of weird bread.

[She sputters again, easily-turned, but goes along gamely as he frog-marches her back in the direction of the kitchen. She's not particularly thrilled at having one of her tells so brazenly aired to the open, but there's far more than just that uncomfortable revelation to latch onto, in what Kaveh says.]

You're not on speaking terms with — I assume it's Alhaitham? I suppose it could be anyone but he strikes me as the likeliest suspect. Also the most obnoxious.

[SHE SAYS, WITH AFFECTION, PROBABLY.]

Point of order, Mister Chairman, can't we argue about something else instead?

Oh, obnoxious is only a grace note of a word when it comes to him. If there is a city ranking for obnoxiousness, he would top it. Though nowadays, the second-highest ranker isn't too far behind.

[ the stew is heating nicely. kaveh sniffs as he gives it a cursory stir. then, he unpacks the rice from an equally hefty container. the tote bag sags further, but only by half. ]

But certainly - we can argue about why we ought not argue about your insistence that you don't belong in something that clearly someone somewhere picked out for you, knowing precisely who you are and having seen that you belong in it.

That was an absolute disaster of a sentence. How much food did you make?

[The sheer amount of food he appears to be producing out of his tote speaks volumes about just what Kaveh had meant by "made too much" — largely because she suspects she's not the only one he's made this offer to.

Or it's all a farce and a way of checking up on her. Or both. It could be both.

She finds her way into a dining room chair, turning it around so she can fold her arms across the back rail and rest her chin atop them while she watches him.]

But fine. First point: we should not argue about it because it's emotionally imbalanced. This topic of conversation puts me into a position of vulnerability that you aren't subject to.

Counterpoint: the most powerful tool at my disposal to make clear my empathy and sympathy and to potentially influence your thinking is to share my own emotional discomfort. By entering this discussion with you, I am implicitly opening myself up to be vulnerable. Now explicitly, I suppose.

[ kaveh winces. it's the first sign of chagrin. the rice goes into the microwave. sacrilegious, yes, but he only needs to heat it up a little, and the texture ought to be fine. he wets a paper towel just in case. ]

And I wasn't exaggerating when I said 'a lot'? There are maybe three more containers of these. I'm really running out of people to foist it all on, so if you have names, I have extra food.

...I probably don't know anyone that you haven't already thought of.

[Speaking of vulnerability, there's some in that remark, too. Not overtly, not significantly, but there in the way that a house with no personality is there, in the way that a few scattered objects are supposed to make it better when everyone already knows they won't.]

Second point. Your stated intention is to influence my thinking, which presumes my perceptions can and are available to be changed to begin with.

Counterpoint: I've gone the coward's way out by using the word 'potentially'. You are making your perception available to me through discussion; whether it can or cannot be changed is irrelevant since the meaning of the discussion lies in having it.

[ the microwave beeps. kaveh removes it, still-steaming, from its container. he fusses about in the cabinet for plates. ]

You said you had beers in the fridge?

And sodas. I keep wanting to try a cocktail but I don't know any bartenders, except the one who doesn't like me. Plates are in the next one over.

[She picks idly at her sleeve, because the way she's sitting in the chair means that it would be gawky and uncomfortable to try to look at her toes, and she's going to be doing everything she can to break that habit anyway, now that it's been pointed out to her.]

Third point: you're clearly inciting this conversation as a way of not talking about whatever happened between you and Alhaitham, which makes your motives inherently suspect.

Who doesn't like you? Daan? [ kaveh retrieves two plates. he brings them over first, then returns for the pot. ] He only seems like he doesn't like anyone. I think he gets a lot of joy out of being the most sarcastic man alive.

[ because it couldn't possibly be midnight, who likes and loves everyone equally. kaveh pauses over the stove. then, with an impressive show of strength, he lugs the entire pot of stew over and drops the towel from his hand before setting the pot onto it. ]

And no, I don't want to talk about Alhaitham. You were building up to this point, weren't you. If arguing you about this means I don't have to talk about Alhaitham, and it has the potential of getting you to see that you are a character in the stories that you write, then isn't this a win all around?

Mmhmm. Either he's remarkably thin-skinned or he's got it out for me for some reason. I called him a doofus and he hung up on me, which is a fairly disproportionate reaction for what amounts to a playground insult.

[It's somewhere around the point when Kaveh starts hefting the actual food over that the feeling of being waited on seems to reach critical mass for Ghost; though she doesn't move to help him specifically, since he seems to have things balanced well enough for himself, she swings herself up and out of her chair and goes looking for something to bring over — plates, if he hasn't yet; silverware, if it's still needed; drinks if she's got a hand to spare.]

Counterpoint: I'm not a character in the stories I write. The fact that I'm not is quite significantly the point. I was made to be different. I'm supposed to be. You can't fault me for being what I am.

