begmetwice | A Street in Belgravia, London

Irene hadn't realized how much she'd missed her city until she was back in it.

And while she kept reminding herself, lest she get swept away in it all, that this wasn't her London...you know, it was close enough. Everything seemed to be right where she'd left it, even if this was a different universe, technically. It threatened to hurt, when she caught the Eye or the Spire or the Bridge in her sights, and it probably would later. But for right now, it was just...warm, and exciting, and like coming home.

And, admittedly, a large chunk of that might be the company. Irene hadn't said so and likely wouldn't, but without Amaya to show around the city -- and, let's face it, at least metaphorically hold her hand a bit -- she wasn't sure whether this trip would have been pleasant for her. It might not have even occurred to her to try without the option to bring Amaya, honestly.

As walkable as the city was, they'd already hit the Christmas market at Hyde Park (as though Irene would allow them to visit without Amaya getting a good look at local modern craftsmanship in addition to the centuries-old architecture), and as though her feet had a mind of her own, they'd made their way to Belgravia from there.

Which, really, was what Irene had come here for, wasn't it? This was going to be the hardest part.

"If you tilt your head a bit, you'll see Big Ben from here," Irene offered, pointing a gloved hand to indicate a sliver between the posh rowhouses they were passing, where the clock tower could be seen. "Or, well, technically Ben's the bell; the tower itself is named Elizabeth, for our last Queen."

Stalling, so she didn't have to explain why she'd taken them down some random, wealthy-looking street? Psh.

