Disclaimer: I have no claim on Inception, lovely thing that it is.
Arthur stood on a beach, watching foam-tipped waves crash and feeling the spray on his face. It wasn't a cosmetically pretty place. It was scattered with large and small rocks and huge white pieces of driftwood. He heard the telltale crunch of someone approaching from the forest behind him, but didn't turn.
"Is this where you grew up?"
"No," Ariadne answered, "but it is very close."
"It's beautiful."
"Yes." He turned so he could see her face as she scanned the shoreline absently, "It is." She met his eyes. "Do you ever dream of the desert?"
He shook his head. "I hate the desert. But you love it here. Or there, rather."
She nodded. "I do."
"So why stay away?"
She gestured with her chin at a spot to Arthur's left. He turned to study where the shore terminated in a sheer rock wall that extended far above sea level. "My parents drove their car off a cliff very like that one."
He nodded. He'd known, of course, it had come up in his initial research and she herself had later told him, but it was a different matter to see it.
"It wasn't nearly so tall, of course. But I was a kid when it happened, and that colors how I remember the coastline. They were my parents, they were invincible, so it must have taken something completely extraordinary to kill them."
He laced his fingers through hers. "Ready to begin?"
Taking a last breath of sea air that he knew wouldn't be quite what she remembered from her youth, she nodded. "I set up the range about a hundred yards inland."
They turned from the ocean and walked back into the woods. If he hadn't already been aware of the dream, the fact that the massive cliff they'd just been discussing, which would have necessitated a drastic increase in elevation just to his right, but was conspicuously absent in the current landscape would have tipped him off. Clearly Ariadne only ever thought of it from its seaward side, the side from which her parents had plummeted to their deaths.
"Where were they going that night?"
"Home. It was their anniversary. Fifteen years. They were coming home from dinner at the nearest 'fancy' restaurant." She smirked at him. "Nothing like what you're used to." He squeezed her hand once but said nothing.
She stopped and looked to the right, at where the cliff was not. "They said it was probably the fog that confused him. My dad was driving." She started walking again. "I never really got it. They grew up here. I'd driven with them in the fog countless times; they were both always so careful. But whatever had happened in the past, it killed them that night." Her voice was dry, unemotional.
"Have you come here in dreams before?"
"Not intentionally. But my brain brings me here regardless. It's just up ahead."
They came to a clearing which was inexplicably an indoor shooting range. Arthur handed her a gun that he had apparently been carrying at the small of his back. "Here, shoot some things. It will make you feel better."
"You do know how to talk to a girl, Arthur."
Forty-five minutes later, when the dream fell apart, Ariadne was still riddling things with bullets while Arthur looked on fondly.
He always seems to come awake faster than she did. By the time she opened her eyes, he'd removed the needle and had pressed a square of gauze to her wrist. They were in her office in the flat. She was lying on the small sofa (and had been joined by Crash at some point, who was purring away happily on her stomach), and Arthur had been sitting in her chair.
Stretching out on the bed would have been far more comfortable, but having seen how wrong a relationship between people who worked in dreams could go firsthand, Ariadne and Arthur were careful to keep things very separate. They dreamed outside of jobs very rarely, and only then with specific purposes for doing so, like today's target practice. That Ariadne got to let off some steam and Arthur got to watch his girlfriend shoot things to pieces (which he'd discovered, when they weren't in danger for their lives, was incredibly hot) was just a happy byproduct.
"Do you think I should learn to shoot a gun in real life?"
Arthur paused in the process of stowing the PASIV to consider her question. He walked over and settled on the edge of the sofa, a cushioned hardwood affair Ariadne had unearthed at one of Paris's famed flea markets and had upholstered in intense green velvet. She lifted her head slightly so he could sit back and she could rest her head on his thigh. The cat stretched and made a sound oddly reminiscent of a human child. The actual humans ignored him.
"I don't think you need to carry a firearm. But there's nothing wrong with practicing a skill. If knowing you could shoot a gun in reality with a reasonable degree of accuracy would comfort you, then go for it."
She shifted her head slightly. "I don't know if comfort is the right word, but…yeah. It might be a good thing to have in my back pocket. Just in case I ever need to rescue you."
He smiled, but didn't address the comment. "I've thought about talking to Eames about it."
"About…rescuing you? In general, or do you have specific instances in mind already? Because I'd just as soon we skip those."
"About a partnership. Like what Dom and I had."
"Oh." She considered that. "You wouldn't kill each other?"
