Jack and Molly and Alternate Dimensions

Nobody

[Is Jack actually coming out tonight or did his ghoul look at him and go "Meow, meow." Aka, "No, dude." Manip + Perf.]

Dice: 8 d10 TN7 (3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 5 )

Llorenç

In the center of summer it's easy to believe time has both come to a crawl and gone falling through the fingers like so many grains of sand. A haze in the air at times and a snap chill like the coming of autumn at others and nobody wants the season to end but anything that doesn't end changes. Autumn will replace summer in a matter of weeks and in the meantime the artists and vendors of the northern hemisphere are blocking off side streets and setting up tents and dragging grills and kegs out into the open.

This festival is a culmination of independent restaurants and bars. It aims to drum up business. Live local bands climb up onto a stage set up in a parking lot behind one of the progressive action buildings. Grilling meat and banging drums and a coolness in the breeze carries it all. Down the street one can scent the lingering ghosts of roasted malt haunting the microbrewery. Beer and wine flow and although more than a few people are inebriated they are the happy self-contained type of inebriated that means the Denver PD officers stood on every intersection just ignore them.

The sun went down at 8:25 tonight. A certain breed of creature would not normally arise so early but the nights in Denver are strange. It's after nine o'clock now.

Verna Gardner

Verna Gardner, respectable lab assistant turned unemployed penny-pincher walks down the street tonight trying to appear as though she is still respectable, thank-you-very-much. Her outfit tonight is comprised of some black slacks and a short-sleeved pink blouse with delicate little scalloped cutouts at the neck. Everything about her has this fresh-pressed look, like she must have been to a job interview today (if only). Seems that a woman like this might be at the Art Walk to browse for something to buy, but no -- she's just here for something to do.

It's better than sitting in the library and thinking about how horrible life is.

And the police are usually out in force at the Art Walks, so hopefully she can avoid a certain menace to her personal safety tonight.

Here and there her eye catches something, some painting or sculpture or craft and she'll pause to appreciate it before moving on. Right now, she's got her eyes on a grand painting meant to go over a couch. It's of a Grecian seashore in spring.

Molly Toombs

When her last date with a regular man had gone awry enough to end in gunshots and burying little green-skinned monsters under heaps of rocks, Molly decided that it would be best to make her next night out something that she could rely on being relaxing.  So, she'd phoned up Harald (who was Jack, who was Nobody) and invited him out.  There was another festival happening in the Santa Fe district, with plenty of stands and tables and kegs and booths out serving easy-to-carry foods and drinks from many of the local restaurants.

Harald worked nights, slept days, so she was patient and waited for him to be awake and comfortable enough to head out.  She said they ought to just meet somewhere in the area since she didn't live close enough to warrant meeting at her apartment.

This is how we find the two together, walking up the sidewalk after the heat of the sun had dipped behind the mountains and the cool comfort of a summer's night was allowed to take over instead.

Beside Harald, Molly looked fucking awesome (sorry Jacky).  She was a pretty enough woman to begin with, but to have that thrown against the sharp contrast that was how knobby and gangly and homely her companion was, people were left to wonder if they were related or if he had a lot of money or if it really was possible to just be that goddamn charming.  Molly had dressed well but comfortable, in a pair of crisp white shorts and a loose-fitting royal blue tank-top that flowed airy and cool and scooped fairly low on the chest.  A gold necklace, earrings, and bracelet threw an accent color into the mix, and flat brown sandals were strapped securely in place so they wouldn't flip-flap against her feet as she walked.

She had a plastic cup of beer from some micropub's table in her hand, and was mid-chatter with her friend as she walked along.

"...finished reading it like three days ago.  It didn't even occur to me to bring it with, otherwise I would've just loaned it to you."  She was talking about a book that covered the significance of alternate dimensions and realities and how they (supposedly) touched up against their own.  It was relevant subject matter for a project the pair were involved in.

Nobody

It is true. Jack is not a looker.

He is the opposite of a looker. He is a look away from because he is really just terribly ugly, and perhaps Molly should begin to take the imperative in the phrase fixer-upper more seriously. He should be fixed up. Perhaps he could be; couldn't he? Let's give him a study, shall we?

He's a gawk. His jacket doesn't quite fit him. There's a rip in the tweed elbow patch so it is peeling off, although the jacket is otherwise quite respectable and professorial. He's wearing jeans. They're clean, but they're a touch too baggy. He did not tie his shoes properly and if you look very closely you can see that they're actually from two different pairs. It's as if he just wasn't paying close attention. The colour he is wearing does not flatter his pale and sallow skin. He's pigeon-chested: deeply so. This plays a game of ruination with his posture. His hair is dark brown-or-blonde-or-who-knows, and it is slicked down hard across his scalp but it bobs into fair babyish curls at the ends, which are tucked behind his ears, and it is not very flattering. It is, in fact, the worst hair he could have. Under his jacket he has a Doctor Who angels don't blink teeshirt.  

He's got a little bit of scruff on his chin that he should probably just give up trying to cultivate because it's not going to work it's never going to work all the ability to grow hair has migrated to his eyebrows, which are extremely thick, fucking Werewolf-eyebrows, Frieda Kahlo thick, and to round off this delightful depiction of manhood: an over-sized adam's apple.

He's ugly. But he's rather likeable, and what he lacks in raw presence he usually makes up for in sheer honeyed manipulation (this is a feature of all Jacks; they insinuate; they're clever, mmhmm). This Jack seems quite oblivious to the stares he and his companion get, and the judgment inherent there-in. 

He never seems the quickest to pick up social cues, Harald who is called Jacky from Jackpot because he's Lucky.

He seems to think he's lucky tonight, because his glasses (he's wearing them tonight) are practically fogging up with enthusiasm. "That's all right," imperious. "You can bring it tomorrow night. That is, if you're not working. Do you think an alternate reality might really be a possible solution to the conundrum we've been faced with? How should we define alternate realities; and are they really alternate, if, ah, in truth, we interact with them, so, ah, wouldn't that make them simply a different location within our reality?"

It smells like food tonight; none if it moves Nobody who is Jack who is masquerading as Jacky. Right up ahead is a Verna Gardner, respectable lab assistant turned unemployed penny pincher looking desperately for something to do (not wearing blue?).

He takes off his glasses and rubs his forehead, wearily. "It's, er, so difficult to know what is and is not possible, is it not so?"

Verna Gardner

[Perception + Alertness = does Verna notice Molly (and Jack, but she's at least seen Molly before)]

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

Llorenç

In a crowd this thick a body could pass by people he's known for years and not pick them out of it. Not so thick that one's elbows can't find room and a scan of the four directions can't find one's spouse or child but the word din was born for times like this.

The streets boast buildings two stories tall sometimes three but the towering structures of downtown and the tech center are distant and cast no shadow. Brick goes dark without light and plenty of places have string lights outside to draw attention to their outdoor seating. Helps folks find their bicycle racks on nights when the street doesn't crawl like a downed colossus.

One would have to have a sharp eye or a healthy amount of paranoia to come out on a night like this and notice someone they know. Sharp eye or paranoia or poor luck.

A young man who's as tall as the average American woman is in the crowd tonight. He isn't magnetic and nothing he does with the intent to draw the eye to him. He's walking at the same meandering pace as a person in the supermarket unsure of what they came in to buy now that they're here.

[perception + empathy: AURA PERCEPTION HOLY SHITSNACKS. he's just doing a cursory scan to look for people with pale auras. IDK why. there aren't any vampires here.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (2, 3, 5, 7, 7, 7) ( fail )

Llorenç

[I hate this fucking game.]

Nobody

[the glasses deflect.]

Verna Gardner

It's been a few months since Verna last saw Molly. That was the day the hug-assassin came by and interrupted her meal in order to be strange. By some sheer unluck, though, Verna finds her eyes wandering the crowd to spot the woman, and as nice as Molly appears tonight, she's still the friend of a drunken pervert and a crazy woman. Verna's not going to say hello. Who knows? Maybe Molly also has a penchant for hugging random strangers? Or perhaps there's worse skeletons in that closet.

Well, with her walking around with something like that? It seems a high likelihood.

It's just a glance she gives the two, nothing more, and then it's off to another stall, as she merges herself back into the herd of moving people.

Molly Toombs

Molly isn't doing a marvelous job of paying attention to the people around her-- to try and keep track of faces in a crowd was distracting and draining.  She was plenty occupied with the one that was bobbing about a half a foot above and to her left anyways.  He posed a question, and Molly followed the stream of consciousness as though it was a jungle but she had her own beaten path that she's been following for years.  She knew how to navigate it well by now.

"Well, no, I don't actually think it's a literal alternate reality or dimension.  I'm pretty sure it's a plane that exists parallel-- in tandem with ours.  That's what allows communication to be possible between the two of them.  As for actual travel, I don't know if we're capable of that."  But, she was getting ahead of herself.  Molly cleared her throat, sipped her beer, and looked back forward instead of peering up at the ugly man with the tweed and glasses and Dr. Who tee.

"The book isn't really spot on, necessarily.  But it's got some basic concepts and theories that are kind of on the nose.  Gets you thinking and figuring, anyways."

Up ahead Verna had spied Molly, and after a pause decided to move on to another stall without any kind of approach.  Molly herself?  She didn't recognize Verna, hadn't interacted with her quite enough to allow that face to seep into the cracks and crevices of her brain.  Perhaps if that weren't the case Molly may have pulled the other woman out of the crowd and forced greeting and socialization on her.

Neither here nor there, though, Molly wouldn't take notice.  Instead, she'd slowed her stride enough to start combing eyes over the signs on the stands that lined the road-- the smell of food had been enticing her long enough, was beginning to call her name.

Llorenç

What she merges herself into is the young man who is walking with a practiced if not pointed deftness. One used to going out into the world with his senses altered. Nothing wide about his eyes or his gaze or the way he looks out around him now but if he were to have been looking around at everything without reacting to it this would explain his slowness. He's taking in everything and telling the thoughts gone through a person's brain when their mouth is shut and their throat gone to silence is an impossible task.

