itinere | A Shadow Underground

A Shadow Underground

There isn't any announcement when Auri arrives in Itinere. No, that would be far too brazen. Not even a glimpse of her can be caught in the light of day. This is wrong. Not just bad, but wrong. Auri does not belong in this above-ground place, no safe retreat. The whole city seems disjointed, pulled to and fro by people's whims far more than even any ordinary city is.

And after a day of frightened, out-of-place, selfish wishing, tunnels begin to appear underneath the city. They aren't home, and so much the better. No sweet, perfect Mantle or sprightly Vaults or sunpierced Yellow Twelve belongs here. She doesn't wish to see any of her own rooms and her own familiar tunnels if it means the Underthing would be transplanted into new earth with her.

No. Best all of those things stay in their proper place. She must be careful not to ask for them, even in her innermost heart, lest her own greedy will pull them here. As it is, she must wish things to shift ever so slowly, and only into their truest forms. They must be themselves, and not what she wants them to be. Her Underthing she found ready-made, and only waiting to be set to rights. Auri tends to things. She names them. She helps them shift from one form to another or one place to another, but only in the proper way, if it is what and where they want to be. Making something completely anew, out of nothing, is not for her.

Auri doesn't always like the moon; sometimes it is too sharp for her comfort. She haunts the city, venturing out most often on cloudy nights. She always looks before she moves. She searches for food when her belly tightens in complaint, and tries very hard not to order a meal into being somewhere coincidentally convenient. Softly, softly, she has to tread very gently down the path of every thought here.

Food can lure her into the open, though Auri will only take what seems to be waiting. A vegetable fallen to the floor, a loaf of bread set aside. She always tries to check for people or hazards before she takes, occasionally leaving behind something that feels right in fitting exchange, her small offerings incomprehensible to most. Music lures her more readily from her refuges, creeping very quietly as close as she can manage to listen while staying out of sight. There's a lot of music right now, and though Auri stays ever so carefully out of the festivities in the center of town, she can't quite resist listening from behind the corner of a building or beneath a grate in the street.

Despite her care it may happen that a noise gives her away. Likewise, someone may catch a glimpse of floating golden hair or, more rarely, green light in the streets or on the rooftops. Should they call out, she'll bolt. But she knows very few of the ways and secrets of this city yet, and she's easier to corner than she ever would be in Imre or grounds of the University. Cornering her, of course, will get you less than nowhere when it comes to trust. Taking the time, night after night, to lull and draw her in is by far the more successful route. Just as Auri believes very strongly, it's worth the time to do things in the proper way.

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Rick hasn't been able to really and truly sleep for some time. He knows the reasons for that and his reasons are his own. Safe to say that he's carrying around a lot of guilt and sadness, a lot of uncertainty and regrets. It makes for a heavy sort of insomnia that keeps him awake and moving until he absolutely has to sleep and his body makes him do so. This is not one of those nights. This is one of those nights when sleep is an elusive, intangible thing. This is one of those nights when his mind is too caught up in things that have happened back home.

This is what has him out walking at night, not at the craft fair and concert happening at the park. (What are normal activities like that and how do you even start to get involved in them?) No, he skims the outside of it along the street and down alleys, just walking and learning his way around this new atmosphere. He's scouting. He's mapping out points of interest, places he might take his son to hole up if things go South here. Rick is always prepared for things to go South. They always do.

The music from the park, something with guitars and fiddles, can be heard almost anywhere in the city to some varying degree. There was a time when Rick would have enjoyed it. Right now it's loud and jarring. Right now he worries about what the noise might draw close, what hides in the shadows between the streetlights. Streetlights. There's electricity here. That's still a marvel.

Movement catches his attention from the corner of his eye. It instantly has his attention. He doesn't call out. He doesn't flee from it. He just places a hand on the hatchet at his hip, not the colt pistol, and moves in cautiously toward the movement trying to see what, or who, it is. When he catches sight of the shadow of a girl hiding by a building, he pauses where he is, keeping a safe distance partly for her, and partly for his own distrust of people in general.

"Mrs. You alright?" He asks.

Auri freezes, like a deer ready to turn and spring away. She's been caught On Top of Things, by a man armed with bitter, biting metal. If she isn't careful, he'll see where she goes, and then men will be in the tunnels, tromping through with heavy boots, finding what few things she's gathered for herself so far, finding her. Her refuge won't last long.

