onlythebranch | (no subject)

Entry tags:

greta

(no subject)

Someone's been leaving him offerings.

At first he'd thought it to be the boy, Gabriel, the one he'd met during his first week and when he'd felt the call of it, when he'd walked the path that pulled him on and on, he'd been surprised to find the flat of an unfamiliar woman at the other end. But the bread had been for him sure enough and he'd taken it, turning it over in his hands with a bit of wonder before leaving once again, trying to work out who the woman is and why she's leaving him anything at all. It's been a great many years since anyone has left him an offering and though she's not asked for anything in particular, though he's without his own luck at the moment and thus can only give little bits here and there, he does what he can to return the offering back to her.

One evening at the market, several women ahead of her come up empty handed when looking for a few perfect apples, but she has no trouble at all finding what she wants in the bin. A few days later there's a bicycle and it's not nearly enough to have hurt her badly, but had she stepped out of the apartment building only a moment earlier, she'd have surely been hit. Though she's pretty enough and she's sure to have plenty of attention, there are a few more kind and genuine compliments from men and women alike that week.

It isn't much, it isn't like the turns of good luck he was able to give Essie, but if he can only get his coin back, he knows he'll be able to do more.

For now, he takes the offering with only a small amount of guilt and he mostly ignores the part of him asking why.

His luck, though, no matter what he manages to give to her, is utter shit. In any other situation, he'd be able to avoid her, to continue to just allow himself to take what she gives and to give something in return. He'd not be discovered, he'd never be seen, but he's heading in the direction of her flat one afternoon, smoking as he walks, and suddenly there she is, right in his path, walking a great, fluffy dog that looks as if it belongs in a sheep pen instead of on the end of a leash.

And the damn thing makes a beeline straight for him.

"Fuck," he breathes, taking another drag from his cigarette. Of course.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Greta Baker.

Maybe she'll not turn out to be anything at all like Essie, but he hoards the names of believers more carefully than he does his gold, keeping them close as a reminder that it hasn't always been this way, that there was a time when people knew what he was and what he could do. Darrow, for all the things he's come to hate about it, has given something back to him that he hasn't seen the like of in a very, very long time. He ought to be in Wisconsin, but if this is the place he needs to be instead, he supposes it isn't all bad.

It's been a long time since he's had any sort of offering, after all.

"I might've paid my respects to her a time or two," he admits, holding his fingers out again for the dog to sniff. "Dogs tend to be in possession of a kindness most folks have missed out on." And so he tends to like them better. Wednesday's wolves are an exception to that rule, but then, most of what Wednesday is and does turns out to be an exception to any rule Sweeney can come up with. The man has made him hate birds, of all things, which he has to imagine is quite the task, given the years he spent stuck as one. If that hadn't made him hate birds, it's impressive that it's Wednesdays ravens that have done it instead.

Sadie's tail wags harder, and she gives his hands a nudge with her snout, a not-so-subtle request for pets.

"They do," Greta agrees, watching her ridiculous, fluffy dog with a fond smile. "I haven't had her for very long, but she's made a world of difference."

It belatedly occurs to her how that might be misconstrued, and she hastens to add, "Not that--no one's been giving me any trouble or anything." If she's going to have a seven-foot, muscle-bound, chronically unlucky leprechaun named Mad Sweeney inclined to do favors for her, she doesn't want him getting the idea that he might better her life by making someone else's worse. Not least of all because she can guess who might get the brunt of it, if it was all brought to light, and Jesse doesn't deserve that. "I just... had a difficult June, is all." Her smile is rueful, and she hitches her shoulders in a hapless shrug. "I might've noticed your efforts sooner if the bar hadn't been set so low." Getting back to normal had been such a chore that slightly-better-than-normal hardly registered. Or if it did, she hadn't trusted her readings.

Not that she expects a leprechaun's sympathy for her inescapably mortal problems. Her offerings don't entitle her to that. She flaps a hand, dismissive and embarrassed. "Doesn't matter."

For a moment he wonders if it's his bad luck worming into her life after all, but then she specifies it was June that'd been difficult and he allows himself to relax. In June -- Darrow's June, anyway, it'd been April back in Kentucky -- he hadn't been here and so he might be responsible for the shitty luck of others since his arrival, but whatever happened to her in June isn't his doing.

