[Er, let's Mask this out of the way though. WPing it, 'cause. But we'll see if it's enough. If it's not, skip to the next night! Hah. After phonecall. Phonetag. Yes.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 7 ) [WP]
Harald[FINE, JACK. FINE, I AM ALWAYS PARANOID FOR NOTHING.]
Molly ToombsThe last couple of days in Denver had been beautiful. Jacky couldn't experience that, not the bright blue of the skies or the warm baking of the sun on your skin, but he could smell the sun on the people when he came out after nightfall. He could still feel the earth and the concrete warmed from the lovely spring days.
Molly has, for the most part, been taking advantage of them. She's been in contact with Jack, mostly by texts because that's how kids keep in touch these days, but occasionally by phone call. They've visited here or there, but no adventures, no big secret reveals, not lately.
He usually got a text every other day or so. She thought about him a lot. He would understand-- it was his own doing, after all.
Tonight, though, she called. It was around eight in the evening when the phone rang with Molly's name tagged to it.
HaraldJack.
He would understand even if he hadn't blood-knotted her to him, blood-tied her, Vitae-braided, you to me, me to you, be trustworthy, be trustworthy, be trustworthy. Jack, after all, is a persuasive creature, words of honey to lure all the little flies; Jack, when he was alive -
well, there was no Jack when Jack was alive. He had a way even then. That's how you do it: natural aptitude, and then the hook. The certainty. The caution: oh, Jack. He wants all the day-walkers to be sun-warmed forever; he wants them to live; to be happy; to build things, to -
There's so much to be discovered, and to be seen, and to believe in. There's just so much: so much more.
The human spirit. Goodness. All that.
But what does that matter? It's around eight o' clock. Jack is awake for the night, and he might have plans, or he might not. He sees who it is on the caller ID; takes a moment to compose himself. To pick a Face; to pick a voice (always honeyed, though; Jack). To use it.
Answers.
"Hello, Molly!" And sounds pleased to hear from her. Not shy, even over the phone.
Molly ToombsThe line picks up and there isn't anything for background noise on Molly's end. She doesn't sound like she's on the bus or walking the sidewalk, there isn't the rumble of traffic engines or the chatter of public to be picked up on. Instead, she was at home. The kind of quiet she had could only be found there or at an office.
She sounded relieved that he'd answered when she spoke: "Jacky, hi."
Initially, just happy to hear the sweet voice. Then she pressed on. First, pleasantries. A brief episode of 'how are you doing, has everything been well', that kind of brief catch-up. But through it Molly sounded like she was holding on to something-- a question, perhaps, or just something that she had on her mind that she wanted to say.
She'd lead about to it herself in a roundabout way by switching whatever topic they were briefly visiting on to say: "I'd love to see you again, Jacky." I've missed you. "We should plan to visit."
Harald"Do you have a shift tonight? We could meet up in about an hour if you're not too tired. It's a nice night."
He sounds enthusiastic, but not energetically so. Jacky is matter of fact about these things, isn't he? It goes along with the not being shy; not socially aware enough to be shy, usually. The only time she's ever seen him uncomfortable like that: it was when he was confessing to her.
His own brush with the supernatural has not made him afraid of the dark.
Molly Toombs"As a matter of fact I was hoping you would say that."
She sounded as though she genuinely did. Fabric rustled and somewhere nearby a puppy gave a sigh-- Molly had been settled on the couch with Flo but was now getting up. She was given the time frame of an hour and would want to at least get more ready than her threadbare jeans and the T-shirt she had been wearing while doing laundry at the nearby laundromat earlier in the evening.
She considered the options of where to meet. It was a nice night, but there was a certain discomfort to the air that night. She'd been left alone with her own thoughts all day long and had a visit from Flood the night before. She'd taken the business cards out and lined them up again and then gone and watched something mind-numbing on the television to take her mind off of everything that she had been dwelling on.
The fear of the sunset, for one. The want for comfort. The fact that she thought of Jacky, strangely enough, when that desire came about.
She'd succumbed to it just over thirty minutes in.
Jeeze, Molly.
The thought of being out in public had her a little worried too. She didn't want to have to limit what she was talking about around nearby ears, and she was a little concerned for having unwanted visitors just happen by if that was a thing that was going to be happening in her life again. So, she'd suggested:
"Is my place convenient enough tonight? My balcony manages a decent mountain view from one side. I have the chairs set there."
HaraldIt's not easy to read nuance over the phone. People's expressions are hidden: one only has their voice to go by. But sometimes that makes it easier, too. A pause, as if Jacky is thinking, and then he says, "Your place it is."
He asks her to remind him of her address if he's met her there before (perhaps for a walk with Florence) or he asks her for her address (if so far they've only met away from her home). He offers to bring a dvd because that's a normal thing. Knowing Jacky, it'll be -
well what kind of movies or television shows would Jacky be into? Probably documentaries. Once that's arranged, he tells her that he'll be there as soon as he's showered, and that's that.
That's that until he arrives at her apartment building, either waiting outside to be buzzed up, or perhaps the door is open, it isn't as secure as some apartment buildings could or should be, and he finds himself knocking on her door instead. Jacky; she knows his face well now. Pigeon-chested, thin-shouldered, sandy hair a-curl around his ears and it would be adorable if it weren't just unsuitable to his werewolf-browed face, intent but ugly, intense but ugly, oh, that's Jacky isn't it just.
Look, he brought a treat for Florence.
Molly ToombsThey'd met on the corner in front of Molly's building once before. Jack knew what it looked like. A tall brick thing, five stories up, with white trim and balconies. It was called The Brookstone Apartments, or so proclaimed the sign above the door. When he agreed and asked for the address, Molly happily reminded him. She gave the apartment number as he would need to find her buzzer to be let on up.
Therefore, he would knock on her door, but only after first buzzing down on the front steps of the building. There was no elevator in this building, so he would take the stairs four flights up (she took this every day, it was good to know she was probably fit enough to run for her life if the going got tough at least) before knocking on the door marked 4D.
Molly answered dressed in clean jeans and a newer, cleaner blouse. Hair and face clean. Make-up. Like she always would, at least. Florence was there to greet him too, tail wagging. She was getting bigger from when he'd first seen her, growing longer of limb and bigger of body. She would be a sizable beast when she was done growing. He could understand why Molly picked her out.
"Hey! Come on in." She'd step back and invite him. The front room extended all the way back to the living room-- the apartment built narrow and deep. The dining room straight ahead, kitchen to the left and separated from dining by an island counter. Living room deeper and beyond that. A door to the right, further in, that went out to her balcony.
A window in the dining room was open. The door to the balcony was too, but a screen door was closed. Inside, the floors were hardwood and some brick was exposed. The place was old, but clean and updated where necessary when necessary.
"Thanks for coming by. I kind of figured we could just be out on the balcony before it starts to get cold--" it was warm in the day and early evening, but it is still March after all, "-- then probably come back in?"
