Compadres

RP Date: 2026-10-09

Participants: Lucian, Rory

Summary

Rory and Lucian meet up at Rory's campsite. Lucian bears a heavy secret, Rory offers salvation, together they delve into the mysteries of Grimwych.

This archive was published after approval by all listed participants.

Roleplay

Rory is sitting outside his tent at his campsite near the shrine.  He has strung up some rope and hung up some of his clothing to dry in the sun, so is currently sitting there in a pair of sweatpants, socks and house slippers, idly tapping his wand against his knee.  The fire has gone out.

Lucian comes up on Rory's camp like a thief in the night, one hand pressed to a knife sheath worn openly on his belt, the other clutching some small treasure wrapped in brown paper like it is a crown jewel. The silence is almost maddening to him, and when he finally spots Rory his nerves release enough for him to take his hand off the knife and pluck out a quiet tune on his guitar, a soft refrain welcoming a returning hero from the frontlines. It fully doesn't occur to him that Rory might have a different relationship to a random musical sting interrupting his morning. "¡Merlín!" he hissed out, closing the last few feet to the edge of the campsite and the dead fire.

Rory doesn't hear the music first; he hears movement.  The softness of steps across the ground, the gentle whisper of a large form pushing against branches.  He raises his free hand to scratch at those scars on his neck, which, without a shirt, are on full display alongside the ones across his shoulder and the right side of his chest.  The most severe of them are gnarly, jagged lines that are fading red and whiter than his naturally light brown skin.  Above his right collarbone it is difficult to tell where scars end and the rest of his skin begins--or truly what caused them.  His head turns towards the noise at the sound of a random musical note, and he sits a little straighter and pulls his coat down from the clothesline and shrugs it on. "¿Qué tal?" he questions his fellow Earth man. "What's with the...?" He waves his hand at Lucian's general area and demeanor. "Secrecy, mate?"

Lucian catches only a glimpse of the scars, and mentally shifts his opinion of Rory up a notch. He looks around again before whispering quietly, "Compa, the amount of women who are after nail polish in this town is astounding. I have never been more daring than to walk in the morning light with this treasure." Nodding, he extends his hand and unwraps the item. A small star-shaped glass vial filled with glittery yellow nail polish with a cartoon character for a lid. Dust and mud have been meticulous scraped off by now, and the label 'Kid's Summertime Fun Yellow Jamboree Polish!' is now legible. "You say you can make this plum? A dark plum, like the sea in a storm?"

Rory remains where he is seated.  His tapping hand has stopped tapping, and the other one reaches out to take the bottle from Lucian. "We're all stranded in a new world and the women are concerned about nail varnish?"  He rolls the bottle in his hand a little and then tips it upside down to make sure the liquid inside is still the proper consistency.  It appears to be.  He twists the cartoon character cap off, holds the opened bottle carefully, and gives it a tap.  The liquid inside immediately turns from yellow into a dark plum color, like the sea in a storm.  Like the flag on that shipwreck. "This kind of stuff is going to get attention," he continues, as he screws the top of the lid back on the bottle. "Tequila that runs out people might just be grateful for, but other things that don't run out?  That certain people always seem to have more of?"

Rory *that never runs out.

Lucian nods and draws himself up to standing, looking down at the seated Rory with the morning sun at his back. His expression is set, form, and a little touch of a smile. "Luckily, you have gotten my attention first, compa. And I now owe you two and one half times. First, let me assure you this gift will go to someone who is the soul of discretion, and will not be told the source of the bounty. And second, let me be very clear." Here, he extends his hand toward Rory. "You are under my protection. You are my compa, my compadre. We are the only ones who remember the Beanie Babies, no? Did you have Beanie Babies?"

Rory nods quietly to Lucian. "I remember Beanie Babies.  My dad got me the Brittania Bear, and my sister had a bunch of those cat ones.  Everybody expected them to be some kind of financial investment, but they were just cute."  He takes a moment to reminisce about that for a second, and then studies Lucian quietly with his own set expression. "These otherworldly people are absolutely bonkers," he murmurs. "So I appreciate your protection, compadre.  Just don't tell them where you're getting things." He shakes Lucian's hand, and when he pulls his back, his friend has the bottle of nail polish.

