(no subject)

[sunnydalealum]

She's turned the sign on the door to the side that says SORRY WE'RE CLOSED. It's technically after business hours, but that's just as well; it means they won't be interrupted. This is not the first customer to prefer his privacy, and won't be the last.

Alcina sits behind the counter, going through the day's accounts, and waits for the knock.

Comments

[nomorekaraoke]

"Thanks, doll."

And so he does, trying not to overload from the visual stimuli. So many little boxes and jars and bottles and books, everywhere and anywhere his eyes flicker. It's like Pokémon for the magically inclined.

"Well, this is nice. Quite the establishment you've got here," he notes with a bright smile, just as faux as his pseudonym. But he's a master at smiles, and hopefully Alcina can't tell.

It's idle chatter, thrown into the mix with the express intent to scare away the heebie jeebies; his own, not hers - but if it works, don't knock it. He certainly won't.

[sunnydalealum]

Alcina knows all about false smiles. It's the polite thing to treat them as genuine.

"Thank you. I do my best for my customers."

She leads him to a door at the back, opens it, and stands aside to let him through. On the other side is a smallish, neat room with a desk and three chairs (one behind the desk, two in front of it).

[nomorekaraoke]

Oh, dear.

Something has suddenly occurred to him. He's actually going to go through with this. This sudden realization has him lost for words, and how often does that happen on a scale from one to we don't care?

Yeah. Not often.

He steps inside, shrugging out of his dark trench coat, and off with the hat too, and the gloves and the sun glasses.

Big pro about sunglasses? They hide your eyes. He just took them off.

Jesus. "So," he clears his throat mid-query. "How do we get this show on the road?"

[sunnydalealum]

Alcina's watching him, and makes a decision almost as soon as the sunglasses come off; she takes one of the two chairs in front of the desk and gestures him to the other, rather than circling to sit behind it.

"Well," she says. "You said there's a particular dream you need to recover and store, is that right?"

[nomorekaraoke]

Believe it or not, for what it's worth, that little detail alone quells the creepies. Lorne sighs, crossing the one long leg over the other at the knee, very much not fiddling with his things hanging over the armrest.

"Right." He nods, the once, because that's the sort of thing you do in this kinda context. "You'll forgive me if heart-to-hearts isn't really my thing, won't you?"

[sunnydalealum]

Little details like that are her stock in trade. Almost literally.

"Of course," she says. "I don't need to know any details of the content, and only a few about the circumstances. Such as whether there was anything you did to bring on this dream in the first place."

[nomorekaraoke]

It's one of many little reason her reputation is so solid among his fellows, peers and not-quite-eithers. She understands discretion, she knows how to use her resources, and almost anything you want, you can find at Alcina's. The neutral ground is, more than anything else, why Lorne chose her particular brand of expertise and willingness to serve.

"You mean apart from drinking myself into a stupor?" And as always, the snide quips work wonders as impromptu shields.

But, he'll have to be honest for this one. He's got to tell it like it is. He swallows softly, his throat suddenly dried stiff like parchment. "I...honestly don't know if I did anything unusual. I'm sorry."

[sunnydalealum]

"But nothing deliberate. All right." And though she doesn't write anything down, there's a definite sense of taking note. Her smile is reassuring when she adds: "That eliminates a lot of extra worries."

A pause. "Second question: did this seem in any way to be a prophetic dream, or a sending from someone else?"

[nomorekaraoke]

Secretly, oh, so very secretly - in the very heart of hearts kind of way - he wishes it was either of the two. But he shakes his head with a shrug and another apologetic curl of his lips.

"No, sweetie. I'm not a conduit. Maybe a bit of a receiver, but not like that."

[sunnydalealum]

"All right," she says again, brisk and efficient.

"Next and possibly last question: was this a one-time dream, or has it recurred?"

[nomorekaraoke]

His fingers curl around the brim of his hat - a dark beige fedora to fit the season - and they twitch with the need to move, to be as animated as his anxiety calls for. He isn't sure if he's had enough to drink; he isn't sure if he's had too much.

"Is it the same dream if it," and here comes another pause, emphasized by the way he shifts his gaze to his hands and back up. It's disconcerting, not only talking about potentially invasive arcane procedures, but opening up. "If it's changed slightly?"

But that wasn't answering her question. "Twice. I've had it twice, and I know - third time's the charm, but I'm not sure I wanna be charmed, you know?"