HaraldHe has on that jacket with the leather elbow patches. A scarf but the scarf's untied, a little haphazard, a little absent-minded. But it's pretty nice outside. He doesn't need much more than the light jacket and the teeshirt he has on underneath. Corduroys. He looks like he's a youngish man but not exactly a fashionable one. He goes to his knees with just a little bit of wobble when Florence comes over to say hello ruffing Florence's jowels and scratching behind her ears. A bit of rough-play, Jacky being good with animals, meeting the creature's eye and smiling, soothing, soothing, oh Jack and the beasts, he likes them. He is differently comfortable with them than he is with the creatures he used to call himself one of. Animals have blood too but they're not half so appetizing, not half so filling. And it's just not the same. He brings out the little plastic baggie of dog treats and offers Florence one with a grave air, like Florence has her dignity doesn't she? Serious puppy.
And when he stands, there's a bit of wobble too. Jack. He looks around. He looks around curiously, and so This Face does too, although the surprised smile (astonished, bemused; that's all it ever seems, huh? Makes of his face) is for Molly because there she is. Molly and Flo.
"Nice looking place. Old buildings, huh? I enjoy them." He is a good guest. A polite one. Jacky. He follows Molly where she wants to take him. "Balcony sounds nice. Something about a view of the mountains?"
If Jacky were more aware, he'd probably hug Molly, but Jacky is the kind of young man (Face [Mask]) who thinks about these things afterward. He did bring DVDs. Joseph Campell and the Power of Myth Bill Moyers style, because that's how Jacky rolls.
And Game of Thrones, Season 1. Go figure.
Molly ToombsThe apartment, Jacky could tell, has been lived in for a while. It was simply well organized and put together in a way that suggested as such. When someone only lives in an apartment for a year at a time they don't put much up on the walls, they don't care to take the time to consider things like entrance tables and coat hooks on walls and color schemes to the curtains. She liked her place. One could see why she didn't really care for the idea of uprooting and fleeing when that suggestion was offered as a method for escaping the reach of the Undead whose eyes lit up for her.
"Yeah, but they come with their ghosts." She gestured upstairs and grinned lopsided. He'd recall the story she'd mentioned of the bumps and thumps from upstairs. "I haven't heard anything in a while, though. I think it's pretty much settled down. I don't know, maybe it just happens when it's empty for some reason?" She shrugged, dismissive of the thought process as a whole, and checked out the DVDs that he offered. She didn't seem to pay them much mind-- she was pre-occupied, see. Still with that sense of something on the tongue, a question or statement, or a building to it. A something left unsaid.
She set the movies on the counter and circled around the island counter into the kitchen. Getting glasses from the cupboard-- assuming he would take one with her hands and actions, but still glancing back to confirm from him that he would accept one.
"Yeah, between the buildings you can see the mountains." The balcony faced west. "It makes for a really nice sunset. We missed that, but maybe another time." She smiled, unaware of how little a possibility that was.
If he accepted the glass, she'd pour two and lead them to the balcony.
HaraldHe does accept the glass. He accepts the glass and he doesn't wander. If Molly has a bookshelf visible he might seem tugged that-a-way, invisible force. If Florence dogs his footsteps, or there's some kind of rope-y chew-toy around, he might play with that a little. He hmms when she recalls the story about ghosts in the apartment above. Says, "Perhaps they found their reason for staying tethered to this realm no longer applied. Perhaps something changed for them. A relative moved on, the building manager fixed something he had always promised to fix. You don't know how long the apartment has been empty, do you?"
Because this is Jacky, after all. He's going to be interested. He's also going to seem not to notice much else except the interests until he's reminded. He isn't thoughtless: think of that necklace he gave Molly - think of how pensively he listens. But it seems to take him a while.
But where were we? Where were they? Going out onto the blacony, Jacky with a glass in hand, and if Molly looks closely (if she is sharp), she'll see that he spoke the truth -- if her eyes weren't playing tricks on her. Jacky has no reflection; the glass shows nothing at all.
Outside, Jack looks out at the dark mountains. Thoughtful Jack. Turns to smile his astonished-and-surprised smile at Molly, and it's only once they're sitting down or both leaning against the balcony's edge that he says, "Ah, forgive me, but are you well? You seem ... Unhappy, perhaps."
Molly Toombs"Oh, it's not empty anymore. It was only empty for about a month, maybe close to two before it filled up. These buildings are a pretty good deal-- a nice little piece of history that doesn't cost too much in rent, and is close to downtown." She was pleased with her apartment-- she'd been excited when she found it and moved in about two and a half years ago and she was still content with it. It showed.
There was a rope toy laying about someplace, and Florence was happy to play when invited to. She liked Harald who was Jack who was lucky. She would follow if he leaned to check out a book shelf, for there was one set up right near the door headed out to the balcony. Some medical texts from school, some fiction for reading, geography and travel information, and an increasing number of occult texts to fill the gaps. They were beginning to overtake the rest.
As they head outside, Molly's eyes did linger on the glass in the windows framing the door-- sure enough, no reflection. Much like Flood. But there was only a thin connection there, as far as Molly was aware, between the two men. She flexed her brow semi-thoughtfully, and moved to settle into one of the two chairs. She sat nearer to the railing, leaving the chair closer to the door for Jack to set into instead. She'd managed to take one sip of her wine and settle her eyes on the dusk-dark night view of the mountains before a question was posed-- What's wrong, Miss Molly?
She blinked, then looked guilty and cleared her throat.
"I do? I'm sorry. I've been... distracted, I guess. A bit worried." She fidgeted her fingers around the stem of her glass and looked into the red within, watching the twirling upset the surface of the drink. "Kind of why I called you over, to be honest. I like your company." Her eyes hopped up to his face here, and she smiled-- genuine, but forced because she was worried and unhappy.
"But also because I kind of just wanted company in general. Florence is still a little small to be much of a guard dog."
Then, because it's unfair to just leave someone hanging on that ominous note, she sighed and asked, flatly: "You've gone out on a limb and told me something crazy. Will you return the favor for me? Will you try to believe me here?"
HaraldHe is not a handsome man. He'd never be. Even if he plucked his damned eyebrow and groomed more carefully. Molly's seen him less dishevelled and rumpled than he is now and it hasn't made much of a difference. Genetics weren't kind to the young (middling) young man (middling height, too), whose walk is a lopestery walk and who does seem to see her when she talks to him. As soon as he's done theorizing.
Her genuine smile finds an echo on Jacky's face. A warmth in the eyes, because even the most distracted of people like to have their company liked, huh? The warmth is countermanded by sober acknowledgment of Florence's status as a guard dog. Florence: who she'd bought to guard or at least warn against just such creatures as the night kingdom-dragged monster who changes his faces night after night sitting across from her.
But she didn't know that some of them could charm the very beasts.
He sits up a little, thin shoulders hunching, having folded into that chair awkwardly, slipping too low in it like he doesn't quite fit it: ill-fitting, tht's the word. But now he sits up a little, resisting gravity's pull, and he says, "Of course I will, Molly. I like your company too, and I wouldn't have - "
Pause. "Of course I'll try. Equal, ah, partnership is what I said, wasn't it, if you need it."
He is quite sincere.
Molly ToombsJack was an unattractive man. Molly used to look more disheveled-- the black hair hadn't really suited her at all. Neither had the dull boredom. But now there was more light to her, more fire and purpose. That suited her well. So did her return to red hair-- she was far less washed out. Looked more warm, even if her skin was light and her sunkisses were freckles instead of a healthy tan. It was a curious thing when they out together, her dressed to impress and him genuinely trying. He must be very rich.
Or very nice. The second was the case as far as Molly was concerned. She didn't care about his strange eye or narrow chest. He smiled back and sat up straighter and was sincere in assuring her that he would listen, he would try. He'd be true to his word. Good and Noble.
