Snow is Awful (Louis)

[Louis Facilier]

    Louis continued to shuffle the cars in his hands when Isla asked him how it was possible for the Great Depression to happen and truth be told he didn’t really know. There were so many theories passed around on the streets that any of them, or possibly none of them, could be true. The Government secretly planned it so they could take every penny we had, claimed the conspiracies fanatics. Those damn blacks are to blame, screamed the bigots. It was a secret cell determined to take over the United States, shouted the newsboy as he waved around his “respectable” article. Louis never participated in these conversations. Granted he was extremely pissed about how crappy life had become, but he knew better. Not only would him voicing his opinion draw attention to the fact that he was managing to not only still had his meager possessions, but he was thriving off of the misery of others. Now it wasn’t like he was going to go out and buy a mansion, but the summers he was back in New Orleans he was able to live comfortably without any fear of the bank showing up to take the parlor from him. (Then again if they did, Louis could just make them disappear after all.) There was that and the fact that more often than he liked to admit people blamed him for their problems. He wasn’t sure if it was his occupation, his skin color, or the fact that he was genetically poor. Regardless, at one point or another in the conversation he would get blamed for the country’s problems and the crowd would be turned against him. So he learned to keep his mouth shut when politics came about. It also made him wonder why were the bigots ‘blessed’ with the largest pair of lungs possible?

    However Isla asked how it had happened, the facts not the conspiracies that were floating around the streets of New Orleans, and Louis knew of only one thing that stayed constant in all the stories he heard. The damned stock market. “In ‘29 the stock market ‘crashed’ which made a lot of people lose a great deal of money, and of course the money was never was theirs in the first place, so the people and banks they borrowed money from lucked out too. That led to all the banks closing and suddenly everyone’s money was gone, just like that. Things got really bad when that fool Hoover decided that the American people and the banks could solve the problems on our own, which clearly we couldn’t, but that just created an even deeper hole for us. However that’s not the end of it because it just started a chain reaction that destroyed all of the other countries’ economies and just because some idiots didn’t have the common sense to see our economy was in trouble.” He explained and boy was that a mouthful, but that’s what everyone said had really happened even if they threw in their crazy theories as well. The country, like him, had been making a ton of dirty deals and didn’t care about the repercussions. Oh course Louis didn’t particularly cared about what happened after he left the scene, but at least he was being a little more careful than his father had. Like investing in a box that was frog proof and never being foolish enough to take the talisman off of his pretty little neck. Maybe, just maybe, his father would still be on earth if he listened to his common sense.

    Louis made mental notes about the details Isla was giving him, okay Aunt Ariel she must be the queen, Eli sounds like a cousin, got legs from a witch, yep yep good information, come on Isla give me more to work with. I can’t make a deal with just a couple of names! I need dreams, secret desires, wishes. I need info!!! He silently thought as his face appeared blank with just a slight nod signalling acknowledgement of what she had to say. He needed to worm some more information out of her just so he could make the deal real, and also he needed to know just exactly what he was going to offer. He had a vague idea offer her a more permanent opportunity to see her cousins, but he didn’t know how he was going to go about it yet. It seemed as if Isla cared deeply about each side of her family, but he needed to find out which side was more important to her. Water or land. Then he would have to figure out just how to word it so he’ll end the day a rich, happy, man. However the mention of that goody two shoes Eli gave him a chance to make her choose without realizing she was being given an option here. “What about when you go home then, you’ll be trapped under the water while Eli is trapped on land. After you graduate you won’t see him again will you?” He said slyly. Isla had to choose an option here, she just had too!

    Seeing the shock on her face surprised Louis. It was just a part of life back in New Orleans. The Jim Crow laws made so that everything was segregated. There were very few things that weren’t separate. Even the water fountains had signs stating “Whites only” and “Coloured only.” Oh course it was frustrating having to use a side entrance when others didn’t, but it was just a way of life. Not to mention he didn’t exactly follow the rules all the time. In the winter he had been able to pass for caucasian when he snuck away from the orphanage. Too bad he was only back home for the summer. When she stated that something should be done about it, Louis simply shrugged his shoulders and said morosely, “I’d hate to break it to you, but one voice is not going break a few hundred years of prejudice.” It was true, one voice was not going to break the barriers, but instead it would take many voices to change things. Too bad that wasn’t going to happen for thirty years after Louis and Isla graduated.