"Well, no guarantees there. But Dom and I didn't always see eye-to-eye on everything, you know. The difference is that I nearly always deferred to him, but Eames and I are on more equal footing, in terms of experience."
"You have gotten a lot better about not picking at each other, I'll say that. And he's been in Paris so often recently." Eames' lady friend Anuli traveled for work a great deal (they'd met in Africa), but her offices were actually located in France. Arthur had found himself consulting with Eames on jobs he wasn't actually meant to be involved in several times, just by virtue of his proximity.
"I thought I'd see if he wanted to move forward in a more official capacity rather than just flying in every few jobs."
"You're doing this for me, aren't you?"
He looked down at her and smoothed the hair that had fallen across her brow off of her face. "Partially. You got me thinking. I worked with a partner for nearly ten years. I do well enough on my own, but it is nice to know that someone has your back. As irritating as the man is, I trust him. For some reason." His eyes met hers then in a wry glance, and she smiled.
"My lips, as always, are sealed." She sat up, displacing the cat. "I think I'm going to go for a walk."
He looked towards the room's bay windows, under which her desk sat. "It's still snowing."
"I know. Some days, a girl's just got to take a walk in the snow."
Anuli went to museums and galleries to unwind. Ariadne went to museums and galleries to sketch. The discovery that they had some of their favourite haunts in common had been a welcome one. They actually ran into one another twice entirely by accident—first in the Musée d'Orsay and next in the Musée Rodin—before deciding to arrange a meet-up.
At first glance, it wasn't hard to see what had attracted Eames to Anuli. She had an unusual freckled caramel complexion and long flame red hair, which she usually wore in a braid. She had a quietly serious countenance and smiled rarely, though Ariadne knew it was not from a lack of willingness to do so. The overall impression she gave was one of a cool, stylish Parisian, though she spent the year in orphanages and refugee camps in third world and war-torn countries.
She was complex, was Eames' girl, and while it may have been her bright coloring and throaty voice with its exotic accent that had initially caught his eye, it was easy to see what had kept his interest. They liked puzzles, these dreamers did. And Anuli was a puzzle.
She and Ariadne were visiting the Cluny, otherwise known as the Museum of the Middle Ages. Ariadne enjoyed walking through the centuries-old space, and secretly hoped that there would someday come a mark with whom ancient ruins would resonate. She'd love to design a level in a castle or abbey. Anuli loved to sit and look at the Unicorn Tapestries, and after some time spent sketching vaulted ceilings, trefoils, and other hallmarks of Gothic architecture, Ariadne was heading to join her. There was something so quietly dignified about the tapestries, their once vibrant colors faded but seemingly determined to cling to some of their original brilliance.
Anuli had the tapestry room to herself, and Ariadne settled down next to her on the hard stone bench. "What do you think?"
Anuli gestured to one of the tapestries, which depicted a beautiful woman dressed in dark blue robes embroidered with gold. She was standing on what looked like a blue carpet but (Ariadne dimly recalled from a survey of western art she'd taken early in her undergraduate career) was actually meant to represent the forest floor, and was surrounded by a sea of flowers and animals on a red background. There was a word for the practice, but Ariadne couldn't remember what it was. Also standing on the blue carpet were a lion and a unicorn, one on either side of the woman. She was reaching out with her left hand to touch the horn on the unicorn's head and holding a flag with her right. The lion was looking away from them—gazing out of the tapestry at the two women.
"What's it called again—the background? With all the flowers and animals but no sense of depth?"
"Verdure or Mille Fleurs," Anuli answered. She didn't just enjoy art, she also read about it. Ariadne found her an enormously useful resource on these trips.
"That's right. A Flemish thing, right?" Anuli nodded. "So what about that tapestry?"
Anuli tilted her head slightly, as if considering it anew, although she hadn't taken her eyes off of it since Ariadne had entered the room. Her braid, which she'd pulled forward to hang down her front, inched towards the edge of her shoulder with the movement. "It reminds me of the three of you—you, Eames, and Arthur."
"Really?" Ariadne turned to look at the tapestry again and leaned forward a little to make out its identifying placard. Le Toucher, "Touch." She tilted her head the way Anuli had, on the off chance that doing so would actually alter what she saw. "Huh."
"Do you see it?"
"I'm the lady, I assume?"
Anuli smiled. "Yes."
"And I'm guessing the lion and the unicorn are Arthur and Eames. But which one is which?"
"Eames in the lion, of course."
"Of course, yes, I can see that now. Which makes Arthur the…unicorn."
Anuli smiled a little at Ariadne's dry tone.
"No, no, I can see it, actually! Solitary, mysterious, a little unapproachable."
