It had been said that when Angus put on a three-piece suit, he looked like a young man of twenty. Angus was aware of this because he had been the one to say so and that had been his express reason for wearing such suits when he went out on a school night. He had no curfew to speak of but he dearly wished to avoid being spotted by well-meaning barkeeps and having his fire water watered down. It was an entirely unfounded slur against the student body, to assume that they were rowdy after the consumption of alcohol. Some of them just fell over.

Angus was made of stronger stuff than that.

The bar was quiet, the throbbing pulse of the Stacks had slowed to a weak thrum with the continued onslaught of the rainy season. It was only desperation that kept Angus venturing out into the rain. He needed to get away from campus living every few nights, the austerity of the whole place bore down on him like water from a broken dam. Even a near-silent bar was an improvement. There were no expectations, save that he pay his tab. He could do what he wanted.

Admittedly, he had hoped for more than sitting at a stool but it wasn't as though Brunnhold-proper had many tall stools. The wood of the bartop was cherry red, like his father's desk at home, full of whirls and whorls that he could trace with his index finger. Behind it where a thousand bottles in a thousand colours, though probably not from as many places. He could at least pretend that drinking foreign alcohol could give him a taste of the exotic. He would have tried a human bar but he was alone and he had heard about the recent unpleasantness.

Angus was not very welcome at human bars anymore. He was a fool, he reveled in his own foolishness but even he could tell when he was not wanted somewhere. He seemed to make the humans go sort of silent. Like formaldehyde in a jar of river water, everything just... Stopped.

At least the bar was warm and no one was telling him to wrack off yet. He wondered if this was the sort of moment you were supposed to use to engage the bartender in conversation. Talk about life.

And stuff.

Why was she there?

The question would occur to anyone who had a passing acquaintance with the reserved, sensible healer. A sensible galdori woman wouldn't be at a bar, alone, this late at night. So why was she?

Anyone who knew her well-- that is, any of her few close friends from her student days-- would know she was no friend to the straight and narrow. Temperance, abstinence, any strict denial, when taken to a brainless extreme, was as useless as pure hedonism. Those morals that did not benefit society as a whole did not belong in her pragmatic worldview. Even so, she was not as liberated as some-- logic and ethics were still her chain of choice.

Anyone who knew her as well as she knew herself-- perhaps a very observant close friend-- would know she had a pattern. During the course of every month, her moderation was slowly occluded by indulgence, and indulgence suddenly killed by sharp, blazing asceticism. Only she knew why.

But none of this explained why she was in that bar, alone, staring at an empty glass that once held a chilled Glorenn wine.

So why was she there?

She didn't want to know.

Angus was not one for drinking alone, nor was he one for letting others drink alone. He did not see Abeline at first but when he did, he saw her back. He saw a suit and shoulders rounded over. In the dim light of the bar he did not see her bun and thus assumed she was another bored soul like himself. Another him-self. So he decided that, in the interests of sociality, he would introduce himself.

He picked up his beer and walked himself across the bar, turning to look at Abe a moment after he had begun to speak.

"Hello good ch..." Angus' momentary loss of composure was short but uncharacteristic.

His eyes widened, just a little. He stiffened, just ever so slightly. It was only a great deal of practice that stopped him from dropping his beer. A voice was screaming inside him to keep his composure and be a godsdamned man, godsfucking damnit! He was a Worthing.

"Ma'am." Angus said, his voice a little higher than it had been, though it dropped slowly down as he spoke.

It is good to see you?
How serendipitous!
What are the odds?
Nice suit.
May I sit?

"Quiet bar tonight." Angus said.

Damnitdamnitdamnit! Of all the things to say!

Did he just.. almost.. call me a chap?

Abeline glanced down at her trousers, wondering what being a chap would be like. She suspected her life would have turned out exactly the same. Still conflicted about Moore, still floating irrationally from one hopeless aspiration to the next, still knowing far too much...

"It was until you broke the silence, madam." This was exactly what she would normally say, but her soft voice lacked sarcasm, and her weak smile lacked play. There might not have been any feeling present in her remark at all-- hollow words read from a hollow script.

What lived between her ribs? She could name each and every bone; she'd mapped the arteries, veins, and capillaries that flowed in her like tiny rivers, and she knew them as well as she knew the back of her hand. Follicle, epidermis, dermis, hypodermis, interossei.... What made the thoughts in her little grey cells? Could she change at all? Or was she merely an organic machine, built by chance to complete the same meaningless actions over and over again?

