#this tatterdemalion

[bright-tatters]

Tatters #8

Piper had played circuits all over the city in his day. Violin and voice, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone. Briefly, memorably, with the Photia Valley Philharmonic. He had always accepted a pittance to play in his Ward of origin. Tatters, the crime lord called it. Trash, everyone outside did.

And that. That was, in microcosm, the reason Piper followed Fortune from afar. To Fortune it was never Trash. That meant something.

Music had gotten Piper out of that yellow miasma, the narrow streets littered with lost things, the bars over every window even on upper floors because kids in this environment learned to climb to steal what they needed to live. Music had gotten him out of the Trash that had frustrated him, and idealism had drawn him in to the Tatters that called him, but in the end, one man with an instrument couldn’t change things. He played, and kids got sick, and people were forced out on the street, and drug deals flourished. He played, and people with weapons were just more important.

At this point he had a choice.

Back then Fortune, the hungry power broker, was the prime rival of Old Kid. And Piper didn’t know whether either boss wanted a musician. He did know that if Tatters was to stand an equal to the other Wards it had to do so under the system that served the other Wards. Tatters’ wild individuality, cultivated by two people who hadn’t left its borders in a decade, would not serve it in the long run. And the people on the street? The ones who weren’t useful? They needed protection more complete and dedicated than Fortune and the Kid’s afterthoughts. Oh, Fortune was on track to be the greatest leader in the Ward in this century, and he was fine, but he wasn’t the answer. Someone needed to balance him, to cover the gaps in his brutally monopolistic scheme. Someone could be his other half. Someone.

Going into a police precinct office and asking for an application as a thirty-three-year-old got him strange looks and some outright laughter. He had persisted. Someone who patrolled the Tatters should care. Should call it Tatters, instead of snickering at the problems of the Trash.

Maybe that someone was him.

He hadn’t exactly meant to get addicted to writing to his opposite number. It was a fantasy, nothing more, fan mail to a man who had dotted his home with moments of dignity and protection. The fantasy was that someone who cared could reach someone who cared.

Piper’s employers in the Travail Ward had every guarantee of his loyalty. He applied himself to training with the same passionate focus he had always dedicated to his music. He made himself popular with the other officers. And when his boss and partner sent him in to dismantle parts of Fortune’s empire, he did it without complaint.

He wrote the letters anyway. He just never thought he would get a response.

*

He scrubbed his skin two shades darker with his enthusiasm. Shaved, prodded his unpleasantly chunky nose, realized he didn’t know what to put on. That was when he found he’d gotten a size too big for the old orchestra tuxedo. The policeman’s uniform was right out. He dug through the piles of clothes over the futuristic rounded armchair he had installed by his bed. Nothing clean, nothing that matched. His heart hammered in his chest. He was about to meet Photia’s most dapper, detail-oriented demon and he’d do it in a vagrant’s clothes. He admired high fashion but he’d never be able to afford it. He picked various shades of brown, shirt, vest, and snug red wool coat. He added a bowler hat for good luck.

Telescope observatory. What did that mean? Twenty years ago he would call it a cute first date. But they were neither twenty years younger nor cute.

It didn’t matter. If they got into the same room they would go up in flames or chains, and either one could be fun.

*

Piper knew the route through catwalks and back doors past the edge of the Tatters Ward where it met the mountain overlooking Photia. He’d crept it dozens of times as a kid, the one night a month when it was open to the Tatters. The tunnel was crooked and lightless except for his glow watch. Finally he came out on the road from the Lamp Ward and wound up to the squat pink granite building that housed the dome of Obble Telescope.

His heart crept toward his throat as he reached the big square doorway. He pushed the precious letter back into his jacket pocket, then pulled at one great mahogany door carved with orbital jargon and stepped into the exhibit space that arced around half the building.

He let the door fall shut and gave himself over to velvet night. There was something strangely peaceful about the totality of darkness. He waited for something more.

A light clacked resoundingly to lay a spotlight on a slim, long-coated man standing in a gallery over the exhibit floor, hands folded behind his back.

“Am I under arrest?” drawled Fortune.

[thedeafprophet]

At long last, I have finished my pixel art attempt of the six seven fanarts challenge~

This was a really fun practice of converting various designs into pixel format, it was a good challenge especially that hat

Individual drawings and tagging who suggested who under the cut!

Furnace suggested by @yoshicolonoscopyfootageofficial

Tatterdemalion suggested by @the-golliest-gee-williker

Hephaesta suggest by @the-dye-stained-socialite

The Youthful Naturalist suggested by the-golliest-gee-williker [again lol]

January suggested by @house-of-mirrors

[and ill be honest i did TRY to do the mask but it was not. working. so i gave up lmao]

The Bohemian Sculptress suggested by @press-f-to-rat

Mr Stones suggested by @bizarrebazaar13

Also if anyone wants the sprite images at their original size for whatever reasons, feel free to ask~

[jane-d-ankh-veos]

Daaaamn, an ex-Sequencer who freed himself from a literal (even though artificial) Judgement by sheer force of will is so badass!

