[PRP] Adagio (Oliver & Renard)

[Melancholies]

Wednesday, 6 o'clock sharp. Actually, it was about ten to six, because Oliver was very careful about being on time. Punctuality was very important, and until he built up a good relationship, it was imperative that he leave as best of an impression as possible.

Now, he did spend quite a long time observing the address and comparing said address to the house in question, because it was... imposing, to say the least. Was it the foreboding height? The turret? Why was there a turret? The light powder blue hue was a nice touch though, he had to admit. Regardless, he was buzzing with nervous energy from the front porch, hand hesitating to knock on the door. Whatever, he had time to kill.


The Semblance of Unity
text to: Horace ✨
Remember what I said about the lesson?
I told you I'd text you.
I'll call you later?
But I'm putting my phone on silent for now. Later.


That out of the way, Oliver finally worked up the gumption to give a brisk knock to the door, anxieties be damned.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

The person who answered the door wasn't Renard. It was Sonny: a tallish dark-skinned teenager with their dark hair all slicked back. "Hi," they said. They smelled very faintly of cloves and smoke. "Are you Oliver? Father's waiting for you upstairs. Do you like tea or coffee? Father thought you might prefer tea but he said to ask, just in case."

The hallway behind them was the height of taste. There was a sideboard with a mirror mounted over it that offered a partial view of an exquisitely-decorated parlor. A shoe rack to the left of the door had three different sizes of shoe, and a space for a few more pairs on the lowest shelf.

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Father?

"Uh, hello..." His nose wrinkled at the smell, but not in a bad way. He was just sensitive to scents and the like; his bag was awkwardly readjusted over his shoulder. "Yeah, I'm Oliver. It's nice to meet you...?" He tilted his head forward as if he were inclining for their name. Realization hit him; "Oh, wait, we've met haven't we? Sort of?" The crazy b***h who sent them all into the void, except they didn't look so crazy.

He shook his head, "He would be right though, I definitely prefer tea. Earl grey if you have it, but I appreciate the hospitality either way." He offered a little smile, "So thank you."

Should he take his shoes off at the door? There was was a shoe rack here... and everything looked so ******** fancy. He'd wait for Sonny to lead the way first before he accidentally got lost in the abyss of fortune.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"It's nice to meet you, too, Oliver," said Sonny, who didn't seem to recognize him at all from either crazy times or otherwise. "Um, I don't know, I mean... I've met your brother. Maybe you met my weird otherworld clone?" They smiled. "Anyway... You should take your shoes off. Not that I think they're dirty! But Father is very concerned about the hardwood. It's antique, you know."

They led the way inside. "You want to go up to the second floor, down the hall. Father's office is on the left, he's waiting for you. I'll bring your tea up in a minute, okay?"

As Oliver climbed the stairs, he'd get a view of what looked like a gallery storage room. Several sketchbooks were open on the central table; the cubbies along the wall were full of covered canvases. There was no time to loiter, even if he wanted to. Renard's office door was open, and music drifted down the hall from it.

Renard's office was a study in cool neutrals. The walls were a pale blue, the ceiling sheet white. A modernist interpretation of a Sputnik lamp hung in a recessed shelf; in the shelves were not books, but photographs, small paintings, occasional planners with years embossed in gold on the spine. Whitewashed drawers filled the rest of the recessed space, closed and silent as sentinels. Before this display of taste and good culture, Renard's desk was a simple glass-top on a base of dark wood, immaculately clean, with nowhere for the wires to his desktop to hide. His chair was a comfortable hourglass in a shade of blue just darker than his walls. The hardwood floor was protected by a plush silver rug that looked old because it was old, not because it was designed to be.

There was a window-seat that looked out over the bay, and more storage beneath it. Renard gestured, and a second chair pulled itself out of a recessed alcove. It was upholstered, looked plush enough. "Hello, Oliver," he said. "Right on time. Thank you.

"Have a seat."

