[Is Jack actually coming out tonight or did his ghoul look at him and go "Meow, meow." Aka, "No, dude." Manip + Perf.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN7 (3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 5 )
LlorençIn the center of summer it's easy to believe time has both come to a crawl and gone falling through the fingers like so many grains of sand. A haze in the air at times and a snap chill like the coming of autumn at others and nobody wants the season to end but anything that doesn't end changes. Autumn will replace summer in a matter of weeks and in the meantime the artists and vendors of the northern hemisphere are blocking off side streets and setting up tents and dragging grills and kegs out into the open.
This festival is a culmination of independent restaurants and bars. It aims to drum up business. Live local bands climb up onto a stage set up in a parking lot behind one of the progressive action buildings. Grilling meat and banging drums and a coolness in the breeze carries it all. Down the street one can scent the lingering ghosts of roasted malt haunting the microbrewery. Beer and wine flow and although more than a few people are inebriated they are the happy self-contained type of inebriated that means the Denver PD officers stood on every intersection just ignore them.
The sun went down at 8:25 tonight. A certain breed of creature would not normally arise so early but the nights in Denver are strange. It's after nine o'clock now.
Verna GardnerVerna Gardner, respectable lab assistant turned unemployed penny-pincher walks down the street tonight trying to appear as though she is still respectable, thank-you-very-much. Her outfit tonight is comprised of some black slacks and a short-sleeved pink blouse with delicate little scalloped cutouts at the neck. Everything about her has this fresh-pressed look, like she must have been to a job interview today (if only). Seems that a woman like this might be at the Art Walk to browse for something to buy, but no -- she's just here for something to do.
It's better than sitting in the library and thinking about how horrible life is.
And the police are usually out in force at the Art Walks, so hopefully she can avoid a certain menace to her personal safety tonight.
Here and there her eye catches something, some painting or sculpture or craft and she'll pause to appreciate it before moving on. Right now, she's got her eyes on a grand painting meant to go over a couch. It's of a Grecian seashore in spring.
Molly ToombsWhen her last date with a regular man had gone awry enough to end in gunshots and burying little green-skinned monsters under heaps of rocks, Molly decided that it would be best to make her next night out something that she could rely on being relaxing. So, she'd phoned up Harald (who was Jack, who was Nobody) and invited him out. There was another festival happening in the Santa Fe district, with plenty of stands and tables and kegs and booths out serving easy-to-carry foods and drinks from many of the local restaurants.
Harald worked nights, slept days, so she was patient and waited for him to be awake and comfortable enough to head out. She said they ought to just meet somewhere in the area since she didn't live close enough to warrant meeting at her apartment.
This is how we find the two together, walking up the sidewalk after the heat of the sun had dipped behind the mountains and the cool comfort of a summer's night was allowed to take over instead.
Beside Harald, Molly looked fucking awesome (sorry Jacky). She was a pretty enough woman to begin with, but to have that thrown against the sharp contrast that was how knobby and gangly and homely her companion was, people were left to wonder if they were related or if he had a lot of money or if it really was possible to just be that goddamn charming. Molly had dressed well but comfortable, in a pair of crisp white shorts and a loose-fitting royal blue tank-top that flowed airy and cool and scooped fairly low on the chest. A gold necklace, earrings, and bracelet threw an accent color into the mix, and flat brown sandals were strapped securely in place so they wouldn't flip-flap against her feet as she walked.
She had a plastic cup of beer from some micropub's table in her hand, and was mid-chatter with her friend as she walked along.
"...finished reading it like three days ago. It didn't even occur to me to bring it with, otherwise I would've just loaned it to you." She was talking about a book that covered the significance of alternate dimensions and realities and how they (supposedly) touched up against their own. It was relevant subject matter for a project the pair were involved in.
NobodyIt is true. Jack is not a looker.
He is the opposite of a looker. He is a look away from because he is really just terribly ugly, and perhaps Molly should begin to take the imperative in the phrase fixer-upper more seriously. He should be fixed up. Perhaps he could be; couldn't he? Let's give him a study, shall we?
