paradisalogs | maybe it's the color of the sun cut flat and coverin' the crossroads I'm standing at

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maybe it's the color of the sun cut flat and coverin' the crossroads I'm standing at

Who: Spike Spiegel (

gottaknockhard) and Anne Boleyn (

ensorceler)
What: When you can't think of a comeback...
When: Late night/between the 30th-31st
Where: Room 613
Rating: PG13

From the sound of things, Paradisa's temporary residents were going through one of their more serious moments; those instances when there's a legitimate urgency to be doing anything but aimlessly roam the halls of the castle in the middle of the night. Spike was well aware of the plans announced over the journal, and it didn't even factor into what was putting a dent in his sleep.

Maybe it made him a bad person for putting his own reality ahead of mysterious voices on the radio. Or he just didn't like the idea of crowds. Spike had no better excuse for what brought him to the room he's standing in front of. Aside from the nagging feeling that he didn't get what he meant to say out the last time he saw her, there wasn't a single reason he should be disturbing whatever sleep she finally managed to find.

Sometimes he wasn't clever enough to think of a mysterious riddle to leave on her doorstep, or to have forethought outside of a whim guided by... whatever it was that pulled him around lately. He simply knocked and waited for her answer.

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"Maybe. But it might be harder to get an audience with you." Not to mention all of the men he's bumped into who took offense at his methods already, and who are probably looking for an excuse to cut him down. He's not terribly opposed to the idea.

"I'm surprised you don't have anyone else watching your door already." He knows there are those who would gladly do it if she brought some concerns to light. Which more or less means she hasn't.

Really, Spike, you want to get in some brawls over her? Well, it might be fun to watch if nothing else. She'd need a good supply of wine and snacks... Clearly the victor would be her favorite.

"Clearly I ought to hire a proper usher, if I am to get any peace and quiet." Such a lie, really. She doesn't have that many people coming to her door period, but that could be her own fault as much as theirs. She doesn't know quite how to share her pain except in the worst and most roundabout ways.

Turning, she faces him, the goblet held between them as if some kind of barrier. Wine stains are the worst...

"But none here would see my interests above their own, or even near. Should I be assassinated, what is there to mourn, for I would not truly die. No, I think not to humor their sweet little fancies; their giggles and bows when they meet me like I'm a figure from a story, only to move on to the next bit of pennache like a gaggle of simpering fools attempting to play at courtier."

He almost did already. Twice, if they were counting the incident in the clinic. If he had gone through with them, he'd probably be sleeping better than he is now.

"I don't think it's ever easy to take a kingdom. You can see what the castle has to resort to." Encouraging as he ever was, even if he shouldn't be. Like he even knows what he's talking about -- but there was a time when some misguided old men thought he had what it took to lead, and that at least gives him the ability to fake his way through a conversation. "I only know one assassin here, anyway."

She seems to pay no heed to whatever he's blathering about, moving as if to turn away again until the last mention of an assassin, which draws her attention right back.

"Who?"

As much as the guy advertises the fact, Spike isn't sure for a moment if she doesn't already know. But it's easy enough to shrug when that becomes less of a possibility.

"I was joking. My connections don't reach that far."

Anne scoffs, turning back to her goblet like it's her only friend as she goes to walk away again. She needs to sit, she's still half-asleep. It makes her have to work five times harder not to look half asleep (and drunk).

"Do not waste my time with words that have no meaning, then."

If he's going to be a criminal, he could at least have access to other sleazy types. Wouldn't that be useful? She really does miss Micheletto sometimes; she's positive he would do her bidding for such things if he had the free time.

It's telling that he hasn't touched the food, or the drink that she seems occupied with. He's focused on her reaction, like something he just happened to stumble over.

"Is there someone you've got your eye on?"

"What if I did? You have no connections, as you have so plainly made clear."

She all but collapses in her "throne" in as much a dignified manner as possible, not giving him leave to sit, but she won't really complain if he does. As much as she harasses him for, he is permitted quite a few leniencies. That may just be Paradisa wearing at her, though.