Yet he is young. Twenties maybe. Early or edging into mid. Young people change so quickly but men occupy more nebulous space as they grow up. He sports scruff on his jaws and cheeks though. Thick black hair. If he's young he's not young enough that he cannot drink.

This is relevant because Verna is about to bump right into him. She may have already almost bumped into plenty of other people tonight but this is as near a miss as anything else.

He does not appear out of nowhere as Verna glances at Molly and Molly doesn't glance at all but when she goes to join the flow of foot traffic again there he is.

Nobody

Nobody knows all about planes that exist parallel and in tandem. He is interacting with Molly right now from a world other than the one she is part of; she just does not realize it because she is from that other world, the world of Day-bright things, of un-Gloaming, the world of heat and natural death, the kingdom of blue and gold. He used to be from that world; he remembers it, dimly, even if the colours have become somewhat faded, somewhat tattered, somewhat suspect. He might not really remember what the blue of a perfect summer sky is; he might only think he does. He might not remember what a flower looks like when it is open and not asleep outside of sad bouquets at all night grocery stores or in florid photography, such as the photographs at that stall there, which do grab his eye. He's not from that world any longer.

He could tell Molly, and perhaps he will, one night, that there are ways to transition between the worlds (kingdoms, he calls them; empires), and that once you have gone from one world to the other, it is rare that you ever find your way back even though you haunt your first world, even though you can touch it and drag things into the dark with you. He doesn't want her to know he isn't part of her world. He's thought, for the most part, that he can pull her in just a little: release her again, and she'll be safe; she'll be able to finish her story, properly.

He's beginning to reassess that. He doesn't want her to know that either. There are a lot of things he doesn't want Molly to know, and yet: he is surprisingly honest with her in This Face.

"I think, ah, travel would be very difficult, and perhaps not without great cost. Does it have any chapters on altered states of being? Ah, you know, such as in the one reality you would be translated into gases or somesuch; it's rather hard not to say higher states isn't it? What do you think of the color pink?"

Molly Toombs

An intellectual thing, Molly Toombs was more caught up in pondering the question that Harald-that-was-Jacky (Lucky Jacky) had posed about altered states of being.  He may or may not have intended it, but she threaded the thought back in to their topic, their project, their conundrum.

"I've read about altered states of being, but not like that.  More like projection.  Like, astral projection.  What if we looked into that, found some way to channel and project and go looking after him again?  I mean, if it turns out we can't summon him back to us...."

There was a pause.  She had been distracted by half-skimming over a big bold-font menu of a few simple items at the front of one stand, but Molly caught the final question tacked on at the end finally and raised an eyebrow in questioning and confusion back up at the friend whose side she stuck comfortably, trustingly, affectionately to.

"Pink?  Well, it's not the best color for red-heads-- Ariel proved that in the late 80's.  Why?"

Verna Gardner

Verna's mind is elsewhere, and she's expecting the crowd to be moving at a fairly even pace, like particles in a fluid made of humans. She doesn't notice the slow one until it's too late, and a complicated dance of startled feet ensues to try to keep a collision from happening.

"Oh! Excuse me," Verna says, and tries to laugh off the miniature faux pas with a smile. "I didn't see you."

As Molly and 'Harold' pass by, she picks up something about astral projection, and her eyes roll. Just as she thought. Skeletons in the closet there. Fluffy-headed nonsense too.

Llorenç

If she were any taller the moment would open itself up to short jokes but they are eye-level with each other and the young man's feet are not leaden and clumsy. Once he realizes she's there and trying to find a way to keep moving forward without running into him he does her the favor of moving first back and then to the side almost-dancing out of her way and the way of the people around them. Ends up in an empty space where foot traffic naturally diverts for the presence of a potted plant outside a gallery doorway.

Passing pedestrians have made an ashtray of the pot's soil. In the morning when the gallery staff arrive they will sweep the sidewalk and pluck out the butts and do away with the evidence but not the problem. This city is a mile in the air and facing the last bastions of untamed wilderness mountains high in the distance and plains in all directions and all people want to do is smoke grass and throw their plastic cups on the ground.

Point is he's quick on his feet once he realizes what's going on and then Verna is trying to save face and he blinks like he's coming back into the present. No astral projection here. Only bright lights and a hundred conversations all at once. Clove cigarettes and hoppy beer.

He returns her attempt at a laugh with one of his own and reaches up to swipe his hair back from his brow raking fingers through it is how long it is.

"S'all good," he says. Barest trace of an accent. He could be from anywhere. He meets her gaze and surely she isn't going to stand here and start a conversation with a stranger in the middle of a beer-drenched festival. "I wasn't paying attention."

Nobody

Wait what. Astral projection. He blinks and says, "Hmm. It does exist." Certainty. "That would, ah, be a good idea in general, I think, strictly for information gathering purposes, but ah, perhaps not for this particular -- you don't want to follow him and get stuck."

Molly and Harald do not pass by quite yet -- or rather, they do pass, but they don't pass by, because the ugly (hideous [why don't you at least pluck? Have you no lady-friends? You have a lady friend right there]) gawk of a young man is sneaking a covert glance at Verna's pink blouse. Covert, but also absent-minded, as if he can't quite remember what they were talking about.

"Who is Ariel? Ah, some fashion guru like, uh, Madonna? Did she really prove it?" He puts the glasses back on, bright eyed with curiosity. "No erm, I'm just asking because that woman there... That color makes me think of my little sister. Do you think it has a name?"

Molly Toombs

[Do I remember that shade's name? Intelligence 3 + Alertness 3]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 6, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Molly Toombs

"No, as in Ariel from The Little Mermaid."  Molly didn't quite sound dumbfounded by his not knowing that, but she did carry a touch of tired, a heavier dose of humor in the explanation.  "Didn't you just say you had a sister?  How did you guys not grow up with Disney..."

But look at that color of pink right there.  Molly switched bright blue eyes away from the menu that it kept floating back to (that was probably where she was going to go, get a plate of that chicken kebab and find somewhere to hover and lean or sit with Jacky to keep on discussing possibilities, tactics, and risks in the hunt they were on) and cast them toward Verna and the similarly-sized young(ish) man that she was talking to.

She saw the shade of pink and announced:  "Rose?"  Then Molly glanced up to the woman's face and squinted up the corners of her eyes just a little.  She was making the face that so many do when trying to place recognition.

It came about eventually-- not in great detail, but it had something to do with Nate and that Laurel woman.  Specifically, something to do with Laurel overhearing them (her) mention vampires and come to harass for information.  She remembered that the woman had rounded on The Woman In Pink or called her out for something.  She couldn't quite remember what, though.

So she blinked, then shook her head.  She recognized the woman, but didn't know her.  No ground on which to approach -- Hey, you remember that woman that neither of us wanted to be around?  What was that about, huh? didn't make for the best conversation starter.  So Molly instead gestured to the food truck with a tip of the plastic rim of her beer cup.

"Do you want anything?"  This, followed by another drink.

Verna Gardner

All colors have names. Most of them have many names, like a certain somebody who asks the question. One could describe the color of Verna's blouse to be petal pink or cherry blossom -- something like that.

And no, she is not going to stand there and start up a conversation with a stranger in the middle of beer-drenched festival, even if this particular stranger seems nice enough (and nice enough that perhaps she wouldn't have minded so much to have run into him).

She just gives him a nervous little smile before heading back on her way again, off to view something a little more modern in abstract black and white. Curves and sharp lines on the canvas. Reminds her of particle accelerator images, and oh but that puts a smile on her face.

Llorenç

And he takes no offense to the nerves or the fact that she walks off again after that but the only way she would know if he did take offense or not would be if he called after her and the young man doesn't do that. He rummages through his pocket for a pack of cigarettes and blinks again and finds a lane in foot traffic into which he can step without cutting off another person.

Nothing much to remember about him for the future besides the fact that he's short dark and handsome. Shortness serves as as much of a marker as does significant height. Darkness sets him apart from tanned blond Adonises and skinny pale-skinned art geeks. But he does not shine in a crowd. If he wants something he isn't going to find it out here where everyone is moving.

He may have more luck in the beer garden. Stands to reason it's in the opposite direction from which people holding plastic cups have come. That's where he heads now.

Jack and his anonymity strike again.

Nobody

"Girl stuff," Jack(y) says, with a remniscent curl of his lip. The curl is a brother's ingrained contempt for his sister's doings. An older brother's ingrained contempt, at that, being hounded by a tiresome slip of a thing. "Who was the frilly one? Cinderella. The one who read books was okay."

Molly gestures to a food truck and Jack shakes his head. His stomach is a delicate beast and it doesn't always like him to eat. "Er, no thank you, but," belated, brightening, "I'll treat you, shall I?"

This is a big big big festival full of lots of people and lots of crowds and here comes somebody with a dog on which there is a cat on which there is a mouse: it's that guy.

The mouse is taxidermied. Some people get a kick out of that. The dog and the cat seem annoyed and balky and growly and mrowly but it is a dog with a cat and a taxidermied mouse and upon that taxidermied mouse hat a little football hat.

The cat decides, around the time certain short denizens of the crowd wander by, that it has had enough: it jumps off and zips through stalls and freedom is pretty glorious.

Its owner should have known this is how it was always going to end. The dog looks sad and circles and presses against somebody's leg.

Later, a ten year old boy who is out far too late will find the taxidermied mouse and show it to his sister.

Nobody

[Yessssss. 80s pictures unite!]

Llorenç

[*AIR GUITAR*]

Catherine Wyndham

[WE ARE! WYLD VAMPIRES! *air guitar*]

Molly Toombs

The curl of the ugly man's lip caught Molly in a chuckle, and she shook her head at him some then cast her glance back after Verna as she stepped away from the spot where she was standing, from the man she'd been talking from.  Wandering eyes then followed the man, approximately her height with a good profile and longer dark hair.  She peered curiously after him for a second before Jack drew her back with a spark of enthusiasm in his voice.

