fandomtownies | The Park, Wednesday

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The Park, Wednesday

Roland had found himself a nice tree to work under today at the park. Whatever the weather decided to throw at him -- sun, rain, hail, snow, literal cats and dogs -- he figured he'd be ready for it. You know, so long as it wasn't, like, a tornado or a tsunami. Or some kind of reverse rain thing where all the moisture was sucked up out of the ground into the sky in liquid form.

Between climate change and Fandom, you just never knew.

His choice of music today might be an attempt to subtly bard away any bad weather. Or maybe it was an ironic goodbye to the graduating class.

Honestly, he'd let you believe either one, so long as you dropped some money in his guitar case.

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Éponine happened to have some change on her today, after a midday trip to cash her paycheck and get some lunch. She was also in favor of delaying her trip back to work by a few minutes if at all possible, so meandering through the park it was.

This was the sequence of events that led to her tossing a crumpled wad of a couple of dollar bills into the guitar case. (They jingled faintly on impact, like there was some change rolled up inside.)

"Careful, monsieur," she said with a slight, amused smirk. "A song like that, passers-by might think you're warning them off. Worse yet, they might take it to heart."

Roland flashed her a large smile. "If the music's good enough, they'll hopefully get drawn back in, anyway," Roland said. ". . . Which sounds creepier than I meant it."

Like Éponine could judge anyone on creepy anyway.

"Seems to me it would be silly of you to do that, and expect to get paid for it," she remarked. "There's other things you could mean. You could be talking to the squirrels for all I know. Anyway, if it's nice enough to attract notice from across the park before making out the words, it's done the trick, hasn't it?"

"Mostly," Roland admitted, "it's that I just like the song. Sometimes even a street musician has to play something for himself. I'm glad you liked it as well."

"You do have to spend more time listening to yourself than anyone else, I suppose," Éponine agreed. "So what's the point of playing something you don't enjoy? I always like to hear music, though, not just little bits of it as I'm passing by a theater, and this is a nice way to avoid having to go back to dealing with the post for a little while longer."

"I don't play anything I really hate," Roland said. If he was willing to do that, he'd've gotten a 'real' job. "But sometimes you gotta go with what the audience wants. How are things at the post office, by the way? Any busier with the graduation action?"

"I wouldn't either, if I knew how to play. As for being busy, it's only the post office itself, really," Éponine said, rolling her eyes. "Seemed to think it was a cause for celebration, the place did, and I'll be picking up bits of -- what d'you call them, the little pieces of colored paper that you see people fling about to celebrate something or other? Damned waste if you ask me. I'll be finding bits of that all 'round the place for the next year, I expect, and that's not the kind of busy I'd rather be."

"Confetti," Roland said. "I've never been real clear on why anyone uses that stuff any more, either. Probably never had to work as janitors."

Roland had never worked as a janitor, either. But he'd contemplated it a time or two when gigs were thin on the ground and the weather in Toronto got nasty.

"That's the stuff!" Éponine clapped her hands, once. "It's pretty, I suppose, when it's falling through the air. But that's all. It's no good after that, but I suspect you're right. Anyone who thinks it's a good idea's never been stuck cleaning it up."

"People in general are not that great at thinking things through. They see the pretty in the air, and forget the piles of crap on the ground."

Éponine somehow managed to put more cynicism into an inelegant snort than you'd think should have been possible. "Isn't that just the way of it! Some things are always the same, I s'pose. Still, that's useful sometimes."

"Oh yeah?" Roland said. "That's good to know. I usually just mostly think that most people are shitheads."

He included himself in that tally.

"Not all," Éponine felt compelled to say, "but most, that's true."

She also included herself in that tally.

She shrugged. "It's predictable, d'you see? No sense in pretending otherwise, expecting the best and getting a nasty little surprise instead. Safer not to do that, if you ask me."

"That way, the only surprises are pleasant," Roland agreed.

Somewhere, Evan and Rebecca were rolling their eyes at him.

"And surprises for sure, so long's you don't get into the habit of expecting them," added Éponine.

She hummed to herself for a moment (it might have been a phrase from the song he'd just been playing, but hard to tell) and then asked, abruptly, "But have you ever actually played something exactly because you did want someone to go away?"

It took Roland a few moments to parse out that comment, and by the time she got to the question, he was willing to give up on it. "Actually, yes," he said. "Though probably not in the way you mean."

