Gare St.-Lazare, Paris, Dawn, 8 Jan. 1902
Dec. 21st, 2011 06:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bitten_notshyParis, the city of man. The city of lights. The city of revolutions.
The city of stray dogs, filthy gutters, and chestnut blossoms in spring, Sebastien thought, assisting Abby Irene down the steps of the train and into the airy glass-walled space of the Gare Saint Lazare on the last night of the waxing moon. The name in its implications amused him.
The undead pass through Lazarus.
It echoed with footsteps now, and the curious noisy silence of train stations -- so few voices, for so many travelers. When Abby Irene was safely grounded beside him, shaking out her periwinkle corduroy skirts and settling her fur wrap closer about her neck, Sebastien turned his attention to Mary, who seemed a little shocked by his extended hand. She took it, though; the stairs were steel, and high, and bad enough to climb. Sebastien couldn't imagine descending them in a woman's enveloping skirts and little boots.
"Welcome to Paris," he said, in English, because that was all Mary spoke. He turned back to Abby Irene. "I'm afraid I must hurry on ahead; it won't be long before it's light. Jack will see to your luggage, and pay the power tax for all of us."
Sebastien and the others had all been watching the clock anxiously, having timed their arrival in Paris with great care. Abby Irene nodded, and squeezed his wrist quickly before turning away. No farewell, and no words of caution. She was very much herself, and her assumption that he would understand anything she might care to say was a good deal of her charm, although he imagined other men might not find it so.
He let the crowd sweep him up, and was carried on the tide out of the station.
Paris gleamed in the early morning. Here, there was no longer any darkness, except the darkness that lay puddled in shadows between the electric lights. Here there were no wires, no cables, no unsightly trenches. Rather, Paris was the first major city of the world endowed with broadcast power, the technological marvel of the twentieth century. Yellow light glazed her ancient cobbles, her muck-stained granite curbs, her ice-ringed puddles.
Paris' broadcast electricity was free for anyone to use, which meant that everyone paid for it. Typical of any human society, wasn't it, that the ones who benefited least carried as much of the burden as those who benefited most?
The sweepers with their birch brooms were already in evidence, scraping the previous day's rubbish into piles that would be washed into the cathedral sewers. On their caps they wore electric lanterns, powered by the same miasma of energy that lit the streets. Drunks slumped in doorways, and the iron-shod hooves of a milkman's carthorse rattled on cobbles. But other than that, the streets were strangely barren under the light of the high waxing moon.
It had been a long time since he was in Paris, and the memories crowded close. Sebastien tucked his nose into his collar, though he felt no chill. It would hide his absent breath, if anyone was watching.
And he did feel someone watching. Not with chill presentiment, as a mortal might, but by the soft prickled lifting of the hairs across his nape, a sense of pressure between his shoulderblades.
He knew better than to turn. Chances were, it was only some bold streetwalker or cutthroat. But there were shop windows, and though he avoided walking too close before them (for even by lamplight, his lack of a reflection might be noticed) they could be twisted to his uses. He watched from the corner of his eye, and at first saw nothing. He heard the shush of the garbagemen's brooms, the clip of his own heels, and something else. A rattling click, the clatter of a dog's nails.
Paris was full of dogs, both leashed and feral. But what Sebastien finally glimpsed in reflection wasn't a dog of any breed he recognized. Its coat was shaggy and gray over lean sides, the eyes pale under prick ears, and it slunk from shadow to shadow like a giant cat.
But surely there could be no wolves on a Paris street.
[OOC: NFB, NFI, shamelessly stolen from New Amsterdam. Part of this. Also, I must point out that the sequels are now available as $5 ebooks on Amazon. Go. Buy. Read.]
The city of stray dogs, filthy gutters, and chestnut blossoms in spring, Sebastien thought, assisting Abby Irene down the steps of the train and into the airy glass-walled space of the Gare Saint Lazare on the last night of the waxing moon. The name in its implications amused him.
The undead pass through Lazarus.
It echoed with footsteps now, and the curious noisy silence of train stations -- so few voices, for so many travelers. When Abby Irene was safely grounded beside him, shaking out her periwinkle corduroy skirts and settling her fur wrap closer about her neck, Sebastien turned his attention to Mary, who seemed a little shocked by his extended hand. She took it, though; the stairs were steel, and high, and bad enough to climb. Sebastien couldn't imagine descending them in a woman's enveloping skirts and little boots.
"Welcome to Paris," he said, in English, because that was all Mary spoke. He turned back to Abby Irene. "I'm afraid I must hurry on ahead; it won't be long before it's light. Jack will see to your luggage, and pay the power tax for all of us."
Sebastien and the others had all been watching the clock anxiously, having timed their arrival in Paris with great care. Abby Irene nodded, and squeezed his wrist quickly before turning away. No farewell, and no words of caution. She was very much herself, and her assumption that he would understand anything she might care to say was a good deal of her charm, although he imagined other men might not find it so.
He let the crowd sweep him up, and was carried on the tide out of the station.
Paris gleamed in the early morning. Here, there was no longer any darkness, except the darkness that lay puddled in shadows between the electric lights. Here there were no wires, no cables, no unsightly trenches. Rather, Paris was the first major city of the world endowed with broadcast power, the technological marvel of the twentieth century. Yellow light glazed her ancient cobbles, her muck-stained granite curbs, her ice-ringed puddles.
Paris' broadcast electricity was free for anyone to use, which meant that everyone paid for it. Typical of any human society, wasn't it, that the ones who benefited least carried as much of the burden as those who benefited most?
The sweepers with their birch brooms were already in evidence, scraping the previous day's rubbish into piles that would be washed into the cathedral sewers. On their caps they wore electric lanterns, powered by the same miasma of energy that lit the streets. Drunks slumped in doorways, and the iron-shod hooves of a milkman's carthorse rattled on cobbles. But other than that, the streets were strangely barren under the light of the high waxing moon.
It had been a long time since he was in Paris, and the memories crowded close. Sebastien tucked his nose into his collar, though he felt no chill. It would hide his absent breath, if anyone was watching.
And he did feel someone watching. Not with chill presentiment, as a mortal might, but by the soft prickled lifting of the hairs across his nape, a sense of pressure between his shoulderblades.
He knew better than to turn. Chances were, it was only some bold streetwalker or cutthroat. But there were shop windows, and though he avoided walking too close before them (for even by lamplight, his lack of a reflection might be noticed) they could be twisted to his uses. He watched from the corner of his eye, and at first saw nothing. He heard the shush of the garbagemen's brooms, the clip of his own heels, and something else. A rattling click, the clatter of a dog's nails.
Paris was full of dogs, both leashed and feral. But what Sebastien finally glimpsed in reflection wasn't a dog of any breed he recognized. Its coat was shaggy and gray over lean sides, the eyes pale under prick ears, and it slunk from shadow to shadow like a giant cat.
But surely there could be no wolves on a Paris street.
[OOC: NFB, NFI, shamelessly stolen from New Amsterdam. Part of this. Also, I must point out that the sequels are now available as $5 ebooks on Amazon. Go. Buy. Read.]