He was offering to treat her, and she answered with a smile and a 'pish-posh' motion of her hand.

"You're too good."

Because of course he was.  She'd accept the offer.  From there, the evening would continue on down a path of art and food.  Jacky and Molly, a mismatched pair, speaking with mutual sparks of excitement and on topics that made it seem to passers-by that they may as well be using another language entirely.  They'd keep on like this for as late as either would allow, and into the crowd once more.

Nobody

[And that is your allotment of Jack time, FOR NOW. Maybe he'll come back as someone else. *g*]

Blue

Lux

Denver University is an old establishment. The keyword: establishment. Because college students are never rebels, are they? People who learn: they know their place, right? At least the edifice would have one believe that: Denver University and its (main) library would have you know that. Traditional is how it looks. Fortified. All brickwork and simplified arches and circular windows less ornate than some but here there's even ivy, and of course the library by the Anderson Commons has open windows, too, all suggestive of light and learning because learning is all about light, right?

Sure.

Lux is in a chair by a long dark window. The window is dark because outside evening has drenched the campus (and the clouds have a voice [and that voice is thunder: Heaven, clamorous]), has given it shadows and darknesses and the glass keeps it back. Because the window is so dark, it is haunted by her reflection -- moody curve of dark eyebrows, isn't she an elegance, intractable chin and delicate bones and a sweet shadow of a mouth an enigmatic sweep of long thick lashes because her gaze is cast down at the laptop (borrowed [this is not mine]) in her lap. But she is also wearing dark colors, and her reflection only takes what is moon-skinned and potentially luminous and the shadowed contours there-of -- so the reflection (Echo) of her (Narcissus) in the window doesn't mirror back faithfully the dark skirt or dark jacket or even her dark hair, twisted away from one side of her face in something loosely resembling a victory roll and caught at the back of her skull by a baroque metal clip on which a metallic butterfly (or moth [Psyche, see?]) is perched.

She is curled up in the chair as if it is more comfortable than it is; she has one leg hooked at the knee on the arm of it and her shoe is disengaging from her heel. Her shoe is ridiculous, of course, all Barbarian gold ornament and lacquered realistic Monarch butterflies.

And she is not smoking, but she does have a match between her lips and a pack of cigarettes on the other arm rest.

Verna Gardner

Verna is leaving the library. She's been here for a while now, but the place is large and easy to lose a person (or oneself) in. So she hasn't noticed even one such as Lux, with her butterfly shoes hanging off of a limb hooked on a chair.

Her own heels are shorter, much less adorned things that nonetheless make a satisfying series of clicks as she walks. She's carrying her own laptop in a shoulder bag. To complete the look, she's wearing gray heather slacks and a bright pop of a blue blouse, and if she really thought hard about it, there's a reason why she gravitates towards blue lately. It was his color.

And Lux, the creature she now spies (it's not that difficult) lounging in a chair, she was his friend. The regular clicks of Verna's heels on the floor stop.

"Excuse me? I hope I'm not bothering you, am I?"

Lux

Lux is not an unnoticing creature, not here, not now, she hopes not ever; she does try (to sharpen herself, to hone herself into something that will catch a movement before the movement has a chance to blossom into certain doom).

And Verna's heels are not quiet; so just before Verna stops and says excuse me Lux turns her head (with an offhand sort of grace, see, a casual sort of poise that seems unlearned, immanent). Verna in Renaissance blue; the only colour for Madonnas and visions of Perfection.

Lux's gaze startles, because of course she remembers Verna well. Lux is not one of those people who doesn't remember people, especially when they've been revealed to be passionate, or when they're connected to even more interesting people.

Lux isn't an asshole. Anybody can be interesting.

And Lux's gaze startles, perhaps because Verna makes her think of their mutual aquaintance, and perhaps the startlement quickens into something more private (shadowed).

"Stephen's assistant; Verna, wasn't it? Verna whose favourite thing is the universe, how perfect it is and how one can see that perfection if one, what was it? Look under the surface."

"You're not bothering me," the suggestion of a wistful smile.

Verna Gardner

Verna returns the smile, muted because of course there is an elephant in the room that so far has gone without mention.

"Good. And you are... Lux, of the interesting shoes," she says, remembering the angels that adorned Lux's feet the last time. It's pretty much the only thing that she can say of Lux yet, they having just barely met.

"And yes, I was Doctor Andrássy's assistant." Doctor Andrássy, because at one point he suggested she call him Stephen and she just couldn't. "I suppose you've heard what happened?"

Lux

"Yes," Lux says. The suggestion of a smile is gone now; was it ever there? Instead, the set of her mouth is solemn; is troubled. The shadow in her eyes is still private. It will always be private (contained [bruise]).

But private or not, there is always a shadow in Lux's eyes, and she hasn't yet moved out of her languid drape in the chair, curled up so comfortably- she does now after her lashes flicker (as one does, when one is trying to contain), slender fingers curving along the edge of her laptop's screen and leg slipped from the chair's arm so her foot can touch the floor.

Grounded.

"I am sad," she says, lucent in her honesty, after a second. "I will miss him and the police," a contemptuous lift of her chin. "But how are you holding up?"

Lux

ooc: ahem, new punctuation + blocking wot will make more sense.

"I will miss him; and the police," the beginning of heat; then a contemptuous lift of her chin.

Verna Gardner

A layer, a veneer of normal cracks, and Verna's face shows it. I am sad. I will miss him. I am not holding up well. But she puts the mask back in place. It's just not right to have such strong feelings over a boss she only got to see every once in a while.

"I'm not going to lie. It's been hard," she says, and sets her shoulder bag down by another, empty chair. "I mean, that job was really the best. While it lasted. Mostly because of Doctor Andrássy."

And oh, now, she could go on a long detailed stream of conversation about why that's the case. She decides to try to keep it as simple as she can, as emotionless as she can. She takes a seat in the chair she's claimed, and yeah -- that decision goes out the window.

"He was so kind. The last time I saw him was at a University faculty party, and he said he'd secured a grant for me to go back to school in the Fall. He said to study hard, and not to forget the little lab I worked in before everyone had to call me Doctor Gardner," she says, and her voice starts cracking near the end.

Lux

It's the fingers of the right hand which are curved around the laptop's screen. The match that was between her lips before Verna spied her and stopped at her table is in the palm of her left hand; now it is tucked behind her left ear, bared as her right ear is not because of that victory roll and that clip, the light a-gleam on her hair, see, all caressing when she moves her head as she does because she adjusts her posture to be less aloof (it was never aloof [could it ever be aloof?]) and more of a listening thing. Her eyes are on Verna.

Best job. While it lasted. Doctor Andrássy. So kind. Study hard. Don't forget. And Verna's voice, beginning cracking at the end.

"I did think you two would get on," she says. "Like fizz in soda pop or wine in a cup or a bee in a flower. And it sounds as if I was quite right; but I already knew that. He did mention how clever you were."

Perhaps this is rhetorical: "You won't forget it, will you? The little lab. Stephen."

Her voice is quiet and low; but also intent. Brushed, perhaps, with something yearning; but she is often yearning. She likes to yearn and to want.

"Do you think you'll be able to continue his work?"

Verna Gardner

Lux says that he mentioned her, how clever she was, and it near to breaks her heart. She lets out a breath, and then forces her lips together, to try to stop the tide of sadness inside. At least, she can try to stop it from showing.

"I'll never forget. I can't. Neither the good nor the bad," she says, and looks out the window, until her eyes refocus on the reflection of Lux within it.

"I can try. I pulled our data and calculations out of the lab -- some of his notes. I'm going to see if I can't continue the work when I go back to school. Maybe take it to one of the professors whose research would be made easier by his breakthrough," she says, and she takes a worried glance at Lux.

"Actually, that's been bothering me a bit. The doors -- all of the doors in the place looked like they had been broken down by battering rams. It didn't look like the actions of some random hoodlums. It looked like a calculated attack.

So I thought, well, maybe it was somebody who didn't want his research to go on, someone for whom cheap ways of creating quantum computers would be unprofitable. But they destroyed everything in the place except for what they needed to to keep that from happening. It just doesn't make any sense."

Unless they thought, perhaps, with Doctor Andrássy dead, the research couldn't continue. Verna gets a chill up her neck at that thought.

Lux

As Lux listens to Verna, she reaches for her collar as one might reach if one were wearing a necklace one was in the habit of playing with, of smoothing across one's fingertips, but she is not wearing a necklace tonight and her fingers find nothing except her own skin, the sharp bone beneath it, and her thumb trails along the hollow at the base of her throat.

She, too, glances at the window, and her fingers trail from her collar up the side of her throat, thumb still resting at the base. Then they curl into her shoulder and the glance has ended where it began; her eyes return to Verna.

"So you," a pause, and isn't her voice thick as cream, all smoke-laced -- go ahead and lick it up? She clears her throat, and says again, "So you saw the whole thing, huh?"

The hand at her throat drops to the laptop bag on the floor; she leans over her knees (precise, demure- but with a sort of boneless youthfulness) and searches a pocket.

"I don't really believe it was the actions of 'some random hoodlums,'" she says, with quiet certainty. "He did mention once that he only feared fire and these fiends. No names; we discussed other things."

What has she found in the laptop bag? Ah, kleenex in a plastic wrapper, which she profers to Verna. The kleenex is lavender-scented (fancy).

"You don't recall some -- oh, I don't know; somebody who seemed to have it in for him? Any mention of an enemy? It's only, that sounds so terrible, Verna."

Verna Gardner

There are other things that don't make sense. There was the red fluid that turned to ash before her eyes. There was that whole coffee shop incident. But she doesn't mention those. It's... crazy talk.