He strokes the dog's nose, then the soft fur of her ears and wishes there was something more he could do, some way to make his exchange more obvious, but the situation is what it is. At this point he's mostly just lucky he's not dead.

"This place does like to fuck with folks, don't it?" he asks, knowing she isn't the first and she won't be the last. He's stuck here, too, after all, and people have given him a well rounded explanation as to what he can expect and that is, more or less, that he probably won't be able to expect anything. That everything will be unpredictable and probably a pain in the ass.

"It really does," she says, with feeling. Granted, at least in this particular case, her troubles are not Darrow's fault. Darrow didn't knock her off that cliff, and it didn't force Jesse to tell her the story of it all. That was on her. The worst Darrow has done is give her the opportunity to find it all out, by bringing her here in the first place. And though she's seen too much of Darrow's cruelties to entrust it with her gratitude, but she's not going to complain about being alive.

"There were flying monkeys at New Years," she continues. "And these awful little toys that came to life just this past spring." Now that both incidences are safely in the past, it's easy to talk of them with something almost like fondness, as if it was a spot of awful weather they'd all soldiered through. But she definitely wouldn't fancy a repeat performance. If his own luck really is in shambles, maybe she shouldn't suggest that he was lucky to have missed it all, even if it's true. He could have fared poorly. She supposes she might have had an easier time of things, but a bit of extra luck doesn't seem like a fair trade if he's having a miserable time. "I'm sure you'll see your own share of the madness if you're here more than a few months."

Flying monkeys don't seem that terribly strange to him, but then, he's seen a good deal of things most people haven't. What is strange is to think of them in a place like this, out where just any random person can see them. Gods and people like him, they did the right thing, they hid themselves from just about everyone, but this place seems to flaunt its magic, like it doesn't give a damn who sees or what they think.

It's dangerous. But then, just being around him right now is dangerous, too, and he's still standing here talking to her. If he was smart, he'd just walk the fuck away to keep her safe.

"And no one pops the fuck up and claims responsibility for any of it?" he asks. "No tricksters anywhere?" It seems a little ridiculous for Loki, but Mad Sweeney wouldn't really put it past the bastard, not if he got some real good belief out of it somehow.

Greta shakes her head, giving Sadie an absent pat. "No." Magic tends to come in different forms, in her experience. Even back home, living next door to a Witch, there were things you couldn't pin on anyone in particular. The most ostentatious displays tended to not be any one person's doing.

"Everyone speaks of it as if it's just the city," she says with a flap of her hand. "Though it does feel as if someone ought to be behind it. It's always sort of... pointed." Deliberate. Maybe it's just because Darrow's fits don't occur with as much frequency, but it's hard to believe that it's some natural, impersonal thing, like a change in the weather or a shift in the seasons. It's far easier to imagine someone watching the chaos and enjoying themselves immensely.

"A trickster'll usually take credit. Fuckers can't help themselves, they like the attention. A god, though... well, I guess you never know with them, do you?" This isn't the sort of thing he would figure Wednesday for, but the gods are so fucked and so varied that he knows it's possible he's just seeing something he's never seen before.

And it does seem to him as if a city being responsible wouldn't be so pointed, like she's said. There has to be someone behind it, but the thing is, Sweeney doesn't really care enough to make the effort of finding out.

"Everyone talks like that because they-" He's cut off, though, by a car suddenly jumping the curb and Sweeney curses under his breath, knowing he doesn't have time to move, and the damn thing clips his hip first with the edge of the fender, then with the side mirror and he goes spinning away, coming down hard on his knees as the car goes on to slam into the side of a nearby building. It hurts, but all Sweeney can think is that he was right to keep his distance from Greta.

"A god?" Greta repeats, eyebrows creeping up in disbelief. She believes easily in magic and leprechauns, but gods were always a harder sell, back home. Probably because magic lived right next door, and everyone at least knew someone who had seen a hob or upset a fairy tree and suffered the consequences. A distant, inscrutable sort of sky fairy who didn't actually do much was far less concerning. The Village Priest had tried to drum up interest, poor man, but it was no mean feat to convince people that they ought to worry about what this sky fairy would think of them after they were dead, as opposed to the less obscure fae creatures that were capable of altering their lives at any moment.