Amaya	Though the trip so far had only just begun, really, London was already having quite a bit of an impression on Amaya. There was, she would admit but not at all dwell on deeper than a passing thought, a certain appreciation and fondness for having Irene just lead her around a little, to show off things that seemed spark off some kind of pride mixed with....something else, that Amaya didn't exactly have the emotional wherewithal to really identify, but she had enough Irene wherewithal to recognize that something else was there. And, really, wherever they were, she'd always enjoy just being there together (catch her in a good enough mood and maybe she'd even admit it now, too!), but London had this nice blend of its history and its present, of medieval and modernity, which, she felt, reflected herself an awful lot these days, what with trucking through the streets at Irene's side likely looking every bit like she belonged in this day and age, until she probably opened her mouth, anyway. This place, however, was just a bit different, that poshness still a bit of a struggle for her to effectively adopt, but it was pretty and she'd always be interested in the architecture of places, and she, dutifully, tilted her head perhaps a bit more than just a bit to see where Irene was pointing. "And what about the clock?" she asked, remembering the big clocktower they'd visited in France that one time and already thinking of asking if they let people check out behind this one, too. "Has the clock itself got a name? And who's Ben, that he gets a bell named after him?" The naming the tower itself after a queen bit made the expected kind of sense, really.
Irene	The way Irene just about lit up at being asked follow-up questions, she was nearly in competition with the Christmas-decorated houses lining the street. It wasn't just that Amaya was here with her, like a security blanket whose need maybe hadn't quite been wholly disclosed; she was interested and present and Irene hadn't known, precisely, how very happy that would make her. "The clock, tragically, doesn't have a proper name," Irene told her, fairly transparently delighted to be asked. "Supposedly there was some chap named Benjamin who oversaw the installation a century and a half ago and it's named for him, but it's one of those things that's probably at least a little bit apocryphal, you know? But I think they still let people go up inside to look at it all from inside, if you don't mind a spot of climbing and noise." Something like three hundred steps and, you know, being inside a bell tower was involved.
Amaya	"Oh, well, you know noise never really bothered me none," Amaya pointed out, especially since it was pretty surprising that her hearing hadn't gone the way her eyesight had, what with all the clanking and hammering and occasional explosions and all. The climbing...her thoughts on that were going to end up being very To Be Determined. "But I'd love to have a look at the bones of it," she admitted, although it was hardly an admission, since she was pretty sure that Irene could practically read her mind on that one by offering it in the first place, "if we could. And I like that. That the guy who put in some of the work got some recognition out of it." Oversaw probably meant not as much work, true, but it was probably a heck of a lot more involvement than some queen.
Irene	Some queen who only died last year, even! "The real mastermind behind the clock itself, I think, was a gent who went by Augustus -- but that flows off the tongue rather worse, doesn't it?" Though 'Big Gus' wasn't terrible. "But we'll absolutely have to go. I haven't been inside there since I was a girl. Maybe it's all different." Highly unlikely, given that it didn't seem to have changed all that much since the 1870s or so. "Though," Irene reflected, and maybe her stride took her a little closer to Amaya, just to brush against her as the house she'd been looking for came into view and her heart skipped a best, "not much else has been, really."
Amaya	"Could've called it Old Augie," Amaya mused, a bit softer, in light of that faint brush of Irene's arm against hers in a way that took a bit of the bombast out of how she might have otherwise made the suggestion. "That's got a good ring to it--" Only then did she realize how good the word choice had been for talking about a belltower was, and she snorted--"if you ask me..." But with that said and out of the way, her attention shifted a little more toward Irene. "You..." she ventured, with the cautiousness of someone making their way out into unfamiliar and unknown waters, since, well, she wasn't very good at this sort of thing, and she could be all wrong, but, she was trying to better at it, and so... "spend a lot of time in this area? When you were a kid?" She could see it making sense, Irene coming from somewhere like this.
Irene	"I did," Irene replied, exhaling the answer on a soft sigh, before glancing around and seeming to orient herself a bit before nodding eastwards, more towards Mayfair. "My parents lived over that way. Or, well. In my universe, they did, anyway." In actuality, a Peruvian bear with a marmalade obsession routinely mildly terrorized the street Irene had grown up on, in this particular universe. She had mostly looked for similarities, when deciding where to go, rather than potential threats of overblown whimsy. "This area used to be quite dodgy, originally," she added, just to say something, and rare though it might have been to see, Irene was clearly nervous. Something about these rows of beautifully terraced homes was putting her on edge, even if she hadn't said explicitly what, yet. "Full of highwaymen, until it was cleaned up in the early eighteens." And then, you know. Sometimes criminals still lived here, and just operated just a little more discreetly.