"And you are the one reaching out to touch—"
"—his ridiculously large appendage," Ariadne finished for her.
Anuli burst into helpless laughter, and Ariadne grinned. It was the first time she'd heard the other woman laugh, and it felt really good to have been the cause of it. She got the feeling that Anuli wasn't used to having excuses to laugh.
Ariadne stood and gathered her coat. "Do you think you could get your mind out of the gutter long enough to help me pick out some wine? I'm awful at it, but Arthur's doing dinner. We all have our jobs.
Anuli secured her scarf and buttoned her peacoat to her neck, becoming a stylish column of black. "How do you usually pick out wine?"
Ariadne pulled her knit beret out of her pocket and secured it on her head so it covered her ears. "I defer to Arthur."
"And if you're on your own?"
"Whatever label is prettiest."
"Does that often work out?"
"Nope!" Ariadne responded cheerily, "Which is why you're coming along. Oh," she turned back to pin her companion with a glance, "Large appendages aside, I wouldn't mention the unicorn comparison to Arthur. Eames, however, would probably appreciate being likened to a lion."
"Yes," Anuli murmured, half to herself, "I rather think he would."
They presented quite a picture from afar, two women of similar height and weight but a study in contrasts. Ariadne was dark haired and porcelain-skinned, but was dressed in a rainbow of colors and textures, from the yellow beret to her red Converse All-Stars. Anuli, bright haired and medium-skinned, was swathed in black from head to toe, though her hair was hard to hide, even under a hat. It wasn't visible under her coat, but Eames knew she was wearing the necklace he'd bought for her in Cape Town, which was composed of large, irregularly shaped beads in an intense blue. He'd given it to her after getting into town last night and watched her put it on that morning.
Ariadne caught sight of him and gave a wave. Anuli met his eyes and smiled. It was more than enough.
"Your lady is much better at wine than I am, Julian. I have been thoroughly schooled."
"Oh, yes?" He caught Anuli's gloved hand and pressed his lips to its back. She shot him an annoyed glance, but was blushing under her freckles. A mess of delightful contradictions, she was. He couldn't get enough of them.
Ariadne glanced between the two of them. She'd planned to catch the Metro here, but she hadn't realized that Eames would be meeting them. She reevaluated her options. There was a shop not far away that carried the loveliest cashmere sweaters. Arthur appreciated a good sweater, and there were more presents under the tree for her the last she checked. Decided, she bid her friends farewell and hurried off to get to the shop before it closed.
"Have a good time at the museum?" They descended the steps. The sound of a lone trumpet playing a Christmas carol echoed off the tiled tunnels that curved through the station.
"We did."
"Lots of girl talk?"
"Mm. The usual comparing of men to animals."
"In the museum of medieval art?" Eames' tone indicated disbelief.
Anuli leveled him with a solemn gaze. "Oh, yes."
They settled into their seats on the train. Eames winked at her. "Pr'haps I'll check out the museum myself."
"A fine plan. Might I make a suggestion?"
Her voice was dusty and exotic beneath its French accent, and listening to it was rather like discovering a melodic, bubbling brook when you thought you were lost in the desert. He was addicted to the sound of it. "Sure."
"Look for the lions."
Ahoy: here there be an extra-long author's note. Fridges* are abused, stories are saved.
a/n: Can you tell I'm an art historian? I bet you can't. The Unicorn Tapestries are real and are by far the most beautiful things in the Museum of Medieval Art (which is housed in the former Cluny Abbey, hence the two names) in Paris. I highly, highly recommend seeking them out the next time you're there. I'd like to think that I've unlocked some sort of art historian achievement by turning an analysis of a work of art into a dick joke. Oh, if the professors who wrote my grad school recommendations could see me now…they would be so proud.
This was by far the most difficult chapter to write, and it almost didn't happen. In fact, the original chapter AND the original character of Anuli are dead and gone. The rest of the story almost went, too. Then, this morning I woke up and read the reviews that one reader had written for every single one of the chapters, and I felt like a fanfic-writing superhero. This afternoon, I sat down at my computer. I did not bash my head, and I did not yell at my fridge*. I just wrote my effing story.
The moral is: reviews really CAN make or break a story. Thanks to sandie for teaching me this, and for everyone who takes a moment to fav or review. You are all gods among men, and I would buy you all funky blue necklaces if they existed outside of my brain.
*My fridge is an 80-year-old beauty we call Lola, and she's temperamental. Sometimes she wants to keep all the food to herself, and it makes me angry. Why you gotta make me yell at you, baby?
