gourmandized | IC Inbox

[Ima is tremendously surprised when she reads the card; she'd long ago come to the decision that Regulus was completely stuck in his ways, consigning him to her mental list of people to avoid with a broken heart. So she takes three extra days to debate with herself before reacting to the message: should she respond at all, and if so, how?

In the end she chooses to visit the cat cafe, a small, slim package wrapped in red and white striped paper tucked into her purse. When she sees him she calls out quietly, a slight hesitance apparent.]

Regulus?

[He starts a little, almost knocking over the bowl of cat food he just poured out, and the edges of his dark form falter and shiver uncertainly as he straightens up. She's been on his mind for a few days, for obvious reasons, and he's been doing his best to put the whole thing behind him. Having apologised, having made his amends as best he can, he's been assuming that they can just go back to quietly avoiding one another.]

[He did not expect her to show up at his workplace.]

[He manages a small, taut little smile, turning to face her.]

Good afternoon. Can I get you anything?

[His tiny, stiff smile is not a good sign. This may have been a very bad idea, but for now she can't exactly walk right back out the door.]

A conversation, perhaps? I received your gift and I'd like to talk.

[Regulus sighs, and the glowing white of his eyes seems to flicker. He doesn't want to talk. He apologised in writing entirely because he didn't want to talk. Talking about things like this is hard enough, but now he's apologised and she still wants to talk, which can only mean she wants to turn his apology down in person.]

[Well, he knew it might happen. Resigning himself, he nods and gestures a little stiltedly to a nearby table.]

Make yourself comfortable. I'll just, uh, put a sign out.

[Because the last thing he wants is to be interrupted by customers, and with Draco gone, he feels it's his prerogative to close the café for a bit if he needs to. He writes a quick note - BUSY. BACK IN AN HOUR. - and tacks it to the door, turning the sign over from OPEN to CLOSED.]

[Another deep breath, and he turns back to Ima. His dread is fairly apparent in the tenseness of his shoulders and the set of his jaw.]

Can I get you a coffee? Tea?

Tea would be lovely, thank you.

[Ima, feeling more and more like this was a bad choice by the second, selects a table. Booths might be better for intimate conversations, but she can't manage to squeeze herself into one. A friendly cat rubs itself along her calves, and she reaches down with a tendril to stroke its back.]

[He didn't say anything for some time after that, busying himself behind the counter. At last, he set down two cups of tea on the table - one for her, one for him - and slid into the seat across from her, taking a deep breath.]

If it was inappropriate to send you that, I'm sorry. I wanted to express that I, that I understood what I did wrong. But perhaps I don't understand, and I know I didn't do a very good job of communicating it.

Did you enjoy the chocolates, at least?

[Wait, is that what she wanted to call him out on? Did the chocolates come across as a jab at her weight?]

Yes, the chocolates were delicious.

[She much prefers it when people don't pretend she eats like a bird (or even like the average person). That would be insulting to her. She clearly loves to eat and she's not ashamed of it, so when other people act as though they're embarrassed for her it only makes her angry. Food is a great gift.]

It wasn't inappropriate at all. I'm just surprised. [She stirs two spoons of sugar into her tea.] I'd decided you were incapable of changing after we last spoke [she's referring to their network fight, not the incident with his awful mother-replica], so I never dreamed I might receive anything like your Christmas card.

Oh.

[He seems entirely at a loss, now. He was struggling enough already, but this feels as if it's coming entirely out of left field.]

You aren't angry?

[Another surprise. Her eyes widen and her spoon stops dead in the middle of stirring.]

So long as your apology was sincere, I have no reason to be angry.

[Sure, she doesn't feel ready to jump into a close friendship with a former fascist just yet. But she isn't mad at him, and furthermore she feels hopeful about eventually reaching such a point.]

Of course it's sincere. [He looks a little surprised, himself.] I'm not in the habit of idle apologies, certainly not when there's nothing to gain from them.

I just thought, for you to turn up in person like this, something must have been wrong.

I thought this would be less frustrating than playing tag by mail.