[ kaveh looks. ghost brings back the silverware, a set of drinks. kaveh takes the time to serve the rice. a bed of white, ghormeh sabzi layered on top, meat and beans and the pungent scent of herbs. because he is kaveh, he wipes the edges of the plates down for presentation, and then looks. ]

I think I'm going about this the wrong way. Have you ever wanted to be a character in your story?

[She could keep him going about it the wrong way, if she wanted. The mistake he made is subtle but significant: he said your story, as though that's the problem. As though she thinks there's a story for her and she doesn't fit into it, when it's not really about her reality at all, but everyone else's.

Except that's not the point. It's a technicality, and she doesn't want to dodge the question badly enough to rely on obfuscation when it's the spirit of the question that matters.]

...I've wanted to be the protagonist of most of the stories I'm aware of. And I'm aware of a lot of them. Mostly I wanted the denouement of it. The sleeping girl wakes up, the apple gets dislodged from her throat, the prince finds her in the ashes and the lost shoe fits. I wanted to think I was like that. The kind of person that things like that happened to.

[She shrugs a little, closing her eyes.]

It's worse to believe that. Better to just understand that my story isn't like others, and accept it. Things like that don't happen for me, and that's just how it is. It's better to just acknowledge that, rather than hoping for something that's never going to come.

[ kaveh looks. the sleeping girl wakes up. the apple gets dislodged from her throat. the prince finds her in the ashes and the lost shoe fits. tales from mondstadt, kaveh thinks. don quixote had been right. there are certain elements within stories that simply pass on from world to world, without much rhyme or reason. the vahumana once positioned a collective unconsciousness. there had been a terrible experiment done for it. kaveh hadn't expected to see it again in another, more benign form.

'thinks like that don't happen for me', ghost says. kaveh says: ]

Eat. [ he slips ghost's plate in front of her. fork-tender lamb and beans, the pungent scent of herbs with a scent that can only be described as green. savoury and warm. kaveh takes a seat across from her.

it hadn't been a 'no'. ] And then tell me what you know about Netzach, or at least the parts that you know that you're certain you're able to share.

That's a conspicuous segue that definitely isn't suspicious at all.

[She's also pretty sure she's never seen food like this before. Certainly she's never smelled it. Maybe once she would've been more suspicious of it than she is, and maybe once she would've been less well off than she is now, and in no place to be picky.

Neither one influences why she picks up the fork and starts to poke at the stew, not in a way that resembles distrust but more like someone appreciating a work of art from every perspective possible, taking stock of the work that went into getting the meat so soft and the colors just right, appreciating with all of her senses before she lets taste have its turn.]

...I don't think there's anything I know about Netzach that I wouldn't be able to share. Which also makes me suspicious, for obvious reasons.

[The lamb comes apart easily on the tines of the fork; she starts collecting a little bit of everything onto it, wanting the whole experience when she takes her first bite.]

He does art. He works in Angela's bookstore. He gives his job as "librarian" and drinks beer. He doesn't pry into people's business because he assumes they'll come to him if there's something they want to say. I asked him once if his name was like mine, but it wasn't. He's spent a lot of time around a select few people, prior to being here.

[She pauses, thinking a minute.]

...Like I said. Nothing I can think of that wouldn't be benign to repeat.

[ kaveh looks. there is a common misconception that between alhaitham and kaveh that alhaitham is the pickier one. in truth, it's kaveh. picky is the right way about it - high-maintenance or fussy is another way to describe it. kaveh knows that about himself. after all, kaveh is the one who gets invited to the theatre and reads the script ahead of time, along with a biography of the writer and, if possible, a history of the play's performances, then has an opinion on how the lead actor delivered certain lines. kaveh is the one who learns that the local museum is doing an exhibition on liyuen lacquerware and wants to have a discussion around the fact that it was structured primarily around time period and then around schools of artistic thought instead of the other way around. he goes to the orchestra and appreciates the conductor's emphasis on a certain harmonic phrasing, the mathematical beauty of certain sound vibrations combining with an artistic vision; he eats at a fine dining restaurant and wants to do everything in the correct order, with the correct utensils.

all of this, of course, is lovingly wrapped in the fact that Kaveh has a simple and overbearing adoration for everything and anything that involves creation. the way ghost is taking her time with his dish gives him the impression, he thinks, that she is walking through the experience of it. a single, perfect bite on the tip of her tongue, an experience packaged and to be unpacked in careful, well-timed stages. all of a sudden, kaveh wants to know her opinion on what she thinks about the dish.

instead, what he says: ]

Netzach is a gentle soul. What's remarkable about him is that he hadn't been given a lot of reason to be gentle, or kind, but he has chosen to be regardless. [ kaveh spoons into his own meal. he adjusts a good ratio of rice to stew and takes a bite of it. it's good, but he wouldn't serve something that didn't bring out the best of the ingredients, in a way that suited the dish being prepared. ] His story isn't mine to tell, really. But you've told a part of it yourself. He painted for you a picture of your dragon. That has become a part of his story, and knowing Netzach, it likely meant a lot to him, that he had the opportunity to do so for you.