Mad Sweeney is speaking of them as if they're unquestionably real, though, and she's about to ask if he actually knows any when a car seems to come out of nowhere. It leaps the curb, strikes him a glancing blow, and then crashes to a halt against a building. Greta nearly jumps out of her skin, and comes close to falling over from both the shock and from the sudden pull against her arm as Sadie attempts to flee.

She gets the dog under control, first, then hurries over to Mad Sweeney's side. "Are you all right?" she asks, laying a hand on his shoulder (which is still only a little lower than her own, despite him having his legs knocked out from under him). If her touch is cautious, it's more because she's worried about hurting him than because she's considering the relative wisdom of presuming to touch a leprechaun in the first place. She looks over at the crumpled vehicle, sees the driver dazedly pull themselves out, and then shifts her focus back to Mad Sweeney. "Can you stand?"

Does he need a hospital? She wouldn't have thought leprechauns could be injured, at least not in so straightforward and unmagical a manner. But he seems more like a man up close, his shoulder solid enough beneath her hand, and he looks pained. She shifts instinctively, ready to offer support if he needs it. "Here, let me help."

It's not the first car that's struck him and, given his current state, he has a feeling it won't be the last. Sweeney takes a moment, assesses the damage, then stiffens when he feels Greta's hand on his shoulder. Folks don't touch him, not often, not unless they're wanting to go a round or two, but it's more than that.

"Ought to keep your distance, lass," he says in a rough voice, pushing himself to his feet. There's pain, but it'll fade, it always does. And in the meantime, he sure as fuck doesn't want to be responsible for something bad happening to her or her sweet mutt.

"This is that shit luck I mentioned," he continues, taking stock of everything as he stands. His knees hurt where they hit the ground and his hip is going to bruise, but everything else feels more or less as it usually does. A drink or two will numb the pain and he'll be able to fall asleep tonight and feel better in the morning, so long as no one gets it into their head that they ought to challenge to big guy in the bar, as often happens. "I'd hate for you to get caught up in the wake."

She can feel him tense beneath her hand, and she draws it back. It's not a flinch, she doesn't think she's hurt him, but it's possible she's crossed some sort of boundary she shouldn't. That's what she takes it for at first, anyway -- a human presuming to lay a hand on a leprechaun, what was she thinking -- but then he explains things.

"You call that bad luck?" she squawks in indignation. 'Bad luck' is getting caught in traffic or spilling something on yourself. Someone excessively stoic might use it to downplay a larger tragedy, but everyone else would know it was nonsense. There are things bad luck doesn't cover, and she'd say that getting hit by a car qualifies.

Beneath the indignation, though, she appreciates that he's trying to protect her. She's rolled her eyes through more misguided attempts before, but if this is what bad luck means to him, she can't blame him for wanting to spare others. "I don't suppose my good luck makes much of a wake for you to get caught in," she says, her tone gentler. If it were that simple, he could improve his own luck without her proximity, probably.

"This is my bad luck," he says, pressing one hand against a nearby building. "The last good samaritan who stopped to give me a ride ended up with a fuckin' metal rod through his skull when the truck in front of us swerved. The bitch with my coin went through a windshield and had half her dead skin torn off. Things like that don't happen to me or around me. Ever. I don't get hit by cars, I don't stub my fuckin' toe, I don't accidentally walk into people. Life goes the way I want it to."

Or it had, until he'd given away that fucking coin.

"This," he says, waving his hand toward the car. "Is bad fucking luck."

Maybe it won't make sense to someone who's never experienced good luck the way he has. People have always looked at Mad Sweeney and assumed him to be a man down on his luck, but he's happy enough, living like he does. Drinking and fighting and sleeping and fucking. That's the life he wants and his endless good luck has allowed him to have it.

Greta winces. Maybe she shouldn't have suggested that the city might return his coin to him. Not because it isn't technically possible, but because it's too big a hope to just be throwing around. Darrow might bring her family, too, but she can't let herself dwell on the idea, let alone bank on it. Hard as it's been to cope with their loss, waiting would have been worse. Waiting was worse.

