✎ Fel's Creative Journal (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tinfoiltennis) wrote2010-12-06 06:47 pm
tinfoiltennis) wrote2010-12-06 06:47 pm
✎ chapterfic - hetalia/ebz - it was not meant that we should voyage far [2/?]
Title: It was not meant that we should voyage far. [2/?]
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia/Echo Bazaar
Characters: Every nation ever at one point or another. This part: Canada, America, Spain, Portugal, and a few random extras.
Rating: PG for this chapter.
Summary: An Echo Bazaar crossover AU. Fallen London: once capital of the British Empire, now home of the Bazaar, a mile underground and a boat ride away from Hell itself. Deep. Dark. Expensive. Marvellous. Here you can find everything from immortality, to unnervingly good mushroom wine.
Or so the stories go.
But stories can rarely be trusted, and all the wildest stories in the world couldn’t have prepared Alfred and Matthew Jones for what they would find when they descended into the fallen city on a journey that would lead them right into the heart of a rebellion against the Masters of the Bazaar themselves…
Word Count: This part: 5862.
Notes: The continuation of the long haul that started as my NaNo project for this year. :'> The title is from an HP Lovecraft quote, “We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.”
Warnings: General warnings: A crossover with a (very addictive) online game, a lot of speculation and elaboration on my part on the universe of that game, human!AU, the occasional bit of 1800s sensibilities, and later on in the fic, a lot of OCs. :’> This chapter: not so much really, except for NaNo quality writing and an OC.
✎ ✎ ✎
Has it really only been a few months since Mattie and I got down into this place? Somehow when I actually sit down to think about it all, it seems like it’s lasted a heck of a lot longer and a heck of a lot shorter than all that, all at the same time. A lot of stuff has happened since then. A lot of it is stuff I don’t really want to think about.
The one thing I’ve found out about Fallen London since I’ve got down here this: it’s amazing. It’s full of things that you’d never even dream of seeing on the surface, and there’s something exciting happening around almost every corner no matter where you look. It’s awesome and it’s like nowhere else that you’ll ever see.
But the thing is, and I didn’t realize this until it was way too late, but being awesome doesn’t mean it’s always gonna be great. London’s amazing, yeah, but it’s also cruel, and I don’t just mean that the streets aren’t really paved with gold, either. I mean, the city was stolen for some reason that no one still quite gets, and you could catch a boat ride to Hell here if you wanted to. That’s a sure sign that something’s not quite right, but when I dragged Mattie down here with me, I didn’t think about any of that. I mean, danger’s just a good part of any adventure, right?
And it wasn’t like the weird stuff – the Masters, the devils, even the Rubbery Men – were all that obvious when we got off of that airship near the docks. Back then, apart from the underground thing, it just seemed like any other really busy city.
Guess it just goes to show how much I knew, huh? We weren’t even there for one night before me and Mattie managed to get ourselves into trouble…
✎ ✎ ✎
It was the third busy port that Matthew had seen this month, and he was beginning to come to the conclusion that they all looked more or less the same; full of people trying either to arrive or to leave. People really did seem the same wherever you went, even halfway around the globe and a mile underground.
Alfred came up behind him and slapped his back jovially. “Ready to go?” he asked with a grin. “I can’t wait to start looking around!” He nudged his brother in the ribs playfully. “And you said we’d never make it here.”
“I didn’t say that!” Matthew protested weakly, but he couldn’t help smiling a little as he swatted his brother’s elbow away. “Where should we go first, though…”
“Who cares?” Alfred asked breezily. “Wherever we go, we’re bound to find something worth seeing, right?”
“Well, I guess so, but –”
“Oi, you two Yankee lads!” Surprised, the two brothers turned at the shout to see the friendly dirigible pilot waving them back over to his ship. The two exchanged a glance with each other before they followed the man’s gesturing, standing a little below where the aircraft was moored.
“What’s up?” Alfred asked, a chipper sort of curiosity in his voice.
“This’d be your first time down in the Neath, wouldn’t it?”
“Sure,” said Alfred. “What about it?”
“Thought as much,” the man replied with an almighty sniff. “You’ve both got that sort of surface air about you. If you want a bit of advice, lads, head for Veilgarden, a bit to the north-west of here. It’s a bit on the seedy side oftentimes, but it’s the safest place for newcomers to start finding their feet, you get me? Plenty of decent pubs and inns to stay at too round those parts and not too much risk of getting stabbed. Ask around for the Singing Mandrake, the crowd there are a good sort.”
“Singing Mandrake, got it,” Alfred nodded. “Thanks for the help, pops!”
“Yes, thank you!” Matthew chimed in, more than a little relieved to have gotten some concrete advice to start off with. The last thing he wanted to have happen was wind up completely lost a mile underground.
“Don’t mention it, boys. Just don’t call me pops,” the pilot laughed, tipping his cap to them as they turned back into the bustle of the docks and the city beyond.
“So, I guess we should check this Veilgarden place out, right?” Matthew asked, turning to his brother.
“Guess so!” Alfred agreed chirpily. “It’s a good a place to start as anywhere else, right? And I’m sure we can ask people where the really exciting places are if we head that way too!”
“Actually, Al, I was thinking more about finding a place to sleep tonight…”
“Sleep can wait!” Alfred declared loudly. He was clearly building up momentum for one of his excitable rants. “C’mon, Mattie, where’s your sense of adventure? A true traveler doesn’t sleep until he’s found something worth talking about first – whoa, sorry, ma’am,” he added, as he almost knocked awry a nearby woman’s load of something orange, slightly glowing, and a little sticky-looking. Matthew threw the woman an apologetic glance and swiftly grabbed his brother’s arm in an attempt to steer him in a direction where he would do less damage.
“Watch where you’re going, Al, please…” he sighed, feeling another headache building behind his eyes. “Besides, don’t you think just getting down here is something worth talking about anyway?”
“Yep. But there’s always something else,” Alfred replied with another huge grin, tapping the side of his nose in a knowing way. Matthew shook his head.
“You’re impossible, you know that?” he said with a wry smile.
“I think the word you’re looking for is awesome.”
“Whatever, Al.”
“C’mon, you know you’re thinking it! North-west is that way, right?”
Matthew glanced in the direction Alfred was pointing, a little in front of them to their left. “I think so,” he said eventually.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Alfred cried, grabbing Matthew’s arm and pulling him along as he broke into a run. “Let’s go already!”
✎ ✎ ✎
Matthew later thought that it was a miracle that they’d even managed to make it to Veilgarden in one piece with the way Alfred was driving them both along the streets at a breakneck speed. But, miracle or not, they did make it, both panting by the time they made it into a district that seemed more brightly lit, somehow, than the rest of the city that they’d seen so far. Matthew finally wrenched his arm out of Alfred’s grip when his brother slowed down for a second to take stock of where they’d arrived, and he leaned heavily on his knees, bending down to catch his breath.
“Geez – Alfred, could you have gone – a little slower?” he asked, gasping in great lungfuls of air. He looked up at his brother, a small frown of annoyance and exertion on his face. Alfred, who was in much the same state, grinned at him sheepishly.
“Sorry, there,” he said, still managing to sound cheerful about it. “We made it here fast though, right?” He straightened up and stretched slowly, glancing about at the street they now found themselves in. “This is sure different, huh?”
