RP:Bitter, Right Down To The Marrow

Part of the Laugh Now, Cry Later Arc

Summary: Hudson arranges a discreet meeting with a medium, Cesaria. He presents her with a broken femur belonging to Valrae, the Red Witch, from her first body, the body that was burned to death in Larket. Cesaria confirms for him what he had feared: that any medium feeling for a ghost among the bones of Valrae would find none, would instead know that her soul still lived. And moreover, that maybe she wasn’t the first to have checked ...

A Room in the Hanging Corpse, Vailkrin

Hudson had wanted discretion so he’d left Cenril. His right hand man, Milo, had heard of a woman in Vailkrin who could speak with the dead, and so a meeting had been set, and Hudson and a small entourage had loaded into carriages with tinted windows. On the way there, Hudson and Milo had soaked in a mutual silence, marinating in the particular memories associated with their destination. It had been in Vailkrin that Valrae had told him, many years ago, that she’d miscarried his child. He probes the memory, recalling vividly the bitterness that had overtaken her expression when she’d realized his relief. They’d met in the square, he recalls, as they quit the carriage to make their way into the Hanging Corpse. The meeting is set on the second floor, Milo had arranged a room. They arrive first: only Hudson and Milo stay on to await the woman. Milo passes the time pouring themselves drinks from the mini bar while Hudson loiters nearby, eyeing the room’s rather graphic art collection with a barely suppressed amusement.

Cesaria had almost declined Hudson Landon’s invitation to meet. Still a relative newcomer to the continent, she had not yet learned those names which it behooved everyone to learn, and, more materially relevant, Cesaria now wanted for nothing and had become allergic to any work that struck her as mundane. Mr. Landon’s man had been vague about this job, but in her experience the living yearned for the beloved dead. For a woman of her gifts, nothing could be more banal. Just as she had signed her polite rejection letter, she happened to mention Mr. Landon to the man who made income and work so very boring for her. ‘Huh’ he had said, his expression vague, and his tone piqued more than he had intended. Saying nothing, Cesaria tucked her rejection in her desk then spent the following morning researching Hudson Landon’s name through channels both formal and informal. At lunch, she burned her rejection letter in the fire and rewrote a letter that would set her on the path that carried her here, to this overly-cozy room with lewd furniture and two strange men. Silas, a vampire bodyguard, accompanied her. The vampire knocked on the door, scanned the room, then waved for his charge to follow. She wore a black, expensive wool coat, ruby studs, and knee high, stiletto-heeled boots. Hudson’s quiet command of wealth and power had its own gravitational force, and there was no mistaking him for Milo. “Mr. Landon, kind of you to travel so far.” He was much younger than she had imagined, and this fact made her wonder if the stories about him were true.

Hudson and Milo, now drinking the minibar’s finest scotch, both quietly appraise Silas as the vampire bodyguard vets their surroundings and waves Cesaria in. Smart of her to pack some heat, as it were, otherwise they’d be tempted to ensure that she enter in a nondisclosure agreement of a more permanent, deadly nature. Cesaria herself is much younger than Hudson was expecting, though like her, he doesn’t voice that observation. He merely grins at her. “Cesaria. Kind of you to take the meeting,” he says, and after shaking her hand, he drops himself into one of several wingback armchairs that faces a coffee table. “I’m sorry the decor in this room is awful,” he gestures around them. “Definition of edgelord.” He gives her a disarming smile, and then nods at Milo, who likewise joins them around the coffee table. “This is my guy, Milo, he’s the one who wrote you,” explains Hudson, as Milo reaches into his coat pocket to pluck free a small parcel wrapped in red satin, which he poses on the table before Cesaria. Hudson gestures at the package. “This is who I want to talk to,” he says. It had been very difficult to come by, and it’s entirely possible that it’s a forgery, but as far as he knows, it contains a broken femur taken from the bones of red witch Valrae Ivy Baines Older. After she was burned at the stake in Larket. Hudson doesn’t explain that her soul had been transplanted to a new body, that she’s still alive. He cants his head and gazes at Cesaria expectantly.

Cesaria shrugged out of her coat and handed it to Silas. Beneath she wore a wine colored, drop-waist dress with black lace details, very Vailkrin chic at the moment and expensive due to the fad more so than the material. She dropped into the armchair across the table from Hudson as he charmed her early on with a well-placed joke that elicited a knowing smile. “No comment,” she said in a parody of diplomacy, then nodded to Milo to welcome him to the table. Silas, a bit of an edgelord himself as vampires were wont to be, preferred to intimidate anonymously. The parcel’s size yanked her expression into a wary frown. “What is this?” she asked with a hint of accusation. Despite her reaction, she unwrapped the satin. “I typically have a whole body to work with,” she explained. The charred femur inside did not disturb her peace the way the box had. She touched the black bone gingerly and after a few seconds her gaze tunneled, pupils dilated and panned left and right slowly, tracking something which Hudson could not see. “Is this a fake? A fake bone?” she asked without breaking her concentration. “Some test?” Just as Hudson, or Milo, took a breath to answer, she cut in abruptly, “No, this is real. There was someone attached to this once. But…” Her head canted to the side and brows pinched in confusion. “I’ve never seen this before. ...Hard to explain,” she said. “Picture the depression a body leaves on a well worn mattress. It’s like that. All I can say is the absence is clear, and very sad, and angry, and… betrayed? Bitter, right down to the marrow.” She withdrew her hand from the bone and the doe-eyed brown of her eyes returned to her stare. “What do you know of this person? Who were they? I cannot see them, just the pain that soaked into their bones. Her bones. The pain feels distinctly female. Men do not suffer like this.”

