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The first dyes the royals used, indigo and purple dyes, came from mollusks. But since a mollusk is [he holds up two fingers, barely apart] tiny, they had to fish millions of them to put out anything to sell. The whole city reeked of rotting sea food...that's on historical record. I mean every city then--well hygiene wasn't like it is now, every city was coated in waste. Worse than now. So for them to point out Tyre and say that city reeked...?

[He has a point. He's getting to it. Slowly.] We don't have a chance to fish much here, so I'll have to get creative. [He has a pile of objects in one corner, which is sometimes visible , especially when he pauses to light a cigarette]

Harvey, I've got the fish. They seem happier.

I need deeply colored objects--scraps, trash, whatever--but I can't... [a wan smile] It's not something I can figure out. Can't tell which of these is blue. [Which is a hint at a certain someone.]

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The smell would cling to you even a half-mile from Tyre. But the dyes were worth it. [Bleu is smiling, her eyes starry. This is a dream come true.] Sunset-colored--the shade between the dark and the light when the sun slips below the horizon.

Where are these fish?

Wondered where they went. You should bring the black and white one back.

[ He is attached to that angry little crown-tail. ]

Here with me in the garden. [He smiles, still a little caught up in the idea that she's walked at times and in places that passed on centuries before he was born.]

Come see them. You can see the dye ingredients, too.

Which one is that? [Grinning, maybe teasing a little. He's figured out which one Harvey likes best, and he angles the device so that he can see the fish, healthy but sulky as ever.]

It's funny, that for once it really does exist just the way I see it.

Does it? [ Odd. He's not sure how to think of that. ]

Yes.

[She's there before bothering to finish the message, approaching him with all the wonder and delight of a child opening presents on Christmas morning. When she comes close she lays a hand on his shoulder and beams.]

Very creative, using found pigment. It's beautiful.

[He holds it up in its little bowl for Harvey.]

Look. We're almost seeing the same thing, Harvey.

[You don't understand how novel this is for him.]

Do you keep tabs on the ship?

Thank you.

[He smiles at her, and can't actually remember who the last person was to touch him. Bond, maybe? If a fist fight counts?]

I thought the darker the better; I can leech pigment out of them with hot water and some combination of household chemicals. The hard part is, [a rueful laugh] they all look the same to me. What happens if you mix too many colors? It can't be good, or people wouldn't appreciate pure color the way they do.

[If he's agreeable she'll be more personal, more romantic. If he prefers otherwise she'll simply be a reminder to him.]

A good thought. A color can always be diluted, but not concentrated. [She smiles, moving in a bit closer and brushing her hand over his forehead to smoothe back his hair.] Would you like me to name and describe them?

Keep tabs? On the ship, or it's people? No, I'm not an engineer. Yes, I have people.

Please do.

[Prior to coming here he'd broken it off with his latest girlfriend, due mostly to her being on drugs; but there's also always been detachment for him, an inability to be understood by the women he was curious about. Frankly it's impossible to be detached or disinterested about Bleu, and so he's more agreeable with her, with contact with her, than he would have been with anyone normally.]

You know, colors are probably the only thing that all men--women, too, I won't be prejudiced--can have common ground on.

Are you sure about that? Can you be sure that the "green" someone sees is the same another person does?

[She smiles anyway though, happy to help out, and points to the first set of color.] Speaking of, this is green, or green as I see it. Whereas this one is impressively grey, like an overcast sky or a Scottish landscape--you know, two ways of saying the same thing.

[He smiles, amused that the color she describes to him is the one he sees anyway.]

That's true. They might not. But every society puts meaning to colors--red for war, or peace; and everyone has a fascination with an especially vivid sunset.

Where in the world would you find a color like this one? [Pointing to the one nearest him]

Different societies view colors different ways, but no one can escape the sunset. What does it look like when you see it?

In marigolds and in the sunlight glinting off windows in late afternoon.

Then...have you noticed a woman, she talks about colors?

[If this seems like a gang leader asking for a report on the neighborhood, well, it kind of is.]

[He tips his head back a bit, as if it might help him recall a sunset; it's been so long since he has been off the Barge and been able to see one.]

It looks like...like if you took a branch and burned the tip, and dragged it in a line so long it faded from black to white. Every shade in between, up there on display. But what it's really like is the feeling; everyone kind of stops, and you can see it in their face, the world falling away for them for just a few seconds. Sunset is when the world holds its breath--the people who are aware enough to see it.

Can't say I did.

[ He doesn't watch the network like a hawk, really. ]

If you hear anything, give me a shout.

Have you found any fun lately?

[fun, to him, could be anything from a riot to learning to paint]

Scraping about a cave wasn't that much fun, but we endured.

[She could point out, of course, that a distinctive part of that process is the burning ember, the dull reddish-orange glow somehow reminiscent of an iron ready for a blacksmith to shape. But he knows that, and to point it out would be excessively unhelpful.]

And what do you do when the world holds its breath?

Part of you wonders if it will ever start breathing again. But you know, when you can't breathe, all you do is feel--feel your blood in your veins, your ribs trying to move. You're the most aware of yourself that you can be in a day.

[Bleu likes the way he talks about it; poetry is art without color or shape. She smiles, a madonna/whore smile, the meaning changing depending on the light just as a color does. But in every light, it's genuine.]

Do you feel anything else?

[That smile is so perfectly blue--not a color but the essence of what it means--that for a moment he simply stares at her, forgetting the question entirely. It's sheer luck that when he speaks it's sort of in line with what she'd wanted to know.]

It's like when you're floating in the dead center of the ocean, where under you it's all dark, and over you it's all light. You're at peace and you know at any moment the water might take your life.

[That kind of response is the type an artist gives her when recognizing her as a muse, sensing the force behind her appearance. It delights her to her very core, it pleasantly surprises her that her influence can extend beyond color, and it relieves her that she can still inspire without a supply of the Sacré Bleu.

And he can see it.]

You're not afraid of being swept under the swells?

[He shakes his head, smiling--beaming, almost--as if just the thought exhilarates him.]

I killed myself back home, trying to get to a river. I thought I'd be mortally wounded by the time I reached the water, and the rapids downstream would take care of the rest.

Now that I'm here I realize I would have loved to feel the rapids without a bullet in my back.

[And that, of course, is what this feels like: a resolution the mistake, finally having a glimpse of something he's mourned his whole short life.]

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/back from midterm hell, sob

welcome back! :D

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