Absit Omen RPG

Nemo turned to see the outfit Sam had picked out. Cut-offs to go with the loosely knit sweater.

"Cute!" she chirped. "That's a thing. In fashion, right? Show skin on, like, the top and cover up on the bottom."

It had never steered Nemo wrong. "You should get that," she said, indicating Sam buy the outfit. The shorts would go with anything and the sweater would go with any basic bottoms.

And then Nemo spotted it. "Shut the front door ..." she breathed in a quaint colloquialism. Hanging in separates on the wall was a small-sized black suit. Nemo approached like she was entering a shine. She felt the fabric, she took in the slightly musty smell. She noted a stain on the thigh and a missing button at the sleeve, but other than that it was perfect. It had a wide lapel that whipped off in a dramatic point. It had shoulder pads and pockets.

Nemo had always wanted a suit but had never found just the right one. She couldn't believe her luck. The little musician imagined herself on stage with her blonde hair down, a dark purple lip, belting out some old folk or jazz pop song about drugs and drinking and heartbreak, a friend accompanying her on simple guitar behind her on a stool.

It was a moment, Sam looking for girly things, Nemo being drawn to masc'ing her femme.

"I'd do either," Nemo replied regarding what she'd wear under the sort-of-sheer sweater. "Both would work. Depends if, like, I'm having dinner at Virgil's parents house."

She smiled, thinking of it.

They continued looking through the racks. Tops were easer to find in these kind of shops than bottoms. The former was much more forgiving on fit. Nemo had considerably fewer pairs of pants - she considered them more basics. But maybe Sam needed something new.

"Are you shorter now?" she asked, stepping back to take a look. "You need new trousers?"

Nemo didn't want to ask the English girl about her 'pants'.

Nemo wasn't dejected that her first suggestion of the sparkly top had been a miss, not at all. Now she knew just a little bit more about what Sam would like. Nothing loud, girly-girl not required - adding that to an affinity for black and yellow. But oh what luck, Sam had something for her.

Nemo re-racked the gold top and approached Sam and the shirt with her lips making an, "ooooh..."

"Yeah," she confirmed as she reached for the shirt. "Emo, punk, rock, American, sad eye-liner boys."

It was the right size, the black jersey very faded, and the text at the bottom nearly cropped off. It was meant to say 'The Black Parade'. She'd unironically loved the album. Nemo looked for a price tag. It just had a yellow sticker, so the prices must be posted on some sign. Some places did that. Considering the garment's state, she couldn't imagine it'd be much.

"Let's put this one under consideration," Nemo said, taking the shirt and notching the hanger under her arm. Nemo had to be careful with the amount of stuff she acquired as she liked to live and travel light,  no matter that she now had an actual closet in the flat she shared with Dido.

She returned to the rack but this time gravitated towards a burnt orange sweater. The knit was light weight to the point of being almost see-through in the light and the neck was wide.

"Look at this? Off the shoulder, bunch the sleeves up around your elbow. It's color but not like bah!" She made her hand like a firework. "It's autumn academia."

Out back...

A seventeen-year-old American witch calling herself 'Nemo' unironically wearing a conical hat with wide brim was smoking a black cigarette with some of the members of the night's band. From her perch on an empty gear crate, she was having a chat with the bassist called Tove. They'd become acquainted through some musical circles - Nemo had opened for them last year at Old Brick.

"Names are arbitrary in the first place," Nemo was saying through a puff of smoke. "And it's Jules Verne, not the fucking fish. The fish is cool, though."

"But you never tell anyone your real name?" Tove asked.

"And reveal the door to my soul? Nah," Nemo said with a winking smile. "And honestly, like, no one's asked."

Truly, no one had other than the job application form at Reducto Records. She'd been unquestionably mononymous for ages now.

Nemo was not disappointed. She listened with a soft attention reading Kurby's expression as much as listening to what he was saying. She tried to forgive his earlier eye-rolling and reluctance, though this was getting more difficult. No one wanted to be treated like a constant annoyance. Someone less sure of herself might begin to doubt oneself.

After he finished, she let her mind fill in the blank. She painted the image of herself dissolving into that same light that swallowed Kurby down in the drink.

"She's golden, she's wonder," she muttered, unable to help herself, "he's drowning, he's under."

It was not unlike Nemo to indulge in lyrical witchiness.

"Well. I haven't gone back - to Knockturn Ally at all, actually," she said in a more normal tone of voice. "Sometimes I think about the song but I can never remember the melody."

She slid down off the counter again to refill her glass. The kitchen was small and she indicated her intention to get at the sink with that little nod people did.

Nemo smiled and brightened. She wasn't crazy, something was going on, and Kurby was being cooperative. Signs of a good night sleep (when she eventually found her bed) were promising. Nemo hopped up on the counter, her small frame fitting in. She'd forgotten for the moment her personal vow not to impose on the fussy man's space.