Matthew straightened up and found that he really did have to agree. Whatever was used to light the streets and alleyways of London and its buildings seemed warmer in this district, with more of a rose tone to the lights attached to the sides of the buildings. The streets – or this one, at any rate – seemed wider, too, wide enough for small stalls to have been set up on either side, selling small bottles of what appeared to be wine or bouquets of what looked like mushrooms to passersby. And speaking of the passersby, even the clothes people were wearing in this district seemed different; most of the members of the crowd were dressed in clothes that were colourful even if the material and cut was poor, and seemed to combine odd styles of coats and gowns with equally odd headgear – goggles of all shapes and sizes appeared to be popular worn over both the gentlemen’s top hats and the ladies’ bonnets.
“It’s definitely different to anything back home,” Matthew agreed. “I wonder where this Singing Mandrake place is that we were told about…”
“We’ll only know if we take a look ‘round,” Alfred reasoned. “C’mon, let’s go!” With that, he set off into the crowd with long, confident strides. Matthew sighed, pulled his jacket straighter on himself, and followed suit.
The journey through the streets was fairly uneventful; the two of them stopped to inspect some of the street vendor’s wares at odd points down the line, and at one stall, Alfred even picked up what looked like a meticulously arranged bouquet of mushrooms, the browns, greens and poisonous-looking reds painstakingly tied up with a ribbon as if they were freshly-cut flowers.
“A bouquet of mushrooms for your sweetheart!” said a voice, and the two brothers looked up at the stall vendor, who smiled at them toothily, flicking a stray strand of hair out of her eyes. “Freshly picked today, those were, sir! No finer ‘shrooms to be found in the whole of the Fifth City! And for you, sir, they’re only one Echo! Bargain price, sir, an absolute bargain!”
“Uh,” Alfred said, momentarily wrong-footed. “Sorry, but no thanks. I don’t even have a sweetheart,” he explained, and Matthew hid a smile behind his hand at seeing his brother looking uncertain. He couldn’t help being amused; Alfred was usually so confident that seeing a pretty girl take away some of that was simply funny.
“Now, ain’t that a shame!” the vendor exclaimed. “A handsome lad like you and no sweetheart, how’d somethin’ like that happen?”
“It’s not really anything like that…” Alfred started, then abruptly switched topics. “Say, how come it’s mushrooms you’re selling?”
“Well, what else would I sell? It’s not like there’s fancy flowers down here for people to give to each other, we just have to make do with what we have, don’t we?” she shrugged. “You from the surface or somethin’?”
“Yeah, my brother and I just got here this morning,” Alfred explained.
“Ah, that explains it. You two are new, you don’t know how stuff works here yet. Well if you’re not gonna buy them mushrooms, you put them back, you hear me? They’ll get all spoiled if you keep handlin’ them like you are.”
“Sorry,” Alfred said, putting the bouquet back among the other bundles of mushrooms before moving away.
“Is it really that obvious that we’re new here?” he said wonderingly to Matthew. Matthew thought for a moment, then shrugged.
“I guess our accents must give us away a little. And then we do look a lot like tourists, Al…”
“Explorers, Mattie.”
“Well, either way we look like we come from out of town,” Matthew pointed out.
“Guess so… hey, I wonder how far it is to this Singing Mandrake place still? I’m starting to get a little hungry.”
“We could always ask someone, Al…”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
“You’ve been saying that for the past half an hour and we still haven’t found it. If you don’t want to ask, I will.”
“… Spoilsport,” Alfred pouted.
“You want to eat, don’t you?” Matthew said with a small hint of annoyance starting to eat at his mild tone.
“Well, yeah, but…”
“Forget it, I’m asking,” Matthew said, rolling his eyes as he made his way over to a couple of men who were on the steps of a nearby building. “Excuse me?”
The two of them looked up almost at the same time, and for a moment Matthew did a double-take at how alike they looked. But on second glance, he could pick out differences; although the two were dressed similarly, the man on the right had green eyes, while his companion sitting on the stairs strumming a melody on the guitar in his hands had brown eyes, and his dark hair was significantly curlier than that of the other. There was no denying the kinship between them, certainly, but they weren’t as identical as they had first seemed.
“Si?” said the standing man curiously. His accent, while not thick, was undoubtedly Spanish. “Can I help you with something?”
“My brother and I are new here,” Matthew explained, deciding to be upfront. “Do you know the way to the Singing Mandrake? We were told it was a good place to stay for the night.”
“Of course!” the man beamed, and for a moment Matthew was reminded strongly of Alfred. “Everyone around here knows about it, it’s one of the most famous places in the city!”
Matthew and Alfred waited expectantly. When the silence started becoming awkward and it became clear that nothing more was forthcoming, they glanced at each other dubiously. Fortunately, before either of them could make the situation even more awkward by asking the stranger to continue, his companion spoke up.
“I think that they would probably like us to tell them how to get there, Toni,” he said as he silenced the strings on his guitar. There was an easy smile on his face as he looked up at the two brothers that seemed to say I’m sorry about him. Matthew could sympathise. “It’s not at all far from here, actually. If you take the next left you can cut down an alleyway that will take you almost directly there. Turn right when you come out of the alley and walk down the street for a while and you can’t miss it. The sign above the door makes things clear enough.”
“Thank you,” Matthew said gratefully, flashing the man a small but genuine smile. “We’ve been wandering around for hours now, so this was a big help.”
“Not at all,” he smiled in return. “Think nothing of it, I was happy to help.”
“You said you were new here, didn’t you?” the other man – had the guitarist called him Toni? – interjected. “How long have you been here?”
“Just got in today, actually!” Alfred cut in before Matthew could even open his mouth, clearly feeling left out and ignored in this conversation. “We’re not planning to stay here all that long, just a couple weeks or so while we have a look around.” The guitarist and his companion exchanged glances.
“Just to look around?” the brown-eyed man said. He almost sounded surprised, Matthew thought. “I never really thought about London being much of an attraction for tourists.”
“Well, there is a lot to see,” the other reasoned. “Veilgarden is nice enough at this time of year, and there’s the Tyrant’s Gardens and the palace – oh, and the Forgotten Quarter, although that’s a little dangerous –”
“The Forgotten Quarter?” Alfred repeated, homing in on the mention of possible adventure like a dog catching wind of a really interesting scent. “What’s in there?”
“They say that it’s the last remaining part of the city that used to be here before London,” the guitarist explained. “The one that was stolen before this. It’s mostly archeologists and scholars that go there, the ones that don’t mind the possible dangers.”
“It sounds like my kind of place!” Alfred said excitably.
“I wouldn’t recommend going there without a guide,” their informant warned. “When they say that it’s dangerous, they are not joking.”
“He worries a lot,” the other man explained helpfully, receiving a nudge in the ribs for his trouble.
“I worry just enough, thank you,” his companion said with a roll of his eyes. “If they’ve only just arrived here today, then they won’t know enough yet to stay out of the truly dangerous areas.”
“Well, then that just means we have to tell them!” he insisted. Matthew watched the exchange almost fascinated, and was struck by a fleeting sense of déjà vu. He wondered for a moment if his and Alfred’s conversations looked this way to the casual observer. “We’ve been down here for long enough, we can talk to them tonight about it.” The green-eyed man turned to them, an open, friendly smile on his face. “We go to the Singing Mandrake a lot as well. We could meet you there and tell you the places to go while you’re here and where you should avoid, everything like that. What do you think?”