In a way, you can say it was like finding the shoe that fits. You were either the shoe, or the cobbler who made that shoe. But in another way of thinking, didn't an artist named Netzach happen to you?

[It's her natural inclination, as always, to try to run ahead and outpace his train of thought. Get out ahead of it while it's still building up steam, figure out its final destination and beat it there. Maybe she was trained to do that too, when she was taught story after story and connection after connection, because there are only so many to begin with and once you know them all, it's easy to generalize. Probably this winds up somewhere in the ballpark of stories are things that are interwoven between people or every person you meet, you touch their story and they touch yours, something something intersections, something something you matter, Ghost.

It annoys her, a little bit. In part because she wants to be right, and in part because she wants to be wrong, and neither outcome is a particularly good one. But at least she's got the prospect of the stew to occupy herself with, and she pushes the bite into her mouth before it can get too cold, lest she miss something of the experience by failing to have it while it was still the temperature Kaveh wanted it to be.]

Would you tell this story to anyone else?

[She looks at him, gaze level, as she chews.]

Would you go to someone else and use me as the example, and tell them about how I did something that mattered to prove to them a point? Or is it just me. I'm the only one who needs to wake up and see how my story conjoins with all the others of everyone I know.

[ ghost chews. kaveh considers this. once again, he's struck by the glass slipper and the apple. how many people, statistically speaking, would have one or the other of those befall them? well, to start off with, the likelihood of choking on an apple compared to having found a glass slipper is far higher by pure dint of there being more apples than glass shoes. but why are these two events placed under the same significance? is it because of the event itself, the perceived rarity of it, because of the people involved, or because of the story told from it?

kaveh looks. he takes another bite of stew. ]

I would. There's a fury in me whenever I see someone using the concept of truth to justify unilaterally believing in their own misery. If someone else came up to me and told me they didn't have a story, I'd say very much the same thing: Ghost happened to you. Why aren't you grateful for it? It's Ghost.

[ hm. ] I haven't even gotten to the conjoined part, though. We're still at the part where I'm trying to convince you that you have a story that can be told, and is worth telling. Netzach is a plot device in yours right now.

Edited 2023-11-07 05:48 (UTC)

I just don't think you would, is the thing. I don't doubt the fury, I mean. And I don't doubt that you would try to prove that person wrong. But I don't think the example you'd choose would be me. I don't think I'd be your first choice, or your second, or anything above a last resort, really. Maybe not even then.

[It's good stew. Green is the right word for it, for all that it's imprecise to use a color to describe a sensation of flavor. Sometimes you can get away with that, when it's particularly fitting. Poetic license and all, and sometimes the emphasis is all the more powerful for it, from doing a thing that's different and unexpected.

There's probably a lesson baked into that. She decides to focus on eating her stew and not think too hard about it. When she continues, it's not so much adversarial as philosophical, like she's teasing apart a concept the way she'd forked loose the lamb.]

I don't think I dispute that I have a story that can be told, or that it's worth telling. I posited that mine is different from others, and the two aren't mutually exclusive. Some people reflect on the road not taken; I think for me it's more "the road never available". Wanting things doesn't always mean those things were ever attainable to begin with. It does mean you settle for what is available to you, sometimes.

[She pauses. Takes another bite.]

This is very good, if I forgot to say so before. And I yield the floor for your rebuttal.

[ i just don't think you would, ghost says, with the confidence and finality of a shut book. it's a book, kaveh thinks, that he can imagine in his mind. it's a book with a plain dust jacket, one with gray upon white upon whorls of black, patterns of which that draw in the mind and asks a question wrapped in an enigma. beneath the dust jacket, a red cover as deep and velvet as aged wine, embossed gently in a language that has yet to be invented. carefully manicured pages, plain cardstock made of something resilient and hardy, that, when torn, only ever allowed itself to be hurt much in the way of a lizard cutting off its tail. and then, by the end of things, a single, ribbon stained with blood, a single loop of it to bind the book shut.

the haravatat would adore this book, this book that refused to be written, this book that refused to be read. there would be entire seminars dedicated to its study and unraveling, its composition and its preservation. but kaveh is kshahrewar. ]

I'm glad you think it's good. It was my father's recipe. I'd have it written down for you, but I don't think you do much in the way of cooking - so I suppose I'll have to bring you some more again myself. [ says kaveh, as he spoons another mouthful of stew. and then, in that exact, selfsame tone: ] And I think I can see your perspective. The importance is the perspective, the perspective that you see it not as a possibility or a probability, but an impossibility that I would do what I say. I think I'm at a disadvantage in that I don't know where that perspective stems from. That's the root of it, I think. I can assert day and night that I am a man of my word, and that your story is something I would use to convince another of their bull-headed ways, but without understanding the root, the argument won't resonate.

[ kaveh considers this. ] What if I show you that you've happened to me, Ghost?

[ open ] kaveh's permanent catch-all

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