He's a gawk. His jacket doesn't quite fit him. There's a rip in the tweed elbow patch so it is peeling off, although the jacket is otherwise quite respectable and professorial. He's wearing jeans. They're clean, but they're a touch too baggy. He did not tie his shoes properly and if you look very closely you can see that they're actually from two different pairs. It's as if he just wasn't paying close attention. The colour he is wearing does not flatter his pale and sallow skin. He's pigeon-chested: deeply so. This plays a game of ruination with his posture. His hair is dark brown-or-blonde-or-who-knows, and it is slicked down hard across his scalp but it bobs into fair babyish curls at the ends, which are tucked behind his ears, and it is not very flattering. It is, in fact, the worst hair he could have. Under his jacket he has a Doctor Who angels don't blink teeshirt.
He's got a little bit of scruff on his chin that he should probably just give up trying to cultivate because it's not going to work it's never going to work all the ability to grow hair has migrated to his eyebrows, which are extremely thick, fucking Werewolf-eyebrows, Frieda Kahlo thick, and to round off this delightful depiction of manhood: an over-sized adam's apple.
He's ugly. But he's rather likeable, and what he lacks in raw presence he usually makes up for in sheer honeyed manipulation (this is a feature of all Jacks; they insinuate; they're clever, mmhmm). This Jack seems quite oblivious to the stares he and his companion get, and the judgment inherent there-in.
He never seems the quickest to pick up social cues, Harald who is called Jacky from Jackpot because he's Lucky.
He seems to think he's lucky tonight, because his glasses (he's wearing them tonight) are practically fogging up with enthusiasm. "That's all right," imperious. "You can bring it tomorrow night. That is, if you're not working. Do you think an alternate reality might really be a possible solution to the conundrum we've been faced with? How should we define alternate realities; and are they really alternate, if, ah, in truth, we interact with them, so, ah, wouldn't that make them simply a different location within our reality?"
It smells like food tonight; none if it moves Nobody who is Jack who is masquerading as Jacky. Right up ahead is a Verna Gardner, respectable lab assistant turned unemployed penny pincher looking desperately for something to do (not wearing blue?).
He takes off his glasses and rubs his forehead, wearily. "It's, er, so difficult to know what is and is not possible, is it not so?"
Verna Gardner[Perception + Alertness = does Verna notice Molly (and Jack, but she's at least seen Molly before)]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
LlorençIn a crowd this thick a body could pass by people he's known for years and not pick them out of it. Not so thick that one's elbows can't find room and a scan of the four directions can't find one's spouse or child but the word din was born for times like this.
The streets boast buildings two stories tall sometimes three but the towering structures of downtown and the tech center are distant and cast no shadow. Brick goes dark without light and plenty of places have string lights outside to draw attention to their outdoor seating. Helps folks find their bicycle racks on nights when the street doesn't crawl like a downed colossus.
One would have to have a sharp eye or a healthy amount of paranoia to come out on a night like this and notice someone they know. Sharp eye or paranoia or poor luck.
A young man who's as tall as the average American woman is in the crowd tonight. He isn't magnetic and nothing he does with the intent to draw the eye to him. He's walking at the same meandering pace as a person in the supermarket unsure of what they came in to buy now that they're here.
[perception + empathy: AURA PERCEPTION HOLY SHITSNACKS. he's just doing a cursory scan to look for people with pale auras. IDK why. there aren't any vampires here.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (2, 3, 5, 7, 7, 7) ( fail )
Llorenç[I hate this fucking game.]
Nobody[the glasses deflect.]
Verna GardnerIt's been a few months since Verna last saw Molly. That was the day the hug-assassin came by and interrupted her meal in order to be strange. By some sheer unluck, though, Verna finds her eyes wandering the crowd to spot the woman, and as nice as Molly appears tonight, she's still the friend of a drunken pervert and a crazy woman. Verna's not going to say hello. Who knows? Maybe Molly also has a penchant for hugging random strangers? Or perhaps there's worse skeletons in that closet.
Well, with her walking around with something like that? It seems a high likelihood.
It's just a glance she gives the two, nothing more, and then it's off to another stall, as she merges herself back into the herd of moving people.