She just shakes her head, takes the offered tissue. "No. I don't, really. Who would have it in for a scientist?"

Her eyes are a little red, aren't they? So she unrwraps the tissue and dabs it at them. Wait, wasn't there that one woman? The crazy one?

"Actually... come to think of it, the only person I ever heard speak ill of Doctor Andrássy was this woman. She was obviously insane. The first time I met her, was when she walked up and hugged me without warning or invitation. And the next time I saw her, she came up to me again, and said to watch out for Doctor Andrássy, as though he were the strange one.

But she was so volatile, so unhinged. I don't think she had anything to do with what happened, honestly. Just, it's... odd."

She breathes in the lavender. Calming, that scent.

"What of yourself? How are you holding up? You knew him better than I, I'm sure."

Lux

Lux closes the laptop, as Verna accepts the tissue, and then folds her arms across it so that she can lean forward and listen. Her eyes are the color of antique glass -- that hazy green, clotted with darkness along the edges -- and the expression in them is no less intent but does become as meditative as her fingers on the side of her throat had been.

They flash back to Verna when she recounts the story of the hug (dun dun [dunn]), volatile, unhinged, etc., and the whisper of something bitter touches the shape of her mouth. Her left hand finds the side of her throat again. Her fingers slide along the skin and under the heavy wave of her hair. They stay and she doesn't answer Verna immediately or say whatever else it was that she was going to say about the scientist's possible enemies yet.

"I am sad," she says, again. "I often find myself longing for him; and then," she lingers on the word, then, shrugs one shoulder slightly. Because there is no and then. Her voice is not confessional; it is naked, because longing is simple: there is no and then. "That is all there is. And I wonder where he is now."

"Do you believe that he is killed? He and René?"

Verna Gardner

"I don't like to think it. But there was blood in the laboratory. And it has been so long," Verna says, and returns to gazing out the window. "And the police are idiots and can't tell me a thing about what they've found, because they have found nothing."

No, Verna does not like to think that at all. She uses that tissue again, blotting at her eyes.

"I tried calling them about a very tenuous connection I may have stumbled upon, but the detective hasn't returned my calls yet. Can you believe it?"

Of course Lux can probably believe it. The police are overworked in every city. Bad things happen all the time, if not usually to rather unassuming scientists.

Lux

"Yes," she says, with a breath that carries the spectre of a faint laugh that died before it got to be a laugh.

"But I don't believe he's dead yet; it is no consolation. I wish I did believe it, but didn't you say it yourself? Nothing adds up quite right, huh? If his work was left intact and why grab the physician too, huh? Something's just rotten, but it must also be more unusual. Perhaps a kidnapping; perhaps we just don't know all the parties involved. Perhaps someone was meant to see what was left and what was taken and make something of it."

Lux has reached for her pack of cigarettes, tapped one out (you're not supposed to smoke in the library), and now she gestures with it, although she doesn't light it yet.

"As for that woman and her involvement, who knows? Clever and inscrutable people have used dumber patsies. Did you really stumble on a possible connection?"

Hope; isn't it an eternal thing?

Meanwhile: here comes somebody, angling toward their cluster of chairs. The laptop owner, ready at last to go. Lux is still ignoring him; she sets the cigarette between her lips, takes the match from behind her ear and scrapes it across a ring, holds the flame to the end of the cigarette she shouldn't be smoking in the library then shakes the match dark again.

Verna Gardner

Verna's eyes go wide at Lux's display of how little the rules matter to her. "You shouldn't do that in here. You'll damage the books," she says, and it's an entreaty, as though the destruction of knowledge must be a cardinal sin. Well, whatever. She's not going to grab the cigarette and put it out or anything. The thought does cross her mind, though.

No, she tries to ignore that when she responds to the question of a connection. She looks Lux in the eyes through the smoke, and says, "Someone threatened me lately. Told me that I was the former employee of the late Rene Jacobs and the late Stephen Andrássy, and if he wanted to get me in a place alone where no one would hear me scream, he could." She says this, but it doesn't sound at all as through she's describing the events with any fear.

"He was being a bit of a dramatic... idiot of a man. But if that threat actually meant anything, which I doubt, I at least tried to let the police know. I don't think they care."

Lux

Lux is not a rules-follower, it is true and usually one of the first things people decide about her, after: she is beautiful; I want to be closer (but that isn't usually a decision; it's gravity). She flicks a glance toward the shelves when Verna conjures up the fate of the poor books resting there-on and makes a careless gesture, too, as if to say look they're all the way over here. The dark glass catches the smoke; insinuates it upward; look at how it is like so many snakes (the opposite of Falling).

"He sounds like an asshole," Lux says, and her eyebrows have drawn together, etched sharp with something that could be concern instead of just trouble.

Speaking of men, the laptop's owner is there now, looking down. Mid-thirties, handsome enough, neatly stubbled, hair just slightly ruffled, but it's all for charm's sake -- because the owner is also well-kept in an effortless sort of way. "Excuse me for the interruption, but I'm ready to go now. Who is this, forgive me," this part to Verna: forgive him for cursing, presumably, because he repeats, "asshole?"

Or maybe forgive him for listening in.

Lux says: "Someone unsavory," in a tone that neatly invites nothing, and then she straightens to give the man access to the laptop if he wanted to pack it away, because she isn't going to. He also isn't going to yet. This might be the place for introductions; if it is, introductions are made, because Lux can be very perfect in her courtesies when she wants to.

The laptop is still on her lap when she says, "Verna, would you give me your number and take mine?"

Verna Gardner

"Oh, of course," Verna says, and recites her phone number, and accepts Lux's, though her eyes keep being drawn to the dirty smoke. It's not the first time she's given her contact information to the dead or otherwise supernatural, but Verna has not the faintest clue of the sort of things that lurk on the other side of natural. What else is there to the universe but nature, after all?

She turns to the man, looking quite disgusted (though not with him). "His name is Jon Marc, he is a girlfriend-beater, and I hear he wants to use her children as pit bulls in some kind of illegal fight. He is the epitome of... of... asshole."

It should be rather obvious to all that Verna isn't the kind of person used to using such language. She's a better sort than that. But if the shoe fits...

"It was good to see you again. I only wish we had happier things to talk about," Verna says, and there her eyes alight on the end of Lux's cigarette again. But it seems she's not going to put it out. The books will gain a tiny coating of nicotine and ash. They'll survive.

With that, Verna picks up her things, and makes her own way out.

Dririmancy - Verna Follows the Rules

Verna Gardner

Verna takes the rest of the day off, once that horrible business at the coffee shop is over. Putting some distance and time between herself and that day helps calm the nerves a little. Memories get fuzzier, and she lets them because some things don't deserve to be remembered with clarity.

Others, though...

What she recalls quite clearly is how Jon Marc cornered her, threatened her, dropped the names of the missing doctors she worked with. And that last part has her more than concerned. If he had anything to do with their disappearance, she'd best let the police know. Their investigation, from all she's been able to piece together, has been going poorly.

So the next day, she calls the number. Not 911, because it's not an emergency. Just the number that Detective Fuller gave her in case anything else turned up related to the case.

trouble

Verna reaches Detective Fuller's voice mail. The city's undergoing a crime wave. Mad bombers, gang violence on an upswing, perfectly respectable doctors taken from their places of work, white supremacists on the move -- it's a terrible world. No wonder so many people are choosing to opt out of it

Verna Gardner

Ugh, voice mail. It's not what she'd been hoping for, but she leaves her message anyway.

"Hello Detective Fuller? This is Verna Gardner. I had a rather strange thing happen recently that I wanted to discuss. It may be related to the disappearances of Doctor Jacobs and Doctor Andrassy. My number is 555-2367. Thank you."

Then, it's on to the normal number for the police. She'll just have to give them a report, and have them forward it on to him.

Verna Gardner

And the report she gives is a thorough one. If they'll let her go on about it over the phone, she'll let them know everything she knows.

Namely, that:

1. Only a few days before the attack on the laboratory, Verna met a friend of hers (Marie) at a bar who was trying to leave her abusive boyfriend, Jon Marc. She needed to have somewhere to keep her children while moving out, a thing to which Verna agreed.

2. Jon Marc is a former Marine, who may just have the skills necessary to break into a place with heavy equipment.

3. Jon Marc also has friends, who have been watching her apartment.

4. She would not have brought this matter to the police before, but recently Jon Marc found her in a coffee shop, cornered her, and threatened her life and the lives of everyone in the coffee shop. He wanted to know where Marie's son was. But going well beyond that, he also mentioned that Doctor Jacobs and Doctor Andrassy were dead, as if to frighten her into behaving. It wasn't an admission of guilt exactly, but the subtext was that he had done the deed and could easily kill her if he wanted to.

trouble

The police don't seem very interested, whoever she manages to get on the phone, and for however long. They seem 'interested' by rote, trained to manufacture a veneer of empathy (a veneer is just a façade, just a pretend game), and they do not promise to let her know if anything turns up. She is not invited to call again if he keeps troubling her. Everything is according to the letter of the book, but the spirit of the law -- well that's one tawdry, invisible dame, huh?

Days go by. Nights, too. More days. More nights.

One night in particular. Verna is home. Maybe she's eating ramen, on the computer. Maybe she's reading, or making notes. Maybe she's watching television: is that what Verna does for fun, when her friends haven't dragged her out to complain? Perhaps she does elegant equations meant to prove some essential truth, reveal some trick about how the universe works -- perhaps she argues on forums.

One night Verna is home and there is a furtive knock on her door.

Verna Gardner

Verna is not in her pajamas at least. She has been out today, and that means she's respectably dressed for visitors -- a huge relief. Less respectable is what she's making for dinner -- off-brand macaroni and 'cheese'. It's cheap and filling, if not very nutritionally balanced.