She nodded and sipped her wine again, then looked out at the mountains. It's easier to say crazy shit to the landscape than it is to look someone in the face and tell them your madness. She didn't want to see the moment when he wrote her off as crazy if that were to happen. She felt a deep, strange, dizzying and surreal sort of longing for this man. She didn't want him to go.
"I actually have... seen, first hand, a lot more than I've ever let on to you. Many of these things we talk about in theory? I'm... actually, to an extent, talking about in all practicality."
Sip. Liquid courage.
"There are monsters. Tangible ones. Not just the ghosts and the things on the other sides of mirrors. Things that can hurt you." Her eyes flickered-- part of her wanted to gauge his reaction, but she was stern in keeping them forward and continuing. Out with it. He deserves to know.
"There's a few of them that... Well. They know my name and face, we'll suffice to say that. I don't..." Sigh. Spit it out. "I don't want you to get caught up in anything, and I don't want anything like this to come out, you know, later."
HaraldMolly is looking at the mountains. The mountains are sentinel darkness against other darkness. The nights have been cloudy, rain-soaked lately. They are not troubled by rain just now but it is in the air, and they can both taste it. Jack does not drink water any longer. He doesn't remember what water tastes like unless it gets into his mouth while he is in the World Below, the Beneath Kingdom, the Domain of Rats and Darkness. And that is foul water, would make anybody retch. Usually he just keeps his mouth shut. Doesn't need to breathe, after all. How easy it is to forget the mouth, except of course for feeding. Blood requires teeth requires tongue. Molly is looking at the mountains.
Jack is looking at Molly. His brow is creased, troubled. Creases more sharply as she speaks. He knows that she knows more than she's let on to him. He's seen her reactions in certain situations. He knows, doesn't he, that she is untrustworthy, but she has a good heart.
A good heart's the key. A key. A good heart can do anything, can't it.
So she tells him there are monsters, and he doesn't interrupt. He surely understands how difficult it is to confess something like this. Something important and true but something also that sounds so strange.
"Molly, I..." He trails away. "I'm listening."
Go on. He's making no promises, but if she did glance over at him she'd see a slightly anxious expression, dominated more by (Cavalier [Valiance]) a measuring analysis. The lucky Jack she knows is Jack in truth; figuring things out, putting them in a place, clever. There's a problem here to unknot and riddle. Perhaps she just needs someone to talk to, but maybe there's more.
He'll figure it out.
Molly ToombsHe said that he was listening, and she looked over at him with an expression that was pained and grateful and lovestruck and inconvenienced all at once. She didn't know how to continue on in explaining, but he was listening to hear more. She wanted to reach out and touch his face with its patchy hair and well overgrown eyebrows, but instead she kept her hands to herself.
She did have a good heart. That's why she was trying to warn him.
"I just... I don't know. I'm trying to give you a fair heads up to pull your investments and bail, I suppose." She frowned. The phrasing seemed abrasive and she didn't mean it like that, he didn't deserve it like that, but she continued anyways. "There are monsters. And there's magic. And ghosts are real, a lot more so than just bumping sounds in the attic. They grab you and overtake you and try to kill you and--" Her voice strangled, just a little. She was stressed, frowning and stopping because she could hear her own words going faster as her anxiety grew.
Deep breath. Try again.
"Vampires, Jacky. I think they're going to be the death of me. I don't want you to get sucked in too."
HaraldMolly isn't trying to hide (very much) what she is feeling and Jack is receptive to it. He is so regretful, Jack. This is what happens when they get drawn in. Those who're meant to walk in the day, who're never meant to be lost in this Otherworld. He is so regretful, Jack, listening as Molly speaks, as the anxiety makes her pulse quicken, a tempo, a call to a meal. Molly doesn't know it but until now most of the vampires who have given her tidbits of information or discovered how deep she is haven't been vampires who actively enforce the Masquerade. But Jack does call himself part of the Tower. He does consider himself part of the Castle. Another reason, then, for that blood-knot. This anxiety she has: maybe he can turn it into a Minotaur, tuck-it-away. He doesn't have a Discipline to do so (yet), and if he did, who's to say whether he'd choose to touch upon that Canny Charm?
For now he holds out a hand. He'd reached out himself when he'd begun his confession even if he'd taken his hand back. Then reached out again. He holds a hand out to take hers if she wants to. Kindles his blood into warmth enough for the purpose.
"Molly," he says, because a Name's a thing. "I don't want you to be sucked in as you seem to be. Now," a surprisingly sweet grin - his grins are always surprisingly sweet, for all his voice is a touch grim, "that we know what we don't want…" He trails away, hesitates. "Why don't we talk about things as they are? Why do you think they're going to be the death of you? Have you been threatened?"
Molly ToombsThe hand held out is looked at, and accepted happily. She found it warm, if fuzzy on the knuckles, but she slipped her fingers through his and gave them a small squeeze before resting simply to be linked in the space between the chairs. Her other hand still managed her glass of wine. Still carried it up for occasional sips.
"Not directly, not really." She furrowed her brow. "But I know how they are. How they can be, at least." She licked her lips. "How these ones have been." Again, she was making disjointed thoughts instead of coherent ones. She was a little frustrated with it, and tipped her head back so her chin pointed up. Looked at one of four planters that were hanging from the ceiling of her balcony, over the banister railing to the front.
"I know that this is all supposed to be hidden from me, but I saw something. And then I looked deeper. And I've been looking since." It sounded like she was confessing something she did wrong. She knew she should have walked away, and acknowledged that she was in this position because she didn't. She was at the stage where she was upset with her own mistakes but coping because she couldn't change them. Or she didn't want to. "I'm worried that someone's going to decide it's too risky to have me just walking around, knowing what I know, being unmonitored as I am. Though I'm not confident that I am unmonitored, which is kind of the point I'm making I guess." She laughed, and the sound was nervous. She looked over to Jack and his homely face that she found so sweet anyways.
"You're pretty open to taking this seriously... I mean, losing a reflection is one thing. Ghosts are one thing. Vampires... that's Hollywood, don't you think?"
HaraldHow pensive he seems. He doesn't even answer her immediately. He is that far-off with his thoughts: whatever they are. He is considering, considerate. Jack believes in so many things, and few of those things are coincidences. Luck, why, yes. Luck and Fate: of course. Her small squeeze of fingers is returned. He couples it with a thumb-stroke: be comforted. Be comforted. Blood to blood. She won't be comforted because she is in a trap of her own fashioning, feels that her days are numbered now because of it. He doesn't tell her otherwise just yet.
His werewolf's eyebrow is pulled low as he thinks about what she said so much so that at first he doesn't seem to hear or to take in her last question as anything but rhetorical. Then he realizes, and his eyebrow(s) loft. "Ah, Hollywood? Not at all." His voice is quiet. "Because you've felt the lash of this particular trouble personally, do not discount the horror of other troubles." Meaning losing one's reflection, meaning whatever it was he saw in the Dark, whatever it was that took it from him.
Meaning, gentle, "And I've dug around quite a bit on my own. I believe in vampires because, ah," and now he sounds bemused. "I have met them. I believe. I feel as if I've been looking ever since..." He trails away, and this time there is something wistful there. Wistful then gone. Perhaps imagined. "So I've learned some things, not all of which I've verified with fact. I'm building a map, or so it feels to me, a map to show me the way out, if there is a way out, and if there is not? Then it is a map so that I know where I am going. I... May I ask you a hard question?"