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Oliver felt like he might die. Growing up poor made these sorts of things absolutely impossible to comprehend. ******** it, he had a bed and a dresser and his music supplies in his old room; bare bones, nothing else. It'd turned him into a bit of a hoarder with his current apartment, the walls cluttered with nic-nacks, his room stuffed with hand-made things and sentimental junk.

The chair moved on its own. That was impressive. Horace's warning echoed in his mind, Leila thinks he's evil. But he took a seat all the same, deposited the bag next to him, but not before fishing out a shiny new sketchbook and a packet of sharpies. Of course he'd come prepared? Who the hell did you think Oliver Beaumont was?

"I hope you've been well?" He offered, "Your house is... impressive." He was trying to stay focused, but his eyes were still obviously taking in the sights, the colors, the music. It felt peaceful here. "Sorry, I don't mean to cause unnecessary chatter. I'm ready to begin whenever." Ready was an understatment. He was gunning, just lowkey.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"The assorted detritus of a very long life," said Renard, brushing off the compliment. "It's easy enough to play the stock market when one already knows the dips and turns it will take." He turned behind himself and pulled out a battered-looking sketchbook; he had a paint set of acrylics in the boring, standard tempera colors common to every high school art class. "May I borrow your hand for a moment before we begin?"

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

"I suppose that would do it." He said idly as he held his hand out, "Still, you have to realize that I'm not accustomed to this grandeur sort of thing." Sure, Oliver kept himself clean and presentable, but he put a lot of hard work into making sure he didn't look grungy. Sure, it was easier now, but it was a trial when he was in high school and had no access to his own funds.

"Your sigil worked quite well, by the way." It hadn't been perfect, but it'd been enough to afford him a few more hours of sleep at night, and that was honestly worth its metaphorical weight in gold.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

Renard picked up a brush and dipped it in the red paint, then slashed the brush through his sigil. "I'm glad," he said. He sounded sincere. "Let that dry and then go wash your hands. While we wait, we'll go over what we will be doing."

He pulled a stapled-together packet of papers out of the back of his sketchbook and held them out. "A syllabus," he said. "Don't worry about acquiring the books. Many of them don't exist in this world. I'll loan them to you; I expect you'll take good care of them." He gestured; there was a formidable stack of heavy books in one of the window seats. "Our first focus must be to make you less reliant on the mark I made for you. There is no reason why it shouldn't work as it has for the foreseeable future, but that's no reason to be cocky." He rubbed a fine-boned hand along his jaw. "We'll start with meditation. Have you ever worked with something like that before?"

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Oliver was watching wondrously as the sigil was slashed out. At Renard's mention of a syllabus, he was reaching out for the paper eagerly. See? There wasn't any evil bullshit going on here Horace, god. Hell, he was surprised for how uniform and professional it was shaping up to be. He'd been expecting something simple, akin to an after school tutor, not a full blown class.

Oh, but he wasn't complaining at all.

"My roommate does yoga," Oliver said as he waited for the paint to dry, "I suppose that's not the same thing as straight meditaton, but there's an element of spiritual balance there I guess. It's been some time since I've participated with him though." He'd looked up notes about mindfulness too since their last meeting. The inner strength sort of bullshit.

He was itching to get his hands on those books though. Didn't normally exist in his world? Holy <********>, think of all the knowledge tucked away in those. He gave another glance to his hand to see if the paint had dried, and then leafed open the syllabus in the meantime.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"Yoga is an excellent starting place," said Renard, "but it isn't worthwhile without a properly magical point of view." He looked at Oliver with a thoughtful, assessing eye. "Does your roommate have any magical inclination? I have found that passing your knowledge along is often helpful to retaining it yourself. Something to consider."

He rose from behind his chair and opened a nearby closet door. There were, incongruously, two large poufs inside it. Renard removed them and tossed them to the open office space just as Sonny peeked in. "I have the tea, Father," they said.

