Dririmancy - Nathan Gets A Tip

Nathan Marszalek

[perc + empathy!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )

Nathan Marszalek

[perc + awareness!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 3 )

dririmancy

May 19th still.

Nathan Marszalek (soon to be Nathan Amherst again) tosses an email off to his father about the dog attacks. Theodore's sole input on the dog attacks is 'sad.' But, go figure, no other dogs are currently being prosecuted for criminal activity, so it's outside his area of expertise. He will and can tell Nathan what normally happens to animals involved in attacks on humans and what the owners could be liable for, but there's no specific interest.

Holiday weekend makes things difficult but that's when Jay Rodriguez can meet. Saturday morning, very early, or Sunday in the afternoon.

Ms. Rodriguez had called him two hours after he sent her that reply e-mail to tell him so. Over the phone she sounded calm and direct, but there's a copper wire taut blood on the tongue sharpness underneath the calm, careful restraint of concern verging on -- fear, perhaps.

May 20th.

He finds a dead bluejay on the seat of his motorcycle. It is missing its eyes. Perhaps they've been eaten by bugs already.

It is also missing the top half of its beak.

And when he sees it, something in him crawls to tell him uncanny, uncanny, uncanny, wasps dragging their stingers up the insides of his skin.

dririmancy

ooc: Why did I say 'holiday weekend'? My brain is stuck last weekend. (grin) I meant to say 'School week.'

Nathan Marszalek

He's not completely awake when he stumbles out of the house on the morning of the 20th. Stayed up too late the night before maybe. Doesn't matter. He's got everything he needs for the day and the house is locked up behind him and the sun's shining and birds are singing and nothing's exploded.

When he gets to his motorcycle parked on the street he stops and looks down at the seat and frowns.

"Jesus," he says even though there's no one around to hear him.

Should he call somebody? He has to touch it to get on his motorcycle. He doesn't want to touch it. He has a very bad feeling about touching it.

Nathan looks around the empty street and scowls the deepest of scowls and that's when he sighs. He slings off his messenger bag and dumps it in the saddlebag and picks up the dead bird knowing full well this is a bad idea.

dririmancy

It certainly is, Nathan Marszalek.

Maybe this is a convenient time for his sister to grumpily come out of the house to remind him about something, see what he's doing, and "Ewwwwww! Germs!"

The dead bird is stiff and cold and it stays very dead and very stiff in his hand. He can feel how brittle were its bones between his fingertips.

Do its eye sockets look at him accusingly? Does its gaping mouth, obscene without the top portion of its beak, seem to be trying to tell him something? Imagination is a poor friend sometimes.

Nathan Marszalek

[perc + investigation!]

Nathan Marszalek

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

Nathan Marszalek

[+ alertness]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )

Nathan Marszalek

If he starts communing with dead birds he's going to have to check himself into the inpatient psychiatric ward because that is a thing that has not yet happened in the twenty-seven years he has been hearing voices belonging to the departed.

His little sister is still asleep because it's seven o'clock in the morning and she has no earthly reason to be awake so there's no one around to see him walk back through the gate and up the sidewalk and pause on the porch while debating whether he wants to bring the thing into the house.

During his debate he stands there with the dead bird all brittle and stiff and cold in the palm of his hand. His hand isn't shaking. His hand never shakes until after the weirdness has ended. Those empty eyes didn't tell him anything yet but he feels an unease in the pit of him that has nothing to do with nausea.

He doesn't ask the thing What happened to you? because it isn't going to answer him. But he wants to know. This is too weird to be a coincidence.

dririmancy

He can't tell how it died by looking at it more closely. Its neck doesn't look broken; it just looks empty. Empty, and destroyed. There aren't any parasites that he can see, nothing around the eyes or the mouth and the feathers are smooth to the touch.

He's hesitating on the porch.

There are some skid marks on the street. New ones, like somebody was driving quickly and suddenly, somebody was just booking it last night. They're down by the corner. Does he remember hearing it? He probably does, light sleeper that he is.

His mailbox's flag is flipped in whatever position means: you've got mail. Nobody else's is. Something's poking out. Not another dead bird, but something.

Nathan Marszalek

Ah, shit.

Nate stands still for a few seconds and when he looks back because looking back has ended so well for so many people over the years but when he looks back he sees the flag on his mailbox is up. He'd missed it on his way out just now but he also was in a fog.

He hasn't flipped the flag up in a few days. It shouldn't be up.

In the tranquil morning he becomes aware of the heaviness of his own breathing. Wills himself to calm down as he sets the dead bird on the porch rail and goes back down the sidewalk.

dririmancy

The mailbox sits there.

Waits for him. Red flag, up like a sign. A warning.

Mild creak when he opens the door. He doesn't get any other preternatural inkling, any welling, pooling gathered up sink of strangeness, from what he sees when he opens his mail.

A few glossy pieces of junkmail spill out, hit the ground. Coupons. Coupons for a Korean Spa & Nail Joint, repeat ad infinitum. A couple posters inviting him to RAVE OUT. He spies that somebody's penned by hand U HAV BEEN CHOSE, but apparently that's a clever marketing gimick. Now that he's seen them, he can see that similar junkmail has been tucked under the windshield wipers of some of the other cars on his street.

Nathan Marszalek

It doesn't set him at ease that this is all junk mail stuffed into his mailbox but it doesn't make him feel like something bad is about to happen like he had when he picked the dead bird off his motorcycle seat. He has been chose.

Great, says the scoffing breath he lets go.

He claps the mailbox closed and carries the mail up to the house. Careful to keep it all in the hand that hasn't been touching the dead bird. A glance at the street as he goes tells him someone was busy last night.

dririmancy

The dead bird has not moved. If anything, it looks sadder than before, more bedraggled because its feathers were once such a bright blue, such a heart-ache blue of a thing. Weren't bluejays symbols of hope?

Two houses down, somebody comes running out, late for work or class or something, talking loudly on the phone.

It's a quiet morning.

Nathan Marszalek

Just as he's about to set the mail down on one of the deck chairs and pick up the dead bird again a house down the street bangs open and he startles. It isn't as if he's not used to other people being up this early but the street was quiet and he was off in his own little world and he just stands staring at the loud-talker for a couple seconds before coming back to himself.

Right. Dead bird.

He unlocks the door and hurries inside to find a box to bury the thing in. The backyard is spacious and he has a few tools in the shed. It won't take long to bury.

Before he leaves again he washes his hands. Splashes water on his face. Today sucks already and it hasn't even started yet.

Oh well.

dririmancy

May 25th. Sunday.

They're meeting at the Woodbury Branch Library. Woodbury is small, but it has a sense of being an edifice -- a monument. Brick. Square. Renaissance Italian-style with large window arches and old-fashioned panes. There is a sense of age. Solidity. This place will withstand. This place will not crumble. This place is not open for very long, but Highland Park is right there and it is a nice day. Kites are being flown, this impossible cherry pink with a yellow tail dive-bombing into the trees, and the late afternoon sunlight is hazy and gold and if it were a candy it would be one of those old-fashioned butterscotch lozenges you suck on your tongue because if you try to chew on them they stick in your teeth.

He already knows what Jay looks like because he has checked her out on facebook. If he has a staff page with a picture anywhere, or a picture of himself on his blog, or if he himself can be seen by strangers on facebook, then Jay knows what he looks like too.

But he's going to see her first. A pudgy plain Jane of a woman, soft, soft, soft, soft curves, childishly round cheeks, more freckles than a grown woman (or a child of ten, for that matter) ever wants to be in possession of, a pair of wire glasses sitting smartly on the bridge of her nose, hair a deep slick burgundy (it's a good color) pushed back behind her ears and straight as a razor, sitting at one of the library desks near a conference room, dressed in a polka-dotted A-line skirt and a yellow teeshirt with a literary quote. She has that look people get when they're waiting and they've been waiting for long enough to become uncomfortable with how they are waiting and is sipping a coffee from the nearest coffee shop.

Nathan Marszalek

The contact list of the staff of the Denver Post is comprised of names and titles and email addresses. No photographs.

But Nathan has nothing to hide. His Facebook page does not reveal what people write on his wall but she can trawl his photos and get an idea of who he is. What he does with his time.

Jay Rodriguez if she chose to look him up knows that he graduated from Central High School in Omaha in 2005. Some pictures of him working for the school newspaper or playing soccer or milling around during homecoming show up courtesy of other people tagging him. He went to prom. A lot of the outdoor shots are of a dry and dusty place. It was a normal enough life. It was a long time ago.

He had to keep his hair very short while he was in the Marines and between 2005 and 2011 a lot of people took a lot of photographs of him. Every photograph where he isn't wearing BDUs he's still got a buzz cut. Half the shots where he isn't in uniform he looks startled by the camera's presence and the rest of them he looks like he's enjoying the company of whoever he happens to be with.

Not a lot of shots exist of him after he was discharged. The most recent one was from last summer. Some Colorado Press Association reception where he had to wear a tuxedo. His hair is a mess and he's thinner than he was in the service.

There are no pictures of him from this year. Not on this date. After this weekend he will resurface but as of right now Jay has no prior warning that he has a scar on his face. Scars don't photograph all that well anyway.

When he comes within sight he clears his throat and offers her an apologetic smile. He didn't mean to keep her waiting but running late seems to be part of his genetic makeup.

"Miz Rodriguez?" he asks like he can't tell who she is from a distance. He's wearing tan Dockers and a burgundy polo shirt. The pants are belted but the shirt is not tucked in. He's only 27. "Hi. Nathan Marszalek."

Handshake.

dririmancy

[Self Control not to startle at the scar.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 6) ( success x 1 )

dririmancy

[Should be one more die there anyway.]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )

dririmancy

Jay isn't that much older than Nathan and she has a youthful smile and a youthful face. This makes her conscious of how she behaves, the need to put on an air of authority. Her school is an elementary school not a wretched hive of scum and villainy (or as it might otherwise be known, junior high or high school), but a certain authority is still necessary. And she does have it, once one gets past her face. Once she has gathered herself together to regard Nathan directly (with barely a flinch) and hold out a hand. Handshake. Hers is brisk and firm and the kind of handshake used to put parents in their place or to shut them up or to reassure them that they are not the ones in charge here.

"Hi. Thank you for coming. Just Jay will do. Please sit."

Nathan Marszalek

[perc + empathy! REALLY TRYING TO PAY ATTENTION THIS TIME.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 4, 7) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

dririmancy

He can see her eyes flicker like she wants to look over his shoulder. Paranoid? Perhaps. He can also tell that she's worried, maybe see it when he notices her nails as they shake hands - thumb nail bitten down but not as if she does it all the time. Something taut about the shape of her smile. She wants to tell him things but it's going to be hard to get what she wants out anyway.

Joy.

Nathan Marszalek

Scar on his face. Scars on his arms. Lord only knows what happened to him. They're not here to talk about him. Ignore the flinch. Smile again. Handshake brisk and firm the sort of handshake twenty-somethings use when they're surrounded by people who think they're still kids. Alright. They can do this.

Please sit.

"Sure," he says. No smart aleck comments yet. Like he's trying to put her at ease she who sounded tense even in the email and especially on the phone. Pulls back the chair across from her and settles down like his back is stiff.

Once he is settled:

"I think this'll run smoothest if you explain things to me like I don't know anything about the attacks. Just tell me what happened from your own perspective and if I've got any questions I'll save 'em for the end. I'm not recording or writing anything down, so."

If he glances over his shoulder when she does that's going to make her jumpy. So he knits his hands together and lays his forearms across the table and tries to look nonchalant. Blond doe-eyed thing that he is he looks easy enough to talk to.

dririmancy

"But it is on the record, right?"

Nathan Marszalek

An earnestly thoughtful expression. He'd been assuming she wanted whatever she told him to stay confidential. That this would just be a tip-off or a lead. Confidentiality in journalism leads to the splitting of hairs sometimes.

It interests him and he likes what he does most of the time. He could talk at great length about journalism and reporting and the press. That's why he's going to school to become a journalism professor. But Jay is jumpy and paranoid and has been through something.

So he says, "If you wanna be named as a source in anything that gets published later, sure."

dririmancy

"I don't wanna be named as a -- " jumpy, indeed. Her eyes go wide with alarm, and she corrects herself immediately: "I don't want to be named as a source. I just don't know how this works. I just wanted somebody who might - "

Jay glances at the door again. Then she clasps her hands on the table they're seated at and leans forward. Her shoulders are hunched inward and it isn't a casual slouch, although she wishes it to be. There is so much tension in her neck.

"I just wanted somebody who might do something, or know people who might do something, to know." Fidget.

Nathan Marszalek

"It's okay."

This at the end of all that and he's unlatching his hands and sitting back like to give her some space. Reassuring even as she's starting to get more jumpy.

