S-TWC-010
St. Valentine's Ledger
Patron: Nickels Costigan
Date: Aug 11th, 1923 – The Transcursion
Location: The Ouroboros
Proprietor: Mags
█████ walked with me to the Transcursion.
It's one of the few places in the Ouroboros where people can come and go without worry of being ████████████████████████. A fractured arcade, half-fallen into the void. He slipped beside me with a rustle of coat and a clatter of notebooks. Always too many notebooks. Stuffed in his pockets, tucked into his sleeves. A scholar’s armor.
"You’re not gonna ask me to stay, are you?" I asked.
"Devil, no," he said, adjusting his glasses. "I want in."
I blinked.
"Come again?"
He grinned. Lopsided. A little desperate.
"███████’s 'too busy' to care about the affairs of the ████████, and ███████ won’t leave his perch unless someone rips him from it. But me? I’ve got boots, I’ve got maps, and I’ve got theories I’m dying to prove. And I mean that literally. I think the Ouroboros is giving me lung rot."
"You want to come ████████? To St. Valentine’s?"
"Don’t say it like it’s a death sentence. Say it like it’s a vacation!"
I gave him a look.
He leaned in, more serious now.
"Mags, I’ve got eyes on things neither of them care to see. I’ve been charting anomalies in the ██████████████. Places where the Ouroboros folds too sharply. I think—no, I know—the same geometry’s forming beneath Lake Michigan. And if that City rises? We’ll need more than songs and superstition to survive it."
He tapped his temple. Then one of his notebooks.
"Besides," he added, a little softer, "I haven’t seen the real stars in, what, decades, now? Not the charts, not the projections. The real ones. I miss lying on rooftops. I miss looking up and seeing something. Anything."
"You sure? What about ███████?" I asked.
"He'll be fine. The world's always ending. It can't be any worse if I'm not here for a few…"
He began to trail, and I raised an eyebrow. He didn't want to say it, but I knew he had little intent to return if he could help it.
I smiled. "You’re a lunatic."
"Actually, I'm more into stars than satellites."
He held out a hand, ink-stained and shaking just slightly.
I took it.
"Alright, █████. Let’s go see what’s singing beneath the break."
And the Ouroboros, for once, did not whisper back as we left.
Unsmudge the Ledger
"Chasing dove and hare."
Research | 2 Words