She turned her profile to the young man and eyed him askance, weighing her options. He did look young, so he was probably a student. Probably a student she'd treated at some point, too. He did look familiar...

The same anti-fraternization rules that applied to teachers applied to the healers as well. And for good reason. Thankfully, she wasn't here for that. Good heavens, no.

"But.. I suppose I didn't come here to be alone." A corner of her mouth dipped. There was still that lovely bottle of red wine back in her room.. her cave of books.. warm and quiet and safe.. and oppressively her.

Nodding detachedly, she tipped her glass to indicate the neighboring stool. "Feel free to sit."

Madam? Madam?

He was in a suit...



Angus did, no further words escaping from his throat and rising forth to embarrass him. He took a sip of his beer. She did not seem to be recognising him. He didn't know if he was pleased or disappointed. The single most humiliating and hurtful moment of his life and the only witness not directly involved couldn't remember it. It was an affront to his sense of self importance.

He supposed it should have occured to him earlier. Why would another person remember him after seeing him only once, even if it had been very important to him at the time? He glanced up at Abe, for a moment willing her to find him important enough to be memorable.

Angus realised this was one of those learning experiences he was supposed to have had years before. He was not the centre of the universe. Healer Ixbridge did not look particularly happy.

"Why did you come here?" Angus asked, curiosity prevailing over politeness, as it always did.

He had thought about her, long after thoughts of Simon had abated but he did not know anything about her. He knew that Professor Moore thought well of her. She had been kind to him.

Two things, what of the rest?

The healer returned to staring at her empty glass, unfinished thought-forms fluttering to roost in her cavernous skull. Far out of reach, they watched her with flashing eyes, a flickering constellation of secrets.

She hummed through her nose, waiting for a lie to craft itself and pass her lips. "To remember."

As the words flowed unbidden into the still air, a conflicted look trickled onto her features. Hesitation pulled her eyebrows low while nostalgia buoyed her wavering frown. "Yes..."

The cool white wine-- glittering like a clear brook, golden like the hills so far away-- it was gone, but in the glass still lingered the scent of oak and a drop of sweet intoxication.

"...just wanted a taste of what I once had." Languidly, she hunched over the thin glass and tenderly rubbed it clean with her loosened sleeve. "And you?"

This made no sense at all to Angus. Whoever drank to remember?

"I drink to forget." He said, trying to see past her eyes and into the truth of what she was saying.

He could no more see what was there than he could bear children. So he looked beyond it, trying to see what he could from the slope of her shoulders and the turn of her mouth. She bent where Angus would have kept himself straight and tall. Her manner of expression was alien to him. He always had his deportment there as his shield. It seemed she did not feel the need to cover herself in this way. He could not read her, not in a way that would matter.

"It's raining and miserable, I'd rather blurr it out of sight." He took another sip of his drink. "How does drinking make you remember? The only thing I can remember after wine is where the all-night baked potato stand is."

He did so like baked potatos. The alcohol was warming him and he felt more free to ask Abeline questions. He wondered if asking enough would force her to remember him.

Abe chuckled, placing her glass back on the bar. "Up the road and hang a left. Or was it a right?" She waved a little to the bartender, and smiled sheepishly at the youth. "I think it's a left, unless they've gone and moved on me."

As she watched the liquid pour anew, refilling her glass, her smile waned. Lies were becoming truths, and truths were lies, and everything, all of her life was one sad, self-destructive pattern. Why did she ever trust at all? It never did her any good.

"It is not drinking, in general, that helps one remember," she lectured, pausing to swirl the wine and watch it undulate, "but the taste of one particular drink that might recall one to another time and place. Like.. eating a butterscotch will remind me of being six and in Vienda and badgering old Zachariah for more sweets. Or, for another example, once you're grey-haired and retired in Plugit, baked potatoes might remind you of the Stacks and nights such as this."

Zachariah Wentworth. Wentworth. Worth--why couldn't she get that word out of her head?

"This," she held up her glass, "is to a winery in Glorenn, where I spent some time," her voice cracked, "w-with a.. friend." She found herself studying the boy's shoes, then added, not looking up, "Here's to friends, eh?"

There were a great many things in life that sailed over Angus' handsome crown. The concept of ever feeling nostalgic towards Brunnhold was one. Having long and lingering feelings about a... friend was not. Angus knew love. He was good at it. He was in love constantly. Often with no target, he would just wake and feel it. Maybe Abe's love was fading but even if the paramour was gone, a shade remained.

