[attr="class","reasonhiram"]

[attr="class","reasonbghiram"]

[attr="class","reasonbighiram"]

Siren Song

[attr="class","reasonsmallhiram"]Kiss to remember or kiss to forget Drawn by the siren sound, spiralling slowly down Into the chilling depths

[attr="class","reasonbodhiram"]There were days like today when Hiram felt as if he needed air.

Things in London had become so stuff with the appearance of Epidemic X. Everyone was crammed into a tiny room at the local medical institutions and, while he knew it was necessary for the treatment and containment of the disease, Hiram was not interested in being stuck in a room with people he didn’t know. In fact, he was not interested in being stuck anywhere. It was the reason that he hadn’t checked himself in. It was also the reason that he’d decided to take a train to Dublin this afternoon.

Without magic, he was at the disposal of the public transit system…something he’d never had to rely on before. This was, perhaps, a lesson in being timely because he had missed the train to Dublin. Which was the reason he wasn’t standing in the middle of Phoenix Park, but on the edge of the Ballycotton Cliffs, staring out at the picturesque scenery that the small Irish town of Cork offered.

Hiram held his camera to his eye, steadying himself in a perched position as he looked down the cliff at the waters below. Every so often, he would see the glint of something gold and his finger would carefully tap the button on the top of his apparatus, catching photographs of the mermaids that swam below. Some would say that they lured people to their deaths here. Beckoning them with promises that just under the water lay something that they had dreamed of all their lives. But Hiram knew better. They were dangerous – like most women.

But not Charity. Charity Burbage had been kind and caring – she hadn’t been a mermaid. She’d been the sort of woman that looked after him. And now she was gone. The man paused as he leaned back a little, his eyes catching sight of the horizon from the viewfinder of his camera.

He wished he could have said goodbye. That was his one regret in all of this. It didn’t matter that he’d spent years as a captive… what mattered was that he hadn’t a chance to say goodbye to the woman that he loved. Now, all that was left of her was Blake.

He remembered seeing her a few weeks back – the spitting image of her mother – and wondering. Was it possible that she was his? Hiram wasn’t sure. It was part of the reason that he’d been traveling so much. Maybe if he could get a clear head and see the world, he’d be able to reason everything else out. Unfortunately, it had done little to determine if Blake Burbage was his child or not. He knew eventually he would have to face this problem head-on. But, asking about a girl’s parentage was no easy matter. Especially if she didn’t know.

Then again, perhaps there was an easy answer, Hiram thought as he leaned forward once again. From down below, he could see a mermaid splashing, reaching her hands out towards him, but no sound came out of her mouth.

[attr="class","reasontaghiram"]@ OPEN | 511 | OUTFIT

[attr="class","credhiram"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + ADOX 2.0

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Siren song

kiss to remember

Or kiss to forget

It wasn’t like Brandt could actually work now. It was annoying, really, that he was stuck in the U.K. He could do more in Morocco than he could here. Even without magic, he was still an Archeologist. HE didn’t need magic to read runes. There was still so much that he could be doing. But without the borders being reopened he was stuck here. And the goblins were driving him crazy. He didn’t want to sit at a desk in the bank. He wasn’t cut out for that. He needed to be out, and doing things, and be anywhere that didn’t have a roof. He didn’t even care that it was cold. He was past the point of caring about things like that. He was tied up here, he was stuck, and he didn’t handle that well.

That was partially what scared him when it came to things with Ingrid. One of these days he was convinced that she was going to realize that he really was more of the dirt, and blue jeans kind of guy than he was one for sitting around at State Dinners or whatever else it was that her brothers did all of the time. Or at least the older one. He didn’t really know what either one of them did, but he didn’t think that it was anything like what he did for a living. He wasn’t a scholar. He wasn’t that type. Sitting around and studying things was more Mam’s thing. He could see it being Ingrid’s thing. But not him. He wasn’t hard wired that way, and that was a struggle.

He knew that there were plenty of other things that he needed to be concerned about. He knew that he needed to focus on the bigger picture. That there were people that couldn’t do anything that they had been trained to do. Students that had been kicked out of school for things that they couldn’t control. Brandt has read all of the papers. He knew what had happened. There were things that were bigger than him, and when he was with everyone else, he could be concerned about those things. He knew who his girlfriend was. He knew how to act, and appear when he was with her. They could have a good time, but she still represented Denmark.

That was fine. He could do that. He knew time, and place. He knew when it was okay to sneak out of something early, and when they needed to stay the whole time. He knew that, and he could do it. But right now he didn’t want to. He wanted to come out here, and not really worry about anything. He wanted to let it be freezing, and windy, and wake him up from whatever fog this was that was surrounding him. It certainly wasn’t the desert. And it certainly wasn’t curse breaking. But it was better than nothing.


Coming up on someone else leaning over the edge of the cliff Brandt cleared his throat to announce his presence. He didn’t want to startle the other man, but he thought that just walking by completely when someone was leaning over the edge of a cliff wasn’t the answer either. “Are there really mermaids down there?” Everyone claimed their were, after all.