[sunnydalealum]

She nods. "Recurring with changes may make things slightly more complicated, but it should still be very doable."

Her hands clasp loosely in front of her -- capable hands, businesslike, unadorned save the thin beaten-silver commitment ring on her left hand.

"What you're going to want is an Oneiros bottle. And a high-to-medium-powered magician to perform the associated spell. I can supply you with the bottle and the text, and I can recommend some people if you're interested."

[nomorekaraoke]

"The bit I need to recover," her word, not his, "doesn't change so much. It's the bits that come before it that take me for a different scary-go-round every time." Nightmares are nightmares are nightmares; the good bit, the one he can't take his mind off or he'll go to pieces (he knows it), feels the same. It's felt the same both times, even if it wasn't quite the same. The Devil is in the details, but Lorne doesn't mind his work, if that's what it is.


He nods, more quietly resigned than anything. Magic is never easy, and certainly not if it's any good... Alcina's seems to him like a base camp of sorts. It's where you get your gear and the know-how to use it, but what you do with it when push comes a-shovin', that's up to you.

His eyes pick out the glint on her left hand, flicking briefly to the silver band on his pinkie finger. So much alike, but so different. For the first time since setting foot inside her shop, he doesn't feel cornered by the figments of his imagination.

"Thanks, doll. You're a veritable Dream catcher, life saver, the works. I'd love to get a few names; I'm not about to dabble with this on my lonesome. I don't have the skills for it."

[sunnydalealum]

Alcina smiles, and nods. "Any requirements I should know, before I name names? Any alignment or affiliation you want to avoid?"

[nomorekaraoke]

He tilts his head in response. "As long as you don't send me to anyone with a known connection to Wolfram & Hart, you'll 've won my undying devotion. Preferably someone as neutral as they come."

Always easier to chat with someone of similar views on certain aspects of the daily grind.

[sunnydalealum]

"Neutral it is," she agrees, with a slight deepening of the smile.

"Shall we go pick up your bottle now, then, or would you prefer to place it on reserve until you've got your magician lined up?"

[nomorekaraoke]

"It's now or never, sweetie. I don't think I can muster up the nerves to come back here at a later date. Not with this particular intent, anyhow."

He grins. It's brief, but it's there. "Call me silly, but I'm a scaredy-cat when it comes to magic. Not to mention having my brain prodded for deep dark secrets. No, it's gotta be soon, or I'll talk myself out of it before you can say chicken."

[sunnydalealum]

The smile goes rueful at one corner; it's an honest expression, even if showing it is deliberate.

"Perfectly understandable, Mr. Green."

Smoothly she gets to her feet, and holds the door of the little office open for him.

"Let's go find your bottle, then, shall we?"

[nomorekaraoke]

She gets a smirk in return, one of the more amicable ones in his repertoire, and he follows her back into the shop.

And once he's in there, he doesn't have any idea where to look, there's so many intriguing little things to rest his eyes on. "You wouldn't happen to have something that wouldn't look too out of place in a liquor cabinet?"

[sunnydalealum]

"I'm afraid they tend to look more like perfume bottles," Alcina says apologetically. "But for a high-end item like this, I can offer you a very reliable glamour to disguise it however you like, at only a small extra charge. Fully customizeable."

She's leading the way down one of the innumerable little side aisles as she speaks, and stops at a polished wooden cupboard with a glittering purple scarf draped decoratively from one of its door handles.

[nomorekaraoke]

He chuckles at the thought of giving a bottle a magical makeover to fit in better, and how very silly it would be for a fellow like him.

"A perfume bottle is fine, honey, you should see my budoir. Takes a lot of work to look this good when this is what you have to work with." He makes a very elaborate gesture at himself, but does so with a grin.

Nice scarf. Reminds him of one of his outfits, actually, from back in the day.

[sunnydalealum]

She chuckles, matching his tone. "Well, let's have a look at it and see what you think."

Raising her left hand and murmuring something inaudible under her breath, she presses three fingers to a particular spot on the wooden door before reaching for the undraped handle with her right hand.

The inside of the cabinet is not just shadowed; it's pitch black. Alcina reaches in confidently as if she has the contents and their locations memorized, and draws out a bottle fashioned of horn and ivory.

It's about as tall as the width of her palm, with a round body and a graceful narrow neck. The mouth is stoppered with what looks like a blob of soft translucent wax, the color of pale honey.