Careful, cautious, clever. Her eyes dart from side to side, gauging escape routes.

The waifish girl doesn't look like much of a threat. Her well-brushed blonde hair hangs loose, billowing in the slight breeze, her clean and very simple dress isn't made for fighting, and her small feet are bare, pressed up against the unforgiving street. One hand holds a tiny box, and the other, empty, clutches nervously at her skirt.

Auri is not alright. Nothing is alright. She hasn't figured out the way of this world, and even once she does, setting it aright will be a task so hard that it feels insurmountable. She feels all hollow, her name shrinking in her chest so it scarcely keeps her warm. She's small, but not the sort of small she wants to be, one stone in the foundation. Today she is the sort of small that could be crushed if she isn't careful. An ant underfoot. And music only helps a little.

She wants to run, if it would be safe. She wants desperately to lie, say yes, send him on his way. She stays frozen too long for that to be a convincing lie, even if she believed it were the proper thing to say. There is no proper thing to say, so she will at least be honest rather than selfish. "This world pulled me from my proper place. Everything in it feels just shy of true."

She's homesick, in other words. Lost, longing, lonely.

Rick has seen that look plenty enough. It boils down to fear of the unknown in his world. Who knows what the hell it means here, but he's going to go with what he knows. It means handle with care cause it could go several different ways. She could simmer down and see that he isn't a threat to her if she isn't one to him. Or she could go off the handle on the turn of a dime. That deer in headlights look leads to unpredictability. No amount of skill at reading people can help you with that until they ease away from it.

In any case, Rick isn't one to underestimate anyone. She might look like she isn't a threat, but Rick has been stabbed in the back by more docile looking people trying to get a leg up on survival.

While she waffles on staying or running, he stays where he is, forcing his shoulders and his stance to relax a bit even though inside he's still wound pretty tight, still assessing a new person. Rick has perfected the art of this polar opposite internal and external stance.

He nods in agreement when she speaks. "Yeah, seems it did that to all of us. Can't say I haven't wondered what's real or not too. But I know I'm real. You seem real. The walls around us feel real. That much is true. From what I've heard some people can go back to their homes. Others can't." But maybe there's a hope in the possibility for someone who feels their proper place is somewhere else.

Which leads Rick to the inevitable question of whether or not he wants to go home. He can't answer that right now.

The change in his posture does nothing to reassure her. She keeps talking, but Auri's posture doesn't relax a bit. A spring, tightly wound, about to fly at any moment. Whether she'll fly away or apart is anyone's guess. She certainly isn't getting so much as a step closer to Rick.

"Real or not, it's wrong. The places change. However they feel, they aren't sturdy. Steady. Solid. I wanted somewhere so badly that it appeared. That isn't the proper way of things, wishing the world into being."

That's too much influence for anyone to exert upon the world. Auri, at least, tries to step lightly, to keep everything spinning straight. How much more damage could be done by a person who didn't know or care if things were warped and bent? Too much. Too much for anyone to set right, let alone a waif-small girl with a stone where her stomach ought to be, hungry and worn thinner than usual.

In spite of his own distrust, he really is trying to help. She seems wound pretty tight though and Rick has learned that people wound that tight are hard to reach, could fly off the handle at any moment. Add that Rick has his own son here to look after, he doesn't want to put himself or his son in that kind of unpredictable danger.

This is why he takes a step backward... then another. Two steps back to give her more space and himself even more room to see her coming if things go South. He shakes his head. "Didn't say it was right or solid or even safe. It just is." He explains quickly, softly, trying to show her that he's agreeing with her. "So we make the best of it that we can."

Truth be told, this place is a major step up for Rick so it isn't all that difficult for him to make the best of it. But then that's always been his philosophy, no matter how bad things get - you fight for what's best for the whole, not the individual.

"Might be a time when you can go back where you wanna be. In the meantime, I'm Rick. You got a name?"

Auri watches as Rick steps back, head tilted. Distance doesn't make him safer, less of a danger to her, and she knows the gesture cuts both ways.

She keeps studying him as he gives her a name. Names have power. Not quite the sort that stories give them, full of rigid control. The words people say are echoes of true names, their power vastly diminished but still real. Rick seems at home in his. "Auri. I used to have another,
but it got far too heavy and someone gave me this one."

Oddly, she calms down considerably while introducing herself.