“Sure!” Alfred replied, his beaming face easily matching that of the other man. “Sounds great, don’t you think, Mattie?”
“It does,” Matthew agreed, feeling more relieved and more grateful for the kindness of strangers than ever. “This really is a big help to us.” Or at least to him, he thought to himself privately. He might just have more luck keeping Alfred out of trouble if he had some advice from the people that lived here to draw on.
“Alright, then it’s settled,” the green-eyed man beamed. “My name’s Antonio Carriedo, by the way, and this is my cousin Luís Valdez.” He indicated the guitarist – Luís – with a wave of his hand, and the other man nodded at them.
“And I’m Alfred Jones, and this is my twin brother Matthew,” Alfred answered, giving Antonio’s outstretched hand a hearty shake. “Pleasure to meet you both!” He withdrew his hand and looked between the two for a second before speaking again, almost sounding thoughtful. “Say, not to be rude or anything, but you two don’t sound like you’re from London.”
“That would be because we’re not,” Luís smiled. “I’m from Portugal originally, and Antonio here is Spanish.”
“Seriously? What made you come down here?”
“Why does anyone make their way down here? Curiosity, for the most part.”
“Huh.” Alfred seemed to consider this for a moment, and Matthew hoped that he wouldn’t start asking potentially awkward questions. “Guess you can’t say fairer than that.”
“Thank you again for the help,” Matthew smiled at them both. “I guess we’ll see you later.”
“Of course!” Antonio smiled, giving a small wave as the two began to retreat back to the main bustle of the street. The two hadn’t gone very far before they heard their names being shouted behind them, and turned to find Luís squeezing his way swiftly through the crowds towards them.
“Something just occurred to me. A lot can happen in a couple of weeks,” he explained a little breathlessly as he reached them, looking thoughtful. “Especially in a city this large. Not to mention,” his smile became a little wry, “This isn’t just any city on the surface. London has unique dangers of its own.”
“Sure, but weren’t we going to talk about this later?” Alfred said, tilting his head a little.
“I might not remember to tell you later,” Luís laughed. “And it’s important that you know this, since we might not end up running across each other again while you’re here after tonight. There aren’t that many people you can trust down here, but if you end up in trouble, I know of somewhere you can go. There’s a pub down by the Wolfstack Docks that’s run by a friend of mine. The area itself is a little shady, but look for the sign of the Horse and Harp and ask for Brigid Kirkland. She’s the landlady there and she can be trusted.”
“Horse and Harp, Brigid Kirkland, got it,” Alfred said with a nod. “Can’t be too hard to find, right?”
“She is fairly well-known, yes.”
“Then we’ll keep an eye out for her,” Matthew assured him. “Thank you again for all your help.”
“Do you think we’re ever going to need to actually use that?” Alfred asked in a low voice as the two set off again down the street.
“You never know, Al,” Matthew replied as they took a sharp turn down an alleyway. “It’s better to be safe than sorry, right?”
✎ ✎ ✎
The bartender of the Singing Mandrake proved to be a jovial, slightly rotund man in his fifties who was more than happy to exchange surface currency for bed and board for the night. He was also more than happy to tell them that any and all of the wines and liquors in his apparently admirable stock were open to consumption by anyone who could pay for them, and that the two strangers were quite welcome to join the larger company that would be in the pub that night to abandon themselves to drink and the Singing Mandrake atmosphere.
Matthew would later admit that neither he nor Alfred had been quite prepared for everything that “the Singing Mandrake atmosphere” entailed. As the evening wore on (or at least, Matthew assumed that it was what counted for the evening down here, as the lamps both inside and out were changed for dimmer, softer lighting), more people began to spill into the pub. And as more people arrived, more alcohol started flowing, to say nothing of off-colour jokes, gossip and language that made Matthew blush behind his glass of beer. As an introduction to the bohemian section of the underworld went, it was certainly very… upfront. Luís and Antonio, who had arrived quite early on in the proceedings and claimed a small, snug table in the corner for their little party of four – for reasons that Matthew hadn’t quite understood at the time but certainly did a couple of hours after people had started arriving – seemed more amused by the American boys’ reactions than anything else. The noise, the sheer amount of people and liquor, the easiness and freedom of the crowd’s interactions with each other – it was all so different from anything either of the brothers had seen back in their own little corner of the world on the surface.
That included the wine, as they found out when the two Iberians had offered to buy a bottle for them to share between all of them while they talked.
“It tastes different, somehow,” Alfred had said doubtfully. “Not bad or anything, but… not as fruity. What’s even in this stuff?”
The Spaniard and the Portuguese had exchanged a knowing, mischievous glance with each other before Antonio had answered, with a wide, easy grin, “Mushrooms.”
Alfred almost spat out his mouthful of wine at that point. “Mushrooms? Again?” he demanded, aghast. “Geez, it’s like you guys are obsessed with them or something!”
“Grapes need sunlight to grow, you know,” Luís had replied, barely able to contain his laughter at both of the twins’ faces, which were the very picture of almost disgusted surprise. “Something that, as I am sure you’ve noticed, we are in very short supply of down here.”
“Well yeah, but still… mushrooms?” Alfred had said incredulously, by now eyeing the bottle of wine as if the aforementioned fungi were about to crawl out of the bottle and attack him then and there.
“It’s good though, isn’t it?” Antonio said, taking the bottle with a smile. “I think 1882 was a good year.”
“I still think you’re all crazy down here,” Alfred said flatly, and their two companions had roared with laughter.
After the initial dispute over the wine, the conversation had begun to flow easily. The two men were quite happy to answer any and all of Alfred and Matthew’s questions and explain in detail how to handle different parts of the city – steer clear of Spite after six in the evening, keep all bags and purses close no matter where in the city you were, try and make it to the shroom races if you can but watch out for the cutpurses and the marshes, and whatever you do, never, ever try any Black Wings Absinthe if it’s offered to you, the stories about what it does to those who are fool enough to drink it aren’t worth the risk. Rumours, advice, talk about the more notable inhabitants of the city – Luís and Antonio were certainly free with what they had managed to find out about the city while living there, and Matthew tried to keep careful track of anything that sounded as if it might be useful for later. However, as the night wore on, the beer and unnervingly good mushroom wine continued to flow and the chorus of singing around them grew more raucous and risqué, the conversation turned less to useful advice and serious matters and more to the common Veilgarden gossip. Matthew felt his head growing foggy and dim the more he drank, a pleasant, buzzing sort of warmth making its way through his body. He sat back in his seat with his glass held loosely in his hand, quite content to listen to the other three as they continued to make conversation between trips to the bar and the occasional break into song with the rest of the tavern’s patronage.
It was at some point when the night – or rather, the deeper night than the lamp lit half-light that they had experienced as the day here – was no longer young, and when everyone present had imbibed far more alcohol than was probably advisable, that one of the friendlier of the drunk bohemian crown made motions to his friends and waved his arms at their table.
“Hey, Luís!” he exclaimed. “So that’s where you have been hiding all night! Why haven’t you got up here and played us a song yet, eh?” Luís, who didn’t yet seem as drunk as the others at their little table – whether because he hadn’t drunk as much or because he was just more resilient to alcohol, Matthew wasn’t sure which – smiled and waved in return, rising to give a mock-bow.