Edited 2013-09-03 02:13 (UTC)

He smiles, still standing, and hearing that repeated back to him. For once he appreciates not being grilled on any possible lie that he forms to protect her from what little she hasn't learned.

"You never know what might change."

There's a chortle, somewhat muffled underneath a hand, and her leg kicks anxiously from where it's crossed, sending the skirt of her shift and robe in a mild flurry each time. Like someone too amused to sit still, or just more drunk, as usual, there's that.

She doesn't feel the need to explain her laughter, and so she doesn't; he sure never explains anything of use. But hadn't he just been saying that nothing really changes? And she had retorted just the opposite. Maybe his memory is daft. Maybe he's too blind to see what has changed; with them alone, and with them together. With the world, with God, with beasts and flame.

With the large, empty void that always seems to exist at her side where her beloved family once was.

"What..." She spaces the word out, staring at him over her glass like he might actually have something useful to say for once, even if her gaze is narrowed. "...has changed?"

It's a rare woman who would laugh at the prospect of someone killing for her.

Now that he's said it, her sudden amusement and curiosity stops him from back-peddling on the contradicting comment. Even half-drunk and half-asleep, she catches the slip instantly, so any cover up would likely be spotted anyway.

"I'm out of work, for one." Which isn't why he came by her room, not by a long shot, and that much accounts for the sigh that he releases as he finds something to lean against. "Again, actually. I wonder if that counts."

"Your own doing," she responds sharply, setting the wine aside and just watching him. "Do you think because you did not part with the others that I suddenly wish you once more in my employ? In that regard, I see how little has changed."

"Did they really all leave?" One or two of them are keeping pretty close tabs on her, the last he checked. And yet he can't bring himself to do more than idly speculate on them and their convenient absence.

Her lips purse out, her classic sign of irritation, but in this sense it's far more of something threatening to become a pout, only her pride restraining it. It's a blessing then that it's so dark, as she has no candles lit and no fire in the hearth, because her eyes wouldn't do so nearly a good job at shielding her feeling of neglect.

After learning that all in England, nay all of Europe, had turned on her save for her daughter, is it really any wonder?

"Of Emma and her loyal hound, I know nothing of what they do, but I did not see them at the farewell." The last time she spoke to "Emma" was in Tokyo. "All others I know have gone."

Edited 2013-09-05 18:12 (UTC)

"All but the bottom of the barrel," he replies with an attempt at a self-deprecating grin. She won't see it as loyalty when his intentions are always so muddled and unexplained, but he's at least proven to be hard to get rid of.

It wouldn't be the first welcome he overstayed.

"Almost like I planned it that way." His humor drifts by without thought, and without any real conviction behind it. How rude of him not to be fully present in front of a queen. She doesn't know how much of a distraction she is, even to herself.

"You planned to isolate me? Mayhap you are the assassin you spoke of with such dismissive words."

Her legs uncross, both feet flat on the floor with each hand draped across the arm rests, relaxed in contrast to how straight she sits, with chin slightly lifted. Her own expression still remains muddled between amusement and irritation, if one can see through the dark and moonlight, but her breaths are short and heightened.

"Here I am, then. Best have your blade strike true, else you will find it next through your own heart."

She loves to say things that get a reaction from him, he realizes, as much as he does to her. The difference is that she crafts her comments carefully, vindictively, hitting all of his triggers with a practiced skill she managed to hone while he's been testing her nerves. It makes it harder to argue against her insights.

"You wouldn't be surprised?" As he speaks, he comes closer, until he's kneeling and looking up at her face. There is some restraint on his part not to close the space between them entirely. "All criminals are alike."

The only movement is a slight jerk from her exaggerated sniff, not even worth it to become a scoff. Otherwise she stays still for a drawn out moment, still and silent and simply watching it. She once was used to people kneeling at her feet, friends and enemies alike, so it brings her no discomfort.