    Though Louis could tell why Isla was getting so animated about this issue, it appeared that she would have been discriminated against as well. Granted neither of them knew her genetic background, but some bigot would throw a fit if they saw her drinking from ‘his’ water fountain. “Just don’t take that palace of yours for granted. Where I’m from that crown of yours won’t exempt you from the Crow cops.” He said with a serious, but slightly bitter tone of voice. This girl seemed to have everything in life that only been tossed to Louis as meat scraps. At least if the plan that was forming in Louis’ mind went according to plan he would get a chance to get a piece of what she has had.

[Isla Triton]

Isla listened to the explanation, though she didn’t understand most of it. It was probably because it was a different economic system than back home. And humans tended to deal with precious metals as their backers for their money. But what got her was how it set off a chain reaction to different countries. She knew that they had to rely on each other for certain things of course, but there had to be a line drawn in the sand to prevent such economic downfall. She couldn’t help but think that there should have been something put in place to make sure that never happened. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why wouldn’t there have been anything put in place to prevent that?” She shrugged. “I guess you can’t predict everything.” She would have to look into this further though, to make sure that it never happened to her own people.

Isla frowned when Louis mentioned that she would never see Eli again after they graduated. She was pretty sure that that would not be the case. Eli was her best friend. They wouldn’t just not be friends because one of them lived below the sea and the over lived above it. She shook her head. “Eli’s a sailor, like his dad. It’ll be different, but we won’t be apart forever. You make it sound so dramatic. And besides, I could probably find a way to get legs again.” She gave Louis a suspicious look. “You’re awfully invested in this.”

Isla didn’t know how anyone could tolerate such nonsense. She certainly would not. It only angered her to know that she would be looked down upon because of the color of her skin. “One voice can rally many other voices. Don’t underestimate the power of one,” she said fiercely. One voice speaking up gave other voices courage to speak up too. She had seen the power in that first hand with her mothers. It was rather unconventional to for a mermaid to marry another mermaid, but her mothers had done it anyway.

She frowned at Louis. She was getting the feeling that he felt that she was some entitled little princess. She was lucky, she would agree with that, but hardly entitled. She worked hard for everything she had and did. “I don’t really understand what you think my life is like,” she said honestly, “but I don’t use my status against other people. I didn’t ask to be a princess. And it’s not like it makes my life easy just because on certain occasions I wear a tiara. My mother was the first princess to marry another woman. People hated her for it and she nearly called off the wedding. It took all of my mother’s sisters to even talk my grandfather into allowing such a marriage in the first place. And on top of that, I’m adopted. I’m not even blood. I can’t even begin to tell you how many merfolk sneer at me as I pass them. But I make the best of the situation because I’m a Triton and that means something to me.”

[Louis Facilier]

    Louis shrugged in response to her question about why the worst economic period in his country’s history was just allowed to happen. “Nobody really knows, maybe it was corrupt politicians, a false sense of security, or it could have been the bumbling fools who didn’t realize that gambling with an entire nation’s economy was going to come back to bite them.” Which was true, nobody could just point a finger at one particular event and exclaim, ‘Right there! That’s where we went wrong’ regardless of what the conspirators believed. Louis understood that it was somehow a domino effect that started somewhere, but he didn’t know exactly who had pushed over that first tile. The newspapers and radio shows were more interested in selling their sponsor's product than telling the people just why they couldn’t afford said product. However Louis did have one suspicion as to where at least the dominos had been arranged. “Though I think it had something to do with the Great War. We had just gotten through a long hard era of guns and war bonds that left everyone believing that no more disasters could happen to us. Especially since America was spared from fighting on the homefront. We were just naive idiots.” He explained to the adopted mermaid Princess. Though he might have just succeeded in confusing Isla even more than he already had. There was no Great War in Atlantica, or if there had been it wasn’t the one he was speaking of. The war that occurred shortly before Louis was born was fought in trenches scattered across Europe, not grottos in the Atlantic ocean. This kind of stuff was just a part of life for him, you’re penniless on the streets, America fought in a war that we had no business in the first place, and another one was brewing less than a decade away. Louis grew up in a bad time period, just another way the Loa had cursed the young lad.