“My apologies,” he said good-naturedly. “I’ve just been entertaining some friends.” He turned to the others at the table with an amused smile and said, “Give me a moment. This is a slight hazard of being well-known here,” and vanished into the crowd to talk more to the friendly bohemian. Antonio turned to the twins with a large beaming smile on his face, one that all of the liquor in his system had only seemed to enlarge.
“I was hoping they’d make him play,” he said happily, slurring his words. It was becoming difficult to make them out through his gradually thickening accent. “You haven’t seen Luís play yet, have you? He’s got a gift for it.” His voice sounded proud even through the drink.
“The guitar?” Matthew asked, remembering where they had met the two men earlier that day. Antonio nodded slowly, in a vague sort of way.
“Si,” he said slowly, and Matthew found himself hoping that Antonio wasn’t drunk enough to forget to speak in English yet. “But it’s not just that. Por supuesto he’s good at la guitarra – lo siento, the guitar, I mean – but what he’s really good at is singing.”
“He sings, too?” asked Matthew, wondering why he was so surprised to hear that.
“Of course he does!” Antonio declared. “He has a wonderful voice.”
“All right!” Alfred called out, slurring his words almost as badly as Antonio was. “It’s about time we saw some real entertainment here!” Matthew shook his head at his brother’s antics, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to be even a little annoyed or despairing with the contented feeling of well-being he was basking in at that moment.
Meanwhile, in the thick of the crowd, Luís had been handed a guitar by someone and was now sat on the table as he tuned it, swinging his legs a little thoughtfully as he did so. The crowd quieted down, drunk neighbour turning to drunk neighbour to shush one another as he tuned the final string and played a few experimental chords.
“What are you going to play us tonight, eh?” a woman in the crowd said.
“If I told you, wouldn’t that spoil the anticipation?” Luís replied teasingly, strumming another chord. “What would you like me to play?”
“Play us one of yer tearjerkers!” a voice from near the bar called. “C’mon, it’s been ages since you played us a good one!” There were nods and grunts or cheers of assent from the rest of the crowd.
“A tearjerker, hmm?” Luís pursed his lips. “I think I might know just the song.” He settled himself more comfortably onto his table, and a taut, expectant silence settled over the crowded pub almost unbelievably suddenly after the drunken noise that had been so prevalent only minutes before. Matthew found himself holding his breath without realizing what it was he was doing for a moment. Antonio leaned closer to the two Americans and said in a hushed voice, “Now you’ll see. He’ll have at least half of them crying by the end of it.”
When Luís started playing, Matthew could see what Antonio had meant. Later, he wouldn’t be able to describe it exactly, but the song began with a long, slow melody on the guitar, Luís’s fingers picking out the tune with all the skill of his art – not perfectly, but Matthew soon realized that perfection wasn’t the aim behind this music. It was the emotion behind it, the tiny thrill that ran up his spine as the notes began to sound throughout the room. But it wasn’t until Luís opened his mouth to sing that he truly realized what Antonio had been talking about.
Luís didn’t sing in English; instead, a slow, lilting language that Matthew supposed must have been his native tongue came out of his mouth, rich and strong as it filled the barroom. Matthew’s breath caught in his throat; while he didn’t understand the words, the meaning behind them somehow seemed to reach him, creating an image in his head of things lost long ago, a tight feeling in his chest that seemed to rise and fall with the music itself. He swallowed and glanced around the room; true to Antonio’s words, many of the patrons, both men and women, seemed to be fighting to hold back tears. He glanced to his right; Antonio had his eyes closed, concentrating on the music with a tight expression on his face, and Alfred was staring at some unseen point in the distance with an unusually serious look on his face, a faraway cast to his blue eyes.
Finally, after what seemed like both an age and only a few moments, the song came to an end, the last few notes almost seeming to echo through the crowded pub. There was a moment of silence before the sounds of cheering and applause exploded from the crowd, some of those who had been sitting rising to their feet. Antonio turned to Alfred and Matthew, a proud smile on his face.
“See, I told you he was something, didn’t I?” Matthew nodded dumbly, unable to find words; maybe it was just the amount of mushroom wine he’d been drinking, but he doubted it. It really had been something. Alfred, of course, was far more vocal with his praise.
“I’ll say!” he exclaimed, the seriousness from before forgotten in an instant. “That was awesome.”
“And that would be Alfred’s highest form of praise,” Matthew murmured quietly to Antonio as they watched members of the crowd call for another round of drinks from the barman. The Spanish man chuckled.
“I’m sure my cousin will be thrilled,” he laughed. He glanced at the empty bottle of wine on the table. “Do you want another drink?” he asked brightly, picking up the bottle and waving it at the two Americans.
“I guess it couldn’t hurt,” Matthew said after a moment, sinking back a little further into his seat. He’d had a bit much, of course, he knew that he had, but somehow that didn’t seem to matter. One more drink couldn’t possibly hurt in a pub this crowded, could it? At worst he’d just end up passed out in his chair. Speaking of, he was starting to feel a little sleepy…
Antonio had already moved to mill around at the already crowded bar to get another bottle of drink. It looked like he could be a while, Matthew thought, especially since most of the pub’s patronage seemed to have pipped him to the post. He let his eyes drift shut of their own accord for a while; at one point he thought he heard Alfred say something that he couldn’t quite catch. Whether he replied or not he wasn’t sure, but the next concrete thing he remembered was Antonio shaking him awake, a fresh bottle of mushroom wine in hand. Matthew blinked blearily at him, trying to shake the sleep out of his reluctant system.
“Sleeping already?” Antonio laughed. “Maybe another drink isn’t such a good idea after all, it might just knock you out straight away!”
“No, I’m fine,” Matthew replied, yawning widely on “fine” and trying to wake himself up slightly. Maybe he should go to bed. He lifted his glasses to rub at his eyes and frowned. Someone was missing. “Where’s Alfred?”
“I thought he was still here with you,” Antonio said, nonplussed. At that moment, Luís dropped back into his seat next to them, looking a little flushed.
“I hope you didn’t miss me too much in my absence,” he grinned, then stopped short at the look on Matthew’s face. “What’s wrong, Matthew?”
“Alfred’s wandered off,” he groaned, struggling to stand without swaying. “And knowing my luck, that means that he’s probably getting into some sort of trouble right now or worse –”
“Wait a moment. Calm down,” Luís said firmly, putting a hand on Matthew’s shoulder. “He might just be somewhere in the pub. It is fairly crowded in here tonight.” Without another word, he disappeared into the sea of people for a few moments more, and Matthew could catch sight of him talking rapidly with a few members of the crowd, each time receiving a puzzled look or a headshake in return. After a few minutes, he returned, looking troubled. Matthew felt the pleasant light-headed feeling recede even further than it already had, to be replaced by a much less pleasant, and sadly far more familiar, feeling of worry in the pit of his stomach.
“He’s –”
“Not here, is he,” Matthew finished, a rising horror in his voice. Luís nodded, his expression grim.
“No one I asked has seen him in here for the past ten minutes. Someone said that they’d seen someone matching his description going outside not so long ago –”
“Outside?!” Matthew repeated in a voice that was barely below a shriek. “He won’t last ten minutes with how much he’s had to drink!”
“Neither will you if you go after him alone,” Luís said with a frown, grabbing Matthew around the waist – for he had indeed been trying to make his way towards the door to go after his brother. “If you must go looking for him at this hour, at least have somebody with you. You can barely walk straight as it is.”