"If they be so, then you would know all of the others here as well as yourself, and be able to keep them at bay or in sights as you please. But I think you do not even know yourself. Would you recognize your soul if it was shown to you?"

For a while he wonders why he came closer, or came at all, when their conversation always pushes at the limits of what he can answer. It could be that her religious bent is the closest thing he has to a spiritual outlet, and that combined with the other qualities he finds himself attracted to, his willpower suffers. Everything that happened to him was his own doing, one way or another, so it falls in line with the rest of his history.

With her, it's a different story. One he knows too many details of, by both of their standards, but that creates the kind of sympathy that inspires a dangerous amount of honesty.

"It might be missing some pieces. That would give me somewhere to start."

"So too would all the castle denizens so claim. That is no specialty of yours."

Lifting her foot a touch, silk slipper propping underneath his chin, Anne dares a smirk; nothing half-hidden or veiled. Where it stems from, she won't say, but it is one of a darker sense of satisfaction at another's expense.

"Do you wish to see if it will split down the middle? How much more can be done before there is nothing left?"

With the way he's staring at her, he may not be aware of the way she tilts his head, as if he's suddenly sure that he's dreaming this; it's the only way she'd be able to pick him apart so easily. She's convincing enough that he doesn't blow off the subject at the first opportunity.

"I have a pretty good head start on you."

Eyes shut, Anne allows her head to roll back as she lets out a husky laugh, one without abandon or concern for those it might enflame or disturb. There are none it could bring joy to, because it's laughter born of a bitterness that has been years in creation. She takes her time in relishing it, foot slipping past his cheek to kick up in a mockery of merriment where there is none; or perhaps there's a twisted version. The only kind she can cling to in times like this, where she thinks there's no air in the room; there is only fire and water.

"I think I would wager differently, sir. But this is no competition. You are not my peer, nor ever will you be."

Her legs cross, then, in a flurry of the skirts of her shift and robe, and one hand rests to her breast as she recovers from her fit remarkably fast, but a little smile remains there, even if her eyes glitter with an intent that is not kind.

"You have betrayed me as swiftly as any other; your lack of intent matters nothing to me. I care only for results. So what will it be in this case? Do things change, or do they not?"

Her laugh sounds wrong to his ears, too cold and spiteful, too familiar. He pushes the thought as far from his mind as possible, even if it means looking away as soon as she allows.

In a battle of pessimism, who would win? Being that he's always been somewhat of a competitive person, he can't help but imagine the outcome. Although when weighing her impaired ability to buffer herself, it may not be a fair time to judge.

Still, the castle has been feeding on his soul for years longer -- maybe longer than he even knows, seeing as there exists evidence that he's lost all memory of being here once or twice. Not exactly something to gloat over.

"Do you believe in things changing for the better?" His tone is light, despite himself, as if delivering nothing more important than a punchline. Or a tiebreaker, as the case may be.

Maybe he would win when it came to pessimism, perhaps, as at his inquiry there is hesitation, and the only slightest shift of her legs as some tiny flicker of hope yearns to be seen in her gaze.

How I wish to believe, yes; in something.

The Queen smothers it without mercy, and her normally bright blue eyes remain as dark as ever in the shadows of her throne, and she only sneers at him.

"All things gain for the better. And then, for certain, all things collapse. And so it goes, forever after, that struggle for power that not even the gods could keep hold of."

Leaning down, with one arm now draped almost casually over her knee, Anne glares while smiling.

"But it is still better to have an empire for a short while than not at all."

That's a 'yes', as far as he can tell, and not the answer he was expecting. It's a shame Jet isn't here, she would have appreciated his view on the subject. He wouldn't have put it so eloquently, but she managed to sum up his philosophy with just a few more words than he would have rattled off after a friendly drinking binge. Everyone can appreciate someone who is succinct when summarizing life in general.

"Then there's a chance." He rises finally, and stretches his legs and shoulders. It helps to keep him from lingering too long on the subject. Of all the reasons he didn't have for coming, he knows reflecting on himself as much has he has since he came inside wasn't one of them.

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