"Hey, Jay. This sort of thing happens all the time. Anything you tell me is gonna stay confidential. Alright? Nobody'll know it came from you and I'll do whatever I can once I know what's going on, but..."

They're circling back around now.

"... you know, in order for me to do anything, you gotta start from the beginning."

dririmancy

"Okay," Jay says. "Okay. That police officer didn't just 'happen' on the scene. The one who was hurt. Those dogs weren't his, but I know him. I know he's into dogs. He's, I mean I heard, I found out that he's doing things with these dogs, that he's running a sort of - he fights them I think. I never heard him say so but he used to come to our school and do - he'd do talks for the kids about safety and about the K-9 unit. He nice but not... He's... Young," as if they both aren't. But Brent McDermott was apparently more worthy of 'young.' "The thing of it, Mister Marszalek, is that I heard," she is suddenly brisk, "through my sources that this friend of his has been trying to get children to come 'play with the dogs.'"

Nathan Marszalek

He keeps his hands knit atop his knees now. Leaned back from the table she can see what he's doing. All he's doing is sitting and listening. Without a notepad and pen he doesn't quite know what to do with his hands. If she were a friend needing an ear he'd just slouch and call it a day. Hazy boundaries here. That's why many publications won't take off-the-record comments.

"Who's his friend? Do you know?"

dririmancy

"I don't. My sources aren't always very able to express themselves clearly, or believably," she says, still brisk. He might consider that her sources are probably children, given her job and the subject matter. "But I think that he might be somebody else on the force."

Her eyes shift to the door again. The police make every right thinking American paranoid, don't they? This is a police state. Or it will be soon, if they have their way. And here in Denver, aren't they as corrupt as anywhere?

When her eyes shift back, she's looking hard at Nate, as if she can read what he thinks of whatever she's telling him.

[Perception + Empathy.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )

Nathan Marszalek

Nate holds up under the scrutiny. He doesn't look like a man capable of lying but his face doesn't betray much as it is. Not unless he's trying. Nothing there to betray. His eyes are warm and kind and his brow is relaxed even if the muscles around his mouth are a bit tense from feeling sympathy for her.

He's seeing a lot of loose threads and doesn't quite know where to start in tugging them loose but that doesn't mean he thinks she's crazy. Just means he's withholding judgment until he reaches his own conclusion.

"The boy who was attacked that night, that was one of your students?"

dririmancy

"No," Jay says. Then, almost immediately, "That's disingenuous of me. A cousin of one of the children who attend my school, yes. The world can sometimes seem very small."

Nathan Marszalek

Very small. Very strange. Nathan nods at her observation and looks like he would smile if they weren't discussing the fate of a five-year-old boy. Dog-fighting and potential pedophiles.

"The attack took place at night, didn't it? Any idea what he was doing there?"

dririmancy

[Conscience.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )

dririmancy

Jay hesitates for a long moment, a snag-nail sort of moment. There is something she would like to tell him, but in the end she cannot bring herself to. Some moral codes go too deep, are so deeply ingrained. The wood is nothing without the grain.

"No, I'm afraid not. I do know that there have been other complaints about -- about fights in that area. I have a cousin myself," she says, rather wryly. "College dorm. Animals getting out of control. A couple other kids getting attacked, apocryphal stuff. All I know for a certainty, or feel I know for a certainty, is that there's more ... story there. And it's dangerous."

This doesn't explain why she's so afraid. But perhaps she just has a nervous disposition.

Nathan Marszalek

More than once Nathan has tried to give himself a clear exit by claiming he's a crime reporter and not an investigative journalist. It isn't his job to go digging. He just coughs up what the cops are already announcing and then steps back. He hasn't got the disposition of someone who would go chasing down every lead he came across but he does feel a certain tugging in the pit of him when he hears a call like this.

Life doesn't lend itself to mottos there being so many of them but Nathan likes to think that doing what he can where he can is a simple enough way to live. All he has to really do here is make a couple phone calls and bug the guy who wrote the original article to cough up any leads he was sitting on.

And ignore the dead bird on his motorcycle.

"Well, I appreciate you reaching out to me." He unlaces his hands and plants them on his thighs but doesn't stand yet. "Just so we're on the same page: this is the DU dorms, we're talking? Where the animals've been attacking people."

dririmancy

Jay doesn't seem like she expects Nathan to go in swinging.

Jay just seems like she wants people to be aware.

To know.

Isn't that the point of a newspaper? Of journalism? Freedom of speech and the press? Share news more important than which youtube video was really fucking cute the other day and topped however many trillion views.

"Yes," she says. "I just... I think the police are protecting Officer McDermott's partner," frank, her hands have been clasped this whole time, tightly. "It makes me feel better knowing someone knows. You did a ...really good job on that terrorist report."

Nathan Marszalek

"Oh." Shit. He's briefly startled that anybody even read that and then silent a moment afterwards as he reminds himself that the general population has no idea what he knew when or what he didn't disclose. A brief flash of a smile anyway. "Thank you."

Walk it off rookie.

"Well hopefully we'll get to the bottom of this and the dog attacks'll stop, huh?" Like it's that simple. "If you think of anything else, you've got my email and my number and everything. Feel free to use them."

Nathan Marszalek

[perc + empathy!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

dririmancy

Jay Rodriguez thanks Nathan for his time and offers him a ten dollar gift card to StarBucks. She's not a teacher so she doesn't get as many gift cards as they do around this time of year, but she doesn't get completely left out in the snow. They part ways, and Jay doesn't seem any easier for their conversation.

Something is gnawing at her. Something is chewing her ragged, is picking sinew and muscle from her bones peeling it away and this is a metaphor.

Something else. Can't speak it. Don't speak it. Troubling.

The reporter will do what reporters do.

Find a way to report. It'll be fine.

No it won't.

--

The next day, when he goes to leave work, he'll find a hopscotch scrawled in chalk near his motorcycle or the jeep. There will be words in the hopscotch squares:

one | punches | hard | two drink | deeply | mad maze | cuming.

Dririmancy - Amber Gets A Pet

coronach

Sunday, she received an invitation (special). Sunday, what the fuck was up with her barista was just didn't get a lot of sleep. I'll see you around. Tuesday, some one-winged bird was found dead on her doorstep, the ants not yet aware of the feast.

Wednesday, May 21st.

There is a hair-fine crack in the wooden handle of one of Amber's middle-sized acrylic & oil paintbrushes and in front of her home [where the heart is?] there is a chalk hopscotch with these words written in each square: one | drinks deep | two | see ghosts | ghosts see | four | are | eu4ic | minotaurs -->

And a child-sized chalk outline.

They only draw chalk outlines for reporters or newspaper photographers to help highlight a gruesome scene, don't they? They only draw chalk outlines to contaminate evidence (whoops), or if somebody still has a chance to be saved if they're rushed to the hospital speedily enough.

The day stretches out before her, or perhaps the afternoon is what stretches out before her. When vampires become your reason for living, when you're wrapped up in their affairs and their world, one tends to sleep late.

Amber

Sunday is when she received the invitation, but not before she went to get her coffee. Talked to the barista. Got some seriously weird weird weird vibes. Then she lies to Amber, or sort of lies, and Amber can tell. She always knows when it's her that makes people fidget, makes them look nervous, makes them smack their lips like their mouth's suddenly gone all dry.

Amber's eyes narrow at her, suspicion growing, or is it suspicion? Is it maybe just irritation? She liked this place. She was used to it, and people like Amber don't get to get used to places. Someone always pulls the trigger on her temper and makes it so she can't go back.

That's not how it happens this time, but she still wonders. "Yeah," is her answer to that Uh so I guess I'll see you around? It doesn't sound very promising.

And in the end it's not. Amber isn't the sort to care so much about the wellfare and happiness of other people (strangers) that she'll do things, avoid things, act differently to placate them. She doesn't know the barista or any of the other staff at the coffee shop well enough to say she cares about them, really. The reason she stops going is simple. Amber doesn't like being where she's not wanted, she doesn't need the bother of it.

=====

It's later. The bird was dumped into the big purple trash bin she keeps behind her little house-unit. Trash day came and went and so did the carcass. Amber didn't think about it again after that day.

What she thinks about is the hairline crack she finds in her paint brush. It's the one she keeps in her hair or in her pocket or in her bag. Close. The end of the handle just a little tapered for her protection. It is an unobtrusive weapon kept for a very specific sort of protection. Maybe she should stop twisting it into her hair. She frowns at it. It's not nearly enough to make her want to get rid of it, so she puts it back into the jar with her other brushes and picks out a new one.

Takes some time to redefine the end of the handle a little, make it just a bit sharper. Just in case.

=====

Later still and she finds the chalk outline. Sadly, it does not entirely surprise her. Her home is right across the street from a charter school for international children. There is a lot of hatred in the world.

That doesn't mean it doesn't make her angry. She takes out her phone and snaps a picture of it. Mostly it. A bit of the hopscotch chalk drawing ends up in it, too. She sends the picture in a text to Detective Jasper Brahms, DPD Vice, along with the message, "What the fuck is this doing outside my fucking door??"

coronach

Jasper Brahms responds to the photograph and the text with a text of his own:

What am I looking at? How the fuck should I know why kids do what they do? Did you piss off the neighborhood brats?

Not exactly the most caring or horrified response, but Jasper is jaded as the stone he's named for if that stone were actually jade. Which is very jaded.

Somebody's put up at least twenty fliers on a fence just two houses down from Amber advertising a band called Mellow Foxhound, the picture of the lead singer black and white and over-saturated staring out from the paper like a convict trapped in a 2-D world when really they'd love to be 3-D.

Somebody else is taking them down right now, a young woman with earbuds in her ears, blue hair in a pompadour, dark skin, a viciously cheerful way of brushing her hands off once she's taken two down.

If Amber starts to walk to Santa Fe, she's going to pass that young woman, and that young woman's going to say, "Can you believe these assholes?" in reference to the fliers, gesture sharply at them.

Amber

This isn't a prank from one of the other guys at the precinct?

Does he know how she had to backspacebackspacebackspace through a snarling retort? What he does know about Amber is that she's about as friendly as a mongrel stray who's been poked thirteen too many times can be, and that's when she's trying. She'll snarl and snap her teeth, but she's calmed her bite.

Probably it's not some kind of Welcome to the Neighborhood prank. And it's not a legit crime scene - even if she'd slept through it (which, depending on the time it was drawn or any possible crime could've taken place is entirely possible) there'd be more detritous to a crime scene than this.

Fucking kids. Amber swears all the more fervently never to have any of her own.

Fucking...fucking everything. She's going to go to Santa Fe and look around, maybe talk to that tattoo artist at that parlor she's interested in, maybe slip him some designs or simply discuss a thing she wants imprinted onto herself. It's when she's on her way that she sees the fence. She sees the fliers before she sees the person but when she sees the person her attention is sharp. Sharp over her hair and her skin and the curve of her cheeks.

She looks from the woman cleaning up the fliers to the fence and scowls. She clucks her tongue. "You want a hand?" she asks, perhaps surprisingly, but then the woman doesn't know her. Not many do. Amber doesn't swell with righteous indignation or rush to do her civic duty because she cares much about the city. The fliers are ugly and they're on someone's fence. They were on Amber's fence she'd have the whole thing torn out. Fucking fences.

Fucking assholes.

[percept+investigation]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3) ( fail )

Amber

[alertness?]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )

coronach

The texts:

Not as far as I know

Whod think it was funny or whod they be trying to prank?

Amber, looking over the fliers, sees nothing of particular distinction, nothing of particular note, nothing to indicate that there's a message anywhere except that Mellow Foxhound really would appreciate the honor of your presence, etcetera. The copymachine they used to make the copies has a flaw and the flaw is persistent in showing up, picture after picture after picture, super-imposed over the lead singer's face, but even that doesn't quite grab Amber. What does grab Amber is a note at the very bottom, something that says, fuck you red im doing it.

Knows she's seen the woman living in the house behind the fence before, in passing, knows she's a redhead, that kind of deep almost auburn color, so maybe it's a vengeance spamming of fliers.

Boys can be assholes. Men are worse.

The woman with the blue pompadour (whose house it is not) looks surprised by Amber's offer, then grins. A startling white grin, flash of pristine set of chompers, and she takes one of her earbuds out to let it dangle against her throat. "Really? Yeah. Excellent." Another scrape scrape peel of fliers down and out-- looks like glue was used on some. "I'm Zina," she offers.

Now you.

The street isn't very busy right now, but it's not exactly an empty and abandoned wasteland. The sound of kids playing near by between a couple of buildings reaches Amber, a crescendo of shrieks and then some barking. There's a van idling across the street from the house with the fliers. Just idling, a guy in the driver's seat his attention hard on a phone.

Amber

You'd be surprised. - The response.

