RP:Promise To Be Very Good
Part of the Laugh Now, Cry Later Arc
Summary: Hudson again encounters the mermaid Fairfax on the Cenril beach once more. This time, though, he comes bearing a gift for her: a diamond bracelet that grants her a pair of legs. Because what better way to signal to Cenril that he’s back in town by showing up to the Six Seasons Hotel Bar with a mermaid on his arm?
Beach, off the Cenril Boardwalk
Hudson treads out over the sand, past the boardwalk, to the place he’d seen the mermaid before. He’s a little later than usual arriving to her perch today, perhaps that’ll do the trick, as she’d not been here the previous evenings he’d checked. It’s darker at this time out here, away from the magical enchantments and candles that light the city. The ocean provides no natural light of her own, only darkness. Hudson holds a lantern in front of him, lighting his footfalls as he approaches the water’s edge and the piece of washed up driftwood that has yet to be cleared away.
Fairfax isn’t to be found, like she hasn’t been found for a few days now, her capriciousness keeping her away over any real reason. Seaborn affairs have been quiet for the most part, the krakens sated, the selkies content, the mermaids … less vengeful, but not particularly peaceful. Fairfax keeps Hudson waiting for a good ten, fifteen minutes before she finally appears, surfacing in the light cast from the lantern across the water, illuminating her in a soft (and, let’s admit it, flattering) glow. She swims closer in that beam of light, but not close enough to beach herself, yet. “Hi,” she calls softly, alerting Hudson to her presence, if he hasn’t noticed her arrival yet.
Hudson finds the driftwood perch - the literal piece of trash that has now become a sort of Official Mermaid Welcome Center in his mind - deserted, as he had the night before. He slowly lowers himself to sit in the sand, settling the lantern beside him and gazing up the length of the beach, also deserted. It’s late, after all. And after hours things go bump in the night sometimes in Cenril. Though Hudson has little fear of that, he’s one of them. That thought keeps him warm like a fire. He recalls the nervous reaction of the feline busker he’d met out here on one of his trips to wait for the mermaid. She’d played him a beautiful song, though, hadn’t she? Found the string labeled pain drawn over his heart and plucked it. He tries to remember how the melody had gone but can’t. He doesn’t think he got her name either. Ah well. Music would have been welcome, but the darkness and the solitude is its own catharsis. … He doesn’t expect Fairfax, and probably wouldn’t have lingered much longer, but there she is, like a backlit mirage. “Hi,” his tone sounds in surprise. “I’ve been looking for you, but you’re a busy woman. You got another guy you’re meeting on a different beach?”
Fairfax treads water for a few seconds as Hudson greets her, and she lets a lazy smile pull at her lips because it’s a good hello and it plays to her vanity. She snorts in soft amusement and disappears below the water, dipping out of sight before she emerges again at the driftwood perch. Her movement, here at the shoreline, becomes a bit less fluid and graceful, and more concentrated with effort as she hoists her weight from the water to perch atop the flotsam. The bit of wreckage bobs and tips precariously, but she presses one hand down flat on the other end and distributes some of her weight there until it rights itself and her position becomes less tenuous. “Another?” she laughs, enjoying this question, perhaps more than she should. “Mm, maybe,” she answers noncommittally, but it’s light and lacking malice. “Like you have walker women who live in your walker houses and have walker children, maybe. I -know-. I hear things.”
Hudson picks up his lantern when Fairfax disappears, searching for her in the darkness of water, but there she is a beat later, her hair slickly pinned back against her skull, perching on the driftwood. Her teeth glitter when she laughs. “Yeah,” he grins right back at her. He licks his lips, dry from the wind and the winter, and is about to make a joke about having to kill the other guy, but she steals his thunder. Obliquely mentions his family. His turn to laugh. “Yes,” he concedes. “I am married and have children. I’m here, but they live in Chartsend, far away. Do you know where Chartsend is?” He reaches into his pocket and withdraws a slim jewelry box, which he holds up for her to see. “I brought you a gift, I hope it makes up for my having walker houses with walker women and children.” Inside the box is a delicate tennis bracelet made of square cut diamonds. He’d wait for her to approach, holding is hostage to get a better look at her up close before letting her have it. “Don’t put it on just yet. It's special. I hope you don't already have one like it.”