But anyway, she abandons the boiling pasta to go answer the door, peering through the peephole first, just to see who it is.

trouble

The person at the door isn't somebody Verna is familiar with. It's a woman with strawberry blonde hair and a friendly face, a face that is round and pale and unblemished, not lovely, just clean, good-natured, drawn in plain lines but her colouring is striking in that soft 1950s girl-next-door way, and maybe the woman is in her mid-thirties maybe less, it's difficult to tell. Her clothing is neat: a pair of slacks, a pink blouse with one seed-pearl button at the collar, a purse dangling from one shoulder, but no wary alertness in her stance, just that sense of waiting, of precipise, of poised between, that some people get when they're waiting for a door to be answered or a call to be picked up. None of that furtiveness which was in the knock. She raises her fist (small hands, very delicate and creased) to knock again, and as she does her eyes touch the peephole and it looks like she's looking at Verna without looking at her.

Verna Gardner

[Perception + Awareness!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

trouble

Occasionally, Verna gets a feeling. It's that kind of feeling one gets when one is alone in a house, and suddenly the space seems full. Or maybe it's the kind of feeling one gets in certain places thought to be haunted. It isn't just creepy; it's a sense of Otherness, of something Else out there. It's a primal reaction; it means nothing. The last time she felt anything similar was before Jon Marc found her, when the air became so full. It isn't as strong as it was then; maybe it is because the hall looks strange through the peep hole, enough to give anybody shivers.

Verna Gardner

The lady at the door looks nice enough, doesn't she? She's not Jon Marc, even though that strange shiver comes over Verna again, to look at her. It is a meaningless emotion. There's no reason to fear this woman, surely.

She undoes the bolt and the chain and the lock on the door handle, and creaks her apartment door open.

"Hello?"

trouble

[Mystery NPC!]

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

trouble

The woman smiles. Her smile is an automatic thing, but also a creamy thing; it has texture, a hint of sweetness behind bland vanilla, a taste to accentuate other tastes, not to be one on its own; maybe a suggestion of richness.

"Hi. Are you Ms. Gardner?"

Verna Gardner

"Yes, I'm Verna Gardner. What can I do for you?" she asks, all cheerful.

Verna has on a frilly, button-up white shirt with navy pants with a little silver twist necklace. The ensemble screams respectable. She's not even outmatched by the neatness of the stranger in front of her. Maybe that has something to do with the cheer. They look like they shop at the same store.

trouble

"I'm Maddy Mueller," the woman says. Her tone of voice isn't cheerful, but her smile returns for a bright moment, as if encouraged.

"I'm afraid this is really very irregular, but I have a sister in the building and she got some of your mail, and I..."

The mail in question is proferred to Verna. It's an envelope and a magazine. "Well I actually heard your name before from a mutual aquaintance and was wondering if we could talk."

She tries to impress a sense of how-serious-this-talk-might-be without causing alarms to go off.

[And the NPC rolls a Manipulation + Subterfuge.]

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

Verna Gardner

[Perception + Subterfuge = What?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )

Verna Gardner

Verna takes the mail offered, and looks over the envelope carefully. The magazine is just a magazine, but ever since she missed her orientation packet for the Fall semester, Verna's been a bit particular about her mail.

"Mutual acquaintance?" she asks, looking up from the envelope. "I see... And who is this mutual acquaintance?"

trouble

The envelope is one of those misleadingly personal-seeming mass-invitations that certain organizations and societies send out to prospective members and/or people who have been to their events before. This one is from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. When and if Verna opens it, there will be a card on good paper, the kind that brushes almost roughly against the fingertips, and it will be an invitation to a special showing of an exhibit + mixer for young professionals.

The woman seems regretful. Her eyes grow big, lustrous, like she's holding in a wince, "I should say Marie, but actually our mutual aquaintance is Jon Marc?"

Ends on a rising note like question mark help?

Verna Gardner

At the name, Verna's eyes narrow. What on earth would this woman be doing with Jon Marc?

"Then you know an odious, violent, abusive man, I see," Verna says, and raises a brow. "The cute face of his is wasted by that personality."

She makes no pretense at liking the man. Jon Marc is a real piece of work. And whoever can't see that, well, she'll throw her door shut on the 'lady' if it comes to it.

"I abhor being acquainted to such a man. Is it the same with you?"

trouble

"Yes."

Her eyes do not smoulder, they are not coals, they do not burn. There are no sparks and no flaming angels, no cherubim or thrones coming down from on high.

But there is a visceral reaction to what Verna is saying; an attachment that is not quite hatred. It is firm. It is a ruler slap against the back of a hand.

"It is exactly the same with me. He was responsible for," and she hesitates. "He was responsible for one of the worst days of my life."

Verna Gardner

"I believe it," Verna states, and opens the door a bit wider, steps to the side to let the woman in. "Do come in; make yourself comfortable," she says, and gestures to the living room furniture. "If you'll excuse me, I have to go and make sure my dinner doesn't boil over. I'll be right back," she says, and makes a quick turn to go check on the... the pasta. With cheese sauce that appears radioactive.

The woman will hear cooking noises from the kitchen, including hot water being dumped down the drain, and some mixing. It's obvious Verna either doesn't appreciate being timely, or she just does not want to waste her dinner. (it is the latter).

When she returns, Verna is steam-glowed, but dour of face. She takes a seat at a chair in the living room opposite whichever one the other woman has taken (assuming she does).

"Now, what can I do for you?"

trouble

[Mystery NPC roll]

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

trouble

[And?]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )

trouble

[Nope]

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

trouble

[And?]

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

trouble

[FUCKING GOD]

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

trouble

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

trouble

[Better.]

trouble

The woman steps into the apartment and looks around with the polite interest of somebody who does not often go into stranger's houses, and finds it an interesting exercise in prefering her own. No; that's not quite right. The woman - Maddy is what she said her name was; Maddy Mueller. Maddy Mueller of the strawberry blonde hair, which is brushed so silky neat as to gleam like a ring, steps into Verna's apartment and says, "Oh, of course," before Verna disappears into the kitchen. "I didn't realize I'd interrupted your dinner." How would she?

Proper noises made, she stays in the living room or where ever it is Verna indicates she should go. She does sit down, but not before looking around at whatever knicknacks are on display, whatever books. There is an air of restrained -- not wonder, but -- there's an air of restraint. Emotion. Restrained emotion? Sure.

And for a moment, her eyes go blank as mirrors before someone or something stands before them.

Just for a moment.

The moment passes (uncanny, hum).

Now, what can I do for you? Verna says.

The woman seems to hesitate. Then she says, "Am I right in thinking that you want Jon Marc to leave you and your friend alone? That he has said terrible things to you? That you'd..." Trail-away, search for the right word. "... be willing to make his life less comfortable?"

Verna Gardner

Verna's apartment appears as though a team of maids comes through every day on a very precise schedule and gives the place a thorough inspection. There is no team though, just Verna.

She's the kind of person who will take her dishes to the sink and wash them immediately, right before she washes them again for good measure. And it shows, in the almost clinical look of her apartment. There are pictures on the wall that have accumulated no dust (and who, honestly, dusts picture frames on a regular basis? Verna.)

And those pictures are the kind of cheap prints of some famously expensive art that college students will sometimes find in the bookstore to hang on their walls. Gustav Klimpt here, Picasso there. They aren't real, but they are pretty. And since this is Verna's place, they are also color-coordinated by room. The living room is a roughly green-blue creation. Monet's waterlilies over the couch. A shelf of glass ornaments. There is no television. Verna's the type of person who boasts at the fact she has no television.

"Yes, you're right. Marie doesn't need him in her life, and I certainly don't enjoy the man. He threatened to kill me."

trouble

"Did he really go that far?" The woman's eyes widen, although she doesn't sound exactly surprised. She rests her hands on her knees, primly, then looks at them as if she truly is surprised to find them there. The moment wavers for a moment; she blinks, then looks directly (frankly) back at Verna.

"He used to be so different." She doesn't sound regretful as Marie does when she says similar things. She sounds disgusted. "Do you know what he wants to do with that kid? Terrible. Do you know what his brother in law does? Even more terrible."

"But did he truly threaten you?" His m.o. seems to mostly run to timid women he's cast a spell over."

Verna Gardner

"Well, I'm not exactly timid. And he didn't exactly cow me. But he did say something about getting me somewhere all alone where nobody would hear me scream. And he threatened to shoot not just me, but everyone in the coffee shop. He's a real animal."

Verna sighs, gives Maddy a look that cracks the surface of her cool, collected self, showing for an instant the picture of a woman who hasn't had the best of luck lately.

"No, I don't know what he wants to do with Rocket, and I don't know what his brother in law does either. Marie never really spoke of him all that much."

trouble

[Oh, do I have empathy?]

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

trouble

"He wants to use him at a fight," Maddy says. "An illegal fight." Obviously, if a kid is involved. "He likes that sort of thing," and her nose twitches. Her cheeks have a heightened colour to them, a fever sunset colour, earthquake sunset colour, but those cracks in Verna's self-possessed not-exactly-timid self do get noticed.

Maddy moves as if to take Verna's hand, but does not. Maddy does not seem to be a touch-other-people sort of woman. She says, "My dear," because she is clearly the elder of the two, after all, "I'm sorry if you've had a rough time of it."

"Would you be willing to help me?" Her voice hardens; it is not imperceptible. It is diamond-sharp. "Help me get rid of him," a beat. "For everybody's sakes."

She seems very intense about this. Perhaps she's an ex-girlfriend.

Or maybe she just met Jon Marc.

Verna Gardner

"That's disgusting!" Verna says, trying to grasp the idea that Jon Marc wants to use Rocket as a pit fighter. Against who? Another child? It seems unlikely.