Or maybe he wouldn't. He's in Vice, he knows what kinds of things people get up to just for kicks. Then again, dumb pranks on the prostitute's daughter that spurned them are probably too low on the list for him to notice, though. She doesn't tell him. It's already bad enough she's been seen hanging around Detective Brahms' desk more than any other. Best not to burn what pull she has with the force for That One Guy.

And then the fence. Nothing unusual about the fence. This part of the city, people see all sorts of fliers up about all sorts of things. Come see this band in this hole in the wall bar, this club, this half-gallery half-bookshop one-eighth bar. Come see Mellow Foxhound because they'd really appreciate it. Same shit different location.

Except these appear to have been put up on someone's personal property without first obtaining permission. Ugh, what assholes, right?

Zina's surprised by Amber's offer to assist, and Amber lifts and lets fall her shoulder in a shrug. "Amber," she says, because now it's her turn. There's van idling but the driver's intent on a phone and not the kids and not the women, so he doesn't hold Amber's attention for longer than it takes her to notice him.

Then, "You a friend?" She nods her head toward the house.

coronach

Jasper doesn't return that text, at least not right away. Some time later, Amber'll get a little: Guess so.

"That would make sense, wouldn't it?" Zina says, soft-voiced and self-aware but not self-aware enough to seem sheepish (not even sheepish as the latest style in clothing for wolves. But blue pompadour doesn't seem to indicate wolves). "But not really. I just know she wouldn't appreciate it."

"You new to the neighborhood?" Two hands make the work of taking down the flier mural easy even if those two hands are attached to conversing women.

... And the tone of the children's voices changes, subtle at first but suddenly shot-through with- isn't that a little too piercing, too shrill, to be just playing?

Amber

Two sets of hands make the removal of the fliers go that much quicker, and quicker still one one of those sets is used to scraping off old wallpaper or bits of glued-to-the-wall (c'mon, fuckin' college kids renting houses, but your shit in frames at least) posters.

"Little bit," she admits when Zina asks if she's new. She doesn't give a timeframe of when she moved in or for how long she's been in her little blue house-unit. It's enough for the stranger to know that Amber hasn't been in the neighborhood too long.

She might say something more, but those children's voices. Even at a slight distance they're starting to cut straight through from one ear canal to the other, a sharp stab like an ice pick right through the middle of her head. Her eyes narrow and she scowls. Shoots a quick, sharp look at Zina because Amber doesn't have the manners to say Excuse me a second or I'll be right back.

Wouldn't that just be too surprising if she did?

Anyway, she makes that face and she gives that look (does Zina look concerned? does she look like she notices the shrieking?) and she stalks, stalks off to find the source. Just so she can ask a hars, "What?" when she gets there.

Amber

[percept+alert COME ON YOU STUPID GIRL NOTICE THINGS]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 7) ( success x 1 )

coronach

Zina might've been just beginning to look -- not concerned, but let's say rather, -- aware that the kids were being noisy in a way that is designed to get into the head. Evolution, maybe. Amber makes that face. Zina looks after her as she goes, and where does she go?

She goes across the street. Another house, and then a wide and generous alley between that house and another, where there's a sad and woe-begotten looking couch somebody's dumped and an even sadder and more woe-begotten basketball hoop and there are kids.

Five of them. Two are on the couch, screaming their heads off, one of them with a stick. One is under an overturned shopping cart, crying. And another is running away.

There is a dog. A little one, a dachsund with a wire-haired coat, menacing the shopping cart, not barking or making any noise yet except -- now that she's close -- a wet-in-the-lungs growling, snarling, and it's a filthy dog, bloody, yes bloody, dry blood on its coat and blood around its santa-bearded little mouth, caking fur into dreds.

Amber

[this will determine how Amber deals with this scenario: Conscience! (what could go wrong?)]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

Amber

Amber does not like children. It has nothing to do with her upbringing. She was not (terribly) menaced by other children when she was a child herself, at least, no more so than many other children all the world over. Her mother, despite a misstep with her daugher that gave the child a deep-seeded fear of darkness, was a good mother that Amber loved dearly.

No, Amber does not like children because children are assholes. They are burdens, they are leeches. Their very existence sucks the soul from a person along with all their hopes, dreams for themselves, and their money. There are people in the world who are satisfied or even happy to make that sacrifice. Indeed there is a multitude of people who do not even see it as a sacrifice.

Amber is not one of those people.

Still.

There are children screaming with fear and there is a dog, a mangy bloody thing, growling at a child trapped beneath a shopping cart. Her heart does not go out to the children, she does not suddenly feel a mother's protective instinct, she thinks

Shit. Shit! Rabid dog!

But she is aware that there are children around and she is aware of how wrestling even a small dog to the ground to stop it attacking (permanently) would affect these children. Children who are already traumatized. Well, shit. Shit shit shit! Amber doesn't have the heart to pile more trauma on top of that.

She runs forward toward the animal, intent on scooping it up.

Amber

[+6]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )

coronach

[+4.]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )

coronach

[kid with stick. +3]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 1 )

coronach

The dogs ears prick and its hackles are up as Amber comes swooping, comes sweeping in; it doesn't want to leave its prey under the shopping cart and snaps again with a clash of teeth (smash! [smash!]) at the cart and turns around and bites Amber bites her oh it bites her once that's what it wants to do bite her and eat her flesh feast on it give me give me give me. This is not a nice dog and its teeth are sharp.

The kid on the couch with the stick, a snot-nosed little carrot-top with glasses and a pugnacious set to her chin, gulps and it looks like she's screwing up her own courage to get down off the couch and help the kid under the shopping cart out. If the dog is distracted. There's an adult here now. The adult'll handle it.

Amber

Amber comes swooping in like some dark avenging angel. Hair streaming like a red-streaked brown banner in her wake, face screwed up into a look of fury because Amber's face is always a hair's breadth, a second, a millimeter away from looking furious. She throws at her arms before she gets to the animal and does it bite her before she gets to it? Does it sink its teeth into her arm?

Well. Doesn't that just make it one step closer to being clinched in her arms?

She crouches, swooping, sweeping, golem given life to defend, to protect, to remove the threats to a neighborhood under her watch (or seeming to). She is intent on grabbing that dog. One hand beneath its belly, the other coming up under its jaw before she closes it close against her chest. Pinning it.

Before she runs, runs to the veterinarian clinic she's passed who knows how many times on her way down Kalamath to wherever.

[dex+brawl: SCOOP! +WP because tripping and falling straight into a dog's face would be too embarrassing]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 3, 6, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

coronach

The dog's teeth are still gnashing against the metal of the shopping cart, its intent to turn a half-finished thing and an intention to gnash its jaws just beginning to form, spittle-dripping from its teeth, chomp! when Amber swoops in. The little thing has no chance to dance away or to jump under Amber's arms and go for her belly, so she gets it, holds it, holds it and runs.

The screaming turns to wild cheers.

Unfortunately, these don't seem very soothing to the dog, which struggles in Amber's grasp, wildly. Wild-eyed. It stinks.

Amber

[str+potence+brawl! scared to use WP because she doesn't want to crush it so going without it *crosses self*]

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

coronach

[Dachsund's: strength + potence + brawl]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )

Amber

[dex+ath]

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

Amber

[inits again! grrrr! +6]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )

Amber

[percept+occult]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )

coronach

[Dachshund: +4]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )

coronach

[Kid with stick: +3]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )

coronach

It stinks, and it is strong. Too strong, too, too strong for something as little as it is, and it doesn't escape Amber's grasp because it's difficult to hold on to: it uses sheer brute (blood-fueled? [ghoul?]) force to get out and land on the ground and shake its head and this time it wants to bite her leg so that's what it lunges forward to do, favoring a paw

while the carrot-haired kid has lifted the shopping cart and is trying to coax her friend out from underneath it, come on, come on, and looks up when the dog escapes and the kid under the cart and still on the couch both stop cheering and start screaming again

which seems to irritate the fucking dog, so its attention is halved.

Amber

It stinks, but who cares? Bums on the street, the people Amber talks to sometimes about what's what in this city, they smell. They wear a perfume of body odor, piss, and stale alcohol soaked into their tattered, grimy clothes. Amber holds onto the dog as long as she can but it's not just any dog.

And she knows that power, that strength. Knows something that small shouldn't be able to squirm out of the arms of someone like her, not unless they were like her, too. Flood's told her that sometimes people take an animal for a ghoul like her. She wonders if that's what that one's cat is, the orange tabby.

Once she knows what it is, though, her heart sinks a little. The little shit's vicious and it's more dangerous than an animal like it should ever be and so Amber has one choice and one choice only. She does not look over at the children with their screams renewed. She looks at the dog and she moves to scoop it up again.

There'll be no vet's examination of it, though. This animal has something far worse than rabies.

[scoop! =[ diff +1]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Amber

[holding onto you: str+potence+brawl]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 6, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )

coronach

[RUFF RUFF RUFF. In dog-language: The fuck you are.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (6, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

Amber

[dex+ath!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 6) ( success x 2 )

coronach

The creature intent on menacing her leg doesn't have a chance to try and dance away from the lovely earth-hewn young woman reaching down to grab it up, swipe it, hold it, hold it, hold it, as she races out of the alley away from the innocents and toward ... well, out of the alley, spilling either onto the street she came of, where Zina her new friend is getting into a car and that man in the van is still idling, or onto the other street, where there are a couple of sparse lawns and traffic in the distance. Maybe that one takes her closer to the shops. Amber: her strength is immense.

If she didn't suspect something was amiss with (supernatural about) the creature before, she knows something is amiss now, because it frees itself with a Titan-worthy effort, something that'd send scratches into her skin and tear her shirt--cosmetic damage only.

It hits the ground again and this time

[pup's self control]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (5, 10) ( success x 1 )

coronach

whines and doesn't immediately attack.

Amber

[conscience!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

Amber

It whines, oh god, it whines at her and holds itself at bay. They're out of sight of the children but possibly in sight of other watchers. That doesn't help Amber much in terms of the grim task she knows is how this is going to end. It is an animal, an animal who has been given a naturally (all-natural, no additives or preservatives!) unnatural (dead, gross, disgusting) energy drink. One that's given it a boost of strength or a boost of speed or both.

Same as Amber. Flood hasn't told her anything about animals becoming ghouls like her, it seems so...strange. Then again, Amber's never been terribly interested in having a pet, she can't understand the desire to keep one into eternity.

But if it has the power of Amber and it has the wherewithal to hold itself back, maybe there's a spark of intelligence? At least a little bit of understanding?

Ugh, this is ridiculous. At least possible-new-friend Zina isn't going to see Amber trying to hold a conversation (a real, semi-intelligent conversation) with a dog.

Amber grimaces, and she glances real quick, side to side, before looking at the dog. Hands out stretched, both I'm not going to hurt you and also but I'm ready if you give me a reason to hurt you.

"Can you understand me...dog?"

[charisma+animal ken, no animal ken]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (6, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )

coronach

[Am I smart? +1 diff]

Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (4, 10) ( success x 1 )

coronach

The dog whines again, a wheezing, wet sound, and it dances uncertainly on its fluffy (matted, filthy) paws, lowering its santa-bearded face (filthy, bloody) down to the sidewalk, ears pricked in the center like it's going to ask a question. It doesn't come any nearer her hand but that's probably a good thing, considering what it was trying to do earlier: eat that child. Blood blood blood blood a haze. It does huff-sigh out dramatically after a second, eyebrows (pale splotches of fur against dark) pricking and manic dark-chocolate eyes less white-rimmed. Does it understand her? It understands her intent not to hurt it at least.

Amber

Amber doesn't lower her hands just as she doesn't lower her guard. Just because the animal has some intelligence doesn't mean she (or anyone else in the neighborhood) is out of danger. Intelligence won't help for long if this animal, this ghouled dog, is suffering from withdrawal. Amber remembers it well, the urges, the strange desires. There were nights she wanted to sink her teeth into someone's arm, jerk her head away, and peel back the flesh. There were times she wanted to ride someone, anyone, to fuck until one or both of them couldn't move anymore. It was only through her surprising strength of will that she never gave into her own urges.

How does a dog fare? If that's what's happening here, well it's obviously not going very well. Amber's eyes narrow.

"Do you need to eat?" she asks, incredulous that she's even having this conversation.

coronach

Eat.

The whine goes up in pitch until it vanishes away, arcing up then diminishes into a hack. The dachshund gives a thump of its little whip of a tail, and scuttles backward.

Panting, its jaw opens. Pant, pant, pant.

It looks Amber in the eyes like its ashamed.

[Self Control.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (1, 7) ( success x 1 )

Amber

Fuck.

Fuckfuckfuck. Fuck.

It needs to eat and she can guess what it needs to eat. But she's not about to run and find herself a vampire to give the dog the fix for the addiction that was forced onto it.

Which means that her options are still limited. But now. Now? Now there's no way a woman with that big of a conscience is going to try to snap that animal's neck. Not without good reason.

