oneman_onevote | Havelock Vetinari :: mid-2005 timewarp AU

Havelock still has no idea what this place is, why he keeps opening doors and finding it there waiting, and why he doesn't do the sensible thing and turn around again every time.

It is definitely real, proved by a brief experiment involving a slight cut on the back of his hand that did not disappear on returning to Ankh-Morpork. Following on from that conclusion - it is not safe, however many rules it has in place. He knows all too little about so many patrons - and all too much about some others, though from the research he has done since on the Fair Folk, perhaps he did well to even come out of the conversation alive.

Still, he will never find out why it appears so often if he avoids the place entirely.

And the extra time to read unmolested - theoretically - is most appreciated.

(Student assassin, armchair, textbook.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If anything, Puck finds the book more threatening than the knife had been.

The fae aren't really what you'd call big readers.

Still, when all is done, this fellow is only a mortal man, and surely no great taxation as a foe. Puck sidles invisibly and curiously closer.

Indeed, Havelock looks almost relaxed, to the casual viewer. He has stretched his legs out idly, one hand rests loosely over the arm of his chair, and his gaze is fixed firmly on the page in almost total absorption.*

Only the occasional turn of a page prompts him to move.

* Naturally, the 'almost' is there for a reason.

Watching mortals has long been a hobby of his-- at work, at play, traveling through the woods-- and is, at this point, something he does nearly without thought. It's a pleasant distraction from thoughts of what's to come.

(Oberon has never been to Milliways, but he does know of its existence. Puck told him himself, in happier times.

He wonders how far the king will seek him out, and who of the court shall be sent to do the job.

Or if he'll simply wait.)

In the meantime, he creeps a little nearer to the mortal's chair, approaching it from the side. Strange-- though perhaps to be expected: at this distance, he does not seem carved from stone at all.

It is an excellent book.

Havelock understands the theory now, but a little attention paid to the fine detail never hurts - particularly as he rather suspect he will have to destroy this copy, to keep it from falling into the wrong hands.* He does dislike wasting anything interesting.

He flicks to the next page, smoothing the paper unconsciously as he considers the next point. It is a good one - but how does it apply to an urban environment?

* Read: any but his.

Puck could really bide here all the afternoon-- he is a strange one-- but the trouble of being invisible in a bar staffed by rats is that even when they can't see you, they can frequently smell you.

A creature with a tray pauses to sniff at him. Puck glowers.

Havelock stills a moment.

The rats are so businesslike, always in motion, that one stopped alone in the midle of the floor strikes him as strange. He watches it a moment, considering.

But nothing else strikes him as wrong, and he turns back to the page after a moment or two, content to leave a small anomaly be.

Well, ha! This mortal is clearly not as with it as Puck had supposed. They are all terrible fools.

As the mortal eyes the rat and then returns to his study, Puck lets out a sniggering giggle that sets the waitrat scurrying off.

.... Hold on.

Edited Date: 2011-05-16 10:22 pm (UTC)

Hmm.

Havelock does not move, but slowly closes the book.

That puts Puck out of his good humor.

You'd think he'd have the grace to jump in his seat.

"Good day, goodly cypher," he mutters, slipping grudgingly into view.

Ah.

That... actually makes sense.

For once.

"Good day," Havelock says, willingly enough, though he eyes Puck just a little too sharply for it to be casual. "A clever trick you have there."

He smiles.

"Had I wished a trick, you should not have seen me at all."

"I do not doubt it."

No. Certainly not that.

It might explain why Havelock has rapidly slid back to the stonelike demeanor of their previous encounter.

That irritates Puck, actually. He's seen the mortal now when he thought himself alone; any tricks are clearly on his part. If one is going to dissemble, one ought to do it well.

"I see you are a scholar," he observes, with an arch of his eyebrows. He hasn't yet deigned to move from his spot on the floor, and is therefore sprawled by Havelock's chair so that everybody else has to go round him.

"Indeed," Havelock says mildly.

He may be a cold-blooded killer, but at least he's thorough about it?

The fairy's smile sharpens, though it is not directed at Havelock exactly but slides off to the side.

"Do you not find that strange?"

"Scholarship?"

Mostly, he finds it relaxing.

"Quite." Puck wrinkles his nose.

"I was not given to understand that a mortal man may possess brain as well as brawn. In fact, a great many of them are altogether wanting of either."

"Quite."

(This is, by the way, possibly the only time that Havelock has ever been described as possessing brawn.)

"But I have to pass the time somehow."

Puck's eyebrows arch.

"Does not time pass thee by with swiftness enough?"

"Not here."

His glance towards the door is just slightly sour.

Time running at different speeds, he feels, is somehow cheating.

(Which doesn't mean he won't take full advantage.)

Puck laughs. The sound is bright and silvery, and seems to catch at the ears with a sharp insistence.

"Ay me, Sir Cypher. Are you trapped?"

"Not so far. But time runs so differently here. Sometimes it stops, sometimes not."

Havelock is not reassured to know that people can be trapped here.

But he hides it well.

"And so I wait for the opportune time to leave."

He snorts.

"Pity."

Havelock raises an eyebrow, very dry.

"I am terribly sorry to trespass on your time so."

"I shall bear it in mind," Puck replies, rather dry himself.

That wasn't quite what he was getting at, but whatever. Mortals.

Puck is not quite sure how to proceed-- in Faerie, most enmities are settled quickly, decisively, or both, and among mortals he has not lingered long. But he is not entirely sure what to do now.

At the very least, he can likely make a pest of himself. He stays put, watching.

That apparently settled, Havelock turns back to the book.

In the Assassin's Guild, it might surprise some to know that violence is not the general recourse during conflict - or at least, not apparent violence.

They are a subtle folk, in enmity as in everything.

(Or at least: This is what they like to think.)

Havelock flips back to the index, and starts running a fingertip thoughtfully down each page.

Puck snorts.

And, after a pause, tilts his head slightly and makes the very mild effort required to turn the book into a large, hairy spider.

Except that nothing happens.

Havelock finds the reference he was looking for, and turns back to the right page.

...That does indeed seem to be all.

Puck, meanwhile, has gone quite a bit paler than even his usual pale, and tries terribly hard to keep his breathing from speeding.

He focuses a little harder. Like before, nothing changes.

This will be decidedly ungood, he thinks distantly, if the king really does send an emissary to seek him out.

Havelock gaze has, at some point in the last few seconds, slid sideways to regard the look on Puck's face in silence, cool and assessing.

The book stays open but unheeded in his hands.

That should not frighten him. Off-putting and odd he may be, but this man is only a mortal. Puck resents bitterly that his expression should betray anything at all, and resents it more that he does not know what that is, or what power this mortal may glean from it.

Well. There is more left to him than shifting shape, or at least there ought to be.

Voice pitched low, and eyes locked on Havelock's face, he murmurs, "Have I distracted you from your scholarship?"

It's intended to compel, and Puck notes with sharp relief that it's working the way it always has: with a sweetening of the air, a lilting quality to light and sound. "You ought to see to it. You seem a great one for taking no notice."

He is persuasive, Havelock notes idly.

And then his eyes are back on the book, halfway down a page that seems strangely unfamiliar even though he has just read it - and he has an excellent short term memory.

The faerie's presence is evidently more of a distraction than he had thought.

"I'm certain I shall see you again," Puck says, soft.

"But if I am clever enough, my dear sir cypher ... you shan't see me."

He vanishes.

Havelock does not look up again, but he is troubled.

More troubled than a parting shot alone really justifies.

He really must spend more time on camouflage.