Molly ToombsMolly isn't doing a marvelous job of paying attention to the people around her-- to try and keep track of faces in a crowd was distracting and draining. She was plenty occupied with the one that was bobbing about a half a foot above and to her left anyways. He posed a question, and Molly followed the stream of consciousness as though it was a jungle but she had her own beaten path that she's been following for years. She knew how to navigate it well by now.
"Well, no, I don't actually think it's a literal alternate reality or dimension. I'm pretty sure it's a plane that exists parallel-- in tandem with ours. That's what allows communication to be possible between the two of them. As for actual travel, I don't know if we're capable of that." But, she was getting ahead of herself. Molly cleared her throat, sipped her beer, and looked back forward instead of peering up at the ugly man with the tweed and glasses and Dr. Who tee.
"The book isn't really spot on, necessarily. But it's got some basic concepts and theories that are kind of on the nose. Gets you thinking and figuring, anyways."
Up ahead Verna had spied Molly, and after a pause decided to move on to another stall without any kind of approach. Molly herself? She didn't recognize Verna, hadn't interacted with her quite enough to allow that face to seep into the cracks and crevices of her brain. Perhaps if that weren't the case Molly may have pulled the other woman out of the crowd and forced greeting and socialization on her.
Neither here nor there, though, Molly wouldn't take notice. Instead, she'd slowed her stride enough to start combing eyes over the signs on the stands that lined the road-- the smell of food had been enticing her long enough, was beginning to call her name.
LlorençWhat she merges herself into is the young man who is walking with a practiced if not pointed deftness. One used to going out into the world with his senses altered. Nothing wide about his eyes or his gaze or the way he looks out around him now but if he were to have been looking around at everything without reacting to it this would explain his slowness. He's taking in everything and telling the thoughts gone through a person's brain when their mouth is shut and their throat gone to silence is an impossible task.
Yet he is young. Twenties maybe. Early or edging into mid. Young people change so quickly but men occupy more nebulous space as they grow up. He sports scruff on his jaws and cheeks though. Thick black hair. If he's young he's not young enough that he cannot drink.
This is relevant because Verna is about to bump right into him. She may have already almost bumped into plenty of other people tonight but this is as near a miss as anything else.
He does not appear out of nowhere as Verna glances at Molly and Molly doesn't glance at all but when she goes to join the flow of foot traffic again there he is.
NobodyNobody knows all about planes that exist parallel and in tandem. He is interacting with Molly right now from a world other than the one she is part of; she just does not realize it because she is from that other world, the world of Day-bright things, of un-Gloaming, the world of heat and natural death, the kingdom of blue and gold. He used to be from that world; he remembers it, dimly, even if the colours have become somewhat faded, somewhat tattered, somewhat suspect. He might not really remember what the blue of a perfect summer sky is; he might only think he does. He might not remember what a flower looks like when it is open and not asleep outside of sad bouquets at all night grocery stores or in florid photography, such as the photographs at that stall there, which do grab his eye. He's not from that world any longer.
He could tell Molly, and perhaps he will, one night, that there are ways to transition between the worlds (kingdoms, he calls them; empires), and that once you have gone from one world to the other, it is rare that you ever find your way back even though you haunt your first world, even though you can touch it and drag things into the dark with you. He doesn't want her to know he isn't part of her world. He's thought, for the most part, that he can pull her in just a little: release her again, and she'll be safe; she'll be able to finish her story, properly.
He's beginning to reassess that. He doesn't want her to know that either. There are a lot of things he doesn't want Molly to know, and yet: he is surprisingly honest with her in This Face.
"I think, ah, travel would be very difficult, and perhaps not without great cost. Does it have any chapters on altered states of being? Ah, you know, such as in the one reality you would be translated into gases or somesuch; it's rather hard not to say higher states isn't it? What do you think of the color pink?"
Molly ToombsAn intellectual thing, Molly Toombs was more caught up in pondering the question that Harald-that-was-Jacky (Lucky Jacky) had posed about altered states of being. He may or may not have intended it, but she threaded the thought back in to their topic, their project, their conundrum.