"What would I have to do?" she says, and while she sounds a bit hesitant, she doesn't seem unwilling either. Getting rid of Jon Marc in whatever way that 'getting rid' of him entails? Well, it's likely just fine with the good, upstanding Verna Gardner. He could probably 'trip' into a vat of acid, and Verna wouldn't mourn him too much.

trouble

The strawberry-blonde doesn't offer any more information on how exactly Jon Marc wants to use Rocket, or what exactly he plans to pit the child against. But there are white lines around her mouth, so pinched tight is it, so pursed; she looks suddenly older, aged, a photograph fading, and that suggestion of coal-smoke anger has returned. The woman before Verna, for all her neat, neat, neat appearance, for all her gentle rosiness, seems like she has a lot of anger stoppered up (distilled [aging into something fine?]).

"Help me expose him. He's never been confronted by more than one woman, by more than one person, certainly not on ground he regards as safe. I'm not suggesting we do anything dangerous, but I know, I've heard, that he's already riled up by you, he thinks you're keeping Marie from him and that you're a lying - " a (graciously timed) pause. "You can imagine what he says."

"I don't have more specifics." Pause. "Yet. But if you are willing to at least consider it, I will consider how best to handle him and be in touch."

Another pause. "People usually do not believe me about him. But you seem so respectable," a faint smile. "And ... well, you certainly look good. Like someone who will be listened to."

Verna Gardner

"I have tried to get in touch with the police about him, but I'm not sure how seriously they're taking it. I swear it's as if one has to light a fire under people in order to get them to do their jobs."

Verna pauses to consider the woman. She looks so respectable. And good. Like someone who would be listened to.

"What makes you think that I can do much better than yourself?" she says, the very picture of sad acceptance of their horrible situation. "But of course I will consider exposing him. Getting him off of my case would definitely be in my best interests. Not to mention that poor little boy's."

Verna Gardner

[Perception/Awareness!]

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

trouble

"It wouldn't be the first time," Maddy says, significantly, but the significance is smooth, cool as cream, low-key, uncolored. "As for what makes me think," a pause; Maddy looks at Verna. Verna, she can sense that faint sense of something uncanny, something eerie -- though that's not quite right. Just: something Other, something deeper, something that wants to burrow into her gut, something that says perhaps the air is thickening, perhaps the shadows hide eyes, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps -- Verna, she can still feel it. Maddy looks at her for a moment, and then shrugs.

"I don't think you can. I think we can. It's important to have allies. I think, if nothing else, the way Jon Marc operates should tell us that. He isolates his victims, and then..."

She must mean people like Marie.

Marie, who Jon Marc didn't want talking to Verna any more. Or anyone else.

Verna Gardner

Verna is trying very hard to ignore the strangeness emanating off of the other woman. She tries very hard every time. Maddy can probably tell in the way she looks around herself as if trying to find some invisible thing, and then pinches the bridge of her nose. Stop that, Verna. There is nothing there. There are no eyes in the shadows, nothing but this charming, perfectly normal woman.

"And then throws their children into a pit fight, yes," Verna says and shakes her head. "Well, you can count me as an ally, then."

She gives Maddy a warm smile. "I'm sorry. It's good to have allies, I just wish that I didn't need one quite so much, if you get my meaning."

trouble

"I do." A pause.

Maddy stands. It isn't meant to be abrupt; rather, it's meant to be neat -- like sewing a stitch closed, but instead of a stitch, it's a social engagement. There is a certain awkwardness behind the motion, but it's almost hidden.

She offers her hand. Her nails are painted a neat (pale) pink.

"I don't have a way of contacting you. Can I have your e-mail?"

Verna Gardner

"Certainly. And my phone number, and whatever else you need," Verna says, and shakes Maddy's hand.

True to her word, she provides Maddy with whatever contact information she wants. Apparently she trusts this newcomer into her life.

It must be the bearing, the neatness, the same lightly veiled anger in Maddy that makes Verna feel such an instant kinship. They are on the same page here.

Dririmancy - Verna Meets Jon Marc

Verna

It's Wednesday, and Verna is (as is usual of late) spending time in a coffee shop. She's burned through three of them already, as the baristas give her scathing looks when they realize she's only ever going to order free water and leech wi-fi. Unemployment sucks.

At least she's not a barista. (At least they have jobs.)

Whatever.

In the waiting period between now and the fall semester, she's got work ahead of her. She's got to put together lesson plans and come up with a syllabus and... it's hard doing all that when you've cut your internet off to make the savings last until then.

In her mind, she's not unemployed. Oh no. She's just waiting for her new job to start.

Every so often, however, the circumstances that brought her to this place flood back into the prime rumination territory of her consciousness. Every now and then, she wants to cry at the unfairness of it all.

Verna

[Perception/Awareness!]

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

dririmancy

Life isn't fair, someone wrote once. It's just fairer than death, that's all. Death isn't fair to anybody toiling in his [let's personify!] halls; death is an interruption, a disappearance, a punctuation mark deferred instead of granted - death is unfinished things, words never spoken, an absence and a void, and death (or at least creatures who are Death's temporary exceptions) has probably brought Verna to this place.

Isn't it too sad?

But maybe death will take notice of her soon and bring her to another place (and nobody leaves that other place, except another kind of exception). The summer is hot and stormy and the baristas are talking about a house painting party one of them is going to have. They're not paying Verna much mind because, although she only asked for free water, she doesn't look like or carry herself like a bum, and it's not one of the busier hours of the day. One of the female baristas is a tall olive-complexioned young woman with nappy hair dredded like medusa snakes and she uneasily scratches at her wrist now and then, practically bolts out of the shop once her shift replacement arrives.

Verna can feel something cold. Air conditioner? No; it's a presence. She can practically feel it solidifying beside her, hairs on the back of her neck chilled to attention, this impression of a shadow falling across her- but there's nothing there.

Except the pressure of the air (uncanny) has changed, a subtle (creepsome) thing.

Verna

Oh, it's that ice-down-the-back-of-the-neck feeling again. Verna looks up, eyes the place a bit warily. But she has no belief in intuition or 'sensing' things. She's a woman of science. The heebie-jeebies are a figment of the imagination.

At least, that's what she tells her oh-so-rational self to calm it down while the rest of her deals with the pressing chill.

It happens more often nowadays. Maybe it's something to ask the doctor about? Why does she occasionally get the sensation of sudden doom? Didn't she read something about that symptom once?

So she looks up and around, and if nothing catches her attention, it is back to the laptop to work on her preparations.

Verna

[Percept + Alert!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

dririmancy

There's nothing out of normal when she looks up. Just that feeling, just that cold spot.

But she isn't long at her laptop when she notices somebody solid, somebody real, coming up behind her. A good looking man with dark curling hair, oil slick black, dressed in the most nondescript clothing one could pick out of the good will bin. He's dressed in order not to be noticed, one might say. Dog-tags jangle, glint silver, at his waist.

He's coming up behind her; if she looks, he's about to put a hand down on the back of her chair and lean over, looking at her laptop. Or that's what it seems, anyway.

Verna

She does look, and looks again at him when he continues forward. (Are you actually coming over here?) "Excuse me? I'm sorry, do I know you?"

A stranger coming up behind her in a coffee shop to sneak a look at her laptop? Odd.

"Are my lesson plans that interesting? My, I should be thrilled, really," she says, a cautious smirk on her face. It's an expression ready to sour if need be.

dririmancy

"You made a typo," the man says, returning her cautious smirk with one of his own. He's in his, what, mid-twenties perhaps, something not exacty baby-faced about him but young in that vulnerable way many women find appealing. He points to a place on her screen. His hair's black but not as black as his eyes which seem oh so soulful, oh so beseeching, oh so ready to flick on the laughter, to invite, to engage, oh be engaged. He doesn't lean on her chair after all, though he did look at her laptop screen.

"What can I say, I'm sucked in whenever interesting learning subjects are around. The, uh," and he's a fast reader, glib enough, "{whatever subject is on her screen" is fascinating."

She knows his voice, but she's only heard it once before.

Verna

"Mmm, a big fan of classical mechanics, are we? A bit old for my tastes, but you have to start somewhere. And besides, it's useful for when you don't actually need nine significant figures," Verna says, a bit lofty. Perhaps speaking over his ability to comprehend what she's actually talking about. Jargon is a language professionals love to speak, isn't it?

"And no, that is not a typo. My spellchecker just refuses to believe that irradiance is a word. It is."

Ahh, Verna is not going to be caught dead making typos.

"You sound somewhat familiar. Do I know you from somewhere? If so, I am afraid I've completely forgotten."

dririmancy

"It's important to have a good strong foundation," the black-eyed young man says. He smiles and it is a charming smile. He grabs a chair; pulls it up beside Verna rather than sitting across from her. He could just be sitting along the edge of the table, but she is effectively boxed in. "Else you'll never build to lofty heights of true understanding or some shit, right?"

"We've talked before." He looks at her for a second. "Jon." He doesn't include the Marc. He offers a hand, fingers pointed down like he's a cowboy.

Verna

[Int + Alertness = I remember you!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Verna

"Jon Marc," she states, and it's that sudden that her face drops and she turns to cold. Clever bastard, blocking her in like that.

She just looks at his hand. Glances at it like it's some kind of distasteful animal.

"What do you want?"

dririmancy

"Oh so you do remember me," he says, pleasantly. But it's the kind of pleasant that is surface, scum floating on the top of water; beneath it, monsters, sharp-toothed things, dead things, unpleasant things. Very unpleasant beneath that veneer. His eyes still look soulful; vulnerable; wounded, even. He keeps his hand out another second before dropping it. The hand goes into his pocket, slips there easily. He cheats his body so he's facing her even more directly than he was. "What do you think I want? You're supposed to be clever, aren't you."

Verna

"I haven't heard from Marie in weeks, if that's what you're asking. If anything, I should be asking you that question," she barks out, suddenly so very aware of his body language, the way he points himself at her. The way he slips his hand into his pocket, almost like...

Her eyes widen, and her own hand goes to her purse, ostensibly to pick it up.

"But really, I don't want to talk to you. If you'll excuse me..."

dririmancy

"I wouldn't," he says, and he'd like his voice to be thick with menace. Not overt menace, understand: something subtle.