Is it strange that that makes sense to him? His own name is heavy now, a weight on his shoulders that carries responsibility, guilt and numerous other things he never asked for. It is what it is though. He can't change his name at this point. Not just because of his son and daughter, but also because it's all he has left of what once was.

He can tell that she seems to ease into the moment with the introductions and he's glad for that.

"Auri's a good name. I'm guessin' you haven't been here all that long, like me and my son." It's an assumption, of course. But it's one he feels safe making since the both of them still seem to have that fish out of water feel to them, both of them entirely too skittish for the comforts this place has to offer.

Auri is good at making a sideways sort of sense. Most of the things she says will be odd, but only the literal-minded get completely mired in their efforts to sift through it.

"Not long. But the city has already shifted to make space for me. I didn't mean to ask for that. It answers questions whether you voice them or no."

"I think most places change to fit who's in them." Which, strangely also makes a kind of sense to him. Of course he's also trying to draw out the conversation a bit just to assure himself that Auri is alright and doesn't need any kind of help. So far so good.

He shrugs a bit. "Although I've been in a few where I didn't fit, so I know it happens."

"Most people change places to suit them. It isn't the choice of the world, to twist as it's bidden, sometimes out of tune with its nature. Here, only a whisper-thin thought might be heavy enough to do the same damage. I try so hard to walk lightly in the world."

But even she thinks selfish, wicked things sometimes.

"There are all sorts of places I don't fit, but that's just how they are. It isn't for me to change them." Auri fidgets very briefly with her skirts, clearly ill at ease again. Her bare toes curl against the pavement underfoot.

Rick shrugs and nods in concession. He can't really argue with that since he's been in places where both statements are the truth. And he's not one for arguing over trivial things anyway. It's yet to be determined if the state of his world was man-made or a natural progression of things. Although the last bit of what she says is kind of confusing to him. Rick is a very logical, straight-forward sort of man. Outside of that, words can only go so far with him.

"It's been my experience that sometimes you have to force change to make a better world. You have to fight for it. But that's probably a different story for a different day." He's well aware, from the very few conversations he's had here, that people are either from worlds not quite so horrible as his own or from worlds with a different kind of horribleness that they can't fight. Everyone has a different story to tell and he doesn't presume to think his is the only one, the only experience. Auri's is probably very different from his own. Rick has learned that walking lightly in the world only gets you stepped on and taken advantage of... or killed.

"So far, seems this world doesn't need much changing." He says, glancing around the main area. At least compared to his own, it seems very calm and peaceful. It's normal as Rick used to define the word in what feels like lifetimes ago. "Guess time will tell."

"A better world for you, or a better world in general?" An important distinction, and a question that shows she's probably had far too much experience with men who focus on the former.

"It's subjective, unless you can see the proper shape of things. I can't think of anyone I'd trust to shape the world." There's someone she loves enough to let him and help him, but that's different. She doesn't think Kvothe would always choose rightly. She just thinks that he's far too important to her to deny him what he needs.

Dean spends a lot of time working on the Impala. For whatever reason, when she showed up here, she wasn't in the greatest shape. He generally waits until evening most of the time, popping the hood up to tinker with the car. Classic rock is always coming from the car radio. Sometimes Dean sings along, sometimes he just hums and occasionally he's silent. Afterwards, he'll often sit in the driver's seat, windows down, driver's door open while he drinks a beer and listens to music.

During one of the first evenings of doing this he catches a glimpse of blonde hair, but it's gone before he can do much of anything besides be certain that someone was there. The next night he catches that glimpse of hair again, but doesn't call out. He keeps working on the car. The next night, he has dinner out there while he's working, a hamburger and fries. He's humming along to the music, mouth full. There's grease on his hands (and on the food sadly to say, but just smudges from his fingers that didn't quite get wiped off well before he took a bite).

Classic rock is an entirely unfamiliar genre of music. Auri stops. She listens, and she isn't sure that she likes it, but she catches just enough of a taste before she flees that the sounds rattle around inside her until she's curious enough to creep close a second time. Then a third.

It isn't the food that gets her attention. Auri is hungry and hollow, but not so hungry she'll take anything that is so clearly claimed, covered in smudges from someone else's fingers.

No. It's the engine grease that gets to her, sparking more curiosity than the music did. The music, she has decided, has strong enough rhythm but not enough subtlety. She'll enjoy it in passing, or if she were feeling exceptionally brash herself.