    Louis mentally groaned when he realized that there was another complication in the whole ‘missing your cousins on land so much that you would listen to the shadow kid and make a deal with them so that you guys would never be separated; when in actuality you be swindled into handing over your uncle’s wealth’ plan. Why couldn’t she just say “Yeah when I go home I’ll miss them with all my heart. You said you were a miracle worker, make it so that won’t happen.” No instead she had to point out little flaws and details that made him have to think on his toes. Why? Why couldn’t she just be the stereotypical ditzy princess for one minute. Just a mere sixty seconds so he could read her the cards, make a deal, and become filthy, stinking rich. No she had to be one of the suspicious ones. By god this job was easier back home where people were desperate for just a snippet of good things to happen in their miserable, pathetic lives. No everyone here had to have everything they ever wanted just tossed into their laps from the time they soiled their first diapers. Everyone, but him of course and of course they all got mad when he tried to make it possible for himself to have a similar future. So what if a couple of royals were screwed over in the process? They could just get back whatever they lost by raising that month’s taxes. Louis couldn’t do that however. He was an unwanted Street Urchin who in the eyes of the law did not exist. Who in the name of hell could he get taxes from when people regarded him little higher than the scum on their shoes!

    His fists clenched around the deck of cards in anger over these hateful thoughts wrapping around his brain like a dry forest caught in a wildfire. However he hid his hands from Isla’s eyes and forced what appeared to be a genuine smile onto his face before saying “Why it wouldn’t be the same as here now would it though? You wouldn’t be able to truly leave the water, and Eli wouldn’t be able to chat under the water because he’d be holding his breath. Not to mention Navy boats tend to be rather large. Why the two of you would have to shout in order to be heard.” God dammit Isla, stop poking holes, and just take. the. bait. for. Christ’s. sake. As for the dramatics? Well Louis had a smart answer to that as well, which luckily was short enough for him to disguise the anger he was feeling at the moment, “Why drama is my middle name.” There was an awkward pause for a minute before he hastily added with a non serious air about him “Well actually it’s César, but it still counts because he got an entire play.” Though maybe it didn’t since the tyrant was dead by the end of the third act with the famous line, Et tu Brute?

    However all jokingness and anger faded into panic when Louis realized that she was becoming suspicious as to why he was diving into her family tree. He didn’t know what to say for a moment, but thinking fast he realized there was really only one way he could answer it. So he attempted to put on a nonchalant attitude and said “It’s not everyday you run into someone with a similar backstory, except with a happy ending.” Bleh what ugly words. False hopes and pretenses that wouldn’t last long. Humanity was riddled with problems that made happy endings in his mind impossible.

    Although this princess may not be like the stereotype he expected her to be, she was still being incredibly naive. Didn’t he just finish explaining that no one would even listen to the two of them in the first place back home? Was everything he said go in one ear and out the other? So with just a hint of annoyance ringing through his voice, Louis said to her, “Well in order for that to happen cherie, people would have to listen to that voice in the first place.” However the conversation soon detoured into the grievances that Isla had in her life back home. So what if people disapproved of her presence in the royal court. At least she clearly had a family who had loved her, a safe place to rest her head, and could eat her fill every single night. Louis didn’t have those things being an orphaned troublemaker in the great Depression. Also so what if she had two mothers that clearly adored this entitled princess? He never had one, and Louis killed the one who was supposed to care about him by merely existing. Compared to Louis, her life was just one huge joyride hindered by a few bumps in the road. He looked at her with a blank expression, and said “I just finished describing an entire nation trapped in one gigantic hell hole where people are starving to death on a daily basis. Death and misfortune is not comparable to a few stares.” Yes it was very harsh, but man did it feel so good to hopefully stun one of those goody two shoes into silence.

    Inconsiderate Royals.

[Isla Triton]

Isla listened carefully, trying to learn as much as she could about the Great Depression as she could. It sounded terrifying beyond anything she'd ever known. And it was also getting more and more confusing by the second. She wondered what the Great War was. Obviously it was war. That was obvious but she didn't know how that would have negatively effected the economy. Granted, she didn't know much about war either. She made a mental note to look it up later. "I think I need to take a history class," she commented considering that she was so confused.

Isla shrugged. "It'll be different, but we'll figure it out." Then she tilted her head, giving Louis a confused look. "Navy ships are big, but they aren't loud," she commented. "We don't have to shout to be heard. Unless someone set off a canon, which they wouldn't while we were around."