Hudson and Milo do not resemble edgelords. They are both in jeans and sneakers. Milo is wearing a shearling jacket, and Hudson, for his part, is wearing a leather one, cut in a classy dad fit, over a golf shirt. As Cesaria examines the small piece she is given of the former Valrae Ivy Baines Older, and notes that normally her work requires a bit more, Hudson shoots Milo a certain. “How was I supposed to know, boss-” Milo can anticipate the criticism, but Hudson waves him silent. Inadequate job site or not, Cesaria’s demeanor has changed entirely. She feels something. Now it’s Milo’s turn to exchange a meaningful look with Hudson, who pretends not to see it. He watches as Cesaria lays the words ‘sad’, ‘angry’, ‘betrayed’, and ‘bitter’ at his feet. He feels them sink into his skin, and he thinks about the blond woman who had tearfully confronted him not far from here, about how he always put his family first. ... Had he always? Men do not suffer like this, Cesaria says. He smiles a mild smile, showing his teeth to her. “I don’t know anyone who’s suffered like her, probably,” he says. He reaches for the femur, re-wrapping it in its satin case. “She’s someone who’s supposed to be dead.” He meets Cesaria’s eyes, the implication hanging between them. “You’ve got quite a party trick, don’t you?” He lifts his eyebrows. Milo is sliding a large coinpurse, certainly a great deal larger than the agreed upon amount, in fact twice that amount, across the coffee table. Hudson nods at it, indicating that Cesaria and/or Silas should take a gander at the generous contents. “Cesaria,” says Hudson, his gaze pivoting from the cash to her once more, “Say, if anyone ever tried to show you this woman’s bones - not necessarily me, but maybe me, you know, if necessary. If a situation arose. If you were asked, if this woman were alive or dead, you might say …” his hand stirs the air expectantly.

Cesaria smiled stiffly as Hudson referred to the woman who suffered the most. Ah, so he did know her, a fact which did not surprise Cesaria who also suspected the woman who suffered was dear to him. This was no act of precognition on her part. Her certainty was rooted in experience. No one had ever come to her to speak to the dead they did not love. Cesaria accepted the coin, appraised it and quickly realized her tip exceeded the norm and that the sum bought a tacitly implied, second service. Aha! Suddenly the fog lifted and she understood why a gangster made a trip to Vailkrin to meet with a medium whose answers he did not seek, but whose gift threatened something dear to him. She smiled broadly at Hudson, her eyes feigning ignorance of the unspoken as she said, “Oh she is very much dead, Mr. Landon. I can only see the dead.” As she gathered her things to leave, her third sight settled on a new revelation that punched her in the gut. Standing halfway between the coffee table and the door, Cesaria froze and looked over her shoulder at Hudson. “Who else have you shown that to? I feel other eyes upon it, sleeping eyes, fates that have not yet awoken but when they do, they will know about the woman who is ‘supposed to be dead’,” she borrowed his phrasing. She shrugged helplessly. “If I see more, I will write.”

Hudson exchanges one broad smile for another as Cesaria very clearly gets his drift. “I happen to know a lot of dead people,” he says in a certain playful manner. “You and I could do a bit of business together. Though maybe next time in Cenril, I’m buying the Six Seasons hotel there. It’s luxurious but also, not so … you know.” Hudson waves at their surroundings and grins. True to character, Hudson always sees the advantage of having a witch or witch-adjacent woman in his pocket. In any event, with their business concluded, he nods to Milo. The lycan men get to their feet, waiting politely as Cesaria and her man Silas do the same. Hands are shaken. Goodbye pleasantries uttered. It would all be unmemorable but for Cesaria’s parting observation, that she’d felt other eyes on Valrae’s bones. That revelation chills him, though it doesn’t surprise him. “No one on my end, but I bought it from some unsavory people,” he says, exchanging a look with Milo that communicates a confirmation of their worst suspicions. “I doubt I was the first person approached.” He nods at Cesaria’s offer to write. “Please do. I love good information, and you seem like you have a talent for seeing a lot of it.” He gives her a boyish grin, baring his teeth, and opens the door for her and Silas. “Hey, it was nice meeting you,” he says indulgently. He waits for them to leave before returning back inside, to confer briefly with Milo before they make the trek back to Cenril.