Amaya	And a noticeably nervous Irene was an unsettling thing, indeed, especially if even Amaya could pick up on it. But there was a part of her, these days, that actually did wonder if that had less to do with extremity and more to do with familiarity, wild as a concept as that was to her still. "Sounds a bit like where I grew up, then," she offered, with a faint bit of see, I'm trying! kind of smile, "only except for highwaymen, it was mostly pirates, on account of Llewdor being a seaport and the deadly desert on its western border and all the mountains making it a bit difficult for a lot of foot traffic. And our only tower didn't have clocks and bells in it, just an evil wizard."
Irene	That trying was shining through just fine for Irene, who returned that smile with a frankly grateful one of her own. It helped, more than she would have thought it would have. As did, actually, thinking about where Amaya was from -- which was both more interesting, and less fraught than the knowledge that the house numbers were dwindling towards the most familiar one, and she could already see that the people who lived there in this version of London apparently believed in using LED colored lights on their Christmas tree. Was that even allowed? Had standards slipped so? It didn't look awful or anything, and she supposed it was inside, but -- "Just an evil wizard," Irene noted, tilting her head in appreciation for that casualness. "The pirates, I recall, but how just evil a wizard are we talking?"
Amaya	"Evil in that my brother was constantly being advised to not run about by himself too much since it was rumored that the wizard had a penchant for kidnapping boys and keeping 'em as slaves," Amaya offered, and, well, a bit hard to put as much casualness on a thing like that, and she frowned at the darker lean in the conversation that a question like that took. "'Course, no one could prove anything, since no one could get even two steps up the mountain path to his tower without something terrible happening to them, either, so you just sort of kept your head down and minded your business..." Manannan's Tower truly did cast a dark shadow on the entire valley of Llewdor. It was hardly any wonder that most people got out the moment they saw the opportunity, Amaya herself included in that. It honestly still surprised her, a little, whenever she was reminded that Graham hailed from there as well.
Irene	"Is he still there?" Irene asked, a note of concern overtaking her forced casualness and, in fact, actually steering her thoughts from that one particular terraced house that she was so focused on. Her step took her a bit closer to Amaya again, and -- you know what? Maybe she could lightly loop her hand around Amaya's elbow? Just to keep her close, even if Irene knew exactly where they were and wasn't particularly worried about their safety at the moment, aside from ambient...shivers, and memories. London had its share of horrors, of course -- maybe they could take the Whitechapel tour later, or Irene's version of it because she didn't need a guide to point out murder sites -- but for the most part, those were far enough in the past to be spooky stories and little more, to a modern audience.
Amaya	Well, with Irene's hand in the crook of her arm, she could definitely feel Amaya's shrug. "Far as we know," she said. "But I haven't really gone back except for a few business things here and there ever since I set off to find an apprenticeship, and my brother hightailed it out of there as soon as he could, too. Papa Blackstone's still holding down the old homestead, I suppose, but we don't really keep in touch much. And the wizard's always been a bit of a recluse; you'd get to thinking maybe he finally bit the big one up there, and then someone's carrots'd all turn to snake or their chickens go missing, and, welp, guess he's stick kicking around after all. But almost every place back home's got some sort of mad magician lurking around somewhere; even back in Daventry, there's rumored to be a witch in woods somewhere."
Irene	"Your dad sounds brave to stay put," Irene commented lightly, though she immediately thought that that was somewhere she'd like to visit, evil wizard potential or not. A bit of magical threat was worth getting to see where Amaya had come from, she thought. "And there's never any sort of...good witch, is there? Someone whose reputation maybe just overtook her a bit, or they got carried away?" ...asking for a friend. A free-associating friend, that was all.
Amaya	Amaya made a soft grunt of light disagreement about Irene's word choice to describe her father; stubborn seemed far more accurate to her than brave ever would, but she was hardly about to mince words on the topic when she'd already gone pretty far off on a tangent about her world when they were right here in Irene's (sort of). And for the rest of it? Another shrug. "Oh, there's a handful of good witches and wizards here and there, but they don't make nearly as much noise as the evil ones. And letting their reputations precede them and getting carried away's probably right there on the first page of their magic manuals, or whatever they've got."
Irene	"What about perfectly ordinary, non-magical, notorious baddies?" Irene wondered, bringing them to a stop in front of that particular terraced house, with the brightly colored tree visible through a window, and sighing softly. (Though she did have the sense to keep them across the street. They'd probably already caught someone's attention, quiet neighborhood like this. She'd always favored it because you knew when someone didn't belong here, and quite quickly.) "Any of those back home? Plenty in Fandom, I can tell you that." And at least one who was there because she'd been bad, and was instead looking at where she might have remained if she hadn't overplayed her hand.