“But –”
“Maybe we should go now, Luís,” Antonio said, looking uncharacteristically serious, especially considering the amount of alcohol he had imbibed that night. “If we don’t, Alfred may end up becoming the next Drownie.”
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia/Echo Bazaar
Characters: Every nation ever at one point or another. This part: Canada, America, Spain, Portugal, and a few random extras.
Rating: PG for this chapter.
Summary: An Echo Bazaar crossover AU. Fallen London: once capital of the British Empire, now home of the Bazaar, a mile underground and a boat ride away from Hell itself. Deep. Dark. Expensive. Marvellous. Here you can find everything from immortality, to unnervingly good mushroom wine.
Or so the stories go.
But stories can rarely be trusted, and all the wildest stories in the world couldn’t have prepared Alfred and Matthew Jones for what they would find when they descended into the fallen city on a journey that would lead them right into the heart of a rebellion against the Masters of the Bazaar themselves…
Word Count: This part: 5862.
Notes: The continuation of the long haul that started as my NaNo project for this year. :'> The title is from an HP Lovecraft quote, “We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.”
Warnings: General warnings: A crossover with a (very addictive) online game, a lot of speculation and elaboration on my part on the universe of that game, human!AU, the occasional bit of 1800s sensibilities, and later on in the fic, a lot of OCs. :’> This chapter: not so much really, except for NaNo quality writing and an OC.
Has it really only been a few months since Mattie and I got down into this place? Somehow when I actually sit down to think about it all, it seems like it’s lasted a heck of a lot longer and a heck of a lot shorter than all that, all at the same time. A lot of stuff has happened since then. A lot of it is stuff I don’t really want to think about.
The one thing I’ve found out about Fallen London since I’ve got down here this: it’s amazing. It’s full of things that you’d never even dream of seeing on the surface, and there’s something exciting happening around almost every corner no matter where you look. It’s awesome and it’s like nowhere else that you’ll ever see.
But the thing is, and I didn’t realize this until it was way too late, but being awesome doesn’t mean it’s always gonna be great. London’s amazing, yeah, but it’s also cruel, and I don’t just mean that the streets aren’t really paved with gold, either. I mean, the city was stolen for some reason that no one still quite gets, and you could catch a boat ride to Hell here if you wanted to. That’s a sure sign that something’s not quite right, but when I dragged Mattie down here with me, I didn’t think about any of that. I mean, danger’s just a good part of any adventure, right?
And it wasn’t like the weird stuff – the Masters, the devils, even the Rubbery Men – were all that obvious when we got off of that airship near the docks. Back then, apart from the underground thing, it just seemed like any other really busy city.
Guess it just goes to show how much I knew, huh? We weren’t even there for one night before me and Mattie managed to get ourselves into trouble…
It was the third busy port that Matthew had seen this month, and he was beginning to come to the conclusion that they all looked more or less the same; full of people trying either to arrive or to leave. People really did seem the same wherever you went, even halfway around the globe and a mile underground.
Alfred came up behind him and slapped his back jovially. “Ready to go?” he asked with a grin. “I can’t wait to start looking around!” He nudged his brother in the ribs playfully. “And you said we’d never make it here.”
“I didn’t say that!” Matthew protested weakly, but he couldn’t help smiling a little as he swatted his brother’s elbow away. “Where should we go first, though…”
“Who cares?” Alfred asked breezily. “Wherever we go, we’re bound to find something worth seeing, right?”
“Well, I guess so, but –”
“Oi, you two Yankee lads!” Surprised, the two brothers turned at the shout to see the friendly dirigible pilot waving them back over to his ship. The two exchanged a glance with each other before they followed the man’s gesturing, standing a little below where the aircraft was moored.
“What’s up?” Alfred asked, a chipper sort of curiosity in his voice.
“This’d be your first time down in the Neath, wouldn’t it?”
“Sure,” said Alfred. “What about it?”
“Thought as much,” the man replied with an almighty sniff. “You’ve both got that sort of surface air about you. If you want a bit of advice, lads, head for Veilgarden, a bit to the north-west of here. It’s a bit on the seedy side oftentimes, but it’s the safest place for newcomers to start finding their feet, you get me? Plenty of decent pubs and inns to stay at too round those parts and not too much risk of getting stabbed. Ask around for the Singing Mandrake, the crowd there are a good sort.”
“Singing Mandrake, got it,” Alfred nodded. “Thanks for the help, pops!”
“Yes, thank you!” Matthew chimed in, more than a little relieved to have gotten some concrete advice to start off with. The last thing he wanted to have happen was wind up completely lost a mile underground.
“Don’t mention it, boys. Just don’t call me pops,” the pilot laughed, tipping his cap to them as they turned back into the bustle of the docks and the city beyond.
“So, I guess we should check this Veilgarden place out, right?” Matthew asked, turning to his brother.
“Guess so!” Alfred agreed chirpily. “It’s a good a place to start as anywhere else, right? And I’m sure we can ask people where the really exciting places are if we head that way too!”
“Actually, Al, I was thinking more about finding a place to sleep tonight…”
“Sleep can wait!” Alfred declared loudly. He was clearly building up momentum for one of his excitable rants. “C’mon, Mattie, where’s your sense of adventure? A true traveler doesn’t sleep until he’s found something worth talking about first – whoa, sorry, ma’am,” he added, as he almost knocked awry a nearby woman’s load of something orange, slightly glowing, and a little sticky-looking. Matthew threw the woman an apologetic glance and swiftly grabbed his brother’s arm in an attempt to steer him in a direction where he would do less damage.
“Watch where you’re going, Al, please…” he sighed, feeling another headache building behind his eyes. “Besides, don’t you think just getting down here is something worth talking about anyway?”
“Yep. But there’s always something else,” Alfred replied with another huge grin, tapping the side of his nose in a knowing way. Matthew shook his head.
“You’re impossible, you know that?” he said with a wry smile.
“I think the word you’re looking for is awesome.”
“Whatever, Al.”
“C’mon, you know you’re thinking it! North-west is that way, right?”
Matthew glanced in the direction Alfred was pointing, a little in front of them to their left. “I think so,” he said eventually.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Alfred cried, grabbing Matthew’s arm and pulling him along as he broke into a run. “Let’s go already!”
Matthew later thought that it was a miracle that they’d even managed to make it to Veilgarden in one piece with the way Alfred was driving them both along the streets at a breakneck speed. But, miracle or not, they did make it, both panting by the time they made it into a district that seemed more brightly lit, somehow, than the rest of the city that they’d seen so far. Matthew finally wrenched his arm out of Alfred’s grip when his brother slowed down for a second to take stock of where they’d arrived, and he leaned heavily on his knees, bending down to catch his breath.
“Geez – Alfred, could you have gone – a little slower?” he asked, gasping in great lungfuls of air. He looked up at his brother, a small frown of annoyance and exertion on his face. Alfred, who was in much the same state, grinned at him sheepishly.
“Sorry, there,” he said, still managing to sound cheerful about it. “We made it here fast though, right?” He straightened up and stretched slowly, glancing about at the street they now found themselves in. “This is sure different, huh?”