"I think I can help you out. You think you can come with me or do I gotta try and grab you again?"

coronach

The dachshund cries (whimpers) and makes a restive-limping gesture back, dragging its blood-straggled blood-dredded jaw across the ground. Apparently it's not going to follow her -- or maybe it is if she starts moving? There's no human-to-animal dictionary on google, and even if there were, it probably wouldn't be much good.

coronach

[la la la]

Amber

Amber does not speak dog. She assumes its because the dog is a ghoul that it has any understanding of her whatsoever. Possibly she's right. Flood said there are vampires who can command animals to do their bidding. Maybe it understands enough of what it's been commanded before to get the gist of two-leg vocalizations.

That is to say that she doesn't understand what it means when it limp-steps back away from her, dragging its jaw across the ground. Is it being defensive? Whimpers aren't the same as growls, same with cries versus barks. It doesn't seem like it's going to attack her. Still. She can't let it get loose.

She crouches, lowering to the dog's level but also preparing herself to spring forward should she need. Once she's lowered herself, she holds her arms out and tries to encourage the dog toward her.

"C'mon, dog," she says.

[manip+ uh, empathy? though subterfuge is the same pool, so whicheveR!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )

Amber

[fine then SCOOP!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Amber

[str+potence+brawl! diff 4]

Dice: 7 d10 TN4 (1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

Amber

[try again diff 5?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 5 )

coronach

[now the test. do I escape, ruff ruff.]

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

coronach

The dachshund doesn't come any nearer to Amber. Maybe it doesn't speak human. Maybe all it hears are noises and its just intelligent to know that this human person wants something, that this human person is talking nicely to it, that this human person is more than meat on a bone although wouldn't it (that scrape of a whine) love to eat the meat from the bone. The dachshund does not 'come on.'

And then Amber dives in, scooping it up and holding, and holding, and holding; and this time it isn't strong enough to get free again, although it does begin to struggle in her arms, paws scrabbling, jaw trying to open so it can snap her flesh from her face or her shoulder or her arm or where ever is the nearest.

To the vet? No. To Amber's home? Maybe?

Amber

Amber scoops the little hound up, and one of her arms is like a steel band around its little body, gripping it against her chest. Her other hand clamps under its jaw, and she holds it up, and she holds it there. It's a hard hold to break and so that hold does not break.

Leaving Amber free to take the dog somewhere, but where? Not to the vet, they can't meet its needs, not really. No, the only place that she can take it is to her own home, and so to her home she goes. Holding it close. Checking the road both ways before crossing. And darting down the sidewalk to her little blue house.

A little blue house that she may have to lose, and so soon after she got it, too.

Amber

[charisma+contact: the flier]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 3 )

Amber

[street influence: char [4] + influence]

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

Amber

[int+investigation]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 8) ( success x 1 )

coronach

If Amber goes back the way she came, she'll notice straight off that the kids haven't stuck around and the stick the little carrot-top had is stuck in the shopping cart, a flag or a warning or a weapon or war left behind on an abandoned battlefield. Neither can she hear them any longer over the snarl-growl-whine of the creature in her arms, getting frantic the longer its kept constrained.

Her new friend (?) aquaintance is no longer in sight either, but the fliers on the redhead's fence are all gone. A mailman, that's all, who looks at Amber, but why wouldn't he look at Amber, her hair flying like that, her face set that way, intensity delineating her as it always does?

The dog is difficult to wrangle once she's inside, but she finally gets it locked up. Then all she has to do is figure out what she's going to do with it. How she's going to feed it.

Cleaning it probably isn't an option either. And dachshunds are notorious diggers, but Amber might need to wikipedia that one.

Eventually after pawing at the door it collapses and sleeps. Fitfully.

Dreams of blood.

Once Amber starts poking around, she finds a story in the Denver Post (albeit not one authored by the reporter she is familiar with), though little other mention of animals acting mad.

The story is about a brace of dogs (a dachsund and a malamute-shepherd mix) attacking a young boy, name withheld, age 5, before going on to attack a police officer who was on the scene, Brent McDermott, and another unidentified bystander who fled the scene. The young boy is in critical condition and the malamute-shepherd was shot on-site but the dachsund escaped.

No mention is made of the dogs owners and the article just really wants to laugh at the unlikely dog-teamup while letting people know that a cop got hurt. Most of the comments on the online version of the article devolve into vitriolic hate-flinging re: those dogs should be put down LOL NO the cop should be put down they were only trying to help etc etc.

This happened near a school (also unidentified) late at night.

On Friday, haunting some of her old watering holes, she meets a guy she knows who's always been a fighter, dog fighting cock fighting bum fighting street fighting anything where it pits two living beings against one another and sometimes only one walks away. He's a sweet guy, quiet and doesn't like to speak a lot. Only once you've seen him fight do you get the idea that he's someone for whom violence holds an attraction. His mother's a prostitute and he's been raised by an 'uncle.' Looks at her when she brings up the fight club and says, I know it yeah. His voice is full of a mixture of longing and misgivings. Fuckin circus.

And that's what the word on the street seems to be, such as it is. A whole lot of secrecy, a whole lot of quiet. A fuckin' circus, people from uptown involved, nobody talks about it, they always get you. Some sick fuck's idea of a good time. Make people fight who have good lives or don't make a mint off of it make a new fucking mint Treasury Beware. They always get you nobody knows how but they do.

Fuckin' circus.

Dririmancy - Verna vs. the World

Verna Gardner

It's Monday by the time Verna gets to calling her friend back. Marie sounded so terrified on the other end that, well, Verna had to. Otherwise, she could have pretended to forget getting the call (because who wants to suffer through an annoying babysitting routine eh?)

But it's been eating at her. However much of an annoying prat Marie can be, Verna has a conscience.

So, after work, as she's sorting the mail and thinking of other household duties that need doing, she decides to put them off to ease the worried mind a bit. Her phone gets dug out of her purse, and Marie's contact info accessed, and then...

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

dririmancy

Rather than going to messages, the phone is picked up with the welcoming (in spite of caller ID) and dulcet tones of a snapping -

"Who is this?"

That isn't Marie. That's Jon Marc. Her live-in boyfriend of who knows how many years, sounding clipped and more like a marine than actual marines sound.

Verna Gardner

"Uh, it's Verna?" she says, and it comes out quite surprised and a little annoyed. Well hello to you, too.

"Where's Marie? She told me to call..."

Verna Gardner

[Perception + Empathy!]

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

Verna Gardner

[Perception + Awareness!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )

dririmancy

Dead silence. Ticks by. One two. Three four five.

"She's out. And she's done with that call center bullshit, so don't bother calling. It just stresses her out."

He apparently remembers Verna's name but not that she got the job of her dreams (and at least her friends were happy for her, are happy for her).

He's lying. She's not 'out.' Or at least he's being dishonest. Listening to Jon Marc's voice- cold moving under her skin, a sense of wrongness. She's felt hunches like that a few times, but they don't always mean anything (that she ever finds out).

And, click.

Verna Gardner

Oh, God. Someone's boyfriend is pulling the controlling jerk trick. Ohh, let's separate a woman from her friends so she's nice and dependent. Where have we seen this before? Like, everywhere?

She dials the number again, getting increasingly angry at Jon Marc for taking her friend's phone and pulling this crap.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

dririmancy

It rings the same number of times, before Jon Marc answers, belligerent (with a click of teeth, slobber), "What?"

Verna Gardner

"Jon Marc, where is Marie? She asked me to watch her kid this weekend. This has nothing to do with the call center, I don't even work there anymore," Verna says, and she's got her Big Girl voice on -- the kind of take no bullshit tone that she can suddenly pull.

The kind she once turned to an undead trespasser.

dririmancy

[Ladeela.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (6, 6) ( success x 2 )

dririmancy

Jon Marc sucks in a deep, deep deep breath, and then exhales in a rush. "We don't have any plans this weekend," he says, and he sounds suspicious, sullen, as if the only reason Marie might want the kids to have a babysitter is that he and she might have plans. "She's out. She left her cell and I picked it up. Said she was going to see a friend earlier." Beat. Vicious, "Happy?"

Verna Gardner

"No, I'm not. You could have told me the truth," Verna says, and hangs up. Ugh. Men.

And ugh Marie for going for a man like that.

Verna Gardner

[Perc + Alert!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN9 (1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 6) ( fail )

dririmancy

The rest of the night passes without note (unless Verna decides to make any other phonecalls).

The next morning, there's another gift on her windshield. This one isn't a dead bird, but a flier for a dry cleaners. Apparently the appropriate graphic for a dry cleaners is a smiling cartoon telescope, and it's written mostly in Spanish.

The next evening, once she returns home from work, that same flier is shoved under her door.

Verna Gardner

The choice of graphic causes her brow to raise a touch, but people leave horrible little fliers on your windshield all the time. It's at least less nasty than a dead bird.

She grabs the flier and throws it away whenever she gets the chance, and gives a similar treatment to the one shoved under her door.

Verna's not a litterer. She likes (needs) things to be very neat.

dririmancy

Wednesday.

The sky is darkening, that twilight not dark yet time when light and dark don't know what they want to do. Verna has parked her car, and this is when she gets a text.

From Marie's number.

Hi. Im so sorry.

Verna Gardner

[Perception + Alertness!]

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

Verna Gardner

Verna gets the text notification as a little tone coming from her purse, and goes to retrieve her phone. Marie.

Is it really her? Or that lying jerk Jon Marc? She presses the "Call Contact" button in order to find out.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

dririmancy

This is a moment of acute clarity for Verna Gardner. Marie or Jon Marc has texted her (using Marie's phone) and there is a homeless man (he comes here, occasionally; this is a dark, dark world) sleeping in the fore-shortened front yard of the neighboring apartment building, big-bellied and curled around a shopping cart. The homeless man's cat (and he's a clean homeless man, never tries to talk to any of the women around or panhandle with people who might be uncomfortable, moves on eventually) pricks its ears up out've his shopping cart and stares fixedly at something.

A dog.

A dog wandering down the sidewalk without an owner or any sign of an owner. The dog is weaving this-a-way, that-a-way, not as if it's curiously drawn by scents, but as if every time it tries to go one way its body falls the other way. Limping, the dog: a wire-haired dachshund. This is a moment of acute clarity for Verna Gardner, and even if she knows nothing about animals, she can tell at a glance that (although it is small [short stubby legs a sprout of wild facial hair]) it's not right, it's filthy, and there's what looks like blood, matted.

It starts to sniff the ground, ambling (erratically) toward Verna's door.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

Voice mail.

Verna Gardner

Verna squints at the dog, why is it pawing at her door? But then, there is Marie (or whoever that is) to respond to.

Is this really Marie? Sorry for what?

dririmancy

Im sorry about you know who. Want to meet at 1Up tonight or tomorrow?

The dachshund is at her door now, sniffing. Circles around and under her wheel and she can see its body waggle back and forth. Waddle. That's the word, waddle. There's an old hairless patch on its flank. She'll notice that took if she looks out the window, right before it leaves her line of sight.

She'll hear it though, snuffling, wet panting, a wheezing whine and a little mini growl-yelp.

dririmancy

That text is followed quickly by

Ill explain in person ok?

Verna Gardner

What the heck is up with that dog? It's under her car? Whining at her? Well, ugly feral dogs do not get much sympathy. Especially when they're weirdly interested in her. What, did she roll around in something dead without realizing it?

Sure, I'll go to 1Up. Just no more strip clubs, okay?

Tonight's fine. I have nothing planned.

dririmancy

[Hup!]

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

dririmancy

Ok great. What time? 8 ok or too early?

Silence. If Verna peers forward through her windshield, toward the last known direction of that little growl-yelp, she'll juuust see the dog's rear quarters wiggling into view and then --

nails clickclicking against aluminum

-- it jumps onto the front hood of her car, scrabbling for purchase but finding it, growling, growling, spittle (or is that foam? - no. it's spittle) flecking from its teeth which are visible. It sniffs at the glass of her windshield snorting like an old man which would be comical (perhaps another time) with that old St. Nick beard, except for how the bloody patches amongst all the tangled filthy gleam wet. Or maybe that's spit too.

Verna Gardner

Verna doesn't respond for a while. There is a dog that looks like it's right out of a zombie movie crawling on her windshield. She honks the horn. Yells at it too. "Go away, mutt!"

Sorry, there's this dog bothering me. 8's fine. I'm off work by then.

dririmancy

[Bark?]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 6) ( success x 1 )

dririmancy

No further texts from Marie so eight o' clock it must be.

The dog loses its purchase on the hood of her car and slip-scratches a couple of inches downward and then regains its balance, plants its short stubby legs in and starts barking at Verna. Unceasingly. Teeth flashing between the bloodied muzzle, eyes bright with canine hunting madness or canine hunting fury.

