Jack and the Discretion Test

Nobody

[Manip + Perf. Let's start us off. Obv., if there is a botch, things might go a little not tonightish.]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 5, 6, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Molly Toombs

The night had called for thunderstorms, but they had not arrived quite yet. Still, winds warned of their coming, and they pulled and tugged both at the red of Molly's hair and the yellow of her thin and dainty floor-length skirt, with its delicate white designs etched into the chiffon overlay. She wore her hair half-up, so it didn't whip her eyes too badly. She wore a white tank-top tucked into the skirt, with a brown belt overtop, and gold-braided sandals on her feet. Made up, the dollish thing that she was.

She stood there out along the street that the mall existed upon, shops lining the narrow road, in front of a tall directory board. She'd been there plenty of times before, she wasn't looking at the board itself. Rather, her eyes were down on the screen of her phone.

Researching something? Answering a text message, perhaps.

Either way, there she was, with no earphones to cover her ears and block her off from an approach.

Nobody

[Dex + Stealth.]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Molly Toombs

[Perception + Alertness]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )

Nobody

There she was. Molly Toombs. No earphones to cover her ears. No distraction just in case the night suddenly got interesting, revealed one of its monsters to her, sent her scuttling across a crossroads, shaped the world around her into one of those two-worlds sort've places where it is both the dark world that's always there and the one she lives in which is brighter (not that much brighter [humanity is a devil]) and has ugly deeds done without more-than-natural help. Molly Toombs, alert and on her guard.

But she doesn't hear, certainly doesn't see, the pale young man who approaches her. He is very pale, as pale as anybody can be, with an ugly Irish pug of a face, freckles visible and lashes pale and coppery, fish eye but he doesn't mean it to be a fish eye, it's just his eyes are pale too. His hair's a rusty blond, combed with neat severity to one side. He's stocky. Doesn't loom.

"Hard to believe there are so many places just to buy shoes. Do people walk around that much?"

He says it right at her shoulder.

Molly Toombs

From nowhere, from noplace at all, there came a voice at her shoulder. Molly's shoulders and back tensed and jumped, for she was startled. This was only momentary though, fleeting, and soon Molly's eyes jumped up from her phone screen and turned to find that ugly mug. The phone was quickly tucked away into her purse, and her hand remained there as well. Molly was a woman who walked city streets, she was prepared to defend herself.

Her eyes were cool and blue, they flickered over the man's face and shoulders then back up to his eyes in a quick first-moment evaluation. The expression on her freckled face set to one of suspicion-- again, a woman on the streets, she wasn't very open to approach from strange men.

"Some of us still do. It depends on the age group, though. There is a generation that skateboards and scooters everywhere."

Pause.

"Can I help you?"

Nobody

Jack is a gentleman Jack in all of (most of) his Faces. He's sometimes a less couth gentleman but he is still a gentleman.

"I don't think so," the man says, and his voice is an easy baritone with just a touch of Southern Californian drawl or languor, like some words just roll off his tongue. He is regarding her with curiousity. "Unless you're somebody good to know."

"Are you somebody good to know?"

The man has his eyes on the directory. His voice is pitched to be comforting, not exactly to give off an impression of harmlessness, but a lack of harmful intent. Let's say that.

[Manip + Empathy. -1 Diff.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (5, 5, 5, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 6 )

Molly Toombs

[ I'm not even going to bother contesting that. ]

Molly's eyebrows raised for the man's question, and the direct stare he placed. He was pale, pale of skin and hair alike. She tipped her chin up some, for the man was likely taller than her anyways.

He searched her face and Jack, not the Stranger but Jacky, he could read her like a book. There was intrigue and curiosity that lay subconscious beneath all else. There was strong suspicion about her as well-- she didn't trust him, not one bit. She was tensed up, but not in any way that suggested she was about to flee. In fact, she seemed more firmly rooted in place. Like she was trying to put on a show of confidence that he could read right through and know it was, in fact, a show (but not without roots in true Courage, don't be mistaken there).

When she answered her words came slow, laced with that lack of trust that she was making no show to conceal. Still, her hand left her purse so that she could extend it to shake.

"It depends on who you are, I suppose. I'm Molly."

