tampered | Log: Complete

Log: Complete

When; Oct 5, midday
Rating; PG, for now?
Characters; Caspian X

treadingdawn, Dorian Gray

nobodyneedknow
Summary; What happens when a Very Important Painting goes missing.
Log;

Caspian has been searching for that painting again, and no it's not a portrait, though portraits are what he finds inside the Palace. He remembers this place having a gallery for those who wish to exhibit works of art. How the painting could have found its way here is beyond the Telmarine but finding the thing is worth the effort. It's been days since the surprise for the new house, and thus the Pevensies, pulled its very own disappearing act, but a determined man is Caspian X. He moves through the room displaying sculptural pieces to a smaller corridor towards the landscape work. In all this time he has seen abstract color spatters and something called 'pop art' which makes no sense to him at all. Traditional landscapes seem more likely but he isn't going to jinx his chances by being presumptuous. He walks along quietly, seemingly alone.

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He's been looking all weekend.

Dorian simply cannot imagine that he arrived in the City, and that his portrait, the most valuable possession he owns, did not arrive with him. Somewhere it hid, away from prying eyes, because certainly someone would have mentioned it if they saw it. It's lovely, his portrait - even with the ugly gash on his hand and the hole near the eye. No matter. He had to find it.

The palace was lovely. It was beautiful - the kind of place that Dorian would undoubtedly go and spend his time willingly, the kind of place that Dorian would enjoy running. Perhaps he should speak to the proprietor - but all that would have to wait.

He wanders through the art-lined hallway, and sees someone turn a corner just as he rounds into the room. It takes a moment to process what and who he is looking at.

He had not imagined the likeness to be quite so...

Perfect.

"Pardon," he says quite naturally.

There's something about this grand structure that fosters a sense of privacy when one is alone. Although Caspian has not a problem with having others enter his space he does exercise politeness and precaution when entering someone else's. Nevermind that this encounter isn't one or the other as both men have come to cross paths. It isn't until he actually shifts his gaze upward to the man who stands as tall as he does that Caspian, er...loses his polite and civil manner to stare.

Dunstan Thorn?

He wonders, lips slightly parted.

No, it couldn't be. The hair is completely right.

Dorian can't help but look this man over and he's in shock, for a moment. He's heard of Caspian, but he didn't think that the resemblance would be so uncanny, so detailed, down to the identical looks of shock on their faces. Dorian has watched his own face long enough to know the one that the man opposite him is wearing.

And he has never thought of something so...intriguing. Beguiled by his own face.

This one, however, seems to have a sense of innocence that Dorian's lost, or perhaps he has simply not discovered the truth to being happy. His brown eyes seek out their identical match, his mouth open just slightly before he remembers himself.

"I'm sorry," he says, tucking his hands behind his back. "I didn't mean to intrude."

Being just slightly darker in complexion the brown spot under his eye is a little harder to note, but Caspian has known his own face long enough to recognize it on someone else. On Dorian it's more pronounced. By this point Caspian has advanced a few steps closer, brown eyes wide and yes evidently filled with awe, wonderment, and other things most people would consider innocent. They are the same people who know not of his background in battles, blood, murder, mercy, villainy, and valor.

"It's all right," he says, accent not at all subtle.

Now sometimes a certain someone declares Caspian wears a level of transparency around those who do not require his guard. At the moment, Dorian is one of them. He can't help but be fascinated by their likeness. His accent is noticeably English, just like the Pevensies, and the implications of it are far too exciting to contain...but he does try to contain it. There are some who say he should be disturbed by such a discovery, that it can only be the result of black alchemy, but Caspian has learned sharing faces in this world doesn't necessarily mean a harbinger of worse things. After all, look at Zach and Chase. His expressions shows he isn't afraid of Dorian at all. It is probably accurate to say this gentleman does not share his level of transparency but the Telmarine wouldn't know a thing about it.

"I apologize," for staring, then he remembers his manners again, offering a nod of his head. "I am Caspian." We look alike, isn't that mysteriously exciting?

Dorian resists reaching out to touch Caspian's face, his hair, or the other man in any other way. It's vanity that makes him want to reach out and bridge the gap between them, but the truth is that Dorian has no idea how Caspian would react, and he's not willing to scare off any chances.

"Dorian Gray," he says with a polite nod in reply, his lips curving up in a smile that makes him look sweeter and much more innocent than he is. "I'm afraid I'm at a bit of a loss...for words..." he says, drawing out the sentence. "I had been told I looked like someone that others knew but..." he pauses.

"I'm sorry I find this rather hard to believe."

Caspian would react with a blush and it is his own vanity that would fuel it, so they are both fortunate that Dorian does not touch him.

"It is a pleasure to meet you," he says, cordial because he was born and bred that way. It's much easier to offer nods, bows, and a straight posture to someone who's clearly familiar with formal etiquette, something lacking in the city...or maybe Caspian is the odd one out in this world. In Dorian's presence, that isn't so.

"Dorian Gray." Caspian tries the name off his own tongue. Not Dunstan Thorn. Could it be Tristan is wrong or is Dorian himself a third likeness? Very curious. It's to the Englishman's advantage that he is the first the Telmarine has ever met face to face. "I am too. I have been told of another who bears a resemblance but no one has told me your name," he offers a smile in return, "or how close the likeness is...unbelievable."

Now it is Caspian who feels an urge to touch Dorian if only to make sure he is real.