Amaya	"Oh, there's plenty of those, too," said Amaya, wondering why she felt the need to sound so reassuring, just as she was wondering, with a bit of a tilted head, about them stopping, about that sigh, about....well, this particular line of questioning, really. "It's just that all the big-name magical ones make it a pretty rough market out there for your regular old blue-collar working class villains. But....you know...pirates, swashbucklers, political tyrants, swindling scheming merchants..." That was one was said with a particular curl of her lip, although, really, a part of her irritation at the Merchant of Miracles for landing her in this spot had diminished significantly over the years, not that she'd ever let him get word of it!
Irene	And all the warmth and reassurance that had momentarily bolstered Irene abandoned her, briefly, at that lip-curl. Scheming merchants, after all, sounded the most like her former bedfellows. Sometimes literally, this time. "You know, in my universe," she began, as conversationally as she could manage -- which, in this case, was a little bit over-bright for a typical Irene conversational gambit, but she was trying, "a very famous criminal lived in this house, actually." She lifted her head, nodding across the street. "A blackmailer. She collected the secrets of the rich and powerful, and used them to her advantage." And secrets were still her favorite currency, even if she'd learned some lessons along the way.
Amaya	And, Amaya, in all her attempts to figure out exactly why Irene was handing her this particular little historical detail, if that was what the questions were leading to, and whether or not it had anything to do with how, ever since they started down this way, something seemed a bit...off about Irene in a way that she couldn't quite put her (gloved, though not currently with greasy work ones) finger on, tilted her head a moment, considering the house in question, then considered Irene. "Was she any good at it?" she asked. "I mean, seems to me, if you're a blackmailer, but you're getting famous for it, then that kind of seems like it'd be a bit..." Her hand sort of danced around to find a word, "counterproductive. But she clearly couldn't have been doing that badly for herself in that regard, either."
Irene	"Infamous might be the better word," Irene acquiesced with an appreciative -- maybe even proud? Whoever could say -- nod. "And she was very good at it. She was the sort of person who could ingratiate herself to just about anyone, at least at first. Plus her profession helped open a door or two." She lowered her voice, conspiratorial. This part of the story, at least, was pretty fun, even if one was the subject of it. "She was a dominatrix, you see. Highly-sought and, for the most part, discreet -- aside from her penchant for taking a souvenir photo every now and again as a bit of an insurance policy."
Amaya	And the conspiratorial nature had one of Amaya's brows lifted. "Bet that part," she responded back, her own conspiratorial tone back being just a bit of a rough whisper; conspiracy did not exactly come naturally to her, after all, "wasn't really in the contracts..." Amaya also wasn't quite sure she knew exactly what a dominatrix was, which was pretty impressive, considering how long the two of them had known each other. She had a few ideas, and the vast disparity in those ideas left her thinking she'd be better off just not embarrassing herself by asking for clarification and just hoping the context clues along the way helped her fill in those gaps for her.
Irene	Well. Irene might have demonstrated some...tendencies, but for the most part, that was a set of tools she only brought out by request, these days. (And she, in a fittingly Gift of the Magi-like twist, had not wanted to embarrass Amaya by asking if she knew that word.) "Absolutely not. But it worked -- this lady, you see, aside from professional skills, wasn't much of a fighter." She shrugged a shoulder, warming to her new role as narrator. The distance afforded her a nice buffer, there. "The secrets and the photos were her way of staying safe, even as she made more and more and more dangerous acquaintances -- until one day, she went too far." Irene wrinkled her nose, giving a tsk. "She took intimate photos of a princess, and thought she might see what the Crown itself had to say about it." Wasn't that a stupid thing to have done, Amaya?
Amaya	With a few exceptions thanks to the occasional blue bloods filtering through Fandoms streets on occasional or professional contracts involving many shiny gold coins, Amaya generally thought it was a stupid idea to involve oneself with royalty in general. "Probably not a whole lot of good things," she ventured, especially since it was a pretty captivating story (or perhaps it was just the person who was telling it? Hard to tell, really, where her appreciation for a good yarn ended and her appreciation for Irene began, in this instance), "I'd reckon...."
Irene	But what if the royalty in question was a very rich princess (to be) who was also quite pretty? Compelling, right? "No, they completely overreacted," Irene told her, shaking her head disparagingly. "Not only were the cops involved, but they brought on this absolute monster of a detective." Sometimes being the narrator meant you got to tell the story differently from how other people might. "And he took her down -- by releasing her cache of information to the very people it affected, and ensuring her life and career would come to a screeching halt, without any of the public scandal of a trial. She'd just be...disposed of."
Amaya	"Well, at least she'd get to avoid the--" Amaya started, then stopped, frowning a little as a thought seemed to come to her pretty much mid-sentence, "...ah, but no public scandal meant she wouldn't even get the benefit of having all that information she'd gotten affecting any of those people's lives, either...so the only one being put out by any of it would be her." She seemed very proud of herself for figuring that one out, although, a moment later, there was just a faint bit of doubt. "Right?" Give her a complicated machine any day of the week; those made beautiful sense to her. But complicated people and social relations? Those were a bit trickier, really.
