Interlude: “All About Eve”
Eve smiles widely and turns to Burne.
"I like your hat. I must say, I've been sized up by quite a few men in my day, but never so...precisely as you're doing right now. Which is exactly my point. You're getting it all wrong." She flashes Meiji a timeless smile.
"I....", he begins, affronted.
"You're a learned man. An Erisian alchemist, from your..." she pauses to drink from her newly-filled cup, "Aristocratic bearing and sulfurous aroma. But what do you really know?"
"Well, in point of fact...."
“You put everything into little jars, then label each one in a meticulous script, so you call tell one thing is not like another and somewhat like something else. Sometimes you mix them together and there's a flash of colored smoke, and occasionally, from what I've heard, there's one less alchemist.”
"Yes, but..."
“Or you play the naming game, thinking that names have power, especially if they're hard to pronounce. You pick a flower and call it a flame, and soon you're holding nothing but ash. That's just a petty trick, a kind of power which is ultimately self-limiting.”
"That's not entirely..."
“Do you really suppose that gets to the essence of things?
"In my vast experience, I...."
“Have you been to the Museum of Defeated Cultures in Eris? Are you familiar with Hannek's "A Gentleman from Gallina in Two Incomplete Symbolic Systems”? It’s a painting of a bum urinating into a canal mounted behind a statue of a bum urinating into a canal. It's
spectacularly ugly, but it contains a valuable truth. Neither is the bum."
She then says, largely to herself, "You think you're building a library when you're actually building a prison." Turning to Meiji, Eve inquires, "So my young Imperial scholar, are you building something else?"
Burne blinks, dazedly, and raises a finger to emphasize his point. "Um," he declares. "Ah," he
clarifies. "You," he adds. "Fire," he explains. "If," he continues. "Well," he concludes. Now staring into space, he absently lowers the finger, and takes a sip of his now tepid drink.
Abraxis snickers, an almost musical sort of rasping sound.
The Lady Eve’s attention switches back to Burne. "You were right about one thing though, philosophy is entirely irrelevant. Experience is the only teacher, which is why my lessons can get so… messy, and often go awry."
Burne smiles, albeit tentatively. "Practical matters are a specialty of mine," he declares.
Meiji gives Burne a dirty look, which is quickly expanded to include Abraxas. He leans forward, his brow furrowing, as sparks dance around his fingertips, and mutters, “If your mechanical cat isn’t shock-proof, maybe it should be….”
But before Burne can stutter any more monosyllables about the nature of knowledge and the universe, or, worse, begin to consciously flirt with the Lady Eve, Meiji clears his throat and says loudly, “Well, Eve - if I may venture to call you that – that’s half the fun with experience, isn’t it? You never really know what it’s going to get you. Sometimes you make a choice and end up running out of town with a mob behind you, and sometimes you end up drinking wine with a man whose hat is on fire, a man who recently had sex with a priestess while he was dead, a man wearing a dress, and a particularly inscrutable lady.
"To answer your previous question, however rhetorical - unlike my esteemed and inflammable companion, I’m not building much of anything. Other than myself, perhaps. You could say I’m a votary at the temple of experience too. Which - to link our current subjects - is why I’ve been more than a little curious about The Hunger and half-tempted to go mess with it and see what happens. He raises a hand quickly, before anyone can comment, and says,”Not to worry – I’m just a little tempted. I’m not stupid - or, I admit, brave - enough to act on it.
"Nadir, unfortunately, it seems is both, so I’m all for nipping him in the bud.”
Meiji’s eyes sparkle and his grin becomes a little wicked, as he says to Eve. “Speaking of stupidity and bravery and possibly being nipped in the bud, once we've done what we need to, would you happen to be free for dinner tomorrow? It might be a fun experience and ending up messy or awry would be a consummation devoutly to be wished." He raises his glass and gives her a mock-salute.
Eve slowly shifts her gaze from face to face while taking in Meiji's laundry list of vulgar wonders and improbabilities. When he finishes, she says "Just...wow."
Meiji grins like the panda that ate the imperial songbird.
"Why do I get the feeling you just might survive The Hunger? Of course the Three Sisters are another story. And yes, Meiji, tomorrow night, 8:00PM.. Pick somewhere nice. You can meet me at Pier Four, Quai Central. I like the watch the ships come in."
Meiji’s grin broadens enough to make him look like the last man who displeased Lord Kenji. "Excellent! I'll look forward to it."
Apparently not satisfied with captivating two men simultaneously, Eve glances back at Lord Kenji, although, perhaps, only to admire the fine embroidery of his dress.