He doesn't usually ask if he can ask a question.
Molly Toombs"There isn't a way out."
She said this simply, quietly. The street that Molly lived on didn't get a lot of traffic, though it was close enough to the city's center that the ambient sounds of city and highway couldn't be completely blocked out. It was quiet enough, though, that her soft voice wasn't missed, not with their proximity out on the balcony like this.
A thumb stroked at her fingers. Her heart skipped a beat. But she didn't fluster like a school girl, and instead somberly finished her glass of red wine maybe a little sooner than she ought to have. The now-empty glass found its way to the table against the wall.
"That's what I've been doing, though. Trying to find enough to know how to navigate. There isn't a way out because it's everywhere, though." Pause, then her tone shifts to almost apology. "You should know that if you didn't already."
Then, he wanted to ask her a hard question. She met his eyes and blinked, curious.
"Of course."
HaraldMolly says there isn't a way out. Jack does not believe that. Jack is, at the core of who he is, a creature who does not believe that. There is a way in, and there is a way out; there is a way to change things, to make them better, to fulfill the - there is always a way. This is not to say he is foolishly optimistic: that he truly believes he will find his way out. He believes he might. There are no guarantees.
"What is the ideal outcome to the problems you've just enumerated for me? What do you, ah, want from Them and from yourself? You say that you are also trying to make a map, to learn how to navigate; for myself, it was to find what I lost, to undo the curse. What is it for you?"
He sounds genuinely invested; concerned. But not - judgmental.
Molly ToombsThe question was a hard one-- not because it gave her any kind of moral dilemma or made her have to make hard choices. It was very introspective is all. She looked out over the city, absently rubbed fingertips to his, and mulled it over.
Finally, though, she would answer.
"Surviving, I suppose. Now that I know they're real, I can't ignore that they're around. Now that some of them know who I am and what I know, I can't afford to just ignore everything and hope it goes away. Because it won't. If I better understand what they are, and more importantly than that how they are, in every sense, then I have a better chance of understanding how to keep myself from being killed by them."
She felt a little guilty, bringing such a terrible conversation around. But it did feel better to be honest and have it out in the open.
"I was just curious at first. Now I'm trying not to drown."
Harald"Will you tell me..." He trails away, and then, "What do you know about them? How many know who you are?" A pause, a startled-sounding chuckle. "How strange it is to ask questions like that."
Molly ToombsShe shook her head, and appeared just sad. Simply, utterly sad, when she looked over at him. Apologetic, really. Like she's breaking news that nobody wants to hear.
"It's better to not really get into a lot of detail. I'm not going to call you over to help me feel like my apartment doesn't have monsters in its corners, to warn you about the shit I'm involved in just to drag you in along with me." She looked at her empty wine glass. Contemplated another. Remembered how she got when she decided to have another drink while being sad around Devin and decided against it.
"I can tell you that it's layered, how things with them work. That it's full of the impossible, but it's got its rules and if you know those you can use them to your advantage." He could glean that she wanted to know more about these rules. She spoke about them like they were a goal, or fruit on the top branches of the tree-- out of reach, tough to get to, but she'd find a tool and find away because she was a child of Man and a child of the Sun and they did thing like that.
"I'll tell you that there's a number of them. More than I can count on one hand. And those are just the ones that I know-- there's more. I'm sure of it."
Harald"Molly," he says, still gently. Perhaps he is going to push. Perhaps Molly gets the feeling that he is going to push right now. But then Harald who is so Lucky he's called Jack for jackpot.
But then he doesn't follow it up with pushing to get more specific details out of her. He takes a deep breath, holds it. Exhales. Looks thoughtfully at the mountains, gazing at them as if they've got answers.
"If you do ever feel ready to speak with specificity, I will listen. And I am a good keeper of secrets. No witch-hunters yet. Ah. I want to give you advice but if you'd rather watch one of the DVDs first, I understand."
He is trying to understand, anyway. He is clearly trying not to worry at this like a bone. Molly knows Jacky who is Harald, doesn't she? She knows how he gets about an idea.
"But what advantage do you imagine getting by knowing more rules? If you're not supposed to know them, when confronted by those who do... those who are within the system, if you will ... hypothetically how would that work?"
Molly ToombsHe said her name, and she wanted to flinch but didn't. She startled on that a little bit too, because it wasn't typical within her nature to want to flinch or to feel shamed when her name was used gently pushing and pleading like that. It was a tone similar to what her parents would use with her as a teenager, and she had solemnly ignored it when set to do so as she was set to try and do with Jacky.
But there was something deep here with this homely young man. She loved that he was holding her hand. Out here on the porch, with only the ambient light from the street below to make them visible as shadows above in the night, she was so happy that his fingers were warm and that they were between hers. That he was listening to her, offering his advice but asking for more details for better understanding for better help. Details that she was so reluctant to give. That she nervously hid in a box somewhere in her bedroom because a journalist that she also loved nearly snuck away with them while she was drunk and easy to take advantage of. For how much that had hurt her and her trust.
"That's the part that I'm stuck on," she chuckled sadly. "I'm just trying to avoid any authorities. Work only with the vagrants. Make friends, or alliances. Do favors and maybe have some favors owed so that when this inevitably all falls down on my head like I know it will--" like any mole knows if their tunnel system becomes too complex and their support beams too thin, "then I can have someone to help pull me out of the rubble at the very least."
HaraldJack doesn't answer for a long moment. It's another pensive moment. If Molly looks at the youngish man she knows, the one with the glaucoma in his eye, the pupil distended like a devil got caught inside was trying to get out (no, that's just poetry; it's nothing like that. It's just startling to see, ugly), she can see him looking at the darkness and the mountains again, just looking at the shape of them. Breathing, quietly. Carefully. He doesn't know that she has a box inside her apartment filled with business cards. But mightn't he later hunt around her apartment, anyway? Dangerous. He doesn't want to feed off Molly and he tries to only feed from people who are asleep. A nightmare of a Jack: but coming like that and isn't he a good dream. Prick of euphoria, ecstasis - overwhelming sensation. He doesn't want to feed off Molly but Jacks are for clues and investigatings, aren't they?
"How are you going about letting them know you're friendly, willing to do favors?" he asks. "Without naming their names."
He sounds like he might have an idea, but he's unsure. Or not unsure - Jacky, Harald, he's rarely unsure; once he says a thing at least he thinks he knows it. He's not so hardheaded he's unwilling to, when given another perspective, revise his own.
He's always willing to revise his own perspective.
Molly Toombs"I don't know....," except that she did, he could tell, because the way that she used the words was as a filler for while she tried to think. Think back to when she met these people, how she spoke with them and maneuvered with them to ensure that she was able to walk away able to reach out to them again if she wanted to, without any of her blood lost or her health damaged at all.
She squeezed his fingers a little at a particular memory-- a shadow across her fate's path, she worried. Again breathed deep through her nostrils so her chest filled and swelled and then she exhaled slow and closed her eyes. Easy.
"I just.... beat them to the punch. I recognize them when I see them. I call them out for what they are. That alone seems to stop them-- they're interested that I know. But none of them really seem to want to... report me? I guess? They're just... intrigued. Which is dangerous, but it's better that than to be dead.