And if Summer will really turn out to be who she seems, having both of them on one airship is going to be interesting...

[thunder-threnodies]

Morgan smiled

truly feeling something akin to happiness since long, bygone days.

Navigating in the air instead on the peligin depths of the Zee wasn't something exactly new to Morgan, besides those who fought in the Starved Men War would remember the feeling quite well.

They scratched their stomach absent-mindedly, not even realizing they were picking on whatever faint ghost of a scar still lingered there after being impaled on the mast of their own Airship last False Summer. The Light took quite a while to heal them, this time. Worrying perhaps but not tonight (today?) as the Roof became clearer and clearer as they approached; Tatterdemalion excitedly called out that the Midnight Moon was in sight.

The Midnight Moon. A Shiver ran down Morgan's spine as they docked.

A few dozen drinks and many hours later, sitting on the Midnight Whale's impaled back, Morgan contemplated the Neath.

"Feeling her calling even up here, Boss?"

Tatterdemalion smiled sitting next to his Captain and brigning two tall glasses of honeyed tea, one in each hand. It seemes his intention was to dream some time away.

"Not really. I mean yes barely, like a thread pulling me closer to her. Or trying to. There are powers here that can cut her off almost completely." replied Morgan.

Tatterdemalion's smile faded a little.

"And what about the other one eh, Lady Black?" he lowered his Cosmogone glasses revealing deep golden eyes reminescent of the Dawn Machine, spying on his Captain.

"Tatterdemalion, I'll be honest. If it weren't for you and the crew, I would have already jumped to get back to her as fast as possible." Morgan's crooked grin was hiding more than Tatterdemalion was willing to discover. Not tonight (today?) at least.

"Well" he sighed "I think I can make you forget about her. At least for a while." he extended a hand to Morgan, a polite invitation to get up and follow him.

"Where to?" asked an amused Morgan, giving him a stare bathed in Cosmogone; there was no way Morgan would let their peligin eyes hurt him so they never took their spectacles off, while in his company.

"Somewhere exciting, Captain of my heart." said Tatterdemalion with a dangerous spark in his eyes and a wide grin. "You'll like it."

[violant-apologia]

thinking about briar interacting with new sequencer OCs and them immediately clicking that he's a little bit dawnburnt. they try to convince him over the conversation and he's just absolutely not having it like

"are you sure about this whole 'golden gleam in the eye' thing? perhaps it was a trick if the light, some quirk of khaganian bulbs."

[esteemed-excellency]

risk seeker to risk seeker communication

[geraldofallon]

Fallen London Travel Guide:

Tatterdemalion Tent

A Piebald Modiste keeps a curtained tent at the back of the Rat Market.

[irrigos]

the funny thing is that i don't think morgan would be into the tatterdemalion. too similar. at best they would be like "who is that other dog" and at worst theyd be super competitive with him. ummm THEYRE the cool daring guy who smokes and jumps off buildings for a laugh. who are YOU

worsened of course by the fact that their wife WOULD be into the tatterdemalion. OBVIOUSLY hepsi is into that type of guy! thats why she married one!!!

[officialcwby]

going insane and drawing my dnd character over and over again instead of literally anything else

[lasersquid]

yeah ok you know what buddy

that one is on me

[nerds-yearbook]

Dansen Macabre first appeared in Marvel Team-Up 93#, cover date May, 1980. She was created by Steven Grant, Tom Sutton, and Carmine Infantino. ("Rags to Riches", Marvel Team-Up, Marvel Comic Event)

[bright-tatters]

Tatters #7

Good Fortune:

Some weeks they don’t assign me to the Tatterdemalion Ward. (You called it that once in a speech, ragamuffin that it is.) I go out on off nights and I see streets made of asphalt, buildings of stone and brick. Lamps that work with reliable electricity – other wards have all this. What damnation fell upon the Tatterdemalions? Every Ward is rife with fists; why is this the bruised one?

Do I blame you, like my brothers do, or thank you that it isn’t worse?

I see a star almost directly overhead at nine PM. I looked up some star maps and wheels of time to determine: Bendameron, the Vulture. Someone somewhere thought that would be clever.

Look up, some night. They say the vulture guarded the ancient Methams from the unbound Torch that would have destroyed the cities of man.

 Fortune leaned back in his overstuffed leather chair. His second drink swirled gently in his left hand. Constable Poet’s latest deranged rant lay on the cluttered desk in front of him.