Tonight she isn't feeling brash at all. Tonight she just focuses on what she smells. The scent isn't quite alchemical. Not familiar, not even after her classes or her years underneath the university. But it's the smell of something blatantly useful, and there's enough care and patience in his hands and joy in his voice that she gets a little too close, not able to flee quite so quickly.

Dean is doing his best (unwittingly) to remedy that. Classic rock should not be unfamiliar to anyone, as far as he's concerned.

If Dean were aware that she was hungry, he'd make sure he had something for her, but he's not even sure that she's human, just that she's quiet and there.

Engine grease does have a good smell and a good feel, as far as Dean is concerned. It's something comforting to him, something that soothes him. It probably has a lot to do with the memories tied to it and the emotions tied to the Impala itself. He sees her come closer out of the corner of his eye, not entirely sure what caught her attention, but aware that something has.

"I'm not gonna bite. You can come closer." He says it in a quiet, even voice, not looking up from what he's working on. "Name's Dean Winchester." Because he's given everyone else his real name here, might as well stick with it.

Auri doesn't come closer, but she doesn't run away, either. Progress, however incremental, is still progress.

She answer aloud yet, just peers at what small glimpse of the engine she can catch from her current vantage point. Curiosity is both a danger and a delight, Auri knows and biting is the least of the harm a man can do. She stretches up onto the tips of her toes for a better view, still small even with the added height.

Dean will take it.

She doesn't have to answer out loud. She's clearly interested in what he's doing. She's also clearly afraid of him. Dean smirks a little at the way she goes up on her toes. "You can come closer and look if you want." He goes back to what he's doing, tinkering with the engine.

She takes one small, tentative step, placing her bare foot carefully. Then a second step. Auri stays well out of arm's reach in case Dean turns from what he's doing.

She presses her hands against the sides of her legs for a second, smoothing her skirt and resisting the urge to clench fists in it instead. After all, her dress never asked to be treated so unkindly. It's a good dress, keeping her warm and dancing with her in the wind under the moon.

Under different circumstances with a different sort of person, Dean would stop what he was doing and turn his attention to the person in question. However, it's obvious that Auri isn't terribly comfortable with people. He wouldn't reach out to grab anyone he didn't know, not without reason though. In any case, he keeps his attention on the engine, eyes flickering to Auri then back to his work as the only acknowledgement of her presence.

She can watch all she likes. Dean is mostly just tinkering, occasionally wiping something on the engine or detaching some small part or wire to clean it and reattach it. He takes good care of the Impala, knowing she'll run much better if he does. He also does it as a labor of love and as a way to be close to his father. Some of his really good memories of his father are the ones that involve working on the Impala.

Dean handles Auri in precisely the right way. Paying her attention would only make her flee. Going about what he's doing and not talking to or looking at her at all is better by far.

It's a very long time before Auri speaks. She stands very still and very silent, perched patiently on the tips of her toes for longer than most people could manage. She doesn't move so much as an inch closer.

Finally she comes out with, "What does it do?" And more importantly, "What is its name?"

That would be correct. Auri has no idea what a car does or what it's called.

Edited 2017-06-15 20:05 (UTC)

He's a lot brighter about people than most would give him credit for.

He almost forgets she's there, but occasionally he'll cast a quick glance in her direction. For the most part, he hums along with the music and works on the engine.

His brows go up at that. "Usually I call her Baby, sometimes The Impala," Dean answers in response to the name question. No, he doesn't think it's unusual that she wants to know the car's name. It's not a question he gets asked a lot, but it makes more sense to him than her not knowing what a car is. He gives her a puzzled look. "The engine makes it move." Maybe she's used to some sort of electric car or something.

Auri mouths 'Impala,' clearly an unfamiliar word, though not even a whisper of it escapes her lips. She doesn't need to speak to feel the weight of the word on her lips.

And Dean's answer reveals how much he loves the machine, whatever it is.

"All machines make something move, or change." Her eyes flicker to the wheels. "It drives along the ground?"

Dean turns his attention to her for the first time, hands still on what he's doing, but ceasing moving for now.

It's the only real home he's ever known.

He narrows his eyes a little at her, really wanting to take her for a ride in the Impala (as it's clear she's never even seen a car, much less been in one), but not sure that she'd tolerate it. He nods at her. "Yup. Takes you wherever you want to go."

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A Shadow Underground

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