"Or kept for dinner." She frowned at that particular fate.
Harald"I don't think 'calling them out for what they are' is a wise response," Jack says. "At least, not should you meet any new ones in the street or a bar or where-ever it is you have been meeting them. So far it sounds like luck. I believe in luck, but only to a point. Ah. After that point, one must be clever, mustn't one?" Musing. "There must be a reason that they haven't come forward to tell the world what they are; that they exist. If ever there was going to be a time to do so, wouldn't you think it would be now - or soon?" A pause, a frown. "Perhaps that is optimistic of me."
Molly Toombs"Jacky, the alternative is to be made prey." She sounded pained when she told him this, looked at him with eyes that pleaded for understanding. Please, hear me out on this, they said.
"I'm not just walking up to these people in bars and bookshops and telling them 'Hey, I see what you are, and I just wanted you to know that'." She sounded exasperated. She would probably regret it later. But for now she continued to try and explain her stance. "These are in moments where I'm caught off-guard behind an art gallery where no one would hear me if they decided to come down on me. When I'm alone on a street trying to walk home. When they've already seen me and started to walk with me, talk with me, try and pick me out of the crowd." She breathed deep and intentional again, and let go of his hand. This, only so she could lean forward and press the heels of her hands to her forehead, settle her elbows onto her knees.
She wasn't crying-- there weren't tears in her eyes. She just looked stretched thin and lost. Struggling to keep the pieces together and the strings connecting dots on the map from becoming too tangled.
"I don't know why they don't show themselves. Probably because then they'd have to either wage war on the things they survive off of or abide by their rules, and none of that would abide well by anything with that kind of power and freedom already." She chewed her lip, looked at the dusty floorboards of her balcony. "Probably a matter of sheer numbers, but if the predator starts to outnumber the food supply then that creates a whole other problem that can't be undone either." It's a stream of consciousness, he can tell. She's musing aloud with him, as she has so often done. It's an easy thing to fall back to.
"No, I don't think they plan on showing themselves or anything that they do. I think the reason I haven't been.... taken out, I suppose, is because the ones I keep running into may have some concept or plan for how they could use me."
Harald[Percept + Empathy. Are you ABOUT to cry? Holy shit, gentlemanly midwestern upbringing coming to the fore.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 7, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )
Molly ToombsSo, maybe she might be about to cry. Not dangerously close. But one nudge nearer the edge would probably have tears spilling.
HaraldMolly lets go of Jack's hand. Jack turns so that he is sitting side-saddle on the chair. Sits so that he is facing her, his knees turned in her direction. Molly is not crying. Molly is not about to cry. He looks at her like he's wondering whether or not he should hug her, but he doesn't hug her. Before she hid her face, he'd still seemed to be listening to her. Analyzing, considering, weighing. He still seemed to have an idea, but be so easily pushed along a tangent. This isn't theoretical; this is happening to her. But as she tries to work things out, so does he. Jacky who's Nobody at all. Nobody who she wants to know about, not really, not now, not after this. When he un-knots her, Jack, he'll need to find a way to do it gentle, but if she's so determined to wade deeper into this Otherworld --
He nods a few times, thoughtfully, as she explains her reasoning for why they don't show themselves, and when she's done he says, "I didn't mean to imply you were being that bold. But if they never approached a pretty woman just to talk, they'd have a harder time with hiding, wouldn't they? Just walking. Just talking. To them, you must be just another way to pass the time. Might be," he corrects himself, sadly.
"Would you allow yourself be used if it was in service of an alliance? Of protection? Perhaps you can offer something upfront. Ah, not too upfront, I was just thinking..."
"I would like to help you." Apologetically.
HaraldThere is a clear disconnect between 'I was just thinking' trail-away and 'I would like to help you,' as if he wants to preface anything else he might say or allow her to tell him to be quiet Jacky what do you know all you've got is a missing reflection.
Molly ToombsThe question he posed had her knitting her eyebrows and moving her hands to rub between them with the pad of her thumb. Her fingernails were well cared for. Recently painted-- a bright blue. Bright, happy, welcoming springtime. Not at all the kind of blue to match this kind of gloom. This was a gray kind of mood instead.
He asked if she would allow service in trade for protection, and then added that he wanted to help her and she cast a glance to him as though to try and find deeper meaning to his expression that he wanted to help.
The survey ended, and she sighed and put her hands on her knees and pushed herself to sit up straighter.
"If it came down to it. I don't really want to... like.... openly declare any allegiances. If I go through one door it closes all of the other ones. But if I can't just stand in the foyer anymore-- if it comes down to it and I have to seek shelter, then I probably would, yes."
She sounded a little ashamed to admit it, but she did so hate to lie to Jacky sweet Jacky.
Harald"What are they like, the ones you've met? Are they all frightening and beautiful?"
Does he sound wistful when he says 'beautiful'? He does not. He sounds curious, and like he doesn't notice her shame at the admission.
Molly ToombsShe looked a little surprised by the question posed-- if they're frightening and beautiful. She had to pause and think about it. Maybe she realized something in that thought, because she appeared to be considering the concept as she answered quietly.
"Most of them, yes. They're all very frightening, because even the ones that are sick and crazy can kill you in a heartbeat. Some are beautiful, very much so. They just seem rich even when they aren't dressed up in expensive brands, though for some reason a lot of them do anyways." Decadent was the word she was looking for. "Well, some, but not all.
"Others just look like people. Others look sick. Some look just... sad and lost."
She frowned sympathetically-- probably remembering one person whose name she probably wasn't going to give him tonight specifically.
"But they're terrifying. I don't trust them."
Harald"I don't think you should." How frank is Jack at this particular moment. He doesn't think Molly should trust them. He sounds pensive as he says she shouldn't. Pensive and he's not looking at the mountains now, but slouching over his own lap, elbows on his knees, fingers together. No; fingers apart, because he scratches his head, the curls that only curl a the end so they're awkward, unsuited to his head. "Because… They can't trust you, I think, because you don't know where you stand in their world, and you … You want to know where to stand without picking your ground. Playing with alliances for just in cases is perhaps well and good. I think it must be! That's how networking works! I don't know what I'm trying to say. Only don't trust them I suppose. It does make sense that there would be quite a variety." There it comes, again -- that occultist's interest, catologuing, Darwin of the vampires. He swallows. "I've come across... Ah, well, in my own research into my problem, I told you I believe in this so readily because I've found things myself. I've found names. Perhaps we could compare impressions that these names leave with us?"
Molly ToombsMolly looked at Harald with clear surprise on his face. He had names? The reaction to that revelation, as well as his request, had her jaw going a little slack.
But, love-knots and blood-ties. She swallowed, fluttered eyelids, and stood up.
"I'm going to refill my glass before we do this."
Something about how she went inside suggested she wanted to be alone when she went. Not suspiciously so, not necessarily. She was stunned in a way that he knew some of these people too, that he was actually that familiar with vampires already. She wanted to go inside to process and gauge how she felt about it.
Harald"I'll be here," he says, because that's something Jacky says, moving like he's going to get up too to be polite, though not like he's going to follow. Perhaps he senses that she wants some pace to consider things.