Dorian tips his head, as if trying to examine him for any differences, but there are none. They have the same lips, the same eyebrows, a matching cleft in the chin. "This is..." he trails off his sentence. What would Wotton think! Wotton surely would beg him to indulge in whatever he was feeling, but Dorian is not so entirely Wotton's creature as that.

"Are you Spanish?" Dorian asks, instead. He listens to the odd, exotic vowels of Caspian's speech and ponders how to mimic it, if only for his own amusement. "I'm sorry, it's simply that if you were an Englishman, I would say we also share a voice."

Which is also true. Timbre and tone, only accents distinguish them. Dorian takes a careful step forward. "You are not a portrait come to life, are you?" He doesn't laugh, but it's clearly teasing.

In a manner.

Spanish? Caspian blinks once, twice, then shakes his head.

"No," well maybe, "I am Telmarine, from Narnia, but I do know of an England, of a London and a Finchley." His smile brightens much like a boy who wishes to impress a peer. He too has noticed a similar timbre and tone despite their differing accents and he has, before Dorian, considered trying to mimic the Pevensies' accent too. Needless to say everyone is better off with him not copying it. Now at Dorian's question Caspian does laugh and it's light, charming, good natured.

"I am not although I wonder the same of you," he nods, because it's funny they should find each other in an art gallery of sorts. Worth noting, Caspian doesn't step back when Dorian steps forward. He has no reason to.

What is your story, he wonders, is it like mine?

"Do you? I'm from London, originally," he states, calmly. He's not quite examining Caspian so carefully now, but his eyes are still fixed on the Telmarine. "And Finchley. That's a bit out of the city itself, and I'm afraid I've never been, but I hear that it's pretty enough." Finchley was too far from the action of London for Dorian to truly be interested.

Dorian looks around. "Well, I suppose I could be a portrait made flesh," he says, and in a manner, he is, "but then I wouldn't be very entertaining to speak to, I'm afraid." He wonders about this man, this Telmarine, a nationality he's never heard of, from a place he's never heard of. Narnia, he thinks. A cousin, or a long lost twin? No, nothing so romantic. A man who has the fortune to share his face.

"I'm rather new here," he says, "Would it be terrible impose upon you with a friendship because of our matching appearance?"

"I'd like to visit it sometime, well, both London and Finchley," he nods, interested not just for their location but also for a sentimental attachment to the people he knows who come from there.

Dorian's quip is confusing at first because any sort of joke, however subtly implied, is lost on this one. He almost takes it seriously at first, but then he just smiles again. "No, I think not, and if you were a portrait I don't want people to believe I am speaking to myself because I am vain," Caspian laughs softly again. There are some who would say he is vain, but not vain enough to compromise noble principles.

"Terrible," he asks, dumbfounded by the question. It's so surprisingly honest in a way Caspian wishes he'd experienced from others in boyhood. "It isn't terrible at all," and here the Telmarine King flushes in the cheeks. He thinks himself perhaps a little bit too eager for the same. To him, Dorian is upfront and confident, but Caspian still retains an amount of boyish vulnerability in these matters. "I mean to say...I would like that too," he straightens up again in an attempt to recapture his maturity.

Dorian ponders this for a moment. "If you do visit London," he says, "I'll make sure to show you around the city. It can really be fantastic. Although I'm afraid you'll have to make your own way about Finchley."

Dorian is vain, vain enough to speak to his portrait, but not so vain that he would have easily gone mad because of it. "I think I'd say you have reason to be vain, but I suppose that's not very humble of me," Dorian quips back, and his laugh echoes Caspian's, soft, but the same.

"Pardon," he says, realizing that perhaps English is not Caspian's first language. "It's an expression," he assures the Telmarine. "I'm pleased we can agree on that, at least."

Visiting London, visiting Earth, will always be a dream of his. Just one glimpse might do, he would say, but his heart believes it isn't enough. Caspian wishes to set foot there someday, to see the house in which his friends lived, to see the train station in which they stood before the call of a horn brought them back to Narnia. How exciting it would be, like magic to him.

"I have friends from there, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy," he says quite fondly.

As for a reason to be vain...um. Caspian isn't sure how to respond to that either. He isn't naive enough to not notice a compliment but reacting to it smartly is another matter entirely. What to say? 'You too'? The exchange smacks a bit of vanity, again, and he wishes to avoid that when so far all has been polite and gentlemanly, friendly. No, it isn't very humble at all, but Caspian doesn't mind because he sees a reason too, whether he addresses it or not.

"Well..." he starts, "have you seen much of the city here? Have you settled comfortably?"

Do you need my help?

For the record, 'English' is his first language. Fff.

There is a lot to be said in how Caspian addresses his friends. The familiarity, the fondness is not lost on Dorian Gray. If these friends are in the City, it might suit Dorian to meet them. Perhaps he can make an effort to pay more attention to the Network device - it seems to be of value, here.

He hears the words for what they are - an offer, and Dorian has never been one to decline an offer from someone beautiful. "I haven't seen much, I'm afraid," he says carefully. "And I have a flat but it's...simple. I'm looking for a much better home." The truth was that his flat was not suitable in the slightest.

He pauses. "Caspian," he says, using his first name rather informally, never having received a last name, "I was about to step out for tea when I met you. Would you join me?"

Get to know him. It would be the best idea for the beginning of this particular friendship.

"I would join you, Dorian," he tries the other man's name again, only the first because surnames are uncommon for Caspian and the place from which he hails. He is unaware of any other intent on the Englishman's part. As far as he's concerned, this is an offer for tea and to get what they both expressed interest in having: a friendship.

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