With this fabulous introduction, Tomoe turned around promptly and exited the scene, the tiger looking quite bored and followed the blond. "Come along, Jolie," Tomoe sang, pulling the door shut behind the tiger who ambled slowly behind him, almost as if it were a saunter and a smirk.

"Where's our room, Jolie?" Tomoe asked rhetorically to the tiger as they went back into the now empty dining room and down the narrow hallway into the long aisle of rooms. "Father gave me the key, and I gave it to you, because you know I always lose things," Tomoe went on. "What's it read?"

Jolie gave a noncommittal growl.

"Mr Yates," the mustached man said softly, considering his subordinate sitting silently in the chair in front of the obvious superior. A desk cluttered with papers separated the two. "I'm very disappointed." He slid a folder amid the other papers across the desk to Simon, who straightened up, clearing his throat, and received the file. A shadow passed over his expression almost immediately after he opened the manila folder, but cleared in a heartbeat. His eyes flicked up to the mustached man, his face slowly forcing itself into an easy smile.

"Mr Grenford, I assume this is the wrong assignment. It's far too simple."

"No, Yates, it's not," Mr Grenford replied promptly. "Perhaps it's even a bit too difficult for you, considering how much you fucked up the last assignment." He reached for a pile of papers on the far corner of his desk and swiped them to the center of the table before sweeping them all up and shuffling them neatly into a stack. "You may go, Mr Yates." It was raining, the kind of rain that made umbrellas flip inside out and drenched anyone stupid enough to walk around outside in that kind of weather because umbrellas did nothing to keep the drops away. Oh yes, it was that kind of freakish rain. There were squealing people running here and here for cover, muted colors of coats swishing around and flecking drops of water onto Simon's face as he maneuvered himself through the scattering crowd who were acting as though a riot had begun and they were eager to take part. A scowl carved itself into his face as he lowered his umbrella, taking extra care to shake most of the water onto a particularly fat group of teenagers who had knocked him into a telephone pole as they ducked for cover, still screaming. There's nothing to scream about, Simon wanted to bark at them, It's just rain. Are you scared of showers if you're screaming about rain?

The man strode forward a few meters before being shunted under an awning of a café by several harried looking mothers with their children in tow. Disgruntled, Simon swiped a bead of water from his face and flicked it off his finger before turning around to walk into the café - just as planned, he reflected as he consulted the fading pen ink on his hand and glanced back up at the name of the café emblazoned on the walls and menu that was displayed neatly in front of him. The place was actually a bit crowded, although, Simon mused, that was to be expected. Cafés and rainy days went hand in hand, like cheese and wine.

Soft jazzy café music played in the background, slightly drowned out by the loud buzz of people floating around, either escaping the rain or complaining about it. Simon could spot a few people he suspected were regulars in the midst of the busy coffeehouse - the baristas circled them more often than not, as though they were lionesses protecting their cubs from other beasts, and the regulars themselves wore easy smiles laced with annoyance at the sudden invasion the rain brought.

"Just a black coffee, please," he murmured, extracting a few bills from his wallet and stuffing his change into the tip jar. "Thank you." Simon collected the steaming beverage and forced a sleeve over it before he straightened up and looked about the area. Well, he had to make himself belong here sooner or later. Perhaps a good table to people watch would work. His identity? Perhaps one of those hipsters. His facial hair certainly could go with that, but he'd have to buy one of those horrible pairs of glasses to go with the hipster look. A shuffling gait, a hipster walk. Simon took a seat in the corner by a window and took a pull of the coffee, swallowing the scalding liquid and waited for the squealing people to get over the rain.

Penny Dreadfuls
The Cat's Meat Shop
Tea merchant
Mütter Museum

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12:20 pm
8/4/2012

"Hush, Jolie," Tomoe whispered to the white tiger as they prowled the dining area of the ship - but his low voice could not mask the wide grin that was plastered to his impish face. "You'll give away our hiding place!" The legs of several people who Tomoe assumed were esteemed personnel rested enticingly in front of the two as they darted from table to table, seeking refuge under the white tablecloth. Chattering and fake polite laughter sounded from above and the fair-haired lord looked excitedly at his tiger, Jolie, who gave a disgruntled stare and opened her mouth as if to snarl or growl once again. Hurriedly, Tomoe clamped Jolie's mouth shut with his hands and hugged it closed until he was sure Jolie would not grumble.

There was no particular reason why the heir of a dukedom was lurking about under tables in the dining room like some common street boy - with a tiger no less. It was amazing that he was able to keep hidden for such a long time - or perhaps the diners already knew that Tomoe was there, but chose to turn a blind eye or maybe just humor such behavior.