The distant Council was rejoicing, and Fortune was in a bad mood.

The police would be by within the hour after a preventable disturbance, and Fortune had nothing to do but wait. He wondered whether Piper would come himself. He exhaled frustration and inhaled gin. He thumbed through a pile on his desk to the achingly clear photograph of a man his own age built like a bear and groomed like an accident in progress. That enemy of the Ward spoke madness and then changed city policies to ease strain on that very same Ward. He was a native. He was an enemy. The inconsistency distressed Fortune at a level he could not easily articulate.

Then Fortune went for the most ridiculous innocent pastime he could think of. The one he had never deigned to do before. The one whose inconsistencies might someday be useful.

He shook off a pen and held it over a good, heavy blank card.

Mr. Poet,

You are persistent.

You mentioned you came from what you so drolly term the Tatterdemalion Ward. Did you ever see the back route to Obble’s Telescope? A strange diamond in a great deal of rough. It’s magnificent when you’re the one prescribing which way it points, a particular pleasure I possess.

Tomorrow at ninth bell. The door will be unlocked. Come alone. I won’t, but sooner or later one of us must show some trust. I volunteer you.

Respectfully,

F.

 He illuminated the crimson F with precise strokes, and made the “Colm Poet” on the envelope elaborate. The police officer called Piper was an enthusiastic writer but not an expert calligrapher; it was one point of advantage to Fortune. He liked advantages.

He sealed the card and handed it to a runner outside, then settled alertly in his chair to await his less charming visitors. He traced the old scar on his jaw amid his insistent stubble. His mind tumbled, some part of it always idling in the moments between the actions. At least, it had been idle a year ago. Now some part stayed preoccupied, no matter what he did.

*

A letter every two weeks for six months could draw a reasonable portrait of a soul. Colm Poet was, so far as he would admit, sensitive, lightly irreverent, admiring of fashion, art, and physics. Fortune got the impression that he worked hard for the veneer of polish evident in his missives. Poet admitted to having grown up in Tatters. In Tatterdemalion, he liked to call it. In this he had something in common with Fortune.

He was strange, interesting, terribly talkative. The unsolicited photograph he had spent lived rent free in Fortune’s head. A big rough-hewn man with a dark smile: a stranger, nothing more. A stranger who liked to dump letters in Fortune’s lap.

In physical terms, it didn’t take long to get ready for the execution, or whatever it was Fortune expected, with the insistent policeman. He parted his brown-and-gray hair to trouble his temples with fine straight strokes. He shaved his lean face, though the dark hair under translucently pale skin was never really gone. He lightly highlighted the inner corners of his faint-washed blue eyes because he hated how small they were. It was one of the few areas where he wanted more light.

He wore tailored trousers over boots that poetically never quite washed clean. Not a speck was permitted to stray to his white shirt, dark vest, red ascot, and the darker red Da Fenix jacket that one of his carefully stashed letters had noted. He tucked the crystal watch into his vest; no use owning something worth as much as every assassination you ever contracted if you couldn’t rub it in a Centralter’s face. And a cop, even one from Tatters, was basically a Centralter. The watch rested opposite Marguerite’s little volume of poetry. He wore mismatched cufflinks: mother of pearl discs on one wrist, clusters of teardrop garnets on the other. You could say a lot from a distance with cufflinks.

He left his bedroom, which was only slightly larger than his walk-in closet. He only visited to transform and lose consciousness. “Snipes?”

The little man was lounging on a red sofa in the hallway, polishing something tubular and metal. “Boss?”

Fortune spread his arms and spun. “Missing anything?”

Snipes eyed him. “Knives.”

“In my boot, you know me.”

“Pistol.”

“A gesture of good faith on my part. Besides, I’ll have you on watch.” He flourished his wrists under the white and red embellishments.

Snipes perked up, happy to see the signal of potential mayhem. “Where to, boss?”

To silence a madman, one so crazy he surely must be met to be believed. The novelty dazzled. “Up.”

[thedeafprophet]

I've been trying to figure out what Tatterdemalion is wearing in his art, because the jacket neck line seems so modern to me compared to the usual time period.

I think it could be a flight jacket, which is obviouslly a bit later then the current time period, but fits with the context of what we are currently do by flying to the roof.

I think that tracks, yea?

[jane-d-ankh-veos]

Tatterdemalion seems useful...

[redrcs]

Genii locorum

York, Western Australia

Tatterdemalion

[galahadiant]

finally progressed fallen london far enough to play Firmament and I'm going a little bit insane about it. chapter 1 was deeply confusing and incoherent but I think I get most of what's going on now

but never mind all that, what's the over/under that we get to kiss Tatterdemalion in future chapters