Verna Gardner

[Charisma! Shoo, doggy, shoo!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5) ( fail )

Verna Gardner

She shrugs her shoulders. There's really nothing to do about the dog other than to start the car and try to nudge it off with some inertia.

Which, she does. No dog is holding on for long, especially if she hits the brakes suddenly. This could be rather unfortunate for the dog, but it looks positively rabid, and Verna's no idiot.

dririmancy

[YELP.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN9 (6, 7, 7, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )

dririmancy

The animal isn't happy when the car starts to nudge forward and it stops barking for a second that feels like heaven, no shrill raspy as a brillopad bark bark bark bark bark bark bark and when Verna slams on the breaks the whites around its eyes show. The animal does go skidding, is gravity-flung, toward the edge of the car, but almost as soon as it disappears from sight it's back. Back at the driver's window, teeth snapping against the glass, leaving a streak of gore behind. Dachsunds are funny looking dogs, but they're brave and relentless and they were bred to take on vicious wild animals in close-confined dark places. It's looking at Verna like she's the vicious wild animal and it'd just love to get in a close-confined dark place with her.

Verna Gardner

Ugh, tenacious little mutt. Well, off with the kid gloves then.

She's just going to drive around for a little bit, because the dog cannot continue to hold on, and she is emphatically not getting out of the car as long as it's around. Maybe hit somewhere to eat before going to 1Up? Sounds like a plan.

Because, that mutt may be little, but it looks like it wants to have Verna for dinner, and it looks diseased, and to heck with rabies shots.

dririmancy

This is not the dog's lucky day. Verna pulls forward and then swings out into the street proper, and the dog slips and slides off, hitting the ground hard.

Does she look in her rearview mirror to see what happened to it? Her car doesn't bump up as though she ran over it; at least there's that (though given its state, that might've been a mercy).

Dinner awaits. And 1-Up. And Marie.

Verna Gardner

She does look into the rear view to see what happened to it, because she is morbidly curious. Maybe it's going to try to follow her car?

In any case, she heads to dinner. Which turns out to be Wendy's, because while Dr. Andrassy pays well, he doesn't pay that well, and she does have student loans to pay back.

Ahh, doesn't the thought of her boss bring a smile to her face? Doesn't it bother her too? The way she feels toward the man just isn't right.

dririmancy

Her rear-view mirror tells her: the dog is still alive, limping down the street. Barkness now, but still as erratic. Its ears prick up as it sees something else it wants to bother and it goes careening toward the mailboxes. A danger. Maybe its owner will find it. Probably not.

The 1Up. Blake Street. Little gated entrance in front of which sits a man on a stool with his arms crossed over his chest. A bar. The lighted sign above the man's head has a green mushroom cap [m04r power!]. Mario!!!! This isn't just a bar. This is also an arcade. They ask for ID at the door and if somebody's underage it's out with the wristbands.

Down some stairs.Through a door.Down some more stairs.

The bar proper where the walls are lined with classic arcade machines and the bar's generous with walls of liquor, seating for those who've come to chill, tables with huge, heavy blocked giant Jenga games and and and and other boardgames and and and.

There's Marie. Marie in a hoody, nursing a pint and a plate of nachos over by one of the giant jenga machines, jingling some coins in the palm of her hand. Verna knows that it's Marie because she knows how Marie looks, duh. But there's also a very distinctive manicure, the nails long enough to make picking some things up problematic, tonight coloured in a rainbow theme. Her hood is up, dark hair peeking through.

Verna Gardner

Verna is not underage. Young, but not that young. She still gets carded (which everyone does) and gets out her driver's license. She's a regular to this place, but it doesn't matter. The rules are the rules.

Down into the bar with arcade noises, then. Nice to be meeting Marie in a place that isn't a den of sex and misery, isn't it? She wouldn't mind running into Dr. Andrassy here, not at all. No, that would be very nice.

Oh, Verna! Focus!

"Marie! I made it," she says, over the sound of pinball machines and video games as she walks up.

Verna Gardner

[Percept + Alert Diff 7!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 7, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )

dririmancy

Marie looks quite wholesome even when she has a lot of make-up, like she does tonight. A lot of make-up. Her skin is a clear peaches and cream and her eyes are a blue not unlike the colour of eyes Verna's boss has (but why would she think about the colour of her boss's eyes? Tsk) and she doesn't need that much foundation but there it is. Verna's eyes are sharp even in the lighting of the arcade, lighting and pew! ping pewpewpews casting a net of people having fun all around, and when those Jenga boards come crashing down it's bowling-loud, and she can see the shadow of the bruise Marie's covering up on the side of her jaw and something on her neck too. Harder to notice with the hair and the hoody but it's there.

Marie. Marie's eyebrows that are plucked into elegant wings and that dark hair usually blow-dried and teased into waves and she's a young mother, certainly. Two kids. Rocket and Cleolinda. At least they can go by Rocky and Cleo. Or RJ, which is what Rocket likes to be called. Cleo's only three.

The kids are, unsurprisingly, nowhere to be seen.

Marie smiles her hello and says, "I'm so glad you came. How are you and how's work? I feel like we haven't talked in ages!"

[Manip + Subt.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

Verna Gardner

[Percept + Empathy]

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

dririmancy

There's something brittle about Marie's tone. She's putting on a good face, circling around something that's preying on her.

She's still terrified. Eyes dart to the door just a little too quickly, shoulders are just a touch too hunched. She's doing a good job of putting on a good face, but Verna's doing better at noticing signs.

Verna Gardner

Oh, Marie. It's that no-good lying sack of Jon Marc isn't it?

She knows something is terribly wrong here, but Marie is trying so hard to not let Verna know it. Wouldn't be good to go into this gunning for the truth just yet. Instead, Verna smiles back and goes to give her friend a hug.

It's not her usual greeting. Maybe that's enough to tell Marie that Verna knows something, but it's a softer way of saying it.

"Hey, I'm glad I came too. We haven't talked in far too long," she says, whether or not Marie accepts the hug.

dririmancy

Marie accepts the hug (flinches [briefly]) and it may dampen her smile for a moment, but she soldiers on. Once Verna steps back, or takes a seat, Marie nudges the plate of nachos near her again and then plunks a couple of quarters down. "Agreed one hundred percent. So uh, first round is on me and I'll get the first games too. Before we..." Marie trails away. Brittle-determined repeats, like she's trying to stay focused on Verna, not just come spilling out with her own problems (discomfort moving beneath her skin), "So you! What's new? Is it still a really boring sounding heaven to normal people at your new job? Did René do anything else weird?"

Verna Gardner

"René is always weird.

Verna Gardner

[Strike that. It may be true, but there is more to the post than that -_-]

Verna Gardner

"René is always weird. I swear, any time I express any interest in my work at all, he goes all sourpuss on me," she says, and grimaces in imitation.

She slides her way into a chair, and waves away the nachos. "No thanks, I already ate," she says, and then rewinds the conversation a bit. "Before we what? You were about to say?"

dririmancy

[NPC willpower.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

dririmancy

"About... I said I wanted," to explain person. But maybe Verna's going to let her get away with - ? A confusion of emotions. Marie slowly pulls the nachos closer to her and delicately pulls a chip out from the center, where the cheese and meat and vegetables have melted and fused into a delicious chip-sog inducing glory. Her eyes are lowered, the delicate shells of her lids flickering, and then she seems to find something in her. If it's not steel, it is at least forged.

"To talk. I'm," and she lifts her eyes from the chips to meet Verna's, quiet hunted voice. "I'm leaving Jon Marc. He doesn't know yet. My brother's coming by on Saturday while he's at work and we're clearing out the house and going. I'm leaving him a note."

Verna Gardner

"Good. He's horrible. And the kids, you really don't want to expose them to that," she says, not coming out and explicitly saying what she means. She just knows.

"Of course I'll watch them for you, if you're finally getting that man out of your life. Don't worry about that," she says, and puts a hand over Marie's. Maybe Verna was thinking about turning Marie down, but that was before she realized what was going on. Her friend needs someone to protect her kids when escaping from an abuser.

She probably first called right after that bruise was created, poor thing.

dririmancy

"Thank you," she says, as sincere as Verna has ever seen her. Marie can be something of a pain (she giggled for weeks, indeed is still giggling, or would be if this weren't such a serious time, over Verna's distress at being caught ogling naked women and gittin' hugged by her boss at her boss's sleazy strip club of choice), but she means well. Most people do, right? (Your mileage may vary.) "Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you," relief, like a flood. Marie puts both elbows on the tabletop and touches her fingertips to her forehead, breathes in deep, and then meets Verna's eyes again.

"He wasn't this bad until recently," and here's that pop-laugh of distress that Verna heard on the phone on Sunday. "I know everybody says that but it's really true this time. He started... I don't know," flatly. "I think he got into some stuff that maybe his brother in law gave him. Danny, the cop." Her tone is curdling, like all cops are the enemy. "I just..."

"Thank you. You don't work at the call center anymore and and he's never been to your place so I think..." Pause. "Just ... Thank you."

dririmancy

ooc: er, make that: at being caught by her boss ogling naked women and gittin' hugged by one of the dressed ones at her boss's sleazy strip club of choice

Verna Gardner

It's good to see one of her friends from the call center actually doing something responsible for a change. They may enjoy taking advantage and giggling at her misfortune, but there is something of a shared bond when a group of people go through the same horrible thing. Verna knows all the bad bosses, all the terrible stories, more of the gossip than she'd like.

And here Marie's man is getting hopped up on something and beating her, and letting her kids know that is proper behavior.

"Don't mention it. Really, don't. The fewer people know the better," she says, putting her voice down a notch, as if to emphasize that this plan is their little secret.

"Want to go play? Forget for a while?"

dririmancy

Marie smiles. The smile's not as hopeful as it could be. Should be. She still hasn't taken down her hoody and she's not going to for the rest of the night, keep her hair over one side of her neck. But it's a smile and it's as sincere as her thank you. Her perfectly done-up eyebrows rise.

"These quarters aren't just here to look pretty," she says, standing up with a little ankle dip and a hip cock that's pure attitude. "Let's do this."

"And... and I'm buying you at least one drink tonight. You're gonna need it. RJs being a little monster this week..."

...And so the night goes. Play. Forget for a while. Sometimes that's the grown up thing to do.

Coronach & Dririmancy - Preludes

[To be C&Ped]

Bull

Lux

The library is quiet tonight -- it's a library; aren't they always quiet? -- but is disturbed by a number of people breathing, breathing informed by varying states of panic or perturbation or contentment or focus, because Finals are only a week or so away. Even so, it's late enough at night that the students who are still scattered throughout the generous profusion of reading rooms on varying levels their laptops open along with their notebooks are the ones who are really intent or have a plan or were working all day and look like they're going to be working all weekend so they've gotta do this now. They're thinning away; some of them are sleeping.

Here is a(n immortally) young woman who is not sleeping, slouching with a kind of reckless grace over there in the natural history section of the stacks. Her jacket is tweed and her jeans are thin and her shoes are ridiculous, frivolous, an artful confection so it looks like she's walking on dark-rimmed butterflies, and somebody's scrawled words all over her jeans. More than one somebody: somebodies.

As she finally settles on a book -- Maria Sibylla Merian's illustrations -- from outside there is a clap of thunder, rain sheeting the Anderson Commons'; weather for monsters. For Byron and Shelley and poor old Polidori to get together.

Lux

[ooc: not butterflies; my bad. dark gold-brushed foliate given dimension; peeled out've an illuminated manuscript and dipped in tar, then dipped in gold-leaf.]

Bolivar Fisk

Libraries, they were places of solitude, of reverent instruction and tutelage. These places had been repositories of knowledge for so long that even now in the age of data and the internet these physical repositories held strong amongst the onslaught. Bolivar was here of course for the sake of his own curiosity, still new to the city, still new to its secrets he combed the various repositories for signs of diamonds in the rough. Such places were usually picked bare....but one never did know what might have slipped through the cracks.

He was a contrast, even in these places, his body was large, not huge mind you, but topping off at a intimidating six foot eight, and easily weighing three hundred pounds some might equate Bolivar to a walking wall, his steps slow and certain, his boots reverberating on the floors of the library with each slow step..just below the necessary level not to get kicked out.

It would be a choice location to feed, so many sleeping kine, so many unaware intellectuals safe within this bastion of the erudite, and for now they were. The thunder and lighting that mixed with the rain beyond the walls of this place seemed to suit the silver haired man just fine as he adjusted the leather coat over the old blue jeans.

His movements took him through the natural history section tonight, not because it was something he sought, but because what he did seek was in the far corner, that tiny little area that accounted for many esoteric, and uncircumstantiated topics, from philosophy to ancient history, from ancient journals, to the occult itself. This was his destination.