Matthew straightened up and found that he really did have to agree. Whatever was used to light the streets and alleyways of London and its buildings seemed warmer in this district, with more of a rose tone to the lights attached to the sides of the buildings. The streets – or this one, at any rate – seemed wider, too, wide enough for small stalls to have been set up on either side, selling small bottles of what appeared to be wine or bouquets of what looked like mushrooms to passersby. And speaking of the passersby, even the clothes people were wearing in this district seemed different; most of the members of the crowd were dressed in clothes that were colourful even if the material and cut was poor, and seemed to combine odd styles of coats and gowns with equally odd headgear – goggles of all shapes and sizes appeared to be popular worn over both the gentlemen’s top hats and the ladies’ bonnets.
“It’s definitely different to anything back home,” Matthew agreed. “I wonder where this Singing Mandrake place is that we were told about…”
“We’ll only know if we take a look ‘round,” Alfred reasoned. “C’mon, let’s go!” With that, he set off into the crowd with long, confident strides. Matthew sighed, pulled his jacket straighter on himself, and followed suit.
The journey through the streets was fairly uneventful; the two of them stopped to inspect some of the street vendor’s wares at odd points down the line, and at one stall, Alfred even picked up what looked like a meticulously arranged bouquet of mushrooms, the browns, greens and poisonous-looking reds painstakingly tied up with a ribbon as if they were freshly-cut flowers.
“A bouquet of mushrooms for your sweetheart!” said a voice, and the two brothers looked up at the stall vendor, who smiled at them toothily, flicking a stray strand of hair out of her eyes. “Freshly picked today, those were, sir! No finer ‘shrooms to be found in the whole of the Fifth City! And for you, sir, they’re only one Echo! Bargain price, sir, an absolute bargain!”
“Uh,” Alfred said, momentarily wrong-footed. “Sorry, but no thanks. I don’t even have a sweetheart,” he explained, and Matthew hid a smile behind his hand at seeing his brother looking uncertain. He couldn’t help being amused; Alfred was usually so confident that seeing a pretty girl take away some of that was simply funny.
“Now, ain’t that a shame!” the vendor exclaimed. “A handsome lad like you and no sweetheart, how’d somethin’ like that happen?”
“It’s not really anything like that…” Alfred started, then abruptly switched topics. “Say, how come it’s mushrooms you’re selling?”
“Well, what else would I sell? It’s not like there’s fancy flowers down here for people to give to each other, we just have to make do with what we have, don’t we?” she shrugged. “You from the surface or somethin’?”
“Yeah, my brother and I just got here this morning,” Alfred explained.
“Ah, that explains it. You two are new, you don’t know how stuff works here yet. Well if you’re not gonna buy them mushrooms, you put them back, you hear me? They’ll get all spoiled if you keep handlin’ them like you are.”
“Sorry,” Alfred said, putting the bouquet back among the other bundles of mushrooms before moving away.
“Is it really that obvious that we’re new here?” he said wonderingly to Matthew. Matthew thought for a moment, then shrugged.
“I guess our accents must give us away a little. And then we do look a lot like tourists, Al…”
“Explorers, Mattie.”
“Well, either way we look like we come from out of town,” Matthew pointed out.
“Guess so… hey, I wonder how far it is to this Singing Mandrake place still? I’m starting to get a little hungry.”
“We could always ask someone, Al…”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
“You’ve been saying that for the past half an hour and we still haven’t found it. If you don’t want to ask, I will.”
“… Spoilsport,” Alfred pouted.
“You want to eat, don’t you?” Matthew said with a small hint of annoyance starting to eat at his mild tone.
“Well, yeah, but…”
“Forget it, I’m asking,” Matthew said, rolling his eyes as he made his way over to a couple of men who were on the steps of a nearby building. “Excuse me?”
The two of them looked up almost at the same time, and for a moment Matthew did a double-take at how alike they looked. But on second glance, he could pick out differences; although the two were dressed similarly, the man on the right had green eyes, while his companion sitting on the stairs strumming a melody on the guitar in his hands had brown eyes, and his dark hair was significantly curlier than that of the other. There was no denying the kinship between them, certainly, but they weren’t as identical as they had first seemed.
“Si?” said the standing man curiously. His accent, while not thick, was undoubtedly Spanish. “Can I help you with something?”
“My brother and I are new here,” Matthew explained, deciding to be upfront. “Do you know the way to the Singing Mandrake? We were told it was a good place to stay for the night.”
“Of course!” the man beamed, and for a moment Matthew was reminded strongly of Alfred. “Everyone around here knows about it, it’s one of the most famous places in the city!”
Matthew and Alfred waited expectantly. When the silence started becoming awkward and it became clear that nothing more was forthcoming, they glanced at each other dubiously. Fortunately, before either of them could make the situation even more awkward by asking the stranger to continue, his companion spoke up.
“I think that they would probably like us to tell them how to get there, Toni,” he said as he silenced the strings on his guitar. There was an easy smile on his face as he looked up at the two brothers that seemed to say I’m sorry about him. Matthew could sympathise. “It’s not at all far from here, actually. If you take the next left you can cut down an alleyway that will take you almost directly there. Turn right when you come out of the alley and walk down the street for a while and you can’t miss it. The sign above the door makes things clear enough.”
“Thank you,” Matthew said gratefully, flashing the man a small but genuine smile. “We’ve been wandering around for hours now, so this was a big help.”
“Not at all,” he smiled in return. “Think nothing of it, I was happy to help.”
“You said you were new here, didn’t you?” the other man – had the guitarist called him Toni? – interjected. “How long have you been here?”
“Just got in today, actually!” Alfred cut in before Matthew could even open his mouth, clearly feeling left out and ignored in this conversation. “We’re not planning to stay here all that long, just a couple weeks or so while we have a look around.” The guitarist and his companion exchanged glances.
“Just to look around?” the brown-eyed man said. He almost sounded surprised, Matthew thought. “I never really thought about London being much of an attraction for tourists.”
“Well, there is a lot to see,” the other reasoned. “Veilgarden is nice enough at this time of year, and there’s the Tyrant’s Gardens and the palace – oh, and the Forgotten Quarter, although that’s a little dangerous –”
“The Forgotten Quarter?” Alfred repeated, homing in on the mention of possible adventure like a dog catching wind of a really interesting scent. “What’s in there?”
“They say that it’s the last remaining part of the city that used to be here before London,” the guitarist explained. “The one that was stolen before this. It’s mostly archeologists and scholars that go there, the ones that don’t mind the possible dangers.”
“It sounds like my kind of place!” Alfred said excitably.
“I wouldn’t recommend going there without a guide,” their informant warned. “When they say that it’s dangerous, they are not joking.”
“He worries a lot,” the other man explained helpfully, receiving a nudge in the ribs for his trouble.
“I worry just enough, thank you,” his companion said with a roll of his eyes. “If they’ve only just arrived here today, then they won’t know enough yet to stay out of the truly dangerous areas.”
“Well, then that just means we have to tell them!” he insisted. Matthew watched the exchange almost fascinated, and was struck by a fleeting sense of déjà vu. He wondered for a moment if his and Alfred’s conversations looked this way to the casual observer. “We’ve been down here for long enough, we can talk to them tonight about it.” The green-eyed man turned to them, an open, friendly smile on his face. “We go to the Singing Mandrake a lot as well. We could meet you there and tell you the places to go while you’re here and where you should avoid, everything like that. What do you think?”
“Sure!” Alfred replied, his beaming face easily matching that of the other man. “Sounds great, don’t you think, Mattie?”
“It does,” Matthew agreed, feeling more relieved and more grateful for the kindness of strangers than ever. “This really is a big help to us.” Or at least to him, he thought to himself privately. He might just have more luck keeping Alfred out of trouble if he had some advice from the people that lived here to draw on.