"As a matter of fact, I would like to talk about Marie, more specifically poor little Rocket."

[Doo dee doo. Don't move. Don't go for your purse. Manip + Intimidation!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 3 )

Verna

[Willpower!]

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

Verna

She licks her lips in a tight, nervous manner. Right. "Why wouldn't you? Are you honestly going to threaten to shoot me in a coffee shop? To keep me held here? Jon Marc?"

Her voice is raised, pointed, loud. She's trying to draw attention to her plight, considering he chose a very bad location to try to corner and threaten her. In public. With witnesses. Who now know his rather unusual name.

"I wouldn't."

To her credit, she's not stupid enough to reach for her purse again. But she does stare him down with no hint that he actually scared her. No, she just looks mad.

dririmancy

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )

dririmancy

In public. With witnesses.

But nobody wants trouble. Nobody thinks that Verna is being serious. Nobody wants to care. Jon Marc keeps his hand in his pocket but he rubs the back of his head and isn't he just so boyish, isn't he just so confident. The baristas are busy at the counter and the espresso machine is really loud. Maybe that's what drowns her out; maybe somebody glances then glances away.

Life isn't fair, and it's a dark world. Ennui. There are no heroes. There was blood in the lab and the police have found nothing and they never will. So she'll go to school, what then?

There are no heroes; and nobody

fucking

cares.

"I'm glad we can both agree not to do something fucking stupid," Jon Marc says. This teenager is looking uncomfortably at Verna and then at Jon Marc, like she's trying to guage what's really going on, nervous nervous fourteen year old.

"Because that is what we're agreeing to, right? If I did have a gun, if I was going to shoot you," he grins; see the blood in his teeth? Metaphorical, mad-edged, "What the fuck makes you think it would be to keep you here? I'd be crazy as fuck so I guess ... well why would I stop with just you?"

"Going down, so go big, right?"

He's wary of her but his tone is (charming [or it would be if the situation weren't so ugly]) curious.

Verna

There may be no heroes. Nobody's running for the police yet. But at least he knows if he does try something stupid, she's not going to go quietly. She's made sure that everyone within earshot knows at least his name and that she isn't happy with him. If something happens to her and the police start asking questions, at least they will have some answers.

Unless he kills every last person here, as he is so claiming. She smirks at him. Oh, that isn't his plan at all. He has Rocket on the brain. He has a reason to live, doesn't he? "I was more thinking you'd try to cow me with your threats, or try to smuggle me out of the place all quiet and then shoot me. But if you were to do that, I've just planted the suggestion in all these people's heads that you are the responsible party. It is a good thing we're agreeing to be reasonable.

"Now, what do you want to know about Rocket?"

dririmancy

[Mystery NPC wants to interfere.]

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

Verna

[Awareness!]

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

dririmancy

Verna smirks at him.

Verna smirks, at him.

Jon Marc's pleasance coagulates, becomes thick as old blood, fly-bait, and he leans (just slightly) toward her. "I want to know where he is," Jon Marc says. Metal in his tone; an injured air that would still fool some, but it's just an air, just the shape of his face. "I want to know where she's putting him during the day."

"And, Verna, Verna Gardner, former employee of the late Stephen Andrássy and René Jacobs, if I wanted you somewhere you were all on your own, somewhere quiet where nobody would hear you scream? I wouldn't need to get you in public first. Understand me?"

dririmancy

That sense of something coalesces again, creepy tingle-of-awareness, and her water tips over, spills, not much liquid left but what there is rushes for Jon Marc's pants. At least it didn't spill toward the laptop?

Verna

Suddenly, all that carefully crafted facade of fearlessness fades, when he mentions the late Stephen Andrássy. Her face goes to pure pain, like that was the soft spot in Verna Gardner, and he finally scored a hit. It certainly hit a lot harder than all of his threats combined.

"Jon Marc, just now was the first hint I've had in weeks that Marie is even alive. She hasn't been answering my calls or texts. I've never even seen Rocket, much less know where she might be keeping him."

And it's the truth, that. She's not trying to pull a fast one, she doesn't need to.

Verna

And then there's that feeling of ice at the edge of her perception. An odd look comes across her face, but her hands are visible on the table when the cup of water goes tumbling for Jon Marc's pants. She obviously didn't move. He obviously didn't move.

Her eyes go wide again, and she looks at him with a bit of shock and confusion. "I didn't do that."

dririmancy

[Mystery NPC. Glee! Attention!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )

Verna

[Awareness!]

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

dririmancy

"Yeah but that's because," he begins, belligerently - sullenness welling up in his tone like a bead of mercury, dark and occluded, poison; and then the water tips over, splashes his pants and he leaps, flushing, cursing with a lot more anger (savage) and vehemence than something so simple deserves. His shoulders are tense.

Verna didn't do that. Jon Marc swallows and looks at her.

"No?" sarcastic. "Maybe it was a fucking ghost. Some dipshit who deserved what they got. About Marie, couldn't you-"

The lights in the coffee shop go out and the glass rattles as if a train is passing by; the light dims as if clouds have covered the late afternoon sun, but it's eerie inside the shop, it's got that unhealthy (unnatural) glow of fire season when something bad's on the horizon you just know it, and other people's drinks fall over too.

Is it an earthquake? Is it some weather storm outside? An explosion going off somewhere?

It's eerie is what it is. Verna's laptop dies.

Verna

This has to be the strangest lesson in why one should always save their work often than Verna's ever had. She instinctually grabs the table to steady herself as the ground goes wobbly. No, Jon Marc, she's not going for her purse.

Earthquake. There was one that night when her car broke down too. They're happening so often nowadays.

But the lights go out, and Verna's laptop had a lot of battery power left that just got sucked dry... But no, that is impossible. The vibrations must have caused a short.

That's all it is. Really.

But for the first time since Jon Marc's appearance, Verna is actually scared.

dririmancy

[Mystery NPC. Mm, fear. Slurp.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )

dririmancy

[Mystery NPC again!]

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

dririmancy

[Jon Marc]

Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (6, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )

Verna

[Percept/Alert Diff 7!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (5, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

dririmancy

The fear must sharpen her, must turn her into a honed thing, because she notices so damned much in that moment: notices the horrified look the teenager is giving her drink; notices how the teenager's mouth seems stained red, bloody, bloodied lip; notices how the pressure changes in the air, how it crackles even though it's cold; notices, too, that the ground is not moving, is not moving at all though other things do, though the windows rattle, though the power goes out, though certain things fall over; notices, too, that Jon Marc seems to be wrestling with himself, seems to be under some sort of pressure, fury restrained and he wants to -

He stands up. He says, "fucking think really hard about fucking Rocket and where the fuck he is." That uncanny feeling; it wasn't coming from Jon Marc. There's that. But he seems unsettled, doesn't he?

Cautious.

So he stands up, and she's no longer trapped. She feels- what does Verna feel? Something external working on her- like she's coming down with a cold, energy sapping. She notices that too, even as Jon Marc says, "I'll talk to you later. Okay? Okay."

Backs towards the door. The lights are still off but nothing else is moving. Verna's computer is still off- another laptop user is also complaining, loudly. Power surge? Or just coincidence.

The teenager is hyperventillating; someone else looks down at their scone and then jumps, screaming about a spider.

Verna

This isn't the first time that fear has so sharpened her senses. She notices so much, so much that doesn't make sense. It's easy for the rational mind to rationalize it all away as being caused by the fear. Someday she might survive long enough to learn just how much that isn't the case.

Jon Marc, the asshole, wants her to find one of Marie's kids for him, and like hell that's going to happen. She'll buy a gun first (With what money? Food money? Beg it off her parents? Whatever.) There's not much she could do anyway, with Marie not returning her messages.

How did he even find her in the first place?

"I don't know anything!" she yells at his back as he leaves, and there's an edge of a crack there in her voice. She just keeps getting presented with irrefutable evidence that there's something unnatural going on. The strain required to force it all into a framework that makes sense to her can be a bit much to handle.

She really doesn't know anything.

dririmancy

Jon Marc is gone.

The blackout lingers for a good five minutes before flickering on. The teenager is having hysterics, is yelling at one of the baristas about blood about blood about blood and then shutting up going blank as a piece of paper because there is no blood in her coffee.

Probably on drugs, right Verna?

And the woman who saw the spider crawl out of her scone shudders, cannot be convinced it was a trick of the light which -

The blackout ends and the dimness which seemed to press in even at the windows, that crawling, heebie jeebies, something strange sensation, that subtle air pressure - it fades too.

Verna's computer blinks back on as if nothing ever happened.

Oh, except: it's restarted, and she did lose her work.

Life's not fair. It's just fairer than death. That's all.

Verna

Verna's shaking. The others around in the coffee shop seem to be faring a bit worse, though. Really, shaking after being threatened by a Marine who obviously hates your guts should be rather expected.

But really, it wasn't him she was afraid of, was it?

Maybe she's a bit too sure of herself, too courageous for someone like her to act. She shouldn't have made him so angry.

She doesn't stay long at the coffee shop. She loses her work for the past hour or so, but she's just going to go home. It's not worth trying to stay and finish. This place will be another she's got to cross off her list and never return to.

It's a place she'd rather forget about entirely.

Before her laptop turns back on, she's already got it packed up, and is headed out the door.

Mary, Thug #1

Erich

A1+++ Buffet boasts handwritten signs in the window screaming things like OPEN LATE!!! and AMERICAN! CHINESE! MEXICAN! and CASH ONLY NO CHECKS NO CREDIT CARDS. It boasts a fair population of roaches in the kitchen and quite possibly the foulest restrooms this side of the Mississippi.

It also, however, boasts an all-you-can-eat buffet spread heavy on the meat. Beef, chicken, pork, even some catfish and pollock on a good day; grilled, slathered in barbecue sauce, and/or battered and fried. All of which officially makes this place Erich's favorite restaurant.