[She doesn't have a phone, and the laptops will never be the first thing she thinks of when it comes to communication...and snail mail would be frustratingly slow when Ima already knows exactly where to find him. Naturally, then, if she were to learn that wizard correspondence consists mostly of quill-and-parchment letters delivered by birds she'd have a heart attack.

She blows gently into her cup in an effort to cool its contents.]

I assumed...

[He sighs, and looks down at the table. His smile is rather rueful, rather apologetic.]

I assumed you wouldn't reply at all. Frankly.

I wasn't sure if I should...and if so, how I should. I needed time to think.

[She tests a spoonful of the tea against her bottom lip. Still too hot.]

Things got heated when last we spoke. You said some very frightening things.

I know. [He sighs, and picks up his own teacup, sipping it delicately. If it's too hot for him, it doesn't show.] I don't have any excuse for that. I was...

[A deep breath, and he looks down into the tea in his cup, silent for a moment, gathering his words. A cat comes by, purrs and winds against his ankles. Regulus reaches down absently and scratches the back of its neck.]

Has anyone ever told you that your entire world was a lie? Everything you always believed, including things that ruined your life to believe? I gave my life over to fulfilling what I thought was right, and then you came and told me all of it was wrong. The first time that happened, it almost killed me.

No. It did kill me. I felt that death, at least, might be enough to atone for the mistakes I made. It was painful, and maybe it was stupid, but it was a... a clean break. It ended it. It was supposed to end it.

[He takes a deep breath, which shakes a little, and sets down the cup.]

I woke up here. I thought: this is my second chance. I thought I had learned my lesson, that I had moved past the stupid mistakes I made in my youth, that I could be whole here. And when you came and spoke to me, when you said I was still making the same mistakes, believing the same lies...

[He shrugs, and the edges of his form tremble, becoming loose and hazy. The sickly green glow of his skull underneath his face seems to intensify.]

I was angry. I recognise that it wasn't fair to respond as I did. But I was angry, and I wanted to make you understand, but I was just beginning to realise how much I didn't understand myself.

[She shakes her head in response to that first question. She'd figured out pretty early on in life that her entire (current, at the time) world was a bunch of bullshit. She's been a black sheep, a family disappointment from before the age of five, and while that had been a miserable way to live it had at least spared her any later earthshaking revelations about the nature of her upbringing.]

No one ever has, no...but I imagine it must be very difficult to live with.

Impossible.

[He smiles apologetically at her. It's a much less closed-off expression than usual - shaky and wry, with real vulnerability behind it. He usually looks older than eighteen; right now, he looks much younger, thirteen or fourteen. Despite the weariness in his expression, there's a childishness there that overrides it.]

[His hands close around his teacup again.]

I've said several times now that I'm not sure who I am. That... doesn't entirely cover it. I'm not sure what anything is.

It's like drowning in the dark. You don't know which way's up, which way's down, what's pulling you in what direction. And, I mean... I fought that, too. I'm not a fighter. I'm a Slytherin, not a Gryffindor. But I still have to fight sometimes, and I suppose... if you can't see what's dragging you down and what's trying to pull you up, you just lash out at all of it. It all looks like Inferi to me.

[He smiles again, weaker this time, and wipes his eyes on his cuff before hurriedly raising the cup to his lips.]

Sorry. Most of that probably didn't make much sense to you. This is why I ought to keep the thinking quiet.

The point is, I recognise that you were trying to help me. And I'm sorry I hurt you in return.

[Ima isn't following any of that wizard talk--something about slithering and griffin doors and a thing that sounds like "in-ferry"--but she understands the point he's making, and that's all that really matters right now.]

I accept your apology. [She really does; she's still cautious, naturally, but this isn't just lip service.] And I hope you understand why I couldn't wait quietly for you to come to a slow conclusion.

[She already explained to him that her chosen family would have been some of the first on a "pure blood" fascist's figurative chopping block, even if she herself were to be exempt on the basis of good breeding. And she'd given him the gist of WWII, as well, during which she'd grown into adulthood.]