"I've read about altered states of being, but not like that. More like projection. Like, astral projection. What if we looked into that, found some way to channel and project and go looking after him again? I mean, if it turns out we can't summon him back to us...."
There was a pause. She had been distracted by half-skimming over a big bold-font menu of a few simple items at the front of one stand, but Molly caught the final question tacked on at the end finally and raised an eyebrow in questioning and confusion back up at the friend whose side she stuck comfortably, trustingly, affectionately to.
"Pink? Well, it's not the best color for red-heads-- Ariel proved that in the late 80's. Why?"
Verna GardnerVerna's mind is elsewhere, and she's expecting the crowd to be moving at a fairly even pace, like particles in a fluid made of humans. She doesn't notice the slow one until it's too late, and a complicated dance of startled feet ensues to try to keep a collision from happening.
"Oh! Excuse me," Verna says, and tries to laugh off the miniature faux pas with a smile. "I didn't see you."
As Molly and 'Harold' pass by, she picks up something about astral projection, and her eyes roll. Just as she thought. Skeletons in the closet there. Fluffy-headed nonsense too.
LlorençIf she were any taller the moment would open itself up to short jokes but they are eye-level with each other and the young man's feet are not leaden and clumsy. Once he realizes she's there and trying to find a way to keep moving forward without running into him he does her the favor of moving first back and then to the side almost-dancing out of her way and the way of the people around them. Ends up in an empty space where foot traffic naturally diverts for the presence of a potted plant outside a gallery doorway.
Passing pedestrians have made an ashtray of the pot's soil. In the morning when the gallery staff arrive they will sweep the sidewalk and pluck out the butts and do away with the evidence but not the problem. This city is a mile in the air and facing the last bastions of untamed wilderness mountains high in the distance and plains in all directions and all people want to do is smoke grass and throw their plastic cups on the ground.
Point is he's quick on his feet once he realizes what's going on and then Verna is trying to save face and he blinks like he's coming back into the present. No astral projection here. Only bright lights and a hundred conversations all at once. Clove cigarettes and hoppy beer.
He returns her attempt at a laugh with one of his own and reaches up to swipe his hair back from his brow raking fingers through it is how long it is.
"S'all good," he says. Barest trace of an accent. He could be from anywhere. He meets her gaze and surely she isn't going to stand here and start a conversation with a stranger in the middle of a beer-drenched festival. "I wasn't paying attention."
NobodyWait what. Astral projection. He blinks and says, "Hmm. It does exist." Certainty. "That would, ah, be a good idea in general, I think, strictly for information gathering purposes, but ah, perhaps not for this particular -- you don't want to follow him and get stuck."
Molly and Harald do not pass by quite yet -- or rather, they do pass, but they don't pass by, because the ugly (hideous [why don't you at least pluck? Have you no lady-friends? You have a lady friend right there]) gawk of a young man is sneaking a covert glance at Verna's pink blouse. Covert, but also absent-minded, as if he can't quite remember what they were talking about.
"Who is Ariel? Ah, some fashion guru like, uh, Madonna? Did she really prove it?" He puts the glasses back on, bright eyed with curiosity. "No erm, I'm just asking because that woman there... That color makes me think of my little sister. Do you think it has a name?"
Molly Toombs[Do I remember that shade's name? Intelligence 3 + Alertness 3]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 6, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
Molly Toombs"No, as in Ariel from The Little Mermaid." Molly didn't quite sound dumbfounded by his not knowing that, but she did carry a touch of tired, a heavier dose of humor in the explanation. "Didn't you just say you had a sister? How did you guys not grow up with Disney..."
But look at that color of pink right there. Molly switched bright blue eyes away from the menu that it kept floating back to (that was probably where she was going to go, get a plate of that chicken kebab and find somewhere to hover and lean or sit with Jacky to keep on discussing possibilities, tactics, and risks in the hunt they were on) and cast them toward Verna and the similarly-sized young(ish) man that she was talking to.
She saw the shade of pink and announced: "Rose?" Then Molly glanced up to the woman's face and squinted up the corners of her eyes just a little. She was making the face that so many do when trying to place recognition.