Nobody

He takes her hand and shakes it. Stubby fingers, ugly hands, a bit of arthritis or the premonition there-of twisting at two of his fingers although they seem to work just fine right now, big scar-dappled knuckles, welder's hands. Cold. Cold as the grave, aren't they? Cold and untouched by warmth, unanimated by the machine of the body, that machinery's long-gone long-dormant sleeping until it wakes from its Curse (and that won't happen, not ever, will it?) animated instead by spirit, by spirit, by the soul enchanted and bound.

His hands are cold. If she looks for a pulse, he's probably going to notice and pull his hand back and away before she can get a decent read. It's not nice, feeling for strangers pulses, is it? And then he's going to give her a suspicious look. Wide-eyed and suspicious, those pale lashes framing a gaze gone curious in a different way.

He won't say anything, just give her that interrogatory look.

Until (and either way; if he doesn't notice that probing finger, sneaky, sneaky) he says, "I kind of like that answer. It's interesting. It makes me want to know how it depends and what it is you're good to know for, if you are good to know, depending and all that. They call me Danny."

Molly Toombs

"Danny." Molly smiled and pulled her hand back. The smile was charming, spread across her face rich and creamy like something expensive. "Of course they do." That hand didn't return to her purse, but rather moved up to catch her hair and push it back away from her face. The wind had whipped up. There ought to be a full moon tonight, but the clouds above blotted it out to nothing more than a yellow smear in the sky above.

"All of that sounds like a length of conversation that, frankly, I'm not prepared to have out here waiting for the rain to come." She didn't expound without prompting, but the tone did not suggest that she was inviting him to come find shelter so she could have that sort of conversation. Her body language was too wary for such openness or assumption. She was simply holding ground and waiting for him to move on before she could continue on her way. Parrying with words to be polite, so as not to provoke, but not giving much room or edge either.

"If this is your limericky way of asking to buy drugs, you really have got the wrong idea of who to approach. Like, in general."

Nobody

He laughs. The laugh catches in his throat and he has to cough behind his fist, politely. Gentleman that he is, he turns his head away from her. When he turns back, she could've been gone. A distant shape, running. But she isn't. His eyes crinkle up but there's not a lot of warmth to them; rather, just that persistent and low-grade consideration.

"I smoke now and then and indulge in a bit of a nip," doesn't Molly just bet this creature does, "but I don't do the hard stuff, no. I don't think you really think I'm looking for drugs," as if he's guessing instead of as if he knows. He's making assumptions.

He doesn't move on but there's still no menace in his body and no menace in his voice. "Maybe we'll have a length of conversation some other time if the Fates look kindly on me."

Wink. "Limericky," pause, and that rustly laugh followed by a cough again, like he's speaking to himself all dreamydream.

Molly Toombs

Molly's face scrunched up. She didn't quite believe the coughing, but she leaned back from the man just a little, reflexively, while he did. Straightened back up when he was finished and had turned back to face her. Her face was skepticism and curiosity at their purest. The curiosity carried hesitance laced within it-- like Molly knew she should be finding a way to discourage this man's interest right here and now, but she just couldn't help herself.

"I'm sure," was her comment, slipped in behind his mention of indulging in nips, and her hands moved to hold the straps to her purse in front of her busty chest. She stood straight in a way that, she hoped at least, appeared confident more than tense and untrusting.

"I get the feeling that the Fates won't have much to do with it. You've probably already made up your mind on that, haven't you?" The question hung for a moment along with a small tip of her head, but the note of rhetoric was there to transition her into a less-small shake of her head. "I need to be on my way. Good night, Danny."

Nobody

"Good night to you too, Molly."

He gives her an even-tempered nod. Adds this gem, "Careful of your back; it's a nice one," for her to keep. He's a gentleman, not dead- er, well, he's- the point is that's what he says.

Doesn't move from the directory, but turns back to it. He's smiling faintly, not as if amused or as if particularly charmed, but as if he's thoughtful.

He'll keep smiling even when Molly turns to go. Even when she starts to go. Even when she goes. If she looks back after she passes a few storefronts, she'll see that he's gone. Disappeared. Nothing worth noting.

If he's a presence still, he's an unseen one.

It's not a cold night.