[GIAT] scars upon the skin ▲ g r e g ▲

October was always brisk in London.

Niska could feel the chill sinking into his chest, the eerie cold of a Knockturn Alley morning sneaking into his fingerless gloves and working its way underneath his heavy coat. He pulled his ratty black beanie lower over his head, to the point that it was almost covering his eyes completely. Around him, the foggy mist that always hung heavily at night was starting to dissipate, leaving patches of dense white around his ankles, swirling and parting as the large man made his way up the cobbled incline, away from his shop.

He didn’t usually leave Knockturn Alley. He felt very much at home there, shrouded in mystery ostracized from the rest of the natural world with the taint of infamy and ignominy hanging gloomily about his head. The place was starting to grow on him. It’d be the years soon. Three years since he settled down and never really got around to leaving. It was just…never boring enough to make him go looking for more. Everyone who came through Grimli had a story. A secret. Sometimes a whole lot of secrets. Niska figured he would never find a place more full of interesting characters and there certainly wasn’t any shortage of adventure and intrigue to be had here, not since his little fight club had caught the attention of someone on high.

Besides. Niska was getting old. His body was gonna give out any day now. You don’t just get to go running around the world like he did and not have it catch up to you this early. Nah. Niska was ready for it. The ex-merc really just wanted all this nonsense, all this past, to go back to where it belonged. Being inside a bottle like he had been was fun, he’d give it that, but even he knew it was no way to live. It was time for him to put this all behind him. He never had a problem moving on before when he was younger. He best make use of that now before he ran out of it completely.

That was why the Russian wizard had left his shop, ventured out of Knockturn Alley, and tentatively returned to the light. It was crazy how a little thing like distance could make the world of different in a place like this. Diagon Alley was the exact opposite of his home, despite being a stone’s throw from each other’s limits. Everything seemed brighter, cleaner, and overall more alive. Niska didn’t like it.  People were too cheery. He shoved his hands even deeper into his pockets, purposefully avoiding eye contact with everyone who passed by him, trying not to get caught up in their magic—their stories. It was like trying to walk through molasses. Every smell, every sensation, every whisper of someone’s magic that passed over his exposed skin was screaming for attention.

Look at me! Look at me! You can’t ignore me!

When he finally saw the green and purple shop ahead of him, he didn’t even think about how ridiculous it looked or how kids these days were losing touch with reality even faster than they were before. He was just so relieved to get out of the quickly-crowding streets and into the cool, quiet space. As Niska entered the shop, he heard a bell ring somewhere above his head and he flinched slightly. Okay. He was a little hung over. That wasn’t nobody’s fault but his own. He looked up, taking in the walls of body jewelry and what looked like paint dripping all over the place.

To his right was a counter, and behind it stood a…well, a kid. With a backwards cap. Tall, but skinny. Smelling grungy and acidic and pretty much the way the whole shop smelt. A greyish purple smoke hung around the kid too, like he was puffing on a cigarette only Niska was the only one that could see it. Damn. Niska momentarily considered turning around and getting the hell out of there but…this guy was the best. Not to mention the kid’s skin was a damn canvas, was tattoos all over his body. If Niska hadn’t been looking right in the inky eyes of a walking skeleton a week ago, this kid would have the highest ratio of tatted skin to not tatted skin the Russian had ever seen.

He approached the counter, trying not to breathe in too much of the kid’s magic, or his mind was gonna start running off on its own. No. He had a purpose. Niska pulled a neatly folded square of parchment from the inner pocket of his coat and opened it. The symbol inside wasn’t anything too complicated at first glance, but then again, there weren’t many people who knew enough about this particular style of Merlinic seal to even know what it did. Weren't many people who were even supposed to know. It wasn't the drawing that made it complicated, it was the magic beneath it. Trying to seal away memories and emotions was tricky business, after all.

Taking a leap of faith, Niska pushed the paper across the counter surface and looked up at the younger man, his expression stoic. “Can you do it?”

Busy work, that's what the young man needed, busy work. Every time he gave himself a moment to think his mind ended up going back to exactly the same place: his date with Blo. And while normally he wouldn't mind thinking about a beautiful woman in his spare time he was having trouble not worrying about whether or not it went well. As an artist and a romantic the French man couldn't help but pay way too much attention to the details. He was anxious to hear from her, but nervous about owling her too soon, so for now he was stuck in this strange limbo that made him feel like an angst teenager all over again. He put things away, cleaned the counters, stocked the shelves, and took an inventory, all as a way to keep himself from fretting, but it wasn't until a customer entered the store that he was provided with a real distraction.

Gregoire was good at what he did, he'd been doing it pretty much his entire life, so it wasn't uncommon for strangers to walk into the shop and know of his reputation. He was nearly thirty now and he'd been making a name for himself in this business since he was fifteen. He'd even helped pioneer some of the methods used in today's magical tattooing and was the proud owner of a Wizarding Patent for a magical tattoo gun of his own design.

As the bell chimed Gregoire's thin lips broke into a smile and he turned to greet the new customer. He didn't recognize the wizard before him but that didn't much matter. Before he could even utter a hello he was being passed a bit of parchment with a design etched into it. Gregoire slid the paper off of the counter and held it in front of him, inspecting it silently for a moment before putting it back down and returning it to the gentleman. "Yea absolutely man," he said confidently before leaning up against the wall that was behind the counter and pulling the black cap from his head. He bent the beak of it a little before placing it back on his head, still backwards, and smiling. "Gotta' admit though that is some heavy line work, you sure that is what you want?" His French accent was less and less apparent with every year he spent in London but it was still there, a keen ear might even pick up on it.