“Alright, then it’s settled,” the green-eyed man beamed. “My name’s Antonio Carriedo, by the way, and this is my cousin Luís Valdez.” He indicated the guitarist – Luís – with a wave of his hand, and the other man nodded at them.
“And I’m Alfred Jones, and this is my twin brother Matthew,” Alfred answered, giving Antonio’s outstretched hand a hearty shake. “Pleasure to meet you both!” He withdrew his hand and looked between the two for a second before speaking again, almost sounding thoughtful. “Say, not to be rude or anything, but you two don’t sound like you’re from London.”
“That would be because we’re not,” Luís smiled. “I’m from Portugal originally, and Antonio here is Spanish.”
“Seriously? What made you come down here?”
“Why does anyone make their way down here? Curiosity, for the most part.”
“Huh.” Alfred seemed to consider this for a moment, and Matthew hoped that he wouldn’t start asking potentially awkward questions. “Guess you can’t say fairer than that.”
“Thank you again for the help,” Matthew smiled at them both. “I guess we’ll see you later.”
“Of course!” Antonio smiled, giving a small wave as the two began to retreat back to the main bustle of the street. The two hadn’t gone very far before they heard their names being shouted behind them, and turned to find Luís squeezing his way swiftly through the crowds towards them.
“Something just occurred to me. A lot can happen in a couple of weeks,” he explained a little breathlessly as he reached them, looking thoughtful. “Especially in a city this large. Not to mention,” his smile became a little wry, “This isn’t just any city on the surface. London has unique dangers of its own.”
“Sure, but weren’t we going to talk about this later?” Alfred said, tilting his head a little.
“I might not remember to tell you later,” Luís laughed. “And it’s important that you know this, since we might not end up running across each other again while you’re here after tonight. There aren’t that many people you can trust down here, but if you end up in trouble, I know of somewhere you can go. There’s a pub down by the Wolfstack Docks that’s run by a friend of mine. The area itself is a little shady, but look for the sign of the Horse and Harp and ask for Brigid Kirkland. She’s the landlady there and she can be trusted.”
“Horse and Harp, Brigid Kirkland, got it,” Alfred said with a nod. “Can’t be too hard to find, right?”
“She is fairly well-known, yes.”
“Then we’ll keep an eye out for her,” Matthew assured him. “Thank you again for all your help.”
“Do you think we’re ever going to need to actually use that?” Alfred asked in a low voice as the two set off again down the street.
“You never know, Al,” Matthew replied as they took a sharp turn down an alleyway. “It’s better to be safe than sorry, right?”
The bartender of the Singing Mandrake proved to be a jovial, slightly rotund man in his fifties who was more than happy to exchange surface currency for bed and board for the night. He was also more than happy to tell them that any and all of the wines and liquors in his apparently admirable stock were open to consumption by anyone who could pay for them, and that the two strangers were quite welcome to join the larger company that would be in the pub that night to abandon themselves to drink and the Singing Mandrake atmosphere.
Matthew would later admit that neither he nor Alfred had been quite prepared for everything that “the Singing Mandrake atmosphere” entailed. As the evening wore on (or at least, Matthew assumed that it was what counted for the evening down here, as the lamps both inside and out were changed for dimmer, softer lighting), more people began to spill into the pub. And as more people arrived, more alcohol started flowing, to say nothing of off-colour jokes, gossip and language that made Matthew blush behind his glass of beer. As an introduction to the bohemian section of the underworld went, it was certainly very… upfront. Luís and Antonio, who had arrived quite early on in the proceedings and claimed a small, snug table in the corner for their little party of four – for reasons that Matthew hadn’t quite understood at the time but certainly did a couple of hours after people had started arriving – seemed more amused by the American boys’ reactions than anything else. The noise, the sheer amount of people and liquor, the easiness and freedom of the crowd’s interactions with each other – it was all so different from anything either of the brothers had seen back in their own little corner of the world on the surface.
That included the wine, as they found out when the two Iberians had offered to buy a bottle for them to share between all of them while they talked.
“It tastes different, somehow,” Alfred had said doubtfully. “Not bad or anything, but… not as fruity. What’s even in this stuff?”
The Spaniard and the Portuguese had exchanged a knowing, mischievous glance with each other before Antonio had answered, with a wide, easy grin, “Mushrooms.”
Alfred almost spat out his mouthful of wine at that point. “Mushrooms? Again?” he demanded, aghast. “Geez, it’s like you guys are obsessed with them or something!”
“Grapes need sunlight to grow, you know,” Luís had replied, barely able to contain his laughter at both of the twins’ faces, which were the very picture of almost disgusted surprise. “Something that, as I am sure you’ve noticed, we are in very short supply of down here.”
“Well yeah, but still… mushrooms?” Alfred had said incredulously, by now eyeing the bottle of wine as if the aforementioned fungi were about to crawl out of the bottle and attack him then and there.
“It’s good though, isn’t it?” Antonio said, taking the bottle with a smile. “I think 1882 was a good year.”
“I still think you’re all crazy down here,” Alfred said flatly, and their two companions had roared with laughter.
After the initial dispute over the wine, the conversation had begun to flow easily. The two men were quite happy to answer any and all of Alfred and Matthew’s questions and explain in detail how to handle different parts of the city – steer clear of Spite after six in the evening, keep all bags and purses close no matter where in the city you were, try and make it to the shroom races if you can but watch out for the cutpurses and the marshes, and whatever you do, never, ever try any Black Wings Absinthe if it’s offered to you, the stories about what it does to those who are fool enough to drink it aren’t worth the risk. Rumours, advice, talk about the more notable inhabitants of the city – Luís and Antonio were certainly free with what they had managed to find out about the city while living there, and Matthew tried to keep careful track of anything that sounded as if it might be useful for later. However, as the night wore on, the beer and unnervingly good mushroom wine continued to flow and the chorus of singing around them grew more raucous and risqué, the conversation turned less to useful advice and serious matters and more to the common Veilgarden gossip. Matthew felt his head growing foggy and dim the more he drank, a pleasant, buzzing sort of warmth making its way through his body. He sat back in his seat with his glass held loosely in his hand, quite content to listen to the other three as they continued to make conversation between trips to the bar and the occasional break into song with the rest of the tavern’s patronage.
It was at some point when the night – or rather, the deeper night than the lamp lit half-light that they had experienced as the day here – was no longer young, and when everyone present had imbibed far more alcohol than was probably advisable, that one of the friendlier of the drunk bohemian crown made motions to his friends and waved his arms at their table.
“Hey, Luís!” he exclaimed. “So that’s where you have been hiding all night! Why haven’t you got up here and played us a song yet, eh?” Luís, who didn’t yet seem as drunk as the others at their little table – whether because he hadn’t drunk as much or because he was just more resilient to alcohol, Matthew wasn’t sure which – smiled and waved in return, rising to give a mock-bow.
“My apologies,” he said good-naturedly. “I’ve just been entertaining some friends.” He turned to the others at the table with an amused smile and said, “Give me a moment. This is a slight hazard of being well-known here,” and vanished into the crowd to talk more to the friendly bohemian. Antonio turned to the twins with a large beaming smile on his face, one that all of the liquor in his system had only seemed to enlarge.