But Lux, languid, reckless, graceful lounged about between himself and his goal, and so soft blue eyes took in her existence from within a hard lined face with a lantern jaw.

Lux

He's looming.

He might not mean to loom but his physiology has made him into a loomer; a Golem in truth, carved eyes and carved mouth lined like baked clay and somebody's thumbs to carve out the brow. He's looming, and his shadow falls across a languid and recklessly graceful young (no) woman so she looks up. Her fine eyebrows rise, delicate in shape if not in expression and she either watches him as he passes by behind her, turning her head twice in order to keep him in her sights, or he's waiting for her to move and so she only turns her head to look at him (inquiringly, attentively).

Whatever color her eyes are isn't important now; they're some shadow-cloted color, some tarnished-up piece of darkness thanks to the way the light falls and the shadows from the bookshelves.

"Say," she says. "You look interesting. Tell me, what's the most interesting idea or fact you've come across this week?"

Bolivar Fisk

It's not so much that she was in his way, thought that was entirely possible, the man might well seem to take up an entire aisle, from shoulder to shoulder, and the dark colour of his clothing seemed not to help in its usually slimming manner, it simply seemed to make him deeper, like one might imagine a personified black hole might be like..if one were to meet it, see it, and survive it.

No she is not in his way, she is simply there, and he is simply stopping to look. It doesnt seem to be a leering thing [looming as it was] Perhaps he is wondering why a woman dressed as she was here in this place. [Not that he was much better.]

When she asks him her quesiton though, calling him interesting he tilts his head slowly to the side and he rolled one shoulder in a mild, casual shrug.

"I would have to say the interesting thing I have absorbed in the last week would simply be that Obsidian transmits the electric field of a human being far more effectively then most precious metals." His voice is deep, but it rumbles gently, a soft thing as he stepped into the area she sat in and looked slowly around. "It's why many ancient cults preferred such brittle damaging instruments to something more utilitarian."

Interesting...right.

Lux

"Do you think so?" Her tone is conversational, interested, her voice pitched at an appropriate level, a silked thing. "I'd have thought the preference had all to do with the sharpness of it, the beauty of the idea, you know. 'I'll cut your heart out with a knife forged from glass left behind by some volcanic demi-god's displeasure.' Are you a scientist or an occultist?"

Beat. Absent: "As well as a student?"

Bolivar needn't have a specific reason to look at Lux.

Lux is something to be looked at; she's something to be looked at and, looking, to be compelled, to feel compelled, to find something compelling, some quicksilver quality to her beeswing-fineness, pale-cream skin and imperious (stubborn) chin and a fine filigree of bones beneath, just arrestingly and undeniably lovely.

He's so huge he must be used to people staring at him. If she weren't wearing the shoes she's wearing, he'd top her by more than a foot; as it is, he tops her by nearly a foot, and isn't that just as bad?

He looks too old to be a student but in these days people are going back to school at every and any time in their life. The book in her hands is not at all forgotten, but it is a book in the hand, and this gigantic man's ideas is a book in the bush -- ruin the old adage. A bird in the hand may well be worth two in the bush, but if you've already got a bird in the hand and there's possibly a bird you'd like even more in the bush, why not try to flush it out?

Bolivar Fisk

She isnt put off by his particular revelation, or perhaps she was simply level headed enough, used to such idea's that she could avoid seeming disturbed by an opening topic that might well have sent most individuals scurrying. A thin line spreads across his lips, becoming a smile which showed the barest hint of wide teeth.

"You might well be right. Fact's are after all, subjective unless you have come to such conclusions of your own ability and skill." His steps took him around her, those slow heavy foot falls drawing him to the shelves themselves as those blue eyes surveyed the books that filled every available space. "I would personally believe both to be equally true." He pauses briefly to pull a book from the shelf with a large mitt like hand, examining the back cover for a moment before slotting it back into its home.

"And I do not see why I cannot be both." That grin widdened slightly at that, more teeth now as the quiet voice rolled across the space. "To be one without the other is to limit one's self to only half the picture, personally I prefer to see with both eyes, rather then one." He looked over at her, and Lux might almost wonder if he kept such distance between them simply so he didn't have to look down his nose at her, and she did not have to look up, up up.

"I also find that anyone who says they are not a student, is a liar, and if not a liar...then a fool of considerable calibre. Wouldn't you agree?" He answers her questions without truly answering them, was he a student? Certainly...was he a student at this campus? Well...that was still uncertain.

Lux

"That depends," Lux says. "If I agree, is the conversation over? Because if so, there can be no accord; only war."

Pause. Then, "Hmm." Another pause; there's a sudden presentiment of laughter, there in the side-long sluice of her glance, because as he moved further away so she turned back to her shelf, and is regading him so now. There might be another book she wants.

"Would you rather see the whole picture with only one eye or half the picture with both eyes in good working condition?"

Bolivar Fisk

"Heh you ask of the price of knowledge." He lets out a low quiet, but rumbling chuckle as he turned back to her fully now and started in her direction, slow, even steps were the norm for this man it seemed, but then one step for him might well equal two or three for another. "I happily pay the price for full knowledge, be it an eye or whatever else you have to sacrifice to gain it. Of course...I would rather barter for a better price then settle for the demanded currency." His smile drooped slightly then, returning to a simple line upon his face, though the corners of his mouth remained upturned.

"And what of yourself? Do you pay the price for knowledge, or do you try to get around it, to avoid it as long as possible before paying the piper's hefty interest?"

Lux

"I'm heavily in debt," Lux tells him, solemnly. "What's your name?"

Bolivar Fisk

There is another deep rumble, brief and almost chortling at Lux's reply and he let his head swing gently to the side in a half finished shake of his skull. "You better be careful, the proverbial piper isn't the sort of being that takes kindly to those who welch on their debts."

The smile returned then, perhaps pleased with her reckless abandon in the face of fate, and its weighted scales. He came forward then, that slow long stride bringing him into shaking distance, but not a pace more. He extended one of those meaty paws and tilted his head in her direction, a half nod if you might believe it.

"My name is Bolivar, but if it suits you can just call me Bull." He left that hand hanging between them until it was shaken, or left there long enough not to be bothered with. "May I have yours as well? Or is the price of such knowledge perhaps too rich for sanities tastes?"

Lux

"Do you object very strongly to other nicknames, like Bully or Olivar or Bee?"

Her mouth compresses, surprisingly firmly, into the suggestion of a smile and she tucks Maria Sibylla Merian's illustrations between her sharp elbow and the tweed of her blazer, then takes the huge man's hand. Her fingers are cool, her circulation poor, a sculpture, ice-carved instead of glass-carved, her handshake without flourish or feint.

With a touch of wry -- sardonic with a vibrant edge, see: "And it's my understanding that only the names of God are enough to muck around with a man's sanity, you know, really muddle it up, so you can rest assured no bill will be delivered if you call me Lux."

Her breast pocket buzzes and she pulls her cellphone out, slides a thumb across its face so it'll reveal tonight's secret. Who's that calling?

Time to go. "Thanks," she tells the huge, huge, huge bull of a man called Bull, when she looks up from the phone again, slipping it into her left pocket instead now. Light does not catch on her ring as she does so; light does not catch on her at all. "I haven't thought about obsidian for an age."

Bolivar Fisk

"I do not object to much." He admitted in midst of their shake. "Names hold power, but I find they only hold so much, and nicknames..." He shrugged once more. "They are simply reflections of their owner, and their giver." His own hand is warm to the touch, not heated, but warm enough perhaps to pass most inspections. [Lux might be one who is not fooled by such things after all] It is also rough, calloused as one would imagine such hands would be, the man a curious collection of states, from his rough and tumble looks, to his seemingly learned mind.

But then it is time to go, Lux was on her way out, and in truth, Bolivar had tasks of his own to complete, tasks that involved combing through those dark recesses of this library in search of those tiny gems he always loved to find.

"Your welcome Lux." He offered with a final nod as he turned to head into the father reaches of the library.

"Be well."

Lux

- roll credits.

Dark Room

Nathan

This is the first time Lux has been to Nathan's house since he moved in at the beginning of the month and the reason why he moved in is lost on her since she cannot see the sun or how much of it comes through the windows. That was the selling point for him.

Technically this is not his house. He's renting it. That doesn't mean shit to someone who's lived in small apartments his entire life. This place has a backyard and a basement and a huge kitchen. The acoustics don't produce echoes like his old place did. When he and Hannah argue they only have to worry about their voices drifting through open windows.

Nathan and Hannah don't argue often but when they do it's an argument only two introverts are capable of having. This last one ended with her storming out of the house. Lux will not be meeting Nathan's sister tonight. She's gone to her biological father's.

Whenever Lux arrives Nate is sitting out on the front porch in an old wicker chair puffing on an electronic cigarette and staring off into space. The vapor smells like cupcakes. There's no way in hell he's ever going to wean himself off of nicotine at this rate.

Lux

They call it May gloom, the weather they've been having lately; even at night, the gloom is just a touch more gloomy, occasionally dense and furry with a sudden fall of drizzle or rain. Here comes Lux, strolling down the sidewalk with her hair loose and her jacket long, the street light catching on a drop of water clinging to this stray hair or that like so much ornament, crystalline beads, if there were sunlight there'd be a rainbow refracted -- her hair is damp but not wet and reacting to the damp by getting more buoyant. Has she an umbrella? Yes, but she's not using it. Is it a sword-cane umbrella? That would be pretty cool, wouldn't it? Does the rule of cool apply to Toreador? The point is here she comes, strolling down the street and when she espies Nathan on the porch of his house she lifts her imperious little chin instead of calling his name.

Here's a fence; there's a latch to the fence; she unlatches it and - "What is that?" - asks, glass-green gaze fixing briefly on Nate's electronic cigarette, and it can't be the first time she's seen one but she's surprised to see it (could smell it on the street) in Nate's hands.

Nathan

A lift of the chin begets a wave of his empty hand and the question of what's in the other begets:

"Vaporizer."

He offers it to her as she comes upon the porch. Slouched as he is the young man has to hoist himself up so he's sitting straighter and then he decides no that's rude he ought to stand to greet his guest. It isn't as if he's ever made much effort to conduct himself as a gentleman around her. Maybe at first when he aimed to leave her with a good impression of him but he'd gotten lazy after a while.

This weather is not kind to those with curly hair. His has not seen a pair of scissors since he left the hospital. If he spent more time in the sun the straw color of it would bleach out. He does not spend much time in the sun.

Whether or not she tries the thing Nathan stands. He looks for a moment as if he isn't certain whether to hug her or how he's supposed to greet her now but he opens the screen door and then the storm door. Guides her inside without much flourish. She's been inside his home plenty of times before. This is just a different home. It doesn't reek of stale smoke and there is still no sign of a cat. The furnishings look more comfortable when they can spread out like this.

"So how've you been?" he asks once the door is shut behind them.

Lux

Lux tries the thing. There's something intimate in that, isn't there? First she studies the long staff of it and shakes it to hear the slosh, then, a line etched sharp and delicate between her eyebrows, she brings it to her lips and pulls the mist into her mouth and her lungs. Her left eyebrow rises an infinitessimal fraction of an inch higher as she tastes (senses so high), and then she exhales suddenly -- the vapor this perfect Hollywood plume, so much whiter than cigarette smoke.

Handing it back, she says, "Nice digs. Looks like sunshine in a homely little box, perfect for baking apple pies and singing duets. Me? Oh," and this, see, because she has followed him into the house. Cautious. Careful. Isn't she lovely, poised as she always is? Sluice of a glance to take everything in. "I've been good." Beat; pause. The edge of a smile; the suggestion of pleasure, sublimated, an echo of that word: good.

"Are you getting a dog?"

Nathan

Once the vaporizer is back in his possession Nathan pockets the thing. He was barefoot sitting outside like he's impervious to the cold but he still scuffs off the soles of his feet before he wanders any further in. The floor is hardwood. He thinks the comment about baking and singing is funny but then she goes on.

Is he getting a dog.

"What?" It's worth mentioning that for the first time in months he sounds as if he finds amusement in something instead of forcing himself to approximate the feeling. Turns around to look at her with bafflement on his expression. They're going into the kitchen. "No?"

Lux

"Good. I don't like animals much, mostly because if I did my feelings would be wounded constantly. Why the fuck not?"

Lux doesn't lag behind looking at anything or everything, though she does stay sharp-eyed and alert, the insouciant slouch of her something sheathing a graceful edge. Just in case; one never knows.

Nathan

If she's paranoid Nathan doesn't fault her this. The only other door in the place is at the back of the house through the kitchen. Outside the yard is dark and occluded by a curtain. No windows on the side wall of the living room. Only the front.

And if she gets the impression that the young man isn't as exhausted as she's used to seeing him that isn't his imagination. He sleeps better at night here. The bruises beneath his eyes aren't as dark as they have been. When he opens the refrigerator he doesn't take out a bottle of beer but a two-liter bottle of diet lemon-lime cola. Because that shit is delicious and doesn't get him drunk.