Defeating the Dark Adept and his proto-emo evil music with The Beatles wasn't quite like the "get rid of the annoying tourists" thing he expected she meant.

Being coherent on a consistent basis wasn't exactly one of Éponine's specialties. Sorry, Roland. And . . . everyone, really.

"In this place?" she laughed. "It's hardly ever exactly the way I mean."

"I suspect that's deliberate," Roland said. "On . . . someone's part. Somewhere. I'm really not sure how this place actually works."

Or what realm it was in, for that matter. He was always at least a little convinced he'd wandered back into the Dark without noticing, these days.

Éponine made a tsk noise and waved a hand at him. "Best not to think about it too hard," she said, affecting a knowledgeable tone as if she were some kind of expert. "Because god knows, it oughtn't work, and yet here it is, doing exactly that."

"See, now that just described half my life." Or at least the last year or so. Or, you know, way more if you counted all the ones he skipped on the way to the 21st century. "But there was always at least someone around trying to explain that stuff."

"And there's no one to do that for you any more?" Éponine shook her head with an exaggeratedly mournful expression. "You'll just have to make up your own answers now, I suppose. It's amusing, at least."

Not helpful, but amusing, in her opinion anyway.

"I've never been very good at that."

Just ask his uncle Tony. Or Mrs. Ruth.

"And why's that? Can't come up with the answers, or can't convince yourself?"

"Probably either one."

"That's a shame," Éponine said, shaking her head with exaggerated sadness. "Perhaps you ought to give it a try again, or if not I'm sure someone can invent a few new ones for you."

"I suppose I'll give it a shot," Roland said. "I take it you make up your own all the time?"

"Well," said Éponine, "I'd rather learn the real ones, most of the time, but I couldn't always do that before, so I had to make do, d'you understand? It gets tiresome after a while, wondering about things."

More so if you were just generally the inquisitive sort, which would be the case here.

"Yeah, I'm more likely to dismiss it as a mystery of the universe until it decides to tell me otherwise. Or gets in my way, I guess."

"Is the universe in the habit of speaking to you every so often?" Éponine wondered. "Or getting in your way, I s'pose, there's that as well."

"It never used to be," Roland said. "But apparently, once you start paying attention, it likes to poke at you every now and then. Or all the time."

It was totally reasonable to blame "the universe" for fairies and Fandom weirdness, shut up.

All things Fandom considered, it was as reasonable as any other approach, since you could say 'Fandom' and 'reasonable' were relative if you put them in the same sentence.

"And you can't just go back to ignoring it? Persistent little devil, it is."

"It's pretty good at getting right in your face."

Éponine laughed -- uncertainly, like she didn't quite get it. "You make it sound as if it's given you a lot of trouble that way."

"I had to get saved by a cat," Roland said.

Éponine did not laugh. She didn't.

She smirked, just a little bit, but hid it as quickly as possible. That was different, right?

"Cats are clever creatures, that's for sure, but good lord, how did that happen?"

See above re: inquisitive.

Roland heaved a sigh. "Someone needed to willingly sacrifice themselves to seal a gate to the Dark realms in Toronto, and I was just about to do it when Tom -- the cat -- came hurtling out of nowhere. I didn't even know a cat would count."

And he was still pretty sure Tom didn't even like him.

". . . you would have done that?" Was it possible to be dubiously impressed? Because that was about the expression on Éponine's face. "Perhaps the universe just likes cats."

"I would have," Roland said. "Still might, if I had to. I've seen what living in a world filled up with the Dark looks like." He gave her a little bit of a side-eye. "Are you saying the universe is punishing me for letting Tom take my place?"

There was an unhappy thought.

"Hardly," Éponine retorted. "Or if it is, it's not very grateful. Good lord, it's more than most people would have done, isn't it, even if you didn't have to in the end?"

She wouldn't have, personally.

Roland had been surprised to find out that he would. Clearly, being friends with the physical manifestation of the Mother portion of the threefold goddess had been a bad influence on him.

"Thanks," he said. "That makes up a little. For being indebted to a dead cat." He went a little heavy on the irony, there, but it was also true.

Stupid cat.

Éponine laughed. "As debts go, that one's not so bad. They do as they please, y'know, cats do, and they couldn't give a damn what you prefer. No, if that cat made up its mind to give itself up that way, no one was going to persuade it not to, count on it."

"I wouldn't dream of trying to reason with a cat," Roland promised.

Yell at one, sure. He'd at least learned his lesson about kicking at one.

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The Park, Wednesday

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