Those old shadows, they hurt so good when they didn't leave you hamstrung and twitching on the ground. The past only ever became more interesting to Angus, the further it moved away from him.

"To friends." Angus said, raising his glass and allowing a short pause between the two words.

Angus wondered what he could contribute.

"This." He said, gesturing to his glass. "Is made in a brewery outside of Brunnhold. It is inexpensive and its finest quality is that it damages your ability to taste so quickly that you forget how bad it is and where you left your shoes."

He hoped he was lightning the tone of the evening. Angus thought that maybe Abeline would like that but he didn't know. He sort of fell into the habit of lowering the standards at social occasions.

After sipping to the toast, she looked up, the light of recognition in her eyes.

"Ah, Master Worthing, is it?" she ventured. "I recognize your singular wit. That is, if I am indeed correct. If not, then I have met your twin, for you look like him, too..." Glad for the change in topic, she smirked teasingly, "Older if no more mature."

She remembered the incident. How couldn't she? He was her first bawling patient. There had been worse after him, much worse, but there was always something special about the first. Like in other areas of life...

"Enough of this," the healer said to her glass, glaring at it disapprovingly. "You have saved me from a grave error, my boy. Clearly, I need something with more alcohol than taste."

Downing the wine in one go, she simultaneously waved to the bartender. She coughed and laughed a little. "I'll have whatever he's having!"

So, this was how it felt to get what you wanted. Slightly more mortifying than he'd expected. Angus found himself shrinking slightly, cowed like a younger and more rabbit-like version of himself. She remembered him. A little too well.

What did she mean? he was incredibly mature now! Wasn't he? He was in a bar chatting to strangers and drinking beer. He was a gentlemen. His cufflinks were silver, for Alioe's sake. She'd also said he was witty. He could not tell if that was a compliment or a joke at his expense.

He needed a moment to recover. Angus was not often embarrassed so it came as a surprise. He had to remember how to deal with it, the horrible reddening of his cheeks. Normally words were like water, rolling off a duck's back but it seemed he wasn't a duck today. What was he instead? A drowned and hapless parrot, maybe.

Angus wanted Abeline to like him, even if Harper liked her more than him. He wasn't annoyed about it anymore. Mostly, he wasn't. A small and persistent part of Angus missed his mother and when she hadn't been there for him, couldn't have been there, Abeline had steadied him.

Please like me. He thought. I'll try to be good, just please like me, I grew up. I'm not who I was then.



Her eyes were off him and took a silent, quick breath. The tumbling prattle in his head began to slow and his wit returned. His shoulders raised and rolled, his poise renewed. He was ruffled but presentable now. Still nervous but it didn't show as badly as before.



Now they were moving onto his home territory. Surprised delight blossomed on his face. Where there was drink, there was Angus. He knew all about it.

"Two pints of Old Jorgen's!" Angus said, raising two fingers in the air and enjoying the expression of horror on the bartender's face.

Jorgen's was awful, so awful you had to drink it fast and move onto the next. The perfect drink to get you drunk and bless its heart, it was cheap. The name even sounded like the noise you made the morning after consuming it.

Jawwww-GENS!

She didn't really know Angus Worthing--she'd had lengthier conversations with her teapot, after all--but she knew enough to feel safe. He wasn't the sort of young gentleman who lured ladies away from their.. well, alright, so she didn't have someone to be lured away from. So what. There was still her virtue (what was left of it) to protect. More importantly, she had to maintain a reputation of being benign around the elite's children. Which she was. So there was nothing at all wrong with this.

Besides, he's got neither books nor glasses on his person--

The Jorgen's arrived, and she held hers with two hands. The crystal stein, while outclassing the contents, was also a bit big for her, making the logistics of transporting the fluid to her internal systems a feat of biological locomotion somewhat beyond the engineers within her addled head. Still, she made the attempt, and got about half way. Nothing spilled, at least.

"Sooo.. How've you been? I've been wretched," said she, quite truthfully. "I need to hear good things. If that means you need to make something up, please do."

At this point, she didn't want to care about the truth. She'd rather molest a religious statue within view of a monk.

Actually...

Healer Ixbridge, now three glasses of very fine wine and half a pint of dog's piss past sense, leaned back on her stool and eyed the exit with a mischievous and calculating smile. Then, she returned to her stein, blinking with feigned innocence as she took an instantly-regretted sip.

"By the hounds of Bash, this stuff is awful."