Isla laughed when Louis said his middle name was drama. He definitely seemed like he had a flair for dramatics. She shook her head though when he said he was invested because she was an orphan like him. "Yeah, I get the feeling you resent me for that."

The blank stare and the statement that followed left Isla momentarily stunned. Her heart sank and she felt the hurt stab her suddenly in the gut. "Sorry," she sneered sarcastically. "I didn't realize that we were playing 'Who's Got the Worst Life'. Don't worry, you win by a landslide." She grabbed her sketchbook and shoved it in her bag. "Jerk," she added for good measure. Then she started pulling both of her sweaters back on, kicking off her flats and pulling on all three pairs of socks and pulling her boots back on. She threw on her coat and pulled on her hat. She grabbed her gloves and her bag and stood. "For your information, I was trying to point out that I'm not just another wealthy daughter of a king who sits around doing stupid things like embroidering because I thought you were nice. And maybe I wanted you to like me, but forget it. It's not worth it."

[NPC]

Just outside the window, two figures dash past, both in black coats with the hoods pulled low, covering their features. They seem to be in an awful hurry. It's easy to miss if either student isn't really looking out the window, they're rushing by so quickly that they're only visible for a few seconds. Anybody stepping outside would maybe catch a brief glimpse of them disappearing into the wooded area between the village and the school, but most likely they would have vanished as quickly as they'd appeared.

[Louis Facilier]

    Louis could tell that Isla was confused by all these events that were dubbed Great even though they were disastrous for everyone. Great War, Great Depression, not to mention all the other events that were going on such as corrupt governments, extremist groups raising hell, and the rumors of Germany falling prey to crazy ideas once again. It was enough to make Louis' head spin, and he had more of an advantage since he came from where all this was happening. Isla on the other hand, well everything was all nice and pretty quite literally under the surface now wasn't it. "Good luck with that cherie. The school is far more concerned about how we laugh or if we can talk to animals." Louis stated when she said asked about taking a history class to understand this better. The school for some reason didn't want anyone to learn any useful skills, after all they had the opportunity to create ignorant little puppets to place on thrones that stretched around the globe. They would be idiots to give them the skills to actually think for themselves. However Louis knew that there was a better way to manipulation, give them the tools to believe they were thinking, but instead keep a firm grip on the puppet strings. So he lowered his voice to a whisper as he said, "However that doesn't mean they library won't have something. Check the upper floor, seventh bookcase on the right, look for the number 973.9 on the spines. You'll find what you need in those. However don't borrow more than one at once, the librarians will get suspicious, and move them. Too afraid of creating a time paradox or something like that." Louis said with a small shrug at the end. Let her go find what he wants her to find, he can be patient. No doubt she come rushing back to him with even more questions and give him more opportunities to figure out just how to get her uncle's gold from this foolish princess. 

    "Ah, but I wasn't referring to the noise level I was referring to the size of the ship. The ones I grew up seeing towered over the oceans, their metal hulls dominating the waves, and stretched taller than any building I've ever seen. Perhaps your ships aren't quite the same as mine yet." Louis stated with a nonchalant attitude as he described the ocean liners he had seen in the New Orleans port, and granted they seemed that big. When he was three years old. However the princess didn't need to know that tiny little detail did she? It will intensify her curiosity, and that's all he needed it to do. 