"Thank you, Ascencion," he said, "Please put it on the desk." Together in the same place, Renard and his daughter looked eerily similar; their face had stronger angles, a squarer jaw, but there was no denying they were related. Sonny smiled at Oliver, and set the tea-tray down.

"He tries to be all spooky but he's really nice," they whispered to him out of the corner of their mouth. "Anyway, let me know what you think about the snicker doodles?"

Then they were gone, and Renard had settled himself on the pouf. "We ought to let that cool," he said. "Ascencion often overheats it. She means well, but..."

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Oliver nodded, "I assumed as much. Elliot isn't magic, but he knows I am." The syllabus closed for now, tucked delicately into his bag. He'd have a more comprehensive look later. "But I mean, Shiloh's magical. I dunno how acquainted you are with him, if you even are..." But Shiloh seemed to know everyone.

He cleared his throat. "I will, sure. Thanks, uh, Ascencion..." That was a weird ******** name Renard, why the ******** did you name your kid that.

"She seems..." His nose wrinkled up in thought as he looked at the cookies. "I dunno. Sweet." And vaguely uncanny. But that wasn't why he was here. Oliver got situated on the second pouf, only for his cheeks to suddenly flush.

"Oh, I should go wash this off before we begin." He looked at the red paint, now dried, "Excuse me..."

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"I'm familiar with him," said Renard, his manner cooling noticeably. His chilly demeanor didn't seem to be directed at Oliver; it was more a problem with Shiloh, it seemed. "The powder room is at the end of the hall."

When Oliver returned, Renard had clicked the music off. His ankles were crossed in front of him, his hands loose and palm-down atop his knees. "Whenever you're ready, Oliver."

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

The mark washed off, the world was leaking back into his head with a gentle ebb. He returned quickly, resumed his seat, adjusted his position a little. "Sorry about that."

"Let's begin."

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

Renard nodded. He closed his eyes. "Are you comfortable?" Once Oliver was, he began:

"The goal of this is not to quiet your mind or to achieve some sort of eternal calm. We are becoming aware of this moment that we inhabit without judgement. We do not assign value to the moment, negative or positive. When something changes, we notice it; we catalogue it; we move on.

"Let us sit quietly for a moment. Listen to the world around us."

It was very quiet, aside from Renard's soft-pitched tenor. Sea-birds called outside the window. Leaves rustled in the trees. Downstairs, Sonny clomped about, talking indistinctly to themself. Renard's breathing was slow and even. The fans of Renard's computer hummed.

"What do you hear?"

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

"Alright..."

Oliver did as he was told. Sitting on the pouf was comfortable, but he wasn't focusing on that anymore. As a moonwalker, he was fairly accustomed to absorbing all the heightened (sometimes dulled) senses of his surroundings. The way thing smelled, the way things felt under his abnormally sensitive hands, the way things looked through his colorless vision. He wasn't shifted right now and his world was lacking because of it, but it made up for it in far different ways.

There were the normal things of course; Renard's voice taking him through this, the computer, Sonny, and all the outside symphonies. Oliver had an ear for music and he subconsciously sought out patterns in sound. As his mind started to void with the absence of any real thought, it slowly started to replicate its own stimuli to make up for it. He heard things of the body; his lungs breathing, the sounds they made as they expanded and contracted in his chest. He heard his heartbeat if he focused, the tactile sensation translating to noise.

"There's a breeze outside, but it's not quite a gust." He started to say quietly, almost startled by the intensity of his voice after such a prolonged moment of self zen. "It's calm, just enough to make the leaves move. There's gulls, but that makes sense, we're so close to the ocean..."

He trailed off in thought again. "If I'm quiet, I can hear my breath and my heart. I don't usually notice those things, even though I know they're there." It was a warm realization he'd come to. Was that what Renard was talking about? Notice, catalogue, move on. "Your daughter is really going at something downstairs, too." And that made him laugh a little. Sonny seemed kinda silly, but kind.

"And my own voice, but that's a given."

shibrogane