It never pleased Angus to hear that another person was feeling wretched, unless that person was Simon and he'd had a bad day. He didn't have to think far to find something good in his week but he did take a moment to sort out what might be the best thing to tell. He'd been given open licence to brag, which made him think that perhaps he should not.

"I started courting someone!" He offered, because it really was the thing making him happiest lately. "He's very sweet. Big eyes. He has a kind of otherly look about him, very clever and all."

Angus watched, biting his lip to keep from smiling too hard as Abe took another sip of her beer.



"Yes, it certainly is." He replied, sitting up straighter and pouring the entirely glass down his long throat, sculling quietly and quickly as a veteran drinker was able.

He put his glass down and shifted his jaw about, waiting for the aftertaste to fade just a little bit. It was like drinking old tea spiked with cedar wood or apple juice that had been left out in the sun and spat on by a leper.

"I think you need cheering up." Angus said, nodding along to himself. "I think, you need a pub crawl."

He'd caught her look at the door but did not quite know its meaning.

"It just so happens I am a very good host to such occasions." That and stumbling home. He was a great host to stumblings.

"Well..." the healer considered his offer, tipping her head back slightly. "Well, I don't see why not. Just.. not too much." She raised the stein to her mouth and finished it off, with only minor casualties.

"I--" Coughing, she snapped her starched handkerchief open and efficiently dabbed her chin. "I have a--" (another cough, and she replaced the kerchief in her breast pocket) "--a lady friend visiting tomorrow."

With a dainty sniff, she hopped off her stool and, with a sweeping gesture, motioned for Angus to lead on. "So, tell me about this clever boy of yours..."

Lady friend could only be a good thing. He was going to inquire about this lady friend at the earliest possibility. Angus stood and led them both to the door, opening it for Abe as a younger person was supposed to do for their elder.

"He's wonderful. He writes novels, he has dozens of them. Started when he was ten or so. He's greatly improved since then, of course." Alioe forbid Angus should court someone that had not. "He's quite timid. I have to try not to be too loud around him. He's one of those quiet types..."

Angus had such a fondness for quiet types. He liked trying to find out what was hiding beneath the silence. It was usually interesting.

They kept walking, stopping only once they had reached another student bar. It was cheaper, nastier and most importantly better stocked than the last bar had been. It was called the Spastic Monkey.

"... and he blushes when I hold his hand, it's just lovely." Angus finished with a sigh.

He had been talking for twenty minutes at least.

Abeline kept pace with the much taller boy, despite the amount of alcohol in her system. She was at that delicate stage of inebriation that limbered up the body and mind without dire consequences to either. Sadly, this juncture never lasted long. If she had more, she'd risk an unpleasant morning, yet if she stopped, she'd soon be back to her stiflingly conscious self.

"A writer?" At that, her relaxed expression turned to the special kind of nostalgia that was tinted with regret. However, it did not stay, and she returned her attention to the young athlete and his effervescence.

The healer was always examining the past or contemplating the future. Rarely did she pause to enjoy--or even notice--the present, and it was only times like these that she considered she might be missing something.

"He sounds delightful," she said softly, looking up at the clouds. The sky had ceased precipitating. "Balmy weather we're having.. I think I'd like to stay out here and enjoy it while it lasts. Do fetch something portable, if you'd care to indulge a lazy healer."

Angus didn't mind being the one to get the drinks, mainly because it meant he got to pick them. He did notice that Abeline had paused slightly on mention of Dawin's writerliness. He wondered if she had wanted to be a writer when she was younger. It was a very different path to the one she had taken.

He chose a white beer, not that he knew much about them. He'd tried it before and he'd found it to be refreshing. It had a strange name that he couldn't pronounce properly, so it took him a few minutes to order. He spent them flirting with the bartender. He was almost sad to go back outside again. It was so much quieter. He preferred to have sound and bustle around him.

"Beer, good healer." Angus said, handing her a glass. "I return, no worse for the wear."

Angus turned back to look at the pub again, ears perking at the sound of wild laughter that subsided slowly. He turned back to Abeline.

"So, who is the lady friend you're meeting tomorrow? May I ask?" It was a bit late for that but at least he'd made a mild effort towards politeness.

While Angus braved the bar, Abe continued walking, slowly pacing alongside a ledge. She closed her eyes, feeling the spring air move pleasantly over her face and hands. To experience more of it, she rolled up her sleeves and undid the top button of her shirt.