“I was hoping they’d make him play,” he said happily, slurring his words. It was becoming difficult to make them out through his gradually thickening accent. “You haven’t seen Luís play yet, have you? He’s got a gift for it.” His voice sounded proud even through the drink.
“The guitar?” Matthew asked, remembering where they had met the two men earlier that day. Antonio nodded slowly, in a vague sort of way.
“Si,” he said slowly, and Matthew found himself hoping that Antonio wasn’t drunk enough to forget to speak in English yet. “But it’s not just that. Por supuesto he’s good at la guitarra – lo siento, the guitar, I mean – but what he’s really good at is singing.”
“He sings, too?” asked Matthew, wondering why he was so surprised to hear that.
“Of course he does!” Antonio declared. “He has a wonderful voice.”
“All right!” Alfred called out, slurring his words almost as badly as Antonio was. “It’s about time we saw some real entertainment here!” Matthew shook his head at his brother’s antics, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to be even a little annoyed or despairing with the contented feeling of well-being he was basking in at that moment.
Meanwhile, in the thick of the crowd, Luís had been handed a guitar by someone and was now sat on the table as he tuned it, swinging his legs a little thoughtfully as he did so. The crowd quieted down, drunk neighbour turning to drunk neighbour to shush one another as he tuned the final string and played a few experimental chords.
“What are you going to play us tonight, eh?” a woman in the crowd said.
“If I told you, wouldn’t that spoil the anticipation?” Luís replied teasingly, strumming another chord. “What would you like me to play?”
“Play us one of yer tearjerkers!” a voice from near the bar called. “C’mon, it’s been ages since you played us a good one!” There were nods and grunts or cheers of assent from the rest of the crowd.
“A tearjerker, hmm?” Luís pursed his lips. “I think I might know just the song.” He settled himself more comfortably onto his table, and a taut, expectant silence settled over the crowded pub almost unbelievably suddenly after the drunken noise that had been so prevalent only minutes before. Matthew found himself holding his breath without realizing what it was he was doing for a moment. Antonio leaned closer to the two Americans and said in a hushed voice, “Now you’ll see. He’ll have at least half of them crying by the end of it.”
When Luís started playing, Matthew could see what Antonio had meant. Later, he wouldn’t be able to describe it exactly, but the song began with a long, slow melody on the guitar, Luís’s fingers picking out the tune with all the skill of his art – not perfectly, but Matthew soon realized that perfection wasn’t the aim behind this music. It was the emotion behind it, the tiny thrill that ran up his spine as the notes began to sound throughout the room. But it wasn’t until Luís opened his mouth to sing that he truly realized what Antonio had been talking about.
Luís didn’t sing in English; instead, a slow, lilting language that Matthew supposed must have been his native tongue came out of his mouth, rich and strong as it filled the barroom. Matthew’s breath caught in his throat; while he didn’t understand the words, the meaning behind them somehow seemed to reach him, creating an image in his head of things lost long ago, a tight feeling in his chest that seemed to rise and fall with the music itself. He swallowed and glanced around the room; true to Antonio’s words, many of the patrons, both men and women, seemed to be fighting to hold back tears. He glanced to his right; Antonio had his eyes closed, concentrating on the music with a tight expression on his face, and Alfred was staring at some unseen point in the distance with an unusually serious look on his face, a faraway cast to his blue eyes.
Finally, after what seemed like both an age and only a few moments, the song came to an end, the last few notes almost seeming to echo through the crowded pub. There was a moment of silence before the sounds of cheering and applause exploded from the crowd, some of those who had been sitting rising to their feet. Antonio turned to Alfred and Matthew, a proud smile on his face.
“See, I told you he was something, didn’t I?” Matthew nodded dumbly, unable to find words; maybe it was just the amount of mushroom wine he’d been drinking, but he doubted it. It really had been something. Alfred, of course, was far more vocal with his praise.
“I’ll say!” he exclaimed, the seriousness from before forgotten in an instant. “That was awesome.”
“And that would be Alfred’s highest form of praise,” Matthew murmured quietly to Antonio as they watched members of the crowd call for another round of drinks from the barman. The Spanish man chuckled.
“I’m sure my cousin will be thrilled,” he laughed. He glanced at the empty bottle of wine on the table. “Do you want another drink?” he asked brightly, picking up the bottle and waving it at the two Americans.
“I guess it couldn’t hurt,” Matthew said after a moment, sinking back a little further into his seat. He’d had a bit much, of course, he knew that he had, but somehow that didn’t seem to matter. One more drink couldn’t possibly hurt in a pub this crowded, could it? At worst he’d just end up passed out in his chair. Speaking of, he was starting to feel a little sleepy…
Antonio had already moved to mill around at the already crowded bar to get another bottle of drink. It looked like he could be a while, Matthew thought, especially since most of the pub’s patronage seemed to have pipped him to the post. He let his eyes drift shut of their own accord for a while; at one point he thought he heard Alfred say something that he couldn’t quite catch. Whether he replied or not he wasn’t sure, but the next concrete thing he remembered was Antonio shaking him awake, a fresh bottle of mushroom wine in hand. Matthew blinked blearily at him, trying to shake the sleep out of his reluctant system.
“Sleeping already?” Antonio laughed. “Maybe another drink isn’t such a good idea after all, it might just knock you out straight away!”
“No, I’m fine,” Matthew replied, yawning widely on “fine” and trying to wake himself up slightly. Maybe he should go to bed. He lifted his glasses to rub at his eyes and frowned. Someone was missing. “Where’s Alfred?”
“I thought he was still here with you,” Antonio said, nonplussed. At that moment, Luís dropped back into his seat next to them, looking a little flushed.
“I hope you didn’t miss me too much in my absence,” he grinned, then stopped short at the look on Matthew’s face. “What’s wrong, Matthew?”
“Alfred’s wandered off,” he groaned, struggling to stand without swaying. “And knowing my luck, that means that he’s probably getting into some sort of trouble right now or worse –”
“Wait a moment. Calm down,” Luís said firmly, putting a hand on Matthew’s shoulder. “He might just be somewhere in the pub. It is fairly crowded in here tonight.” Without another word, he disappeared into the sea of people for a few moments more, and Matthew could catch sight of him talking rapidly with a few members of the crowd, each time receiving a puzzled look or a headshake in return. After a few minutes, he returned, looking troubled. Matthew felt the pleasant light-headed feeling recede even further than it already had, to be replaced by a much less pleasant, and sadly far more familiar, feeling of worry in the pit of his stomach.
“He’s –”
“Not here, is he,” Matthew finished, a rising horror in his voice. Luís nodded, his expression grim.
“No one I asked has seen him in here for the past ten minutes. Someone said that they’d seen someone matching his description going outside not so long ago –”
“Outside?!” Matthew repeated in a voice that was barely below a shriek. “He won’t last ten minutes with how much he’s had to drink!”
“Neither will you if you go after him alone,” Luís said with a frown, grabbing Matthew around the waist – for he had indeed been trying to make his way towards the door to go after his brother. “If you must go looking for him at this hour, at least have somebody with you. You can barely walk straight as it is.”
“But –”
“Maybe we should go now, Luís,” Antonio said, looking uncharacteristically serious, especially considering the amount of alcohol he had imbibed that night. “If we don’t, Alfred may end up becoming the next Drownie.”
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and poor Canada... *pat pat*
the song part was beautiful!
Thank you for the updaaate~!!
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Somehow, i feel that his life is going to be even harder... XD
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