So: there he is, sitting alone at a table near-ish the back. Alone, because he comes here like once a week and every so often Charlotte and Melantha are just like enough is enough. Not that he minds. This way, he can concentrate on eating, no conversation required. He's got two big plates in front of him. They're both heaped high with meat, meat, meat, meat, meat. Not a single shred of vegetable to be seen.

Mary

How could Mary resist A1+++ Buffet?

Mary could not resist A1+++ Buffet. Mary opens the door and she is alone when she enters, a soft-faced young woman with a dent in her determined chin, small British kiss of a mouth and thick dark make-up around dark-mud Spanish eyes. Mary is voluptuary, a full-figured hour-glass, a full-bodied drink of wine not a tall drink of water. Mary's hair is an unwashed mess, made kempt by virtue of a braid twisted around and around in the back and pinned and tucked with fly-aways here and fly-aways there so it is an unsteadied halo. Mary's hair is the color of amber, of brown honey sloughing from a spoon. Mary's carrying an umbrella that looks like it's a thousand clustered roses all tangling one with the other because it's supposed to rain or to thunder and Denver's all full of heat. Mary is wearing capri jeans that look vaguely rock a billy, some vaguely pin-up top with a little peter pan collar, a hefty bag thrown over her shoulder. What else is Mary?

Mary is here! Mary is here, Mary is a untold years of purity, purity, of heroism singing Hallelujah, Holy, Holy, to wolf-blooded boys and girls wolf-Changed boys and girls, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, the King is here, the Queen will save you with her shining, the shining is a surety in the glance of her eyes and the movement of her head, the shining will beat back the darkness better than better than, and Mary is eyeing the all-you-can-eat buffet.

Cheerful, when she grabs a plate, clink-clatter, cheerful when she lifts that regal cleft just-like-a-prince-from-a-Hollywood-flick chin and her cheeks get rounder when she almost smiles and "I can sit anywhere?" in a lazy Californian drawl, she starts the finicky business of picking food out, of examining the restaurant.

Once she has her plate, she'll notice Erich all alone, Erich whose blood is singing, kin or who knows what, the point is she'll notice him: let's skip the small stuff. And she doesn't approach full-on, but circling around to give her more time to guage things like does he notice her what manner of beast is he is this going to be a surprise her sitting down or

all manner of territorial disputes.

Erich

Certainly Erich notices: who wouldn't. Erich, who is all big and beefy and All-American-Quarterback-y, who is also currently chomping on a very large drumstick, has his eyes on Mary the minute she walks in. Well; plenty of beefy young all-american quarterback-types would have their eyes on her, or perhaps more precisely on her boobs, but that is not exactly the way Erich is watching her. He is watching her with recognition, and with curiosity, and with eagerness, and with wariness.

It is an animal regard. A stranger on his hunting grounds. Time will tell if she is friend or foe.

This much, though: as she circles closer-ish, he tears that chunk of meat loose from the bone and sets the bone down, wipes his fingers rudimentarily, raises his still-greasy fingers in a little wave. Because he is chewing, and because his mama didn't raise no lout, he doesn't say anything. But the wave is friendly.

Mary

The grease shines like sugar or sugar shines like grease, Mary doesn't know, Mary can't distinguish between, Mary smiles without teeth and her chin thrusts out with the little curve because that's how her face moves. Expressions are never composed of parts, but parts working together as the whole: that's why some people photograph so flatly, don't look like themselves, that lack of motion, lack of something essential that some people call the soul -- Mary photographs just fine as anyone photographs, some good angles a lot of bad angles and a lot of caught-out flashes of expression.

"I know this isn't a cafeteria or a mess hall," a school cafeteria, she must mean; there's something precise in the choosing of that particular word, "But if I plunk myself down in that chair there, it's not going to incite an incident is it?"

Her plate is going to clink plunk on the table a second after Erich gives a nod or a swallow or some flicker of his eyes that indicates no no indeed there will be no incident. If those aren't forthcoming, well! We'll cross that bridge and burn it down when we get there.

Avery Chase

[That greeting was so strangely appropriate.]

Dick

There is a buffet. Buffets mean lots of money for cheap. Buffets mean here comes the riffraff.

And so. Enter the riffraff. He is tall and broad of shoulder. The muscles of his arms are on display for all to see thanks to a dark blue tank top, you know the kind. It hugs his developed torso like he grew into it or someone painted it on. The straps are thin and the neckline is low. A muscle shirt. It is designed to meet the barest minimum of No shirt No shoes et cetera and no more. Thanks to that shirt the canvas of his body is also on display. There are tattoos on his arms, from shoulders to thick wrists. He is wearing shorts, and lo! His legs are also defined though not quite so painted.

There is a hat on his head which is worn high and backwards. His sneakers have seen better days. He walks through the door and as it closes behind him snaps his fingers before clapping his palms together, and again, and again. Fidgety. Hungry. When was his last meal, and is the distance from then to now the source of his body's definition? Hm.

He looks across the room to the buffet, mouth watering regardless of the offerings. The place smells like meat and grease and overcooked vegetables and he can't wait to eat it oh man oh man.

But first. Breeding. It shines like a beacon from a table not far off. Storms and Thunder. Viking pride. That is always the best combination, but then aren't all combinations of Garou the best combination? If either happens to look to the door - he has no breeding, no shining, sining blood of ancient heroes to call him out to them, but there is a cloud of Rage - he tips his chin upward with a cocky smile.

'Sup.

He should probably go say hello, but just then his stomach grumbles and so instead of making nice with the locals Dick puts his hand into his pocket to make sure that yes. Yes there is the familiar crinkle of old paper money there. His smile widens and he goes to pay for his endless plates.

Erich

Uh oh. Now he is being spoken to. That means he has to say something back. That means he has to swallow his food. Which is what he does: he swallows an uncomfortably large and not-thoroughly-chewed amount of chicken drumstick, grimacing, grabbing his coke and taking a big gulp.

Then: "Well, I'm not gonna pitch a fit if that's what you mean. I can't promise no incidents whatsoever though, because who knows what could happen, y'know?"

Her plate clinkplunks down. Erich straightens up a little, tucks his feet in so their feet don't crash. "I'm Erich," he adds, and after one last attempt to clean his fingers, sticks his hand out for a shake.

Mary

Mary is a surprisingly supple creature see say the cello has curves say the cello is vavoom say that and say that its voice is supple say the violin is supple the sound of it and perhaps Mary isn't so surprisingly supple. Which is all to say, when she follows her plate's downward trajectory, dropping herself into the chair across from Erich without rattling the table even if she does drop herself down awfully enthusiastically, because if she should be languid nobody told her so and there is disgusting looking food heaped high on a plate ready for her to devour, and there's also (these are the thoughts one regrets later on) some eye candy (plainclothes Garou a 'gnawer) tipping his chin this-a-way. Mary mimics Erich's wave looking over her shoulder and then down and then back to Erich who is Erich.

"As long as sitting down doesn't incite the incidents, I'm cool with whatever happens. Nice to meet you, Erich. I'm Mary."

Her regard is not unwavering, but it is low-lashed and now that it is settled quite thoughtful. She grins. "Mary-who-is-new-to-town-as-of-just-yesterday."

Oh, a hand. Mary tucks her feet under the chair and takes Erich's hand gravely ignoring any lingering vestiges of grease or sauce. Her red rosette umbrella art piece statement has been hooked at her elbow like she's some demure au pair and now she tucks it under the table and between her knees, a prelude before tucking in.

"I know barely anyone at all. This is the first Denver grub I'm trying; is it as good as it looks?"

That might be a joke. Look at this greasy mess of greasalicious fragrance and putrefaction, of heavy sauces and boiled vegetables and what is that? Noodles? Brown something. Mm. Mary lives dangerously, or has the digestive capabilities of somebody with really good digestive capabilities.

Avery Chase

There is no reason on Gaia's green earth why Avery Stoneleigh Merriweather Chase should be here. This is not her sort of establishment at all, is it? She doesn't often frequent all-you-can-eat anything, she is bewildered by sneeze guards and disturbed by their necessity, and she stands out like a sore thumb.

There is one very good reason why Reverence of Dawn, Radiant Honor should be here, though. A superb reason, in fact, that has her pushing open the door and striding inward.

It is the back door, and she is striding into the kitchen, so out in the open all the others hear is a surprised cook yelping at a surprisingly high pitch.

Then some metal-on-metal clattering, and loud voices saying indeterminate things. Then a heavy thud.

Mary

[GUESS WHO'S APPROVED. *logs out to come back in again*]

Dick

[WOO YEAH PUT'CHYO FACE ON GURL]

Avery Chase

[WAIT WHO IS APPROVED I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON *wine*]

Dick

Dick of course returns the look with one of his own, because damn. He should probably look closer, look for the Rage, look for the sign of Gaia's grace, but nah. Let him have his moment of inspection with a touch of lascivious appreciation without consideration of the Litany and Dick you can't do that because ~*SPIRITS*~ or something.

His appreciation of women is second only to his appreciation for food. The food that is on display is not the best but it'll do. It'll do. Turning away from the beauty and are bulky brute who might in another life have been his cousin, Dick's attention goes to the girl behind the register. His hand goes to his pocket. His fingers wrap around the bill! He's going to eat!!

And then there is a yelp because of course there is a yelp. And there is a clatter of metal on metal because of course that, too. Dick's face falls and his shoulders slump, but only for a moment, and a brief one at that. He puts his money on the counter - just barely enough - and he goes to get a plate, and he heads for the part of the buffet line closest to the kitchen doors. The better to listen, and to determine if he gets to eat before or after the fomori arrive.

[sure why not try some alertness FIRST DICE ROLL FIRST DICE ROLL EE]

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

Erich

"It's awesome," Erich says: enthusiastically and utterly without irony. "I hope you got the salisbury steak and the roast beef. And! Welcome to Denver. I don't actually live in the city but