She considers taking a healthy step back, as well. That might be the wisest move. But she's still reeling a little from the accident, and indignant on his behalf. Nor has she ever been in the habit of abandoning people just because they're saddled with something unpleasant that might land on her by association (though she'll admit that car accidents are more horrifying than being barren).

"It's all a bit much," she says, frowning up at him. "What, is it making up for lost time?" Will it all even out, someday? That's what she would ask, if she couldn't already guess at the answer.

It's no less than what he deserves, given what he's done in his life, the things he's run from, but he'd barely been able to get into that with Laura and while he thinks Greta would likely be a bit more than that cunt, it's still not something he wants to discuss. In fact, he'd like to forget everything he's done to get here completely, but that's not possible.

Everything has a price, after all. Right now he's paying what he owes.

"If I knew how it worked, love, I'd tell you straight off," he says, wincing a little. "But alls I know is what I feel t'be true and this is my truth. My luck is shit and the chances of my dying before I get back that bloody coin are pretty high, I'd say."

"Wh-- dying?" she repeats. Maybe she shouldn't sound so skeptical all of three seconds after seeing him get hit by a bloody car, but he's still a leprechaun. All the stories she heard of the fair folk taught her that you might anger them, or best them, or find a way to live with them. But death is reserved for mortal creatures. "I... I didn't think you could."

Which must sound foolish, and unhelpful, and she winces again and flaps her hands at the car. "At least not in such a... a straightforward, human sort of way." Maybe there were rituals involving full moons and iron or somesuch; she wouldn't know, but she might be willing to buy it. 'Leprechaun Dies After Falling Into Traffic' seems too absurd to be possible.

"Everything dies eventually," he says, which is true, although he knows what she's getting at and what he's saying isn't exactly fair. If he had his coin, it wouldn't be possible, not in the same way it is now. With his coin, he'd have to do something bloody stupid, like sacrifice himself on Wednesday's battlefield or Christ only knows what else.

Like this, though, he's vulnerable. No coin means the rules change and he's still working out how. With his fucking luck, he'll probably just end up drinking himself to death.

"It shouldn't happen this way," he says. "But who the fuck knows how things work now. Everything's fuckin' changed and maybe it's just this city. Maybe this place just kills magical things."

She wants to argue against that. It's a knee-jerk response, because as miserable as his luck might be, there's more than a touch of melodrama in the idea that Darrow kills magical things. Magic isn't as overt, here; that much is true. People might take it in stride, but they don't take it for granted. If every hint of magic in the city disappeared tomorrow, a good chunk of the populace would probably breathe a quiet sigh of relief and continue on as if nothing had changed.

But there is magic. She arrived in a magical Wood; the first person she met was a werewolf; her employers are both magicians. She's friends with a unicorn, a fact that still astonishes her (though the way Darrow's forced Amalthea into a human shape speaks more to Sweeney's conclusion than Greta wants to admit).

"You're hardly the only magical thing here," she points out, anyway. "There's an entire magical Wood out there, and it seems to be doing all right for itself." Not that she spends much time in Cabeswater these days, but she thinks she would have heard if anything bad had happened to it.

But whatever Cabeswater might do for Amalthea, she's not sure it can give Sweeney what he's missing. Greta sighs, wrapping her arms around herself. "Is there anything I can do to help?" she asks him.

He hadn't thought he was, but it feels different here. There are no gods, he's sure of that, but the magic here doesn't feel like any he's ever known before. It feels muted somehow, from everything except the city itself, and he wonders what that means or if it means anything at all. Maybe he's just crazy. It sure as hell wouldn't be the first time, after all, and it'd feel like a nice return to the norm.

"And how many of 'em are at full power?" he asks, not knowing if she'll have an answer for that. It doesn't really matter if she does, because he can feel it. Things don't exist here in Darrow like they did wherever they've come from. He's proof enough of that.

At her question, he shakes his head, testing his hip again before he decides it's probably fine. Well enough, anyway, that he'll be able to get by and get himself drunk enough to forget the pain. "No, love, there's nothing," he says, then smiles faintly. "Unless you know of a place to find a lucky charm."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only