As he fills up a glass she can see him suppressing the host's impulse to ask his guest if she wants anything.

"'Why the fuck not' what?"

Lux

[Does Lux actually notice any of this stuff? Let's try out the fancy -2 diff because of Auspex 2. Perception + Alertness. Still tiny and pathetic.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (4, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 4 )

Lux

"Why the fuck not get a dog?"

Tonight the creature looks around and there isn't much she doesn't notice. The imperfections in the grain of the hardwood floors aren't imperfections at all, but signatures; where people have tended to walk, where one floorboard is just a little less well set than the others, nothing one would normally notice, nothing even one who is sharp would normally notice.

For all her careless slouch, doesn't she maintain this air of -- what is it? It's a quicksilver sort of air, something to go with the gloom-caress of hair and eyes when her lashes lower over them and the lighting's gone indoors, something of -- oh, precision, an interaction with the space she's in (central to [the heart of]), restrained proprietry.

He's her host, eh? Lux knows all about being a guest.

Nathan

"Uhh..."

So he's getting more sleep and seems if not strictly happier then at least as if his bruises are healing. He would never admit to being a fucked-up creature even if his father and his sister and his girlfriend are all perceptive enough to notice that he is. Fucked-up creatures stay fucked up. Nathan doesn't want to stay fucked up.

Tiny bubbles dance up the sides of the juice glass once he's filled it with carbonated water. The plastic cap scrapes against its grooves as he screws it back onto the bottle.

"I haven't thought about it. We had a dog, when I was little. Like... five, maybe." He puts the bottle back in the refrigerator and claps the door shut again. Leans his back against it as he turns to face her. The appliance's face has become a repository for magnets and mementos. "I don't remember what happened to it."

Probably Shira got rid of it because the dog would bark at the same things that would scare Nathan but how the hell would he know that. She would have blamed his father if he'd ever asked about what happened to the dog they had when he was little.

"Besides, why would I get a dog if your feelings would get hurt every time you came over?"

Lux

"Aw, shucks," Lux says, faintly ironical, but with a rise of mischief in her eyes like a whisk of leaf-litter or a little curl of shadow kicked up by somebody's passage. Just poetry, it doesn't mean exactly what it says: the mischief falls back down again subsumed. "You're going to twitterpate me, Marszalek."

He's over there with his juice glass and his soda pop and once he's done with the ritual of getting himself a drink, she says, "So give me the tour. But make an interesting tour; not just a 'here's the living room' 'here's where I sleep' 'that's the bathroom.' Give it some," she snaps her fingers, "oomph."

There's a ring on her thumb, a smooth thick band of metal, and a stack of rings on her middle and ring fingers, photo-jewelry, each little round photo asymmetrically set chopped up pieces of a star chart showing the constellation Virgo.

Nathan

You're going to twitterpate me, Marszalek.

Is that a smile? No it's part of a laugh but still. That's twice in one night he hasn't looked as if he's just come from a funeral. Maybe then would be an opportune time to tell her she ought to break herself of the habit of calling him Marszalek but she talks so fast and he's so content to just watch her and listen to her and she wants a tour. An interesting tour.

He lifts his eyebrows.

"'Oomph'?" he asks. Picks up his glass with a wooden flourish. Like a ninth-grade drama student attempting to affect a debonair persona. No confidence or presence but maybe his ineptitude is a little endearing. "Alright, mademoiselle, allons-y."

Oh right. He speaks French fluent enough that when he's in a neighboring European country and doesn't speak the local dialect natives ask him if he's Canadian instead of American.

"This--" Big open-armed voilà gesture as they walk back out into the living room. "--is where I spend most of my time pwning noobs and not having to take care of a dog." He points to a nebulous area that is all doorways and shadows. They are not walking that way. "Sometimes I go that way when I want to go to sleep. Or if it's noon on a Saturday and my sister isn't up yet and I want to harass her about her plans for the day before I leave. I read somewhere that girls love it when you bother them when they're asleep."

There's a basement. Brilliant. He opens the door and clicks on the light. His most recent near-death occurred in a basement. He only hesitates for a second before descending the stairs towards the dim glow of the bulb.

Lux

"Ooo," she says, obligingly, at the living room. "Aaah," also obliging, at the nebulous area that is all doorways and shadows. Not all that nebulous to her; she can see well enough through gloom tonight. Nebulous: a word that feels like it should have stars caught in it; burning things that fall. He mentions his sister, though, so although there's this sharp smirk hooking her mouth upward and she says -

" - they do. But don't you just know you've got to pick the right moment. Miss Post also says: brush your teeth, warm your fingers, do not rest your elbow on any loose hair fanning out across a mattress, never, ever fling water - ice or otherwise."

Follow, follow.

Lux

- her shoulders roll forward. A smidge, a touch; a casualty of the slouch war, a couple with this side-long she's not around sort of look.

Nathan

The stairs cough and creak under their feet. Barefoot in the basement. Nathan is either an idiot or doesn't fear tetanus. Or both. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Once they're down in the basement though Lux can see it's partly finished. Carpet on the floors but no paint or paneling on the walls. Nothing down here to look at really.

"I feel like if I'm going to bother my sister while she's still asleep I want to do the opposite of all that."

This as they're still descending. Once they're at the bottom unpacked boxes loom around them. He has several bookshelves he needs to put together.

"The landlady says this was going to be a bathroom, like the plumbing's all sorted but none of the appliances are in."

He swings in a door to reveal not a gaping hole but a bare-concrete floor and bare unpainted walls. A door whose inside is painted black. A cabinet on one side of the room and two tables on the other side. Dry supplies on one table and trays and tongs on the other. An easel in one corner and a small utility sink in the other.

One roll of film has been exposed and dried already. It rests on the easel. Lux will recognize many of the shots as coming from their last excursion before the car bomb. Or Nathan's encounter with Flood. They happened in such a short span of time it's difficult for anyone who hadn't received a text message that evening to tease them apart.

"Tadaaa," he says in a deadpan.

Lux

There are many who claim or will make the claim that vampires do not feel. Many of those are vampires themselves, old and jaded and bored with everything, feeling the loss of their humanity and the imminence of their Beast, cauterized; Lux is not one of these.

Nathan opens the door to reveal a dark room! And Lux's lips part as if she's going to say something or take a breath, but she does neither (oh, no, neither of those things, especially not even the latter), has touched nothing, touches nothing now, but leans into the concrete room with bare unpainted walls as if it exerts a pull on her. There's leashed energy when she turns toward Nate, a vibrant edge to the turn of her head when she's done looking over the room and looks back at him instead directly.

She feels things.

"So what's going to be the first fancy of your muse?"

Nathan

In his moments of confusion and exasperation Nathan keeps coming back to the fact that he cannot understand what she wants from him. Their relationship is platonic and yet she is possessive of him. They are friends and have been friends for nearly a year and yet as of late he has felt a desire for her he cannot understand or even name. It isn't sexual. Maybe if it were sexual he would take that as a sign of improvement.

Better off because now he wants her around and he wants to please her. He doesn't want her angry at him ever again. When he tells her he wants her not to feel the way she said she felt in his hospital room one half-lit night he understands what it is he's saying.

Nathan understands more than he wants to about vampires. Sometimes he hates her for this but it wasn't really her fault. If it weren't for her he'd be dead. He has enough sense to recognize this.

It would be nice if Nate could not look at her the way he looks at her when they're alone but he can't exactly help it.

He indicates the easel and says, "That was." Is he joking? He must be joking. He thinks he's being cute. Nate crosses his arms over his chest and clears his throat and leans against the doorframe. "Nah, actually, I've just been taking the camera to the VA clinic with me when I go to talk to my therapist. The shots are pretty pedestrian but black and white film makes everything look like you know what you're doing, so."

Lux

"I guarantee that statement about black and white film is as false as something labeling something 'new and improved.'"

The creature drifts in to take a closer look at some of the shots from their miniature adventure, experiment with artful shots on the bus and around the city. Pale lamp glows silver, splashes toward white froth never quite reaches that simmer, and Lux takes a deep breath of the paint and fumes and darkness the smell of it then turns back around.

There's a lot more about vampires that Lux feels she has to tell Nathan. There's a lot more ties-that-bind she feels she has to do, to keep Nathan (and perhaps herself) safe. This is what happens, isn't it?

Lonesomeness. Different from loneliness; Lux is singular. It does not bother her. Occasionally when she goes out, even if she is in a fucking crowd, Lux stays separate from it and enjoys herself just as much as if she were the center (tugging inexorably on those around her, magnetic monstress).

"Gonna accompany those pedestrian shots with some less pedestrian text? Maybe make a book of it?"

Lux

ooc: uh, subtract the first 'something' from what Lux said. >.>

Nathan

If she weren't an artist he would ask her if she had any idea what a herculean effort she had just described. If she weren't an artist and if she weren't a creature whose existence struck him as a series of impossible things.

Even if others around him have become cynics and vigilantes the reporter still hasn't lost his faith in the system. It's an idiotic faith but plenty of people in his circle of acquaintances believe him to be an idiot. That's part of the package when one behaves as if he has honorable bones.

Nathan does not believe himself to be honorable. He barely believes himself to be a writer. His entire adult life he's been a reporter. That's all he is. Things happen and he writes about them and someone else publishes them and that's as far as his creativity and ambition go.

So he snorts when she asks if he's going to write anything to go with the shots.

"I, uh..." He clears his throat again. Still has his arms latched around his ribs. "A couple weekends ago I interviewed this woman, I'm gonna post the article on Sunday. Both her sons enlisted. A sniper killed one of them and the other one's living with her now, he's been in and out of rehab since he got back and he's only... twenty-four, maybe. Twenty-five, something like that. Younger than me. He sounded pretty surprised that anybody reads my blog. I was like 'Yeah, dude, I know, it's pretty fuckin' impossible to find literature on the subject, half the hits I get are from search engines.' Maybe you're onto something, there."

Lux

+4

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )

Lux

"Sure. I've known a few survivors, a few soldiers and warriors or whatever they'd like to be called," Lux says, her smile brief and impulsive, a twinge, a butterfly's wings going flap. "You feel passionate about the whole deal, don't you? Why the Hell would you hesitate?"

Somebody else saying why the Hell might sound belligerent or antagonistic. Lux is just slangy, is just carelessly hurtling down conversation highway.

Lux

"Sure. I've known a few survivors, a few soldiers and warriors or whatever they'd like to be called," Lux says, her smile brief and impulsive, a twinge, a butterfly's wings going flap. "You feel passionate about the whole deal, don't you? Why the Hell would you hesitate?"

Somebody else saying why the Hell might sound belligerent or antagonistic. Lux is just slangy, is just carelessly hurtling down conversation highway.

Nate

One day Nathan is going to have a path and stick to it and not feel so confounded by all the things he can do with his life that he becomes paralyzed by the possibility. Stuck in the proverbial tree of options and starving for the inability to choose. He chose the service and then he chose the press.

It's a natural bridge. One he hadn't seen before. He looks at her now and he doesn't have an answer for her right away because he's thinking.

When he's done thinking he shrugs and stands away from the doorframe and gives her a smile. His smiles are a ghoulish thing for the pallor of his skin and the darkness of his eyes and the discomfort he seems to feel when he does smile because his smiles are so rare. One day they won't be. Maybe. That scar on his temple and its brothers on his forearms make each day he has seem a blessing.

"I don't have a good reason," he says. "Other than I've never written a book before and the idea kind of scares the shit out of me."

If she wants to be vulgar he can be vulgar too.

"Fuck it." He's been scared before. "I'll do it."

Lux

Lux isn't wearing glasses tonight. Lux doesn't need glasses and she doesn't usually wear glasses but sometimes she wears them, depending on the look, dependent on the outfit. Tonight's just not one of those nights, so she can't look at Nathan over the rim of her glasses, but she gives him a sluice of a look anyway, something that takes him in toe to tip and tip to toe. He'll do it, will he? Her mouth curves slightly, but the vitality (vibrancy) which sharps her doesn't give rise to any effusions.

"Good! Now where's the camera?"

He's still by the door to the little dark room and she wandered inside; now she eases around him, back into the basement proper. If the camera was on one of the dark room counters or the camera box was, that's in her hands and she's already opening it checking for a roll of film.

In the basement proper, "How long's your sister staying with you anyway?"

Nate

Now where's the camera.

"Uhhh..."

Alas it is not in the dark room because he goes to see his therapist once every two weeks now because his therapist who has not seen him before but took him on from his last therapist after she left to have a baby anyway this fellow is concerned about him. Doesn't think he's dangerous to himself or anyone else but you tell a therapist you don't really get happy or sad or angry and you drink too much and have a loaded gun in the house they tend to get a little concerned.