[He still looks very shaky, clearly upset, but his smile is real, and the relief behind it shines through unmistakably.]

Thank you.

I do understand. I think I do, at least. I just wish I could have come to a faster one, and saved us both some heartache.

Maybe this will help you to understand.

[She withdraws the small wrapped package from her purse and slides it across the table to him.]

It's not much of a gift, I know--but I think it's important.

[Ima had paid a visit to the museum gift shop when it first opened, and when she'd found copies of the pitch cards from the Cabinet of Curiosities she'd stolen them all, every single copy of every single person's. That's what Regulus will find in the box: promotional photo cards of every freak in the show (minus Dell and Maggie, whose cards she'd seen fit to not include), with the freaks' stage names on the front and various fun facts about them printed on the back. Ima's, which credits her as "Ima Wiggles, the Stupendous Fat Lady" is on top. Underneath are the rest: The Illustrated Seal, The Astounding Lizard Girl, Amazon Eve, Lobster Boy. And more. All of them apart from the two Ima removed. It's clear from these cards alone that a system like that which Regulus had once believed in would not have been kind to those pictured in them, and that's the understatement of the century.]

Edited 2019-01-07 19:15 (UTC)

Thank you.

[He takes the box carefully, with a little nod, and opens it slowly, folding the paper as he goes and setting it neatly to one side.]

[For a long time after he opens it, he's silent, looking through the cards. Once or twice, he raises his head and looks as though he might say something, but then shakes his head and goes back to the cards, examining them closely.]

[They don't move, and that's still strange for him, but he's getting used to the idea of pictures that stay still. The pictures themselves are...]

[Well, she isn't wrong. Some of what he sees could be fixed in his world, if they had come from the right families and had access to the right charms and potions. The dwarf with the beard actually reminds him a little of Professor Flitwick - an oddity, but one to be tolerated. But most of them would, he thinks, have been quietly shuffled off out of sight if they had been born into a family like his. If they were lucky.]

[He sighs, straightening the edges of the cards, and nods slowly.]

Your friends, I take it?

My chosen family. I wouldn't count all of them as friends.

[She and Desiree hadn't gotten along well at all, but unlike Dell and Maggie, Ima still counts the three-breasted woman as a part of the family. You don't have to particularly like all of your family members.]

I'm from what would be considered "good breeding." The rest of them weren't, so there'd be no chance of exceptions being made for any of them.

[He lines the cards up more neatly, pinching the corners of the pile together before returning them to the box.]

They wouldn't have been our targets. I want you to know that. It wasn't about how people looked.

But I take your point.

It's not only your particular group I'm talking about. It's far bigger than that.

[It's why she couldn't sit by and keep her mouth shut.]

A rich young man of what might be called "pure blood" decided he owned us, the bizarre creatures that we were, and when we refused to be cowed he resorted to force. He killed us all, one by one.

That's why I can't afford to keep my mouth shut.

[Regulus is quiet for a long moment, scanning her face, his white eyes narrowing a little, his brow furrowing.]

[His voice, when he does speak, is quiet and apologetic.]

That's terrible. I didn't know.

I'm sorry.

[She doesn't go further into it, about the way she had to stand there and listen to many of them die, knowing someone of her size had no hope of running or hiding. Just waiting for her turn in line, then staring down the gold-plated barrel of Dandy's fancy little pistol and trying not to have a breakdown in her last moments alive. It's unnecessary to dwell on all that right now.]

Thank you. [She believes in the truth of this apology too, so there's nothing snide in her thanks.]

I'm relieved that the two of us can move on from here.

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pawntakesking - 2019-01-14 22:03 (UTC) - Expand

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, BARBARA. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 816.19.528.16 * wiggles has joined 816.19.528.16 <wiggles> Hello, this is Ima Wiggles. <wiggles> How can I get this machine to stop calling me Barbara? I don't go by that name anymore. <wiggles>** If you'd like to speak with me please leave a message!

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December 28th, early afternoon

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