    He didn't react to when she stated that she believed he resented her for that, which was true, but he couldn't come out and say that now could he? Louis needed her to at the very least trust him, and well nobody ever trusts the guy who hates your guts. Hopefully she'll think that maybe she only thought it and never actually said it instead. However he was forced to do something when Isla got up and made it clear that Louis had gone too far. How could he be so stupid!  If he couldn't defuse her, than he would lose his opportunity to get rich, no doubt she'll blabber to her friends as well, and he'll be ruined. When she stood up and moved to the foyer area to get her stuff to go, Louis immediately rose as well and followed her while apologizing profusely in his native tongue because of his panicky state. "Attente! Tu ne vas pas! Je suis désolé!" He managed to calm himself down a bit before continuing as she hurriedly shoved coats and jackets on. "I'm sorry, I have no idea what I was thinking. I guess with all those horrid memories in my mind, they opened old scars, and made me accidentally see you as all those rich, corrupt, monsters who made my life horrid. However this school and your story has shown me that you are not them. You have a kind heart and actually care about the people around you. After all anyone else would have got up and ran away when I offered the slice of quiche. Then you listened to my story in it's entirety, who else would have done that. In the last ten minutes I've showed you scars I bear that no one has ever seen before. That has to mean something doesn't it? I'm sorry that I acted the way I did when you showed me your own and I believe you. You are not what the school has you labeled as. Isla Triton is not some vain girl who only cares about who the designer of the dress she wears is or how many jewels are placed around her neck. You are more than that. You broke out of your box the school tries to keep us trapped in, please don't leave me in mine, cherie." Oh my god, this had better work. After all that speech stole all the air he had from his lungs. He was also a bit shocked at the notion of her wanting to like him. Everyone was supposed to hate him. He was the son of Doctor Facilier after all! Louis was the shadows and darkness that blocked the light and joy of all the other students. No body would ever like him and yet at the same time he wanted someone to despite the reality. He had also wondered what it would be like to be greeted with a warm smile instead of a cold sneer. Yet like everything else he had destroyed his chance with two sentences. The Loa were right, he was cursed to cause misfortune everywhere he went. 

    So with pleading eyes and a pained expression he asked her, "Do you know what Cherie means?" Hopefully with this one word that Louis had been calling her throughout their conversation would make her think twice before walking out the door. 

    Suddenly he saw a flash of darkness pass by the door's glass windows which cause Louis' eyebrows to furrow in confusion. What was that? It moved far too quickly to be a student walking to one of the pubs and besides the snow must already be several inches deep and still falling. Everyone was tucked up in the dormitories in front of the common room fires. Yet it was too large to be an animal so it must be a human. He wanted to go find out why they were in such a rush, but he had a more pressing issue to attend to first. Did his impromptu speech work? Or did he screw up like everything else in his life?

---

Attente! Tu ne vas pas! Je suis désolé! - Wait! Don't leave! I'm sorry!

[Isla Triton]

Isla smiled wryly at that. As if she didn't understand that this school only cared about the fact that she was a princess and little else. She nodded. The fact that she could speak three different dialects of whale as well as speak to all manner of fish and crustaceans was disregarded as completely useless. They were attempting to teach her to speak squirrel instead. "They also place a high priority on fainting just the correct way as well. You get bonus points if you faint into the arms of a prince who is conveniently standing nearby," she added with an amused grin.

Isla's grinned widened though as she leaned in conspiratorially, trying to memorize the numbers. Even if she didn't get the shelf exactly, they did have a numbering system in the library which would help. "Glad to know that even villains use the library. I'll have to keep that in mind."

Isla frowned at the description of the ships where Louis was from. She had never seen a metal ship in her life and she was quite sure they didn't make them that way back home. She wondered at that. Wouldn't metal be more likely to sink? Perhaps hot if made the right way. "Metal ships? My uncle's ships are all wood. They're not very tall either. I can easily climb up. A lot of times they jump into the water to swim with us anyway."

Isla wished that she could say that it didn't hurt. She wished she could say that she could brush off Louis' callous words and demeanor as if it were nothing. It wasn't nothing. It had meant something to her at least to open up to someone. She didn't do that very often. It was why she was at this school in the first place. And yet people who shut her down were why she kept to herself. It was easier to be her own friend in the end.

She glared at Louis as he quickly apologized. She was focused on putting her winter clothes back on, but she did listen to him. And when she had finished putting on her many many layers she turned to face him, her expression one of turbulent thoughts. She wanted to believe that he was sorry, but he had been so nice one moment and then not the next. She wasn't sure if this was sincere. She nodded diplomatically. "Very well then. Apology accepted."

She shook her head at the question. She had assumed it was some kind of nickname, but she didn't speak French. "What does it mean?" she asked humoring him.

And then she saw Louis look past her briefly, his attention turned away and she turned to look too, though nothing was there. "What were you looking at?"