[nomorekaraoke]

Magic and animal cruelty just seems to go hand in hand, now, doesn't it. Eye of newt, salamander breath, wart of toad, ivory, the list just goes on and on and on, like a record stuck on repeat.

"Ooh," he enthuses. "It's so pretty." And so tiny it'll be lost forever in the folds of his hands. Oh, dear.

[sunnydalealum]

"One Oneiros bottle," she says, with a certain understated pride. "It's not quite as fragile as it looks, but you don't want to drop it.

"Let's dig out that spell, and then I can find my list of practicioners...." She doesn't drop her left hand until after she's closed the door to the cabinet, but then she's sweeping past him and heading for the bookshelves.

[nomorekaraoke]

And he follows her like a faithful puppy, cradling the teeny little carved bottle like a kid carrying treasure.

He is.

"Right. Spell, then spell casters. Fabulous."

[sunnydalealum]

It takes a little longer to locate the spell, but Alcina finally comes up with it in a stack of meticulously wrapped scrolls.

"Now I can copy this for you," she says, carefully rewinding the silk wrappings, "and have it delivered, or you can purchase the original. It shouldn't make a practical difference, but the original will cost you significantly more."

[nomorekaraoke]

Lorne shrugs, head canted slightly to the side as he watches the Missus doing what she does best. Service-minded, to the point, not to mention her knack for making her customer feel at ease-- Not to mention she just offered not to rip him off! If she wasn't already an entrepreneur with a thriving business, Lorne wouldn't at all mind reserving a spot for her on his staff.

But that's neither here nor there. "I wouldn't want to deprive someone else the pleasure of doing this particular kind of dreamy business with you." He's got the money to spare, but in all honesty, he wouldn't spend it on original scrolls. Scotch whiskey of a good vintage, though. Completely different thing.

"I collect other things, sweetie. A copy will suit me just fine and dandy." He'll hand her the address for a post box not two blocks away - just a minute while he fetches a card for her from his vest pocket.

[sunnydalealum]

Alcina's very good at what she does -- too good to need to cheat her customers. Especially customers as well-heeled as the mysterious Mister Green.

She accepts the card with a smile. "What sort of things?" she asks, turning to lead the way toward the counter.

[nomorekaraoke]

He's a veritable enigma - a Pylean so far removed from his Viking-slash-ZZ Top wannabe kith and kin he could charm the socks off of anyone with a heart (and a funny bone).

"Music. Scotch whiskey. Perfume bottles." He waggles his eyebrows. "Only, not really. But set me down in the middle of the Meatpacking District and honey, I'm like a kid in a candy store."

Idle chatter, again, but not out of any kind of heebies this time. Maybe he's like this all the time. Shock, horror.

[sunnydalealum]

Completing the transaction goes smoothly. She gives him a short list of names and contact numbers culled from her go-to book, and carefully wraps the tiny bottle in a bubble-wrap before boxing it up for him.

"Now, do you want to pay for these now, and I'll bill you for the spell when we deliver it? Or do you want to start an account here, and you can pay for the spell in advance, at a discount?"

The itemized list of charges adds up to rather a high figure.

[nomorekaraoke]

It only takes him a moment to decide; it isn't a difficult decision to make, not at all in lieu of the things he's already gone through tonight. Paying the piper is the easy bit.

"Start me up under the name Green, would you? I hope using an alias won't be a problem."

[sunnydalealum]

"Not at all," she says, with a smile.

Though he may be one of her only customers to ask before giving an alias.

[nomorekaraoke]

He's a special snowflake. Everyone knows it. And as for the alias, it's so obviously a fake, there's no use pretending it isn't, is there?

"Grand." He'll stand by the counter and again watch Alcina. "You really are a darling."

[sunnydalealum]

"Just part of the service," she says, but her smile as she rings up the sale is very appreciative.

A last few formalities -- cash or credit, and so on -- and finally she's handing him a plastic bag with his box in it, his receipt, and a courteous thank-you-and-have-a-good-night.

[nomorekaraoke]

"Tootles!" Putting his fedora back on, coat still hanging over his arm, Lorne goes out into the night again, the bag clutched in one big green hand like a lifeline. Somehow, braving the darkness doesn't feel as ominously threatening anymore.

Just another day's work at Alcina's Things.