"It's not like we can just get out from under this table, Jolie," Tomoe said in mock-seriousness to the tigress who was clearly disgruntled at the lack of dignity that came from being under a table. "Father would kill us if he found - " There was a clinking noise and Tomoe blinked at the sudden blast of light as the white table cloth was pulled away and the fair-haired lord found himself looking right into the stern eye of the duke, his father - the room seemed to have cleared suddenly at the appearance of royalty.

"Oh - oh, hello Father," Tomoe said brightly after leaping up from under the table, rubbing his neck sheepishly. "It's nice weather we're having, isn't it? It's great, isn't - "

"Tomoe," the duke interrupted, his tone clipped and disapproving. "Lurking under tables again? It's unseemly for a lord. You are not to do so again, is that clear? Good." He surveyed Tomoe's ruffled appearance and seemed to cringe internally (because a duke must never show his true emotions, rule #17). "The stylists have been looking for you. You can't appear like this in front of the competition. Come," the duke said imperiously, marching out of the dining room into an adjoining alcove. There was a chair and several men who Tomoe realized to be his father's personal servants, who all clustered around him and pushed him into the chair, immediately fluffing and shining and beautifying every aspect of his appearance. "Gerrof me," Tomoe muttered, his hand reaching out to the side of the chair to feel the fluffy head of the tigress Jolie, who had obediently followed him to his torture station. He could feel smugness radiating from every inch of her fur.

Five minutes felt like an hour, but Tomoe was finally ejected from the alcove after being plucked and preened and generally given a horrible experience of keeping up appearances - and the duke gave a quick glance at his son before he deemed him ready. Imperiously, he flicked two bodyguards over to the lord and another two who marched off with Tomoe's luggage before he left the room without another word. Tomoe stood glumly in front of the door that opened onto the deck before swallowing his resolve and stepping out into the sun.

The first few things that he noticed were that a) the prince was there and seemed to be a bit wary of the rest of the people, b) two attractive females, both looking a bit apprehensive, and c) a blue-haired guy who seemed jovial enough and enjoyed the rocking of the ship. He thought he saw a glimpse of red hair, but the thought was quickly put out of his mind when the girl with the bunny ears declared her name for the world to hear. Such a high pitched voice was really hard to ignore - but no matter. Tomoe would be doing the same soon, minus the high-pitched voice. He cleared his throat for reassurance before grandly stepping out into the sunlight. "Ladies and gents - I present to you: me! The passionate tiger! The one and only, unpredictable, invigorating Tomoe Nozomu!" The blond looked around, beaming magnificently. "Yes, that's the fabulous me."

tales from the cello

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7/6/2012
3:16 PM

"But I don't have a shadow," Ariel blurted out right away to refute the shadow's silence. "I don't have it. I don't have it anymore - at least it's not on me right now - " Her knees felt extraordinarily weak and she could feel the blood drain from her face. She wasn't quite sure if the shadow was the shadow thief or just a figment of her imagination, but either way, she wasn't about to let the thing get too close to her. Legs wobbling, the fair-haired girl took a shaky step backwards towards the wall and felt for something solid to hold onto. The shadow only advanced a few meters before it came to a complete standstill. It didn't do anything. Ariel debated on running, but she doubted she could outrun something like this. Although she hadn't seen the thing's abilities yet, she had a prickling, unpleasant feeling telling her that perhaps it was something she should not underestimate. With good reason, of course.

"Who are you?" Ariel called, finally, to clear the silence that hung heavily, drowsily, like dew drops clinging to clear blades of grass in the foggy whiteness that came right before the sun's fingers of light curled over the blank horizon. "What are you?" She didn't expect an answer, because really - was there any reason a shadow would answer her? She could not see its eyes. She could not see its mouth, ears, nose - a cowled face. She could not see any natural movement, which scared her the most. Other than the fact that it was likely to be a shadow thief and was coming to steal her soul, yes, of course. "Have you come to steal my shadow? I don't - " Ariel stopped. This was the second time that horrible evening that she had accused someone of being a shadow thief. For all she knew, it could just be a really bad joke from some psycho guy who liked dressing up in all black and glide along like a phantom on some dark, terrible night with newcomers about the place and Ariel just happened to be caught in the middle of everything.

Thus, her surprise was quite evident on her face when the blackened figure replied to her stammerings and tongue stumblings with a quiet smooth voice that Ariel could never have imagined coming from such a dark figure. It was quite a charismatic voice, a sense of richness and canorousness filling the sound to the brim. It was a simple word, but it was puzzling coming from such a creature: "No."

It was so quiet that she almost let it slip by her ears, a sound so soft that it was nearly lost on the wind. She was sure the answer was not that, that she was mistaken, that the figure was surely the shadow thief. But the "no" clearly contradicted that. No. No. No. "No?" Ariel repeated uncertainly, the word twisting on her tongue and becoming a question.