He wasn't an expert at runes or sigils but he had been tattooing them onto customers long enough to recognize one when he saw it. He noted the line work, the way the seal folded in on itself and to the untrained eye it might of just seemed like a run of the mill design but Gregoire knew it had a purpose. He assumed the wizard, who was clearly old enough that he probably wasn't here for his very first tattoo, knew what it meant as well. Never the less G had a code when it came to things like this. He had to be sure that his client knew exactly what they were signing up for before the machine started buzzing.

"You know what it'll do yea?"

He wasn’t running from anything. Or at least, that was what the older wizard was telling himself. He was just tired of feeling the way he was feeling and wanted to get back to normal. Being the kind of guy who spends all day inside and whose only friends are criminals and a bottle of firewhiskey is a young man’s game. At this rate, Niska would drink himself into his grave before any old enemies even got the chance to catch up with him. He had spent the better part of the last eight months in the dark and it had run its course. It was time for him to get past it.

That was why he had come here. The symbol he had drawn, known to most as “Ezil”, though it was called by many other names by many other magical societies, was going to do that for him. It was old magic, the type most people didn’t even know still existed. Ezil, despite being very effective, was a rune probably too dangerous to ever actually be used, but Niska was willing to take the risk. The old Niska, the guy he was in his twenties, didn’t let a little thing like human emotion slow him down. Well, this was what he deserved. His attachment to other human beings was getting mighty troublesome and he was ready for it to be over. Ezil was going to seal away the memories of his dead daughter and the love that could never be with Dash. He wouldn’t forget them or their lives together, but the emotions—all the sadness and anger, would be sealed away somewhere safe.

Although, it wasn’t nearly as easy as that made it sound. Mind magic was tricky as hell, and Niska would have been pretty wary of letting a complete stranger do this one for him if he hadn’t been referred here by more than a couple people, not to mention the bone man himself. It was pretty damn fortunate that there was someone in the country who had the skills to tattoo him properly. Maybe it was a sign that he was supposed to do it.

Niska nodded solemnly at Gregoire’s question. “Wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.” He took that to mean the kid would do the tattoo. He looked around the shop, this time a little more closely. All the colors wouldn’t be Niska’s first choice, but it did have a certain style to it. A flamboyance. Confidence. That was always a good sign.

Not one to waste time when he had something in mind, even if it made him come off as rude, Niska nodded and wordlessly made his way to the tattooing chair. Niska took off his coat and folded it into a neat pile, then pulled his faded dark green shirt off, revealing the black tattoos running up his arms, across his back and chest, and around the side of his neck. He wasn’t as inked as the kid was, but he had collected quite a few over his life time to be respectable, each one illustrating an important chapter of his life or in memory of a fallen brother. Most of the space that wasn’t inked was filled with hundreds of scars of different shapes, sizes, and ages. 

“Nice place you got here,” he said gruffly, turning around. He looked the French wizard over again. His tattoos looked good. Clean. The line work was pretty sharp too. Niska could feel the apprehension lessening the more his amber eyes flickered over the smoky purple man in front of him. “Nice ink too. You do all that yourself?” he asked.

The short and to the point answer he received in reply was enough to satiate Gregoire's concern and before he knew it the new customer was headed for the tattoo room, it was private from the store front but not disconnected. G pushed off from the counter and followed him casually into the smaller room. The room was a stark contrast to the main area of his shop. The light was bright, the surfaces clean, and it seemed much more professional then the rest of the store. Gregoire loved urban art and the grunge scene in London but he wasn't about to tattoo in a dirty room. He was too conscientious to do that. As they entered the room the French man immediately went to the sink to wash his hands. He could hear the customer behind him moving around as he dried them with magic and started to dig around in the drawers of the built in on the far wall.

Although this would be a magical tattoo there was still quite a bit of equipment needed for the job. He flicked his wand at the set of drawers he kept locked which housed the most precious of supplies. The ink vials inside more closely resembled potions, each one having its own glimmer or inky smoke effect. He pulled out an onyx black vial that contained ingredients that would help him tattoo a rune with inlaid properties and set it on the rolling cart behind him. He gathered his enchanted tattoo gun, some paper towel, and a pair of black latex gloves before turning back to face the man. "Merci" He said with a grin before taking a seat on the cushioned stool that was next to the chair. The casters squeaked as he pulled it closer to the cart. "Nah not all of em' mostly got them done when I was younger." Gregoire avoided touching his own skin as a gloved hand moved across the air over his right arm. "I did a lot of the ones on my arms but even with magic ya' know I haven't found a way to tattoo my own back." He chuckled a little as he filled a thimble shaped plastic cup with the smokey liquid.

"Hey, that'll be what I come up with next." He liked the idea, he'd have to remember that for later. Conversation came easy to Gregoire especially when it was with his customers. Over the years he had become what many in the service industry eventually did: a trusted ear. Just like the barbers and tailors of the world Gregoire spent more time listening to his customers stories than he did his own friends. "How about yours, gotta' have a story there my right?" He noted the one that stuck out from the others on the man's bare skin with a nod of his head before his hands returned to setting up the equipment.