[Louis Facilier]

Louis raised an eyebrow at the strange way the 'angelic voiced hens,' as his ally's minion had put it, earned bonus points on tests. Now wouldn't that be inconvenient if there egoistic saviors were taking a test as well? Or did they pull a few of them from whatever class they were in so the princesses could earn said bonus points. Though it was just as likely that Louis was taking a common joke among the royalty far too literally. After all how would he know the difference? It's not like their tight knit group would open it's ranks for one of the most powerful villains on campus, not to mention he was a misfortune magnet. No the royals were better off distancing themselves from him. They couldn't risk getting their pretty little necks hurt now could they? However if this was the case for most of them, then why hadn't Isla left much earlier in the conversation than when she had gotten up to go? Was she so naive to not see through the facade? Or was it what she said herself? Could it really possible that she wanted to like him? No one had ever liked him before, tolerated sure. Louis Facilier was tolerated, feared, and hated by a numerous score of people, but not a single person he had come across in his seventeen years actually cared about him. He had no family, the orphanage in the French Quarter was overflowing, the Loa used him as a puppet, and he was regarded as a lowlife at Seacombe. He was a dark shadow among the glimmering scepters. Nothing more, and nothing less.

However he had always had that deep yearning within him to be accepted, to have the kind of friendship that he saw the others had. Someone to laugh with, struggle through schoolwork with, help him through thick and thin, but most importantly make the memories of this mean something. The closest thing he had to that was his own shadow, but like any other human, he desperately wanted for that to change. After all we are all hardwired to find safety in numbers. However Louis didn't know how to and probably never would. He had been ostracized from society far too long to know anything more than deception and card tricks when it came to social skills. 

Which is why he was mentally kicking himself when Isla continued to pull on hats, gloves, and who knows what else. Goddamit! Why on earth couldn't he keep his emotions and prejudices against all that glittery gold that sat on her head in cheek for ten, twenty minutes. Who knows how much money could be at stake here if she walked out to that door right now, and blabbed to all her friends about "that jerk Louis." Stupide! Stupide! Stupide! Although she may have apologized, Louis still picked up on the underlying tone of, 'I do not believe a word you say, you little liar." And she was right. She shouldn't believe him, in fact she still should walk out that door while she still had the chance, but her curiosity begged her to stay. So puling forth the most desperate guise  he could produce, which really wasn't that hard given the circumstances of what he stood to lose here, and explained to her just what exactly Chéri meant in his native tongue. "Darling. It literally means darling." He looked at her with pleading eyes to complete the effect. To Isla it would look like that they were saying "I'm sorry for being a jerk, please forgive this poor unfortunate boy" instead it was more of  an "I'm sorry for being a jerk, please help this poor boy become the richest man alive by robbing your family blind and leaving the countries' in your care in ruins." It is said that windows were eyes to soul after all, too bad true intentions often got very lost in translations. 

Though before he could get a reaction from Isla, she questioned what had temporary diverted his attention and figuring that he was already winding himself up in a web of lies, he for once divulged the truth to her. "I don't know. Something ran past the window rather quickly. Probably some student eager to get to one of the pubs." He said with a small shrug, hopefully she would accept the answer and move back to the rather important question at hand. Did Isla Triton, Princess of the Sea, see Louis Baptiste-Facilier, the Street Rat of New Orleans, as scum on the bottom of her fancy shoe? Or did she see a poor unfortunate soul who needed a helping hand in a cold and rather lonely world?

[Isla Triton]

Isla was taken back suddenly, her breath caught in her throat and for a moment she paused to blink at Louis wordlessly. Darling. He had been calling her darling this whole time. She felt her face begin to flush and heat up. Louis, a boy she barely knew, had been calling her darling the whole time they'd been speaking together. "Louis, you shouldn't call me that," she said softly, when she found that she could speak again. "We hardly know each other. It's not appropriate. It's too intimate."

But if that was the case then why was her heart beating so fast? It felt like it was about to pound out of her chest. It was exciting and thrilling to have a boy call her such things, but it was also inappropriate. They barely knew each other at all. And Isla wasn't even sure if she was allowed to date. Her mothers might think she was too young.

And now Isla was jumping too far ahead. She needed to learn French so that she knew what Louis was saying from here on out. Maybe that was getting too far ahead of herself too. Goodness, this was so confusing. She needed to take some time and just process all of this information.