Irene	"You get it," Irene replied, nodding again -- though, this time, it was definitely tinged with pride at how Amaya had worked out the cruel genius of Sherlock's plan, and Irene actually favored her with a genuine, soft -- if sad -- smile. "Her life and her life's work, both completely forfeit, and only one person to take the fall." No need to get into the manner in which he'd managed to access that trove of information. Maybe a few pieces of the story could stay hers, for now, for a few reasons. "The only way out was for her to die. Or," and her smile curved a little playfully, like the story wasn't out of twists yet, "at least to appear to."
Amaya	Considering that Amaya's next line of questioning was going to follow along with what she might have done after that, she was definitely on board with this twist, as her intrigued expression on her face might have clearly indicated. "Did she go down in a blaze of glory, at least, then?" she asked, in a way the suggested that anything less would be severely disappointing and make Amaya skeptical of literally any other yarns Irene planned to weave for her in the future. "I know that's how I'd probably be, if someone went and took my life work and ruined it all!" Just imagine the hell there'd be to pay if anyone had even half a mind to mess with Missus Crumbler! It'd definitely inspire a gruesome new feature for the expediated production of the Missus Crumbler Mach II, that was for sure!
Irene	"She certainly tried," Irene told her, with a certain, well, melty quality in the face of all that brave, bold, hell-to-pay attitude should Amaya be subject to such a fate. (Not on her watch, goddamn it.) "She caused a stir on her way out, occupied loads of very official people with tracking her down for weeks -- but, she called in every favor she had," and at least one she hadn't known she'd had, "and as far as everyone that woman ever met is concerned, the dominatrix who brought a nation to its knees met her tragic demise in the process of causing all that upset to the monarchy." She had always liked that, when that insufferable Mycroft had called her that. "But the thing is, Amaya -- she's alive and well." And here, Irene's smile turned the tiniest bit shy, and that hand of hers had found a comforting (for her benefit, because she needed it) perch in the crook of Amaya's arm again. "She runs a sex shop on a little island off the coast of Maryland, you see." How's that for a twist?
Amaya	Amaya blinked, her mouth opening almost unbidden, but she seemed to think better of it, closing her mouth again and this time, tilting her head a moment, as she took that new information, and worked them into the story like new pieces in a puzzle. Replaying it in her mind again, only instead of some vague and undefined spectre of a protagonist at the center, there was Irene now (there wasn't exactly a broad roster of sex shop owners on islands off the coast of Maryland to cast from, after all), as bright and vivid as she was now, in person, at her arm. (Perhaps even more so, actually, what with the eyesight and all). And once that new version had finished, she gave small, light snort of a laugh. "Good," she said. "I was really starting to like her. I'd've been real upset if she didn't get at least a halfway decent ending."
Irene	"And that, my friend," Irene said, though she did not say it like Amaya was just a friend, nor was the little squeeze she gave Amaya's arm especially just-friend-ish, "is why we are visiting a version of my home town." Because she could not actually go to the one she was from. Ghosts were not a thing in her corner of the multiverse, as far as she knew, and it would be far too much of a risk to ever be spotted there again. "And really, I think it's nice that there isn't an ending, for this totally anonymous former dominatrix," she added softly. "Not just yet. Who the hell actually gets second chances, you know?"
Amaya	There was going to be a google search on Amaya's phone later on that would lead her to be....wholly unsurprised. But incredibly curious. But for now, she was nodding at the explanation and reminding Irene that "Fortune does favor the bold," before smirking a little with a sort of satisfaction in her own boldness in giving that hand a firm squeeze back with her arm. "And she sounds like she's got that in spades." Then, her chin lifted toward the house,her smirk tilted just a little more, and she looked over at Irene. "So," she proposed, "who do you think might be living there in this version?"
Irene	And Irene would be so, so happy to explain any terms she found confusing, or if she needed like...an example, or a visual aid.... But for now, something in Irene seemed to sort of...unlock. A tension released from her shoulders that she hadn't even been consciously carrying. She usually didn't care much about what people thought of her -- or, well, she usually didn't even show most people the real version of her, to begin with. But it mattered, very much, what Amaya thought of her. "Someone with much worse taste," Irene decided after a moment, sighing a little and leaning, just the slightest bit, into Amaya's side. Just a sort of non-verbal thank you -- for being here, for not judging, and for -- you know, just for being her. "God, hopefully not children. Or if so, I hope this version doesn't have all the traps installed." Because yes, well before she had fallen completely arse over teakettle for a woman who loved machines, Irene had had a fondness for mechanical traps. One of the many things that, in hindsight, illuminated that path that had led her to Amaya, even setting aside Three Minute Dates, or pretty blue eyes, or how much she liked making someone blush with just a few words. Funny how these things worked out.

[preplayed with the ever-lovely

special_rabbit. NFB, NFI, OOC welcome, and to all a good night.]

A Street in Belgravia, London | Saturday

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