Dævara Takes Her Leave of Noir

The Silvergrey Sea

Part One: A Little Excitement

Dævara Takes Her Leave of Noir

* * *

“Good fortune to you, my Beastie.”

With a wink and a nod Drago was gone on his way to the apartments Josie had set aside for his stay. The door clicked softly closed behind him.

Dæv looked around the room. Elbow on fist, finger tapping lower lip, she wondered if she should dress before tidying up. Not much point, really. Grabbing a short length of braided red leather from a nightstand drawer, she tied her hair back and began to restore the space.

Brazier stands first. The door to the left of the lavatory sprang open at her touch. Within was a space half full of odds and ends that she’d gathered during her stay on Noir. As she elfhandled the heavy brass poles into the space, cursing through the first trip and shoving pillows aside before making the second, Dævara’s mind kept running back to the rite just ended.

Sex was an old familiar friend to her, but magick was a lover long absent from her life. This whole constellation was unfriendly to the arcane. There was no formal prohibition, but disapproval could turn violent. She’d almost learned that the hard way a few hours after arriving three years ago.

Pillows next. She first stripped the covers from the half dozen stained by the ritual; they’d go out to wash later. The rest joined the stands in the hidden room.

Her nerves still tingled from the influx of energy. Suddenly, a desire for contact with the Syrat overwhelmed her. Abandoning her task, the elf strode to the bedside table and took out the indigo bag, sliding the metal cards into her hands.

Dævara sat on her bed fondling them awhile; feeling the warmth of renewed contact with what she had come to know as a living entity.

After a few moments, she knew it was time to move on: on to a system friendly to magick. As a fæ, it was as much a part of her as food, and she’d been on a strict a diet for too long.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, the rooms were spotless and Dævara was dressed for travel, carrying everything she intended to keep. She wore snug well-worn black leathers, consisting of leggings, shirt, and boots, and a soft natural leather coat that flared at the waist and stopped inches from the ground. Her hair was in a steel and crystal net with a queue constrained in a leather sheath at her back. In her hand was the red metal staff, on her back a pack that carried much more than it appeared to have room for.

The large key turned with difficulty in the lock, as it always did.

It was late enough that Dæv was sure she’d find Josie in her rooms.

Her soft knock on the dark wood door was quickly answered.

The Madame of the Red Palazzo was in a shimmering violet dressing gown, dark hair loose at her shoulders. Her eyes lit up at the sight of her visitor, then quickly dimmed as she noticed Dæv’s attire. “Tell me you’re not leaving, Cherie. Please.”

“’Fraid so, Dear Heart.” She moved into her friend’s embrace. The door swung to as they shared a fiercely affectionate hug.

Josie broke the embrace. “Ah, Merde! I knew you’d go one day.” Unshed tears gave a shine to her eyes in the gaslight. “What made you decide?”

“Drago. He reminded me of things I’d left behind.”

Josie gestured into the room. “Can you stay for tea?”

“I really should be off. If I stay, I’ll not have the heart to go, I won’t.”

“This is about that Syrat of yours, isn’t it.”

Dævara’s hand went to the pouch concealed at her hip. “Yes. I’ve been without magick too long. My sort are born to it, we are.”

“I suppose so. Well—” a smile bloomed—“come see an old woman the next time you pass through, Cherie.” Another strong hug, this one trembling as Josie’s sorrow threatened to surface.

As the Madame pulled away, Dæv planted a firm, affectionate kiss on her full, red lips, giving the gesture a strong sexual kick from her Leannán soul. “Good fortune attend you, my darling Josie.” The door closed on Madame’s astonished smile.

* * *

It was a warm slightly damp night, smelling of tree blossoms and faintly of brine. ‘Just like any other,’ Dævara thought, ever-ready smile broadening. The oft’ present fog hid the submoons. Distant sounds echoed faintly through the air, carried by the damp.

The Red Palazzo fronted a park of sorts; gravel pathways lined with blooming Spirya trees. She turned left, muffled merriment muting with every stride, as she headed toward Seaward Boulevard. The air felt cool against her face and hands and she moved through it.

Once Dævara hit the asphalt, her boots made no sound. Rather than disturb her thoughts with the tap of her staff, the elf held it in the crook of her left arm.

The boulevard descended in wide arcs to the large quay that fronted most of the town. Dæv walked down one side, ignoring the occasional rumble of a vehicle, eyes watching her shadow grow and fade as each gas-lamped pole passed.

Familiar buildings, sometimes as many as a dozen storeys tall, businesses mostly, with a few of the better upscale apartment complexes mixed in, passed slowly.

Three parklets, mostly empty but for a few dog walkers and a pair of lovers, drifted by her as well. All as familiar to her as her own face; none she’d ever likely see again. She lingered at one, bittersweetness misting her eyes. After a few moments, she slowly moved on.

The sweet pain of leaving mingled with the wistful longing for travel, rendering her mind a pastel sea of foggy swells, with the avian cries of old loves distant in time, present in memory.

So lost was she in the past that she almost walked by the alley. Only the smell reminded her.

She stopped and looked back at the narrow opening between the diners, both specializing in this moon’s version of seafood. Overhead, a commuter train rattled along the rail line that followed the street. The lamp above was a large yellow pearl of salty fog. Retreating two steps, she went into darkness.

The smell wasn’t all that bad today. There had been days where she couldn’t go more than two or three steps without feeling faint. She made this trip infrequently as a result. Dævara only bothered to go to into this blind alley because of what was at its end.

Having spent an unpleasant few minutes stepping daintily over unspeakable refuse, Dæv arrived at the blank brick of the dog run’s end.

Leaning her staff against it, she pulled a small bronze oblong from her pocket. Tapping the front caused it to light up, showing a colourful image whose glyphs she had been at pains to learn when she had started wandering decades ago.

More taps and slides as shapes morphed into others. Muttering under her breath, “Too cold. Not enough nature. Too much law. Ah!” There was a nice one.

It was in another Aion, part of a whole galactic region saturated with magick. It was temperate and simple in technology, with a white sun in a green sky and two large violet moons. Its year was just over a year UT as well.

After memorizing the keys, she put the device back in her pocket and took up her staff. She thought of lying in tall yellow grass under a red sun, the smell of almonds, and spoke the word, “Pistol.”

Periwinkle sparks erupted from a point on the bare wall, spiralling out into a trumpet bell shape. She felt tiny tickles on her exposed skin as many of them struck her. She giggled and stepped into the vortex. The point where the whirlpool originated suddenly seemed a long way away.

A feral cat wandered into the alley just in time to see a dark spiral sucked into a bright circle of light. The light then vanished, leaving the animal unable to see. Fortunately, it could smell and let its nose lead it straight to dinner.

Thus did Dævara Teller head, all unknowing, toward a meeting with the love of her life.

She wouldn’t return to Noir until Josie Arlington was long dead.

— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, September 2026

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