@ hiram • 549 • rembrandt's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[attr="class","reasonhiram"]

[attr="class","reasonbghiram"]

[attr="class","reasonbighiram"]

Siren Song

[attr="class","reasonsmallhiram"]Kiss to remember or kiss to forget Drawn by the siren sound, spiralling slowly down Into the chilling depths

[attr="class","reasonbodhiram"]It wasn’t surprising that there was someone else here at the Cliffs. After all, it was quite the tourist attraction. That was what had brought Hiram here, to begin with. He wanted something to distract himself. But he wanted to travel – he wanted to get out of the city and actually breathe. Sometimes, London felt so stuffy. It was probably the nature of the beast, he reasoned. After spending years in snowy Siberia, anything with more than a canvas roof was going to feel like an enclosure.

He wasn’t sure that he was fully adjusted to his new life, yet. Honestly, Hiram wasn’t sure that he ever would be. Coming back to the United Kingdom had been a shock to his system. Things weren’t as they were when he had left. So much had changed…and very little had stayed the same. It was human nature to seek out the similarities – to find what was consistent in this world – unfortunately, for Hiram, there was very little for him to cling on to.

The book was supposed to help. A full recount of everything that had happened to him…an exploration of The Wanderers and their culture. But the more that Hiram wrote, the more he felt like he was falling out of touch with the world that he had left behind. Because there were more important things to worry about in this new world. There were more important things that he needed to tend to. Like figuring out if Blake Burbage was actually his daughter.

The research for the birth certificate was slow moving. There was so much red tape to cut through with Mungo’s that there were days when Hiram wondered if it was even worth it. How was it possible that they had lost the certificate that he was after? Naturally, Hiram had offered to help them search the entirety of the records department, hoping that it would show up and qualm the concerns that he had about the blonde girl he’s seen just a few weeks ago.

“Of course, you can see ‘em down there waving and begging for you to jump,” Hiram answered as he turned around slowly and giving the gentleman behind him a smile. “Haven’t you heard the legends? Calling sailors to their deaths and beckoning sad wives off of the edges of these cliffs.” For a moment, he paused. Surely, he didn’t look like he was about to jump, did he? Did this man? Merlin’s Beard, what a predicament this was.

But, the man wasn’t approaching the edge. He wasn’t flinging himself over wildly to be at the mercy of the mermaids. He was smarter than that. And if he wasn’t? Well, maybe Hiram was here to make sure he didn’t. Seemed ridiculous, but life was throwing him a lot of curveballs lately. Either way, he was going to introduce himself. “I’m a photographer,” he explained, quickly, taking a few steps back from the edge and gesturing to the camera around his neck before extending his hand to his new companion. “Hiram Fitzgerald, nice to meet you.”

[attr="class","reasontaghiram"]@ stranger | 512 | OUTFIT

[attr="class","credhiram"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + ADOX 2.0

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siren song

kiss to remember

or kiss to forget

Coming to the UK had been because Mam had had to. He knew that they hadn’t had to come. But Beth had wanted to be with Mam, and Brandt wasn’t going to let her come over here without him. He was a little surprised that Dad had followed, but he knew that Dad loved Mam. He knew that long before they even had seemed to realize it. There had always been a feeling there that they were going to end up being his parents, and they had been. Even if they hadn’t been together, even if Mam had been married to Opa. Even if she had been his Oma, technically. He didn’t think that she would have liked that. She had never been his grandmother. She had always just been his mam.

And she hadn’t been, at first. She had known his mother. Nora had been around when Melanie had first joined the family, but he knew that that didn’t matter now. What mattered was that they had followed her here, and now they were all sick. Now they were all dealing with this, and he didn’t think that it was anyone’s fault. He wasn’t angry with Mam for making them come here, he probably wouldn’t have met Ingrid if things had been different, but he wasn’t thrilled with the idea that they were sick, and there was nothing that they could do about it.

He didn’t know if there was anything that anyone could do about it. He was well aware of the fact that her father had things that he was trying to do. Things that they were doing without the illness itself. But they couldn’t just go to Denmark and risk spreading the disease. They couldn’t go anywhere, and even if they could, he knew that they shouldn’t. They shouldn’t risk exposing the rest of the world, but he was sure that it was something that they were going to have to deal with sooner or later. They were going to have to deal with all of this, and he didn’t want to know what the answers were. He didn’t think that he was going to be smart enough to understand them. But what he did know, was that he wanted this fixed.

Him, and everyone else in the country. He wanted his sister, and his girlfriend, and his mother to feel better. He wanted Dad to feel better and go back to work. He wanted all of this to go differently. He wanted all of Ingrid’s guards to feel better. He wanted all of them to be able to go back to being themselves. And without magic that was impossible He couldn’t do his job. Ingrid couldn’t go home. They were trapped here. And he didn’t like it. He didn’t think that he was ever going to like it. If they were sick forever, would they be quarantined forever? They couldn’t run an economic system like that. There were too many of them with skills that they could use…

“Huh…” Brandt leaned over the side a little further to try and see what was down there. “I’m sorry, I’m not from around here, I hadn’t heard the legends. That’s some pretty dark stuff though.” Made sense for mermaids, he supposed, but it was dark nonetheless. Taking the other man’s hand Brandt shook it with a nod, “Rembrandt Otten. Curse-Breaker. Or, I was… Now…” He shrugged a little bit. “I guess I should start using one of the other titles.”

@ hiram • 583 • rembrandt's outfit

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