Fairfax shakes her head when Hudson questions her about Chartsend. It's not near any waterway she's heard of or has access to, and her explorations on human foot have been few and far between, speaking generously. Hudson succeeds, immediately and totally, in redirecting the conversation, and Fairfax immediately slides off the driftwood to half-lunge, half-plead for the gift. He also succeeds in keeping it away from her as her tail is a bit more cumbersome in the shallows. Her tail flicks and arches, splashing and stamping her annoyance into the water like an impatient child, but her expression changes when he reveals what is inside the box. She snatches it when he lets her, bringing it very close to her face to examine the way the lantern light bounces off each stone and creates a glittering pattern on the sand below. "No, not one like this." She offers him a wide smile, pleased with the gift, and never one to not project her immediate reaction to any given stimulus. "You can put it on me, then." She hands it back and presents her wrist to him, since, from eying it, she thinks that is most likely where it is supposed to go.
Hudson watches Fairfax’s face light with curiosity as she brings the diamond bracelet close and examines it. He wonders if he should feel it’s inappropriate to buy a strange mermaid a tennis bracelet. If it were a woman he’d met at the Six Seasons hotel bar, or at the Office, he would. But this half-woman, half-fish, whom he assumes will never have another chance in her life to receive a tennis bracelet from a man: it feels like a kindness. (His comment about her already having one just like it … a joke, just like his comment about her meeting another man on another beach.) More than kindness, he reflects, watching the pleasure suffuse her poreless, perfect features (the beautiful and deadly features of an apex predator): he’d known her Before, and it feels permitted, indulgent. It’s a feeling not like the one he has felt in the past when he resolves something for a certain red witch … who presently was taking shots at him in the press. No, he’ll deal with her another time. He takes the bracelet box back from Fairfax and carefully extracts the delicate bracelet from the hooks that held it securely. “Are you sure?” he asks her, threading the diamonds around her wrist but not yet securing it. “When you clasp it,” he explains, indicating the clasp, “It’s supposed to turn you into a human - a walker. An illusion.” He grins at her. “For the party. Remember?”
Fairfax scoots a little closer on the sand to where Hudson is situated so he can have better access to her wrist. "Of course I'm sure," she interrupts blithely, but pauses when he does to show her the mechanism. Her eyebrows furrow in momentary confusion, and then perk, as do the corners of her lips. "Walker legs!" she exclaims with just a bit too much enthusiasm. Visions of land-hunting for support dance in her mind's eye. Thankfully, she knows nothing of jail, so any delusions of grandeur she might have as one of the tops of the food chain remain intact. She lifts her gaze from the bracelet to look at Hudson again, briefly studying his features before letting a feline-esque smile pull harder at her lips. "I love it," she purrs, rewarding Hudson's generosity with a toothy smile and a few content flicks of her tail. "Is the party tonight?" She reaches up to touch his lapel, letting her fingers dance along where the material meets flesh. "I promise to be very good at your walker party. I promise."
Hudson soaks up Fairfax’s purr of approval. Her enthusiasm is genuine, childlike, almost, in its purity. He studies her, wishing he could explain to her, without being boring, how much it cost, how fine the stones were, all the efforts he (well, his assistant Joanie) had gone to in order to get her this bracelet. All that she knows is it glitters beautifully. It’s not the most extravagant or expensive piece of jewelry ever, but it’s beautiful, and any of the single girls at the Six Seasons hotel bar would read a lot into such a gift from Hudson Landon. But Fairfax is a mermaid, and in her mind no doubt it’s just a gift she got for being beautiful, nothing complicated. The secret scandal of giving a woman a tennis bracelet and her just thinking it’s Rather Nice is a hilarious thrill. She touches his lapel, asking about the party, Hudson chuckles opposite her. There is no party tonight. Not really. But maybe … Maybe if one’s a mermaid, the hotel bar at the Six Seasons seems an awful lot like a party. He lifts his eyebrows. “Maybe a small party,” he says, studying her. “Are you ready? I’m going to give you my coat after this, OK?” he asks, and waits for her nod of assent before bringing the clasp bits close … and fastening them.
Fairfax watches Hudson now as he speaks, explaining what he is doing, the small party, the confusing and imminent transfer of clothing items. He's older than she remembers and she has to think about how long it's really been since she's last seen him. It was during the assault on Cenril by the Seaborn which was really a great deal of fun. Maybe a kraken could flood the streets again so she can explore as she did before. Although, really, Hudson is proposing and producing a very amenable alternative. She could just walk around the city. She waits for him to clasp it, giving him permission by just urgently flicking her tail back and forth until it is finally fastened. The change isn't immediate, but a mist oozes from around and within her tail, dissipating seconds later to reveal a set of very human legs attached to an unchanged human torso. She grins at them and splashes them around a little in the shallow. "So funny," she muses, kicking a bit of water around, amused by the image of the legs in place of her muscly, glittering tail. "I will have to remember how they work. It's been some time."