[Louis Facilier]

Louis was not really surprised that Isla was so flustered when he revealed what the nickname he created for her throughout their conversation really meant. Girls always were. It was so predictable, apparently a lot of them fancied his looks and forgot that he was such a bad luck charm. Sometimes he flat out disillusioned them, he was a villain it was in his DNA after all. However sometimes if it benefited him, or he fancied the girl himself he would go along with the illusion that they all had in their minds. He was the bad boy they could transform into some model citizen, or maybe even just simply into a plaything they could tote around on their arms. As if anyone could turn the shadow kid of New Orleans into a law abiding citizen. Simply impossible ma chéri, simply impossible. 

However Louis couldn't deny the fact if he could exploit just how flustered Isla was then maybe just maybe this could be the key to getting all that money. After all people were far more comfortable forking over details about distant relatives to people they care about rather than complete and total strangers. He wasn't deterred by her reaction, by her insistence that things must b taken slowly. Louis was a patient lad, he could wait for such a spectacular pay day. However he had to lay the stepping stones didn't he? "Ah, but French is the language of love there is no such thing as 'too intimate.'" He then thoughtfully paused for a moment as if he was thinking of his next move, but in reality he had already had an entire plan and back up plan prepared in his mind. He then added with his ice on glass voice, "Also isn't that how the best of friendships being? Hardly knowing someone until you do know them better?" Ooh if this actually worked Isla was going to be putty in his fingers. That is if he didn't screw up again. Or if Isla decided the Shadow Kid of New Orleans was just too much of a jerk for a pretty little mermaid princess like her to handle. Bleh, the only thing that kept this villain from storming out of the polka dotted version of hell was the possible payday he could get from this. Oh he could already feel those gold coins just sliding through his fingertips, he could already see the glimmer of the rubies and emeralds, Louis could already imagine what he would have if  he could get his hands on it. No more poverty, no more reading fortunes to those who were nobodies! He could be - no would be!- great if he could just get his hands on it and to think the only thing that stood between him and all that gold was a foolish, stubborn, naive, little fish that was too lovesick to know she was being played. Oh my god, could it really be that easy?!

His eyes were alight, but not with the fire of whatever Isla could be thinking that made him go from a little Grinch to a kid on Christmas morning. Instead it was Greed, the third deadly sin, but what would a Voodoo puppet what with religion? He didn't believe in such things, something he might pay for later on in life, but then again. Louis already had a vague notion of what his fate was to be and did not end with happy ever after. Unknown at birth, unknown at death, such a pitiful fate for a young man who might of had a good heart if it hadn't been corrupted at such a young age. Louis didn't think these thoughts though, for he was far more concerned with his next statement, "So why don't we learn a bit more about each other then? Say I'll meet you at Gusteau's three o'clock Saturday for a meal? There we can discuss anything you might find in the library." Hopefully she wouldn't turn him down, because although he may not actually care much about Isla more than what she could provide him with, Louis could not deny the fluttering of his heart over the prospect of sharing another meal with the princess. A truly French meal. Not some trash they serve everywhere else in this wretched school. 


((Care to wrap this up?))

[Isla Triton]

French was the language of love. Oh dear. Isla had never heard that before and she was even more unprepared for such a statement. Louis said it as if everyone knew it and maybe they did. Isla, the mermaid, didn't know much about languages spoken above the water and apparently French was considered the language of love. "But I don't speak French. Only whale," she blurted out stupidly. And then she mentally cursed herself for it. It made her sound so stupid.

"I suppose," she agreed meekly because of course Louis was right and yet she felt like he had been right on purpose. Could he do that? She couldn't really argue with him on that because that was exactly how you became friends with someone, but it was also the most vague idea of friendship she'd ever heard. She wanted to argue but she didn't know how.

She was confused now because Louis had hinted that being intimate was something he wanted, but then he mentioned friendship only a sentence later. She bit her lip trying to figure him out. She wasn't even sure what to think anymore.

The offer of another meal together stopped Isla for a moment. It sounded kind of like a date, but maybe it wasn't. She wanted to refuse on the basis that she didn't even know if she wanted to date anyone right now. Especially a human of all people because those kind of cross species relationships would get difficult when one of them had to go back to being a mermaid again. But she kind of wanted to go too. She nodded decisively. "Alright. Three o'clock Saturday. I'll be there." And then she stood there for a moment unsure of how to make her escape. "So, right. Thanks for the quiche. I guess I'll see you around." And then she bolted out the door. She needed to find Eli and talk to him as soon as possible. She had too much she needed to sort out in her head.