Now that he doesn't drink at all he gets sad and angry more often than he used to admit to getting. The therapist calls that progress.

"Upstairs. In my room. C'mon."

But then she wants to know how long Hannah is staying with him and he runs his hand down his jaws. Late twenties and the kid can grow stubble but not much of a beard. His stubble comes in so blond you can't even see it when he hasn't shaved. To the sharp ear it bristles against his calloused palm.

"Through the summer. She's got an internship out in Fort Collins started Monday and her semester starts... end of August, the twenty-somethingth. I think she wants to go back early to hang out with her friends, they're getting a house off-campus. I don't know. She's at Dad's right now."

Lux

If Lux did have designs on Nathan, they'd be clinched now. Oh ho ho, upstairs in his room, c'mon. Lux c'mons. Her hands find an easy place to rest in the pocket of her jacket although as they go back up the basement stairs she unlaces the belt so it's not cinched quite so perfectly against her waist, falls open and loose, the lines a clean sort of elegance, an edged sort of Hopperesque grace.

"Like having somebody around?"

Nate

"It's alright. She's fun, most of the time. It's... yeah. It's good."

If she's getting the impression that Nathan doesn't give too many things in his personal life a whole hell of a lot of thought then she won't be the first person. If he isn't talking about a case or a story or something he doesn't understand and wants to understand but doesn't understand why he doesn't understand it then he can talk all night. This though.

Up into the kitchen they go. He flicks off the basement light when Lux has reached the top and then he shuts the door and leads her into that nebulous area that is all doors. The one where Hannah sleeps is closed. His bedroom is ajar. It's neat and clean. He made the bed at some point today.

One day he will decide he wants to make use of the attic. Or he will use Hannah's room as an office. In the meantime the desk that used to be in his guest room at the apartment is parked in the corner. He turns on a light and goes to the closet and removes the camera case.

Lux

When Nathan has turned from the closet, he'll find Lux cross-legged with her shoes on his bed, one of the books from his nightstand open and in her hands. Her shoulders are curved inward, slouching, slouching, but her fingertips so precise where they rest on the book's edge.

She looks at and judges whatever he has on his walls, but he hasn't been moved for very long, has he?

Lux wants to know about Hannah. Part of her does. Hannah, daughter of her son. Hannah, who does she take after? Clay of my clay, she'd called Nathan; Hannah is no less so. Part of her is so curious.

Part of her is so protective.

But she doesn't want to see her. She doesn't want to know because her sire was right. So she's looking at the book instead while Nathan gets the camera case out of the closet, and asks without looking up until he makes a noise or indicates he's done faffing about in the closet, "What happened to your cat?"

She has finally noticed.

Nate

Nathan has a small pile on his nightstand. Mostly nonfiction. None of it has to do with current events or military affairs. Biographies or history. Plenty of ground to cover with both that doesn't skirt too close to his own life.

He's also reading Dracula. Given the state of the spine it's the first time he's attempted it at least with this copy. That's cute.

What happened to his cat.

He swallows hard and holds out the camera case to her.

"Nothing happened," he says. "I just gave her to someone else."

Lux

"Oh, is that 'nothing'?" Lux inquires, a rill of sardonic amusement in her voice like a twist of smoke from a candleflame - hear it? Or maybe it's for his choice of literature. Because of course, of course, she is going to tease Dracula out of the pile and lift it up, give him a look that's even more inquiring than her tone of voice.

Nate

When Nathan laughs this time it's a dry knee-jerk noise. This is like talking to his father but he doesn't say that. At least it's a laugh instead of a sigh. It isn't an answer. He walks over to the bed which is queen-sized because he neither wants whoever spends the night with him to be on top of him nor across a gulf. He sits down next to Lux and wedges his hands between his knees and watches her as she rifles through his pile.

Shrug.

"I've never read it," he says. Like that's an answer either.

Lux

The inquiring look doesn't become any less inquiring, or any less of a look. Her head is canted, just so. Her hair is beginning to dry, but still damp; an added gloss, gleam - caress of shadows; how is it so full of gloom even when the lamplight skims across it? Her skin is very pale tonight and her eyes are very green.

Nate

The light in here is low-wattage and dimmed further by the thick shade on his lamp. Sort of a red haze over everything for the paint on the wall and the color of the shade's fabric and Nathan's eyes are always wide. They don't look any wider as he's sitting there head turned towards her with the core of him aimed straight but it's easy to read him as being uncertain or guilty or contrite when he's doe-eyed all the goddamn time.

"What, is that breaking the Masquerade?"

Lux

"Reading a book? I don't know; is it giving you any true ideas?" Lux says, with the kissing curl of a grin - see how it slants? See how she leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees? If she was hungry, this is when she'd tell him to c'mere. This is when she'd kill him. Monsters.

The grin begins to fade, because the words strike a chord and quiet her. He has an opportunity to head whatever conversation's about to occur off at the pass.

Nate

And look at how he trusts her. How he loves her. As if he has never loved or trusted anyone who has hurt him. As if he has never been caught in the attention of a vampire whose hunger he could not gauge.

The grin fades after he's started answering. Which means it's good that Nathan is not a verbose man. But it also means he doesn't cut her off in time. Because he does notice but he doesn't think to swerve away from whatever is about to happen.

"Sure," he says. "That people in the Victorian era were repressed as hell."

Lux

"Since you've learned about the Masquerade," she cuts a graceful gesture with one hand, as if she's conducting music, "Have you thought about how you'd kill a vampire?" This sounds like it's a leading question about Flood, but isn't meant to be. She realizes this, perhaps, or maybe just thinks it, and says: "I mean: have you wondered about the methods?"

Taps the back cover of Dracula with two fingers, then sets the book down.

Nate

When he wants to he can lie. No one has caught him in a lie yet. Some people he does not try to lie to and Lux may be one of them but how would she know if she has never caught him in the attempt. Could be that right now he's telling himself he'd better not fucking react.

He made it through basic training in the Marine Corps and three deployments afterwards. Of course he can keep his fucking expression neutral when he wants it to stay neutral. The only time Lux really sees him get scared is when he's dealing with the supernatural. Harder to deal with the supernatural when you don't have your squad and your rifle and your orders with you.

"I thought about it before I knew about the Masquerade," he says. Scoffing a bit like he knows how ridiculous it was. Take a guess what incited him to start to consider it. "Uh... since, I'm pretty sure if a vampire and I got into a killing-each-other contest I'd be fucked no matter what I did. So. No."

Lux

"'No' what? No, you haven't wondered about the methods because you'd be fucked?"

How inscrutable is the creature watching him now?

Nate

She's had more practice at being inscrutable than he has. But he doesn't start to snap beneath the pressure of her gaze the way he had that night in the car. He can't lie to her. Her blood doesn't prohibit him but it does make him feel warmly towards her.

"Correct," he says.

Good. He's reverting to answering questions like he's on the witness stand. This should make this conversation less painful.

Lux

Lux's gaze falls away. He should have a stuffed animal somewhere, something besides a book she can grab and hug. Ah, wait. A pillow will do nicely. Lux reaches for a pillow, snags it by the corner, hauls it into her lap and then hugs it close. She doesn't need to move but she does because all day long, the sun chains her down she's imprisoned without recourse. Now, now, she can be alive again, be something again, be a presence and a Presence, why wouldn't she make whatever little movements she could -- just to feel? Clockwork. Cold. Cold, but something's burns her into wakefulness anyway, something lives beneath her skin and behind her eyes -- something gives her that natural pull. Tug. Fall, darling. Do vampires have souls? Does anything?

"I want you to know that stakes do work, after a fashion."

Nate

[perc + empathy: lol conclusion-jumping time]

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

Lux

[I have a new dice of subterfuge. Let's test it. Am I enigmatic?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 5, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

Nate

On another night he might have guessed that Lux herself had suffered a fate that's entered into public mythological consciousness insofar as putting down vampires go. Sunlight and garlic and crosses and stakes. As if all of those are absolutes and it is so easy to drive a stake into the heart of a creature that very much wants to stay upright.

Lux is enigmatic tonight. Clutching his pillow to her chest and confirming one of the myths. He hasn't done laundry yet this week. His pillowcase smells like his hair. He doesn't wash his hair everyday but he doesn't stink. The pillowcase just smells like oil and vanilla chemicals and breaths he leaves behind in his sleep.

She wants him to know that stakes do work.

He absorbs this and he frowns and his eyes flash a question that he doesn't voice. Why would she want him to know that.

Receipt of the information comes in the form of deepening frown and a nod. No words.

Lux

"Don't you wanna know how they work?" Lux says, mouth quirked.

Nate

This feels like a trick question. Nathan just stares at her and she can see the rise and fall of his chest is no different than normal but he looks wary now. Like no matter what he says will be the wrong answer and he isn't willing to give her anything other than a Yes or a No now.

He opens his mouth to make an attempt anyway and breathes out a voiceless mirthless laugh.

"Am I going to need to know how to stake a vampire?" he asks.

Lux

There is an infinitessimal pause.

Then, "You should know," firm -- firm as a metal sheet; diamond-hard, glint, under all that sweet silkiness. "You should know it doesn't end us. Fixes us in place if you get the heart, if you strike true enough and hard enough, and then we can't do anything. We're still. We're still in there though. We're not gone." Pause. "You can keep a vampire like that for a long time. If you don't feed and water it, it'll get all ... well, dessicated. If you ever just happen across a staked vampire..."

Nate

This is the part he needs to know. That pause tells him more than anything else. Like when a shade has been nattering at him for minutes at a time more and more insistent even if he can't understand and then silence falls over him like a shadow.

He didn't cry much when he was a very small child and he stopped screaming out of fear so early. Shades were everywhere when he was growing up and he was so bright and kind to them. They got rough sometimes. No one ever told him how to make them go away. He had to sort that out on his own.

When his eyes move down to the held pillow and back up to her eyes the stitch between his brows tics but does not tighten. Go on, he doesn't say.

Lux

"You can unstake the vampire. I mean, if it's me, you should unstake the vampire. But not immediately, because ... It will be hungry as soon as you pull that splinter from its heart. It might be nothing but hunger, famished and possessed by the need." Lux doesn't swallow. But she pauses again, the fall of her glance thoughtful. "So if you do unstake it -- I suppose I mean me, because otherwise just call me -- " The beginning of a lift of this smile. " -- either make sure it's restrained or feed it first. Somehow. Just don't go pulling stakes out of all these staked vampires you might be casually coming across, okay?"

Nate

She can hear him breathing through his nose. Over a decade of smoking has left his insides poisoned and withered but he'll recover. He's tougher than he looks. He's also breathing faster than he wants to because he's imagining a scenario in which he'd find a staked vampire and the staked vampire might be Lux and if it isn't he's to call her but if it is he can't even smile to meet her beginning-of-a smile.

Nathan is a writer. Reporters aren't exactly known for their creative storytelling ability but they have to have vivid imaginations to fathom scenes at which they were not present and portray lives and personalities of which they are no part. He can imagine plenty of scenarios he may find himself stumbling across a deathless corpse with a wooden spike through its heart.

His mouth is dry. If he can remember where he left his drink he doesn't want it anymore anyway. He swallows the dryness out of his throat. Clears it next.

Restrain her or feed her if he finds her like that. Christ.

"Okay."

Lux

"Beheading is pretty permanent," she says. "So's fire and sunlight. I don't know if the ash sparkles as it's blown up up and away," let that word hang -- linger. Flippancy, but only the slightest veneer; it's just a gleam of flippancy, not actual flippancy. Lux tests the weight of the pillow in her hands, coming out of hugging it, fluffing it up until it is fluffed to her standards.

Nate

"I've seen bodies that've been burned before," he says. He's addressing his hands where they're knit between his knees. Talk of beheading and fire and corpses gone to ash makes him think of things he doesn't tend to think about. "The ash just kind of sits there even if it's windy."

Pedantry to meet her flippancy before he picks up a flippancy of his own.

"I'm only at the part where Mina and Lucy are writing letters about all the guys Lucy's rejected." By the way. "So if someone gets staked later on, you know, I haven't gotten that far yet. Spoiler alert would be nice."

Translation: thank you Lux for letting me know all of this I don't know what the appropriate response is here but I appreciate your candor all the same why can't I ever have a normal conversation when I've got a woman in my bedroom.

Lux

"Oh, I didn't realize Dracula had a surprise ending," Lux says, with a smirk. She tosses the pillow at Nate's face. Somebody who tosses pillows at people's faces can't be a monster. That logic holds, doesn't it?

"Well you got your camera out and everything. Are we going to take some photographs? When is your sister going to be home?"

Nate

[THEY'RE TOTALLY GOING TO TAKE SOME PHOTOGRAPHS AND JAMIE IS GOING TO BED FUCK SHIFT WORK]