A belated anxiety tickled her nerves; she was out in public, without any close friends to protect her. She really shouldn't exhibit any vulnerability. At the very least, that button would have to be redone. Grumbling, she leaned on the ledge and reluctantly regained her propriety. Even drunk, she couldn't completely loosen up around strangers. Good friends, absolutely.. but she didn't seem to have any of those any more. Even the people she thought she knew...

She strolled back toward the bar, humming somberly. It was a simple human song, neither polished nor elegant, yet it felt right for that moment. No other song would do.

And then, her humming turned to words, quietly at first and rather off key, "Oh, how I search for thee.. / Far across the sea; / Forest, mountain, fen / Searching night and day..."

When the door swung open, her singing abruptly stopped. The rhythm and words still played on her internal metronome, and her movements stayed in time to it. Will you sing again-- She nodded to him. --in my humble den? Her fingers curled about the glass. All your children-- She raised it. --have grown and flown away. And took a sip.

"Uh," she mumbled as she tried to parse what he said. The song and the conversation could not exist at the same time; one had to collapse, with the predictable mental snarl.

"She's.. Miss Theraldon. A painter and a colleague. She is the advocate for.. the research project I'm a party to." The healer looked away, adjusting her spectacles and frowning slightly. "Although, come to think of it, she doesn't seem to have much force of personality.. I wonder if the professor chose her simply because she's pretty and doesn't hate him."

There was a bitter slouch to the small woman as she imbibed more beer. Then, she swore, "Dammit, I need to climb something."

That sounded like jealousy to Angus, who imagined himself to be an old hat at reasoning where reason was not. He wondered if it was Theraldon that she was jealous for or if it was the wonderful professor and all his wonderful wonderfulness. Angus could at least see his own twinge of desire for what it was, even if he wasn't sure of Abeline's feelings.

Angus wanted to muss nerd hair. That was all and none of it. There were just some things in life you couldn't have.

It seemed that Abeline didn't want to take their discussion of Theraldon and her prettiness any further, so Angus let it go. He instead turned to thoughts of vertical advancement.

"There is a statue behin the pub, you know." He offered, quite wanting to see Abelin climb it.

"A statue?" She perked up at the news. "Delightful!" The healer quickly made her way to the back of the building, swerving like a sailor who'd never heard the word 'dry.'

Her ambulatory study in centrifugal force came to an end at what might generously be called a patio garden. At one time, perhaps, the well-to-do may have dined here, long before this Spastic Monkey seeped into the declined neighborhood. Red-brick walls lined the neglected space, and rosebushes, once blooming some untold color, had taken over. Years ago (though who could really say when?), a frost, or perhaps a drought, had killed the tangled plants, leaving only a carpet of brittle, prickly vines.

Not far into the thorny bracken, illuminated by the blue-hued moonlight, an elegant statue of Alioe stood upon her pedestal, arms poised openly in a gesture of giving.

It was rare that Abeline felt religious. The faith of others had never settled in her, for she moved continually; no house built on quicksilver could stand for long. Yet, even so, something gave her pause.. though, in her sloshed state, she couldn't for the life of her figure out what.

So she disregarded it.

The healer's glass wound up in Angus' hand. The dead rosebushes put up a fight, but Abeline soon felt herself hefting and swinging her way to the celestial bodies. Or up one such body, anyway.

Once at the top, Abe stretched out luxuriantly, lulled in the arms of a figure held sacred by the nation. She sighed happily and watched as clouds skirted the moon. Then, comparing the glowing orb to the marble face sinfully proximate to her own, the scientist smirked coyly. "Heavenly, aren't you, my Lady?"

Angus followed Abeline slowly, though much more steadily than she was currently managing. He thought they'd been matching each other drink for drink, which probably explained why she was feeling it more than he was. Angus was a habitual drinker, was far more athletic than Abeline and had the added benefit of being born a boy. He realised he was at least drunk enough not to stop her from climbing the statue, although admittedly he realised this after she had climbed it. He looked at their glasses in his hands. He finished his drink, then hers.

Then he climbed up after her.

"She looks a bit too stony for my tastes." He said to Abeline, quite pleased at his own attempts at making a pun. "I'll bet she doesn't put out."

Angus felt quite warm, limp-limbed and loose-tongued. He had not a care in the world at this height, he couldn't even find it within him to worry about the potential for a fall. He was Angus Worthing. Angus Worthing did not fall. He was a sex panther.

"I am a sex panther." Angus said, saying each word with careful, worldly consideration. "I never fall. From frigid statues."