Molly ToombsThe windows are open, kind of. Not completely open, but not shut tight enough not to be peeked through in spaces and angles. He can see her, if he chooses to observe, as she goes to the kitchen and refreshes Florence's water and gives herself some more wine. Drinks some of it. Sets the glass down and puts her hands on the counter and lets her head hang between her shoulders as she leans forward.
Then, as though resolving herself, she stood up and brought her glass with her back on the porch. She looked almost apologetically at Harald.
She didn't sit in her chair this time. Instead she propped her rear end against the banister and stood somewhat leaned somewhat seated against it. Those who were nervous of heights might chew their nails for her, but she seemed confident with it. Standing with one arm crossed over her chest, under a heavy bust, to cradle the opposite elbow. Wine glass cradled by its bell on curved fingers. Looking pensive and ever-worried.
Braced.
"What are we comparing, now?"
HaraldThe mortal (thrall) returns blood-knotted honey-led but her will is still her own isn't it (yes [influenced]), and when she returns Jack looks up. He'd been studying his hands and his fingertips while she went into the kitchen. He'd watched her coverty (such a good spy [Nobody]), but watched his hands more. He is thinking, true, at the heart of who he is. Jack of Nobody. Jack of the Nosferatu. Nosferatu's Jack. Lucky Jack. Jack of Diamonds, never Spades. His head's hanging a little. But when she returns, it comes up. Adam's apple leaps, swallows before he replies. There's less wine in his forgotten glass. Molly braces herself against the porch's banister and Jack is more comfortable (if that's the proper word) in underground lairs in Below Ground kingdoms, but he doesn't have a fear of heights. He doesn't think she needs to step away from there right now.
"Names that I have come across, specifically whether or not they match any concept you have come across in your research, first-person or otherwise. If you wish to," he says, but isn't it reasonable, this plausible deniability?
Molly Toombs"I can only imagine where you came across these names." She was quiet, sounded as though she wanted to giggle a little at how ridiculous the situation was except it was actually rather unfunny. She was raptly listening to what Harald was about to say, but looking into her wine glass much like how Jack had been looking at his hands.
"Sure. Shoot. Let's see where we get."
Harald"Ah. Caine?"
Molly ToombsShe blinked at him, surprised clearly.
Then she laughed out loud. Covered her mouth up with her hand, pressing fingers over her lips to muffle the sound, and laughed. She didn't sway or wobble or toss her head when she did this, though. One moderate glass of wine plus a sip or two wasn't nearly enough to make her tipsy enough to have to worry about falling off her balcony. She was just fine where she was.
"Oh my god, I thought you meant--..." She shook her head, got her laughter under control, and cleared her throat. "I thought you meant ones that are around here. Like, in the city."
She sounded very relieved that he didn't.
"Caine was the first vampire," she told him. "It's debatable how he came to be. God may or may not have been involved."
Harald[pause pause!]
HaraldHarald doesn't look sheepish, but he rarely looks sheepish. Just bemused, or astonished, or surprised, and he looks a little surprised now, smiling that surprised smile of his, the one that makes his thick eyebrow crawl up, makes his mouth smaller somehow. "Ah, no. You didn't want to talk about those specifics, so I thought..." He nods, this time a nod she is oh so familiar with. Nod of somebody agreeing with a point, or acknowledging a point, ah, yes, that's correct.
"Brujah?" he says next.
Molly Toombs[Intelligence 3 + Occult 3]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )
Molly ToombsHe smiled to her, surprised by what she'd thought he was leading into. He thought she didn't want to talk about the specifics. "Yeah, you're right," she told him quietly, nodded, and looked down into her wine glass. Took a sip.
Brujah, was the next word. Molly pondered for a moment, looked as though she was searching for the answer to a pop quiz (that's kind of what this was, though, wasn't it? or perhaps a test that made up much more of her grade than just that alone). Like someone on stage recalling how to spell a word that was provided at the spelling bee.
Then, she looked like she figured out the answer. The way her eyebrows lifted then relaxed right away, that was realization and then contentment. She didn't have to search her brain anymore, she had the answer.
"It's a type of witch, sort of. It implies a dark or violent or bad kind of magic. Kind of a definition more than an actual thing, though -- like, an old word."
Another small sip.
HaraldJacky nods. Another Learning Things nod, another Things to be Learned nod. Acknowledgment and agreement. That is what a bruja is. He watches her when her voice is quiet when she looks down at her wine and perhaps she sees herself in it or in the glass. Jacky doesn't see himself anywhere. "Yes, ah, there are a number of interesting points to be made for a bruja as opposed to a - ah, or rather, for bruixeria as opposed to fetilleria, and how fetilleria relates to the breaking of ikons that was so prevalent in…" He clears his throat. "But Brujah. I have discovered that it is also what a tribe of Vampires call themselves. The Brujah are cursed with a violent temper or so I hear. 'Even though they be as gentle as a lamb, a thorn will prick them and they will savage the flock and afterward feel regret until the night comes they have savaged their regret.'" He sounds as if he is quoting.
Molly ToombsJack knows by now that Molly pays attention when someone is explaining something. She cherishes information like misers love their gold. Whenever it's offered up she is upon it like a dry-throated man upon water. Even with a glass and a quarter of red wine warming her belly and veins, Molly was quiet and attentive while he spoke. She looked at the homely Harald face and listened.
It's clear she's surprised when he continues on to explain that it is a tribe of Vampires as well as an old word for bad magic. She blinked eyes that were only just starting to try and work on an intoxicated glaze (but she's still plenty alert, be assure, for now) and tipped her head a little to the side.
Now studious of the man of affections she had but didn't understand.
"...You're pretty well informed, Jacky. I didn't realize you were in this deep."
Molly Toombs[Perception 3 + Empathy 2: How do you react when called out, Jack?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Harald[Manipulation + Subterfuge. + Specialty. -1 diff, you're my thrall. COULD I IF I WAS GONNA?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 5, 5, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Harald[7.]
HaraldHe looks uncomfortable and perhaps a touch sad. Jack. Nobody at all. Nobody whose true face Molly wants to see. Nobody who shouldn't want his reflection back. Should think its loss a boon. The Brujah are cursed with a fury. Nobody's curse is more obvious to the eye or it would be if Nobody were Nobody you ever saw direct. Nobody who's Jack: gentleman of many masks. No; that is certainly a touch of sorrow, although it is important to know that the sorrow isn't really mingled with personal regret. He's in deep, and there's something in that which makes him sad. But he doesn't seem to regret it, per se.
"Hmm. As you know, when one is in deep, one doesn't necessarily call for help, 'lest other people find themselves wading out and mired. But I'm at - " he pauses, frowns. "I'm at peace with what I know, or will be as soon as I know more. I don't have Them approaching me on the street, thankfully. I'd be at a disadvantage if someone approached me while I was just walking!" There's some force, there, too, Jack whose words are honeyed, but who seems quite definite on that point, like he's thought about what he's going to do the day (or night) he is approached and isn't frightened but is wary of it.
Jack. He's almost a Master of the Art of Obfuscate. Anybody who approaches him while he's out and about would need be powerful, wouldn't they? Anybody who broke through saw clear through his most potent of Knacks what would that mean another Hag maybe or a Warlock oh yes the Warlocks they're to worry about aren't they. And Dragons. Dragons can see through Obfuscate sometimes, with their sharp, fire-etched eyes, their lairs of flesh and blood dripping living untwisted unshaped.