"You drowned," she answered, holding the nearly empty glass in her lap. She spoke in a velvety alto, slow and almost sleepy. "We were both in the water. It wasn't a river or an ocean, the water was still except for us. You were sinking and I couldn't pull you up. Something was dragging you down. To a light."

The image of Kurby's pale face made stranger by the backlit glow of dark water was stuck in her mind's eye. His gaze fixed directly on her, lifeless and unconcerned.

"Wait, how do you know about the light?" Nemo set the glass down. Her mouth dropped into a knowing 'o'. She whispered, "oh my god, you had a dream too. Last night."

She stared at him, her expression begging for confirmation. The conclusion would have been superstitious pishposh only fit for storybooks unless you'd spent the last six months dealing with a carnivorous tailor shop and cursed tombs and deadly songs - then it made complete sense.

Nemo had come to understand the Hogwarts 'houses' at a certain point, once her friend group in London had begun to incorporate more and more wix. There were four and each of them had their own mascot and colors. In Nemo's world, no one hung on to their high school colors after graduation, but that didn't seem to be so for Hogwarts kids who maintained those connections. She could dig it.

"Hell yes," Nemo agreed with a little smile under her mop of blonde hair. "I'm not good at girly, though."

Nemo wasn't. She'd never met a pastel or frill she could get along with.

"But no, I'll find something,. It'll be fun," she added quickly, not wanting to shut Sam down.

Nemo moved away from the t-shirts to the blouses which ranged from business casual to 90s club wear.

"Sequins?" she called over to Sam and held up a top. It was sleeveless and loose with extensive gold-sequined details. "You could put it with black jeans."

Nemo watched Kurby's silent movements through his own house, to his freezer, to his bottle of Ogden's Old. She'd only ever seen him with a pint in hand. In the small space of the kitchen, even in the heat and smell of the dinner-cooking, Nemo could sense his humanity. But for the first time since she'd met him, there was something uncomfortable about him - the kind of thing that might have, in a previous life, made her leave a party.

But she stayed, crossing her arms over her chest.

"You're allowed to worry about me, but I'm not allowed to worry about you?" she said, impatience creeping into her tone. She elaborated. "It's happened to me before, where I dreamed someone died and ... they had. Now, I just don't want to fuck with it. I can't sleep until I know for sure."

A short pause.

"It was a Grimshaw's dream."

Incredible. Kurby's sullen reluctance was almost as much proof-of-life as Nemo really needed to abandon her quest and take the matter up with Virgil who'd at least offer her gillyweed. Nemo honored her promise to herself and kept to herself any withering retorts to his grouchy silence. She rose and went back to the kitchen.

The oven was working on something. The cutting board and scraps in a colander told the story of a roast with carrots and potatoes. She saw bits of garlic and red onion paper and little green herbs that she wasn't bougie enough to identify. It was all so warm and human, a contrast to the closed-off wench of a man out there. It made her hungry. She found a glass, filled it up just half-way from the sink, and took a sip.

London water tasted sharp to her still sometimes.

The silence of churning water. City noises suddenly muted and muffled, then returned, then muted, then returned as heads struggled to stay above the surface.

Nemo made a little noise to herself to fend off the sudden sense-memory of the dream. Then she resolved herself. She took another quick drink from the glass and moved into the doorway to the living room where Kurby was at the desk.

"I dreamed you died," she announced. She said it matter-of-factly. If she'd tried to be tender it would have come off insincere as he was being rather ungrateful that she'd come to check on him.

It wasn't the welcome she'd hoped for, but at least he'd let her in. Nemo made a promise to herself, as she came in past him, that she'd be a total mouse of a guest and let the man get on with his sad evening as soon as she was done. As soon as she set her soul straight about him not being dead.

She lowered herself into the nice chair and setting her bag right at her feet to take up as little space as possible. She had a moment before Kurby pushed to the point to glance around his space. His things were everywhere, and every corner recently engaged. She saw the signs of his work, which apparently, was his whole life. Only from this chair did she notice for the first time a gently moving photo of a woman who looked a little like him, wolfishness in her grin.

He made some comment about this being about work, and Nemo didn't catch the intent of the tone. She made an unattractive grunting sort of laugh. "Ugh-huh, ew no."

Definitely nothing to do with the Ministry.

The way he'd furrowed his brows just then, just this specific angle of his face and the light - the dream flashed in her mind's eye again and she pressed her hands beneath her knees before wincing. He was drowning.

"It's weird, okay? And you can't fun of me when I tell you." Then, quickly, "can I get a thing of water?"

In the too-long lingering moments that Kurby delayed answering his door, the sour knot in Nemo's stomach betrayed her superstition. She'd been right! He was -

The door opened and Nemo visibly sighed, but held back a proper smile as Kurby was not leaping to be welcoming. When Nemo had tried to bully Kurby in the past, it had not worked. She knew better now. He preferred when people were nice.