Lucian clasps Rory's hand for a moment and meets his eyes with a steel intensity. "This secret, I will take to my grave. May a thousand horses drag me to hell before one whisper of it leaves my lips. Te lo juro por Santa Cecilia. This I swear, Rory de London. And now, I owe you one and one half." He winks playfully and wraps up the nail polish. "I had Osito, the little red bear with the flag on his chest. A little on the nose, maybe. Lost him when my motorcycle exploded."

Rory raises both eyebrows. "Bloody hell," he mutters. "That's rough."  He doesn't know much of Mexico, just about those guys that got stuck in a cave and had to be rescued by the army.  There'd been something else, something about non-magical armed forces and a protest about kidnappings and cartels.  Firearms from the US.  Drugs.  Rough stuff. The wizarding world didn't care so much about the ordinary one; it had its own problems, but Rory's father and longest foster-family had been ordinary people that watched the telly and read the newspaper.  He is quiet for several moments, unsure of what to follow that up with.

Lucian blinks, and shrugs with a smile. "It was ten cents of red fabric stuffed with plastic by underpaid, underage laborers overseas. It is more upsetting that I will never again have tamales, compa. Now, what of you? Have you deduced the mysteries of the code machine? What can Lucian do for you?"

Rory nods in agreement. "I've never had tamales, but I'd love a hot shower and a bottle of gin.  Gimme a minute."  He disappears into the tent, and returns with a spiral notebook, in which he has drawn lines under each line of Morse Code listed in his last journal entry like he's playing Hangman with himself. "A bunch of bloody animals took all the pages from the post office.  I've one with some of the instructions, but fuck if I know where the others are.  I've worked this out.  <br /><br /><b>-.-.
--- -- . / .... --- -- . / .-. --- .-. -.-- .-.-.- / .--. .-.. . .- ... .
.-.-.- </b><br /><br /><b>R_R_ / _ _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ / P _ _ A S _    </b><br /><br />"I've a plan to investigate some of the other shops.  There's an old book shop, a pawnbroker.  If you find any rubbish papers with instructions on them, I'd like them please."

Lucian nods, then looks again and taps the first word. "Rory fits there, Merlín. I do not know Morse Code, and am not very good at puzzles. Maybe I am wrong and it says Rare or..." He pauses and taps his chin. "Raro."

Rory studies the paper with a slow nod. "It does.  And we have three letters of a five-letter word beside it.  Assuming it's in English, that could be <i>please.  </i>So if we meddle with it like that, it would be..."  <br /><br /> / _O _E / _O__E / RORY / PLEASE.  <br /><br />"Weird."

Rory fixes this. <br /><br /> _O_E / _O_E / RORY / PLEASE

Lucian pats Rory's shoulder. Not sure what else to do there. "Huh." He looks down into town, "This Post Office, it is suspicious, no? I think the cosa mala, the evil spirit which reads our minds and stokes our fears, must live there. I do not trust this, Merlín, to be imploring you in earnest."

Rory scratches at his neck a little. "It appears to spit out different papers in a timely manner as long as someone is present.  When I was cleaning it up, it would spit them out every so often, but when I went back in after awhile there weren't anything waiting.  Maybe it's just an enchanted machine that spits out messages when people are near:  but who is the enchanter?  Our French writer?  Would messages to you be in Spanish?  How does it know my name?"  He studies the notebook. "I tried using a translation spell on the first bit of paper with Not-Mildred, but all that did was burst it into flame.  Maybe the whole place is haunted, or the machine is cursed.  Lots of possibilities."

Lucian clicks his tongue quietly. Mentally, he starts down the path of reasoning through possible answers, but once he allows for 'it might be magic' to be a solution he has no way to rule anything out. "Well. If it wants to kill us, eventually it will take a physical form, and then I will stab it. No hay bronca, you say...No Muss, No Fuss.

Lucian dusts his hands off, then smiles again. "Well. I shall go like Daniel into the den of lions. Leave a parcel of my own. Thank you, Merlín."

Rory makes a two-fingered salute to Lucian. "Have a care for yourself, and also..." he pauses, and adds. "If you're trying to  be quiet, maybe walk a little more softly.  I could hear you from all the way over there."  

Lucian pauses and takes another long look at Rory. He whistles quietly and shrugs, playing a brief snippet of quiet, contemplative music for Rory to think to before sliding back into sneaking mode to deliver his payload in town. "You are full of surprises, Merlincito," he mutters under his breath as he steps away.