He sighs. Then smiles, faintly, maybe teasing - lick of humour. "Surely you don't think you're the only one who's ever - ? Do you want to keep, ah, playing?"
Molly Toombs...if someone approached me while I was just walking!
Molly flinched just the smallest bit at the mention. He spoke the words with humor, at how impossible they were. Molly just thought about how that was exactly how things worked out for her. How she got here. Somebody approaching her in the street, and it just kept on happening. A hand lifted to rub at the back of her head, and then down to the back of her neck. She took a moment to let a thumb and knuckle try to double-team a knot in her muscles, and did this while she tried to cover up the flinch and the thought by latching on to his last question instead.
"No. No, I don't suppose I am."
She paused, thoughtful, and sipped at her wine. Then she turned and set the glass delicately on the thick wood of the very dense, very sturdy railing that was built into the balcony. Her hands found the railing instead, hooked at the heels so her elbows were crooked back and her fingers were curled around the front of the railing on either side of her hips.
"I'm just not sure how very much I want to start networking with other people in the know."
Do you want to keep playing?
"Sure." She says 'sure', but there's a certain gleam about her eye and her teeth when she says the word. She is very much interested in knowing what else he knows.
Molly Toombs[Perception 3 + Empathy 2]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Harald[Manip + Subt, no specialty this time though.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Harald"The Sabbat?"
His interest sharpens, but Jack tries to keep that hidden. Shifts to get more comfortable on the chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, looking up at Molly so damned earnestly. It's the same earnest gravity he treats all discussions of the supernatural, though. He doesn't seem to have changed his attitude now that they're not discussing hypotheticals as they have at bookstores and coffee shops.
Molly ToombsJacky was an inquisitive man. That he treated actual supernatural incidents with the same scholarly curiosity and interest that he did when Molly and he were both parrying, dancing, playing at speaking hypothetical when so much of that hypothetical was (for Molly at least) still rooted in what she knew.
The next word had her clenching her jaw, but not for anger or anything quite so sharp or negative. It's consternation, more like. As though she could chew on whatever conflict she had with that word and the whole concept and structure that surrounded it.
After the same thoughtful (slightly warm-tipsy) pause that she had before, she said:
"The Church." She was going to leave it there, but then expounded, because she loved this Jack for some reason. "One of two main forces in that whole social structure. Like the English and the French of old times. ....Or the Christians and the people of Islam, I suppose."
HaraldHe nods a couple of times, quickly and to the point. "That's in keeping with... well, my impression of the - " a pause. He was going to say 'them,' but then seems to recall that they're just giving impressions of the words for plausible deniability later on. He doesn't look sheepish or hang-dog, but he does look like, oh, whoops, was getting too enthusiastic, and he rubs the back of his neck, then gives a quick shake of his head. "Apologies. What I've gathered seems to support that, but my impression of the word and... ah, it is Spanish Inquisition, the persecution of the Jews in Spain, and what witches were accused of doing at their sabbaths."
Molly Toombs"Who's persecuting who, though?"
Molly's eyebrows raised. She'd heard it put one way. She was curious to see where Jack stood on the matter. Apparently even at the low levels of this war, you become aware of lines drawn in the sand.
HaraldHe rubs his forehead. "Do you know... ah, this is cheating, skipping ahead in our game, but if the Sabbat is the Church is the other main force also a Church?"
He doesn't sound like he's avoiding answering, just playing it careful, or looking for something he can expound on.
Molly Toombs"Another church?" She frowned, but not because she was upset by the information. It was the kind of face that you made when what you were being told conflicted with what you already thought to be true. A 'wait a minute', if you will.
She still leaned back against the railing, apparently quite comfortable there for the time being. She did seem like the kind of girl that would take her coffee with a book and a sweatshirt on her balcony, she probably spent a lot of time out here.
"I was told it's more like Church versus State."
HaraldHe is frowning, too, but as with Molly, it is not a frown of upset, but a frown of thoughtfulness. It's still a nice night; the darkness at Molly's back is almost a friendly darkness, softened as it is by Denver at night. Lit-up, illuminated; mankind's glory is its ability to light up the dark. Some dark. Doesn't last in the dark world, that kind've light, though it's still good to see.
"Which side is the rebel side?" he muses, aloud. "In film, the rebel side is often to the good; it has the idealists, or had it. But in reality, doesn't it go both ways? I believe the persecution probably goes both ways. The State. Is it a decadent state or is it a, ah, state that looks upon the well-being of its peoples and land?"
"I find the idea of reasoning with a bureaucrat more comforting than reasoning with a faithful... priest... I will say."
A faint grimace-smile because it's a strange turn the conversation has taken.
Molly Toombs"Given that it's a State of vampires, I'm pretty sure that it's nothing but decadence." Molly wrinkled her nose, frowning at the thought of a court of the Undead. She didn't stay there in her mind for very long. The idea was surreal and scary and the gaps of knowledge she had were filled with things from books and media that she was pretty sure weren't true anyways.
He wanted to know which side was the rebel side, and again she was thoughtful.
"I don't think either is a rebel. I think they're both very old, and have their roots down very very deep in history. They're probably one as old as the other, and have been disagreeing for as long as one has known about the other." She reached for her wine glass. She sounded like she was musing now. The red alcohol was swirled lightly, absently.
"I've met a Bureaucrat. And I've met a Priest." She adopts the terms and puts capital letters on them. Turns them to titles for people she is speaking of, people that she won't give the names of (but if that glass of wine were finished, perhaps, perhaps she could be loosened). Was looking down while recalling and surmising.
"I don't know about reasoning with them. It's very difficult to reason when I have no leverage to begin with. I just need to find my way out with my neck a lot of the time."
But she was learning reason with the Priest.
HaraldHe blinks at that and Molly, tipsy Molly, Molly who has had a bad week, whose month is going to get worse, whose April is not going to start out well - well she can perhaps see the surprised tension in Jacky's body. Unfortunate choice of words: find my way out with my neck while talking about vampires.
But then Molly is also looking down. The surprised tension will be waiting, while he tries to read her. Has she been blood-dolling herself out? Jack. He's concerned, he is. "I, ah, er, I," while he regains his equilibrium.
Clears his throat. Dolorous eyes, but she doesn't seem to mean that. Probably not. Concerned. "Perhaps they were the same thing once? Historically there seems to have been a period when all mankind's kingdoms were theocracies. What were they like? The Bureaucrat and the Priest that you've met. Very different from one another?"
Molly ToombsHer choice of words was intentional, but she didn't consider that it may strike concern within the man who faked his pulse and his breath and pushed warmth into his skin and hands so that he could fool this Molly and keep what wool was left over her eyes. At least enough to shield them from the Truth of him. She didn't think he would consider that she was volunteering herself as food. To think of it, there was no way for him to know whether she's ever been bitten or not. He probably wasn't sure how long she's been wrapped up in this exactly either.
She caught the concerned look on his face and frowned sympathetically, almost apologetically. She was sorry for worrying him. She pushed herself away from the railing and crossed the small distance of the balcony to sit down in the chair beside him, the one she'd been in before. The wine glass came with, but it was hastily set and left for now on the table between chairs.
She turned to face him, legs aimed toward his chair rather than out into the balcony's middle. Leaned forward but didn't reach out to or hold onto him. Kept her hands folded together in front of her between her knees instead.