"Just 'number'. It's a 'phone number'," she said, correcting his muggly terminology. Then added in a wincing vocal fry, a sheepish way to almost apologize, "I didn't think you'd be busy?"

Nemo had never known Kurby to have friends or anything to interrupt than his brooding solitude. Last time she knew him to have a visitor, it was a massive bleeding Scotsman supermodel.

"Can I come in?" Nemo prompted and raked her fingers through her chopped hair.  The smell of something home-cooked reached her now. It was a slightly embarrassing trend that she had exploited him for food, entirely by coincidence. She didn't do it to anyone else, and she really was quite generous with everyone else - this scrumbly old wolf-cop just brought out some of her worst qualities.

She re-hoisted her bag up onto her shoulder, standing on a mat making it feel heavier. It felt an odd moment to proclaim her purpose, that she just had to see him alive before she could sleep. The age difference was awkward, likely for them both, but they were tethered somehow, even after these last several months.

Thinking all of this, she let out a puff of air from her cheeks, not entirely composed and confidently aloof as she normally was.

09 August 2012
Tuesday, 8pm
Kurby Bagnold's first floor Diagon Alley flat

Natalie 'Nemo' Morrow, an American witch of seventeen years, had been distracted all day. Haunted nearly, by a dream that would not dissipate. She'd nearly walked into traffic in Picadilly, she'd broken string tuning her violin - the string had snapped up at her face and cut her lip - and she'd text Abby when she'd meant to text Dido. Nemo was not unused to freaky dreams that lingered, that you felt in your teeth for days, or made shadows darker. She kind of delighted in them, easily fantasizing they meant something or that they represented a parallel existence in which her touch could turn boys to mud. But this dream seemed different. It seemed like a threat. It had with it that pull, that haze, that draw that she'd felt about the bone flute and the wailing siren-song of Grimshaw's Tailoring and Alterations.

In the dream, Kurby Bagnold had died. That werewolf hunter bachelor who lived alone, who was sensitive and brooding, but easily attached. He was brave, too, and even though he wasn't always kind about it, he'd looked out for her, dragging himself out of his comfort zone to make sure she wasn't in peril.

By the time summer night was falling, Nemo knew she'd never be settled until she saw Kurby Bagnold alive. It felt silly, but her insides had to be set right. She hadn't seen him all spring or summer, though she was half aware of his moments. Abby had mentioned that Kurby and Abby's intimidating sister Aileen had been meeting regularly to keep looking into the Grimshaw deaths. Anyway, it was too late in the night now to find him at work, and Nemo chose to avoid most agents of government when she could. (Abby and Kurby were the rare exceptions, thrown together by fate, so they were.)

So here she was at his first floor London pad. Nemo was dressed for summer. She had a short straw-colored bob with her signature heavy bangs, and wore a white tank top off the shoulder. Her black bra straps showed. On the bottom, ripped jeans and a plaid flannel around the waist. She had her enormous bag with her, as always.

Nemo rapped on the door.

"Ope!" Nemo uttered a tragically Midwestern exclamation at the hug which wasn't unwelcome, just unexpected. She hugged Sam back and when they released, Nemo clarified.

"I dunno if they're going to have bras, but I mean 'feel' as in ... gender. I don't want to tell you to feel, like, chill when you don't want to be. Feel how you feel, babe."

Nemo felt proud. Proud to know a trans friend had come out to her, had chosen their day out as a big transition day, proud to know exactly how to act to make it all okay. She'd seen it go wrong so many times, that she'd always sworn she'd never be some clunking, lumbering hick about it.

The neighborhood with the great second-hand shops was nearby, so they arrived at the first in a matter of minutes. It was in the basement under a travel agency and smelled like patchouli. Racks and racks of mismatched clothes had been submitted to a valiant attempt at organization. Costume jewelry hung from racks clearly salvaged from store close-out sales. Under the incense was a comforting, sense-memory mustiness. Abba played in the background. It was obviously and predictably a muggle shop.

Nemo moved to the aisle of faded t-shirts and started browsing. It was one cringey indulgence she'd never been able to resist, shirts with writing on them or earnestly screenprinted wildlife or logos from charity half-marathons. If she was lucky she'd find vintage concert merch. Each time she moved a hanger over, one after the other, there was a metallic scrape.

"What kind of stuff do you like?"

Nemo wasn't sure how girly Sam would want to go.

"No, no, I'm good. You're good. I got yours," Nemo quickly said. Sam was still Sam, obviously, awkwardly offering to get Nemo something to drink when she was actively drinking something, but Nemo understood the sentiment. The line to the pho window moved quickly and there was no wait for the drinks. It wasn't long before they both had what they wanted and could be moving down the street again.

"You know, it's just clothes. And we're doing second-hand so there's nothing at stake. I mean, you can feel," Nemo put up her hand and moved it in a circle, "however you want to feel and I validate and love that. It's a notable event. But it's clothes. It's supposed to be fun. Friends, fun, clothes, yay?"

She grinned hoping to invite Sam into the grin.