It came about eventually-- not in great detail, but it had something to do with Nate and that Laurel woman. Specifically, something to do with Laurel overhearing them (her) mention vampires and come to harass for information. She remembered that the woman had rounded on The Woman In Pink or called her out for something. She couldn't quite remember what, though.
So she blinked, then shook her head. She recognized the woman, but didn't know her. No ground on which to approach -- Hey, you remember that woman that neither of us wanted to be around? What was that about, huh? didn't make for the best conversation starter. So Molly instead gestured to the food truck with a tip of the plastic rim of her beer cup.
"Do you want anything?" This, followed by another drink.
Verna GardnerAll colors have names. Most of them have many names, like a certain somebody who asks the question. One could describe the color of Verna's blouse to be petal pink or cherry blossom -- something like that.
And no, she is not going to stand there and start up a conversation with a stranger in the middle of beer-drenched festival, even if this particular stranger seems nice enough (and nice enough that perhaps she wouldn't have minded so much to have run into him).
She just gives him a nervous little smile before heading back on her way again, off to view something a little more modern in abstract black and white. Curves and sharp lines on the canvas. Reminds her of particle accelerator images, and oh but that puts a smile on her face.
LlorençAnd he takes no offense to the nerves or the fact that she walks off again after that but the only way she would know if he did take offense or not would be if he called after her and the young man doesn't do that. He rummages through his pocket for a pack of cigarettes and blinks again and finds a lane in foot traffic into which he can step without cutting off another person.
Nothing much to remember about him for the future besides the fact that he's short dark and handsome. Shortness serves as as much of a marker as does significant height. Darkness sets him apart from tanned blond Adonises and skinny pale-skinned art geeks. But he does not shine in a crowd. If he wants something he isn't going to find it out here where everyone is moving.
He may have more luck in the beer garden. Stands to reason it's in the opposite direction from which people holding plastic cups have come. That's where he heads now.
Jack and his anonymity strike again.
Nobody"Girl stuff," Jack(y) says, with a remniscent curl of his lip. The curl is a brother's ingrained contempt for his sister's doings. An older brother's ingrained contempt, at that, being hounded by a tiresome slip of a thing. "Who was the frilly one? Cinderella. The one who read books was okay."
Molly gestures to a food truck and Jack shakes his head. His stomach is a delicate beast and it doesn't always like him to eat. "Er, no thank you, but," belated, brightening, "I'll treat you, shall I?"
This is a big big big festival full of lots of people and lots of crowds and here comes somebody with a dog on which there is a cat on which there is a mouse: it's that guy.
The mouse is taxidermied. Some people get a kick out of that. The dog and the cat seem annoyed and balky and growly and mrowly but it is a dog with a cat and a taxidermied mouse and upon that taxidermied mouse hat a little football hat.
The cat decides, around the time certain short denizens of the crowd wander by, that it has had enough: it jumps off and zips through stalls and freedom is pretty glorious.
Its owner should have known this is how it was always going to end. The dog looks sad and circles and presses against somebody's leg.
Later, a ten year old boy who is out far too late will find the taxidermied mouse and show it to his sister.
Nobody[Yessssss. 80s pictures unite!]
Llorenç[*AIR GUITAR*]
Catherine Wyndham[WE ARE! WYLD VAMPIRES! *air guitar*]
Molly ToombsThe curl of the ugly man's lip caught Molly in a chuckle, and she shook her head at him some then cast her glance back after Verna as she stepped away from the spot where she was standing, from the man she'd been talking from. Wandering eyes then followed the man, approximately her height with a good profile and longer dark hair. She peered curiously after him for a second before Jack drew her back with a spark of enthusiasm in his voice.
He was offering to treat her, and she answered with a smile and a 'pish-posh' motion of her hand.
"You're too good."
Because of course he was. She'd accept the offer. From there, the evening would continue on down a path of art and food. Jacky and Molly, a mismatched pair, speaking with mutual sparks of excitement and on topics that made it seem to passers-by that they may as well be using another language entirely. They'd keep on like this for as late as either would allow, and into the crowd once more.
Nobody[And that is your allotment of Jack time, FOR NOW. Maybe he'll come back as someone else. *g*]
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