"I don't know any of that." She told him simply. Something about how she said it suggested that she wasn't in the mood to weave from her own musings and imagination the potential origins of vampire society. Not now, not tonight. He did want to know about the Bureaucrat and the Priest, though.
"The Bureaucrat I haven't seen much. Thrice, specifically, but not recently. He is... very business-like. Well dressed, well spoken, meticulous about how he moves, all of that. But he's... planning. Plotting, selling some kind of an idea, I think. He was making plans for me the second I didn't run away.
"The Priest--...," but she stopped all at once, as though tripping, suddenly remembering something. She almost flinched physically, but just stilled and squeezed her hands together and suddenly dropped her eyes to the side. Cursing to herself silently in her own mind. Then she licked her lips and looked down at her thumbs and apologized. "I'm not talking about. I'm sorry."
Harald[What's up, Molly? Percept + Empathy. Did this Priest dude do something to scare you/why do you feel less up to describing him vaguely?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 5, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
Molly ToombsWhat Molly feels, how she's holding herself and how her mouth presses uncomfortable and apologetic, how her shoulders are rounded and her hands are between her knees and how she's just rounded in on herself, this all speaks to Jack. He can read her, he's learning to be pretty good with it.
It was an odd network of things, what she associated with this Priest, what she showed when she reeled back and clammed up. She was scared, yes, but more of consequences and actions surrounding The Priest than of The Priest himself. At least not in any kind of a personal sense. She wasn't worried he would harm her necessarily, but she was scared of repercussions for speaking of him.
Another piece of it, though, is protective. That can't be denied.
And she is sincerely apologetic that she's keeping this from Jack, but resolved none the less.
HaraldHe is watching her carefully, because her assocation with the Sabbat is of particular interest to him, isn't it? He is watching her carefully because she is a person, and people are not as easy as animals to speak to; people one needs to pay attention to, people have hearts in a way that cats do not, in a way that birds do not, in a way that owls don't even pretend to, as there is no such thing as an owl. Owls are just a trick. Owls are just demons. They're tricks played on the world by who knows what. There's so much out there playing tricks.
He could probably push. He could push, and get her to admit this or that. Get her to give it up, but why? Jack. He doesn't push. He doesn't feel like he must hurry, though what he sees gives him something to consider.
So he is frowning, that hasn't changed. Troubled, concerned; that also hasn't changed. "At least, ah, there was no way to tell that they were on different sides by speaking to them?" Jacky. He always wants to catalogue.
There is a brief pause; he shifts restively in the seat, having turned his knees again toward Molly, not toward the railing. "It sounds as if... If you do have sympathies they would be with the Church?"
Is that what I should do, Molly?
[Manip + Subt. -1 diff. Specialty!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 7) ( success x 4 )
Molly Toombs[Perception + Subterfuge]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 4 )
HaraldJack. He asks her that question and it's got one thing attached to it. Is that what I should do? But there's also something he's keeping close to his chest. He said he'd feel more comfortable trying to reason with a Bureaucrat than a Priest (fanatic), and that might be it. Might.
Molly ToombsJack suggested that she didn't know if the two were on different sides. She shrugged and nodded her head-- that was a true point. She would concede that to him.
The next, though, his asking where her sympathies were, had her looking at him with genuine concern. He seemed to be asking her for direction. Made it seem as though he was willing to hear her out if she were to tell him 'yes' and explain to him that it was a good idea. She did no such thing, though. Made no effort to convince him to defect to a side that was certainly not his.
Of course, there is something else there, something she catches flickering that he's clearly trying to keep to himself and not share with her. For love and respect of the man that bloomed quickly over a span of some months, she said nothing. But a part of her knew that he would prefer the Bureaucrat over the Priest for reasons unspoken. They would remain that way, for the time being.
He turned his knees to her, and she smiled a somewhat sad kind of smile and shook her head.
"I'm trying very, very hard not to take sides. I won't unless I absolutely have to in order to keep myself alive." Now she was looking up at him again. Back to his face. That sad smile still clinging there a little, but fading as conversation continued past that moment. "It's not my war. They're two factions of men and women that lost something and now they live too long and get bored and do as they please. I don't have an easy time feeling sympathetic for one or the other."
She could have alliances here and there, to and fro, but she was waving no flags. Not even ones of sympathy.
Harald"Molly," he says, and Jacky is not a tender young man. Not the Jacky she knows. There are tender Jacks, not this one, no. He's lucky. He's fortunate. He's brave, and he's concerned, and he's stalwart. He's smart, too, or seems so; shrewd. Enthusiastic. He's good with animals; knows just how to charm them, doesn't he. Molly isn't an animal, but he knows how to charm people, too, though he doesn't seem like he'd be a charmer. That's the hallmark of a great one: isn't it? Jacky, he is earnest and he is grave and he is on a quest. But though he is not a tender young man, there is something of tenderness when he says her name; something that seems affectionate. He doesn't dwell on it.
He braces his hands on his thighs, grimacing before he hauls himself up. Long lopestery lank of him, holds out a hand to help her if she'd like.
"I have an easy time feeling sympathetic for both," he muses. "But, ah, my sympathies ... That will lie with those who are the most concerned with the well-being of humanity, if any of them are. Those who the most concerned with..."
He grins, sudden and sweet. "This will, ah, be a circular discussion again, won't it? Why don't we take a break and watch some TV? It's getting cold out here."
Molly ToombsHe spoke her name with a catch of some kind of tenderness, though he himself wasn't what she would necessarily describe as such. She wouldn't ever call him 'tough', no, but he was unswerving. Perseverance was something she noticed in this man, and it was a quality easy to respect. One of many things she was seeing past the strange eye and bad teeth and impossible cartoon-ish tufts of body hair for eyebrows and backs of hands. The blood that would sometimes ever-so-slightly find its way into her drinks helped pull the curtains back on that.
He rose to his feet, and Molly's chin tipped and neck craned to follow, so she could still look up the length of him to his face. Eyes flickered to the hand that was offered, and the smile grew less sad. She accepted the hand as it was offered and what help he'd give to bring her back up to her feet.
She was listening along with his thoughts about sympathies, but he cut himself off and offered that they go back inside to watch something on her television. She chuckled and nodded her head in agreement, then tucked herself to his side to wrap one arm around his skinny middle for a hug.
"Do let's, I could stand a distraction. You know, I've never seen Game of Thrones?"
HaraldBefore they go inside, he does look at her. Meets her eyes, and says, "Do you feel at all better?"
They got onto this conversation because he asked her what was troubling her, although she'd called him over to unburden herself perhaps -- at least distract herself -- from the sudden sensation of being in over her head, crushing down, drowning.
Then: that sweet grin again which is This Face's hallmark. "A friend of mine was very insistent I watch the TV Show. She said it reminded her of her work, which I now take to be very exciting..."
Molly ToombsThey'd paused for Jacky to look down at Molly and ask intently if she feels better. She blinked at him, a little surprised by the question, but the surprise melted away quickly to warmth. She felt pretty lucky to have him around, that he was willing to come over on the same night. Unaware of what he was taking away from their conversation on her balcony back to wherever it was he laid his head to rest.
"Honestly, no. There is no 'all better' for this. But I do feel better."
Beat.
"Thank you." And then. "Let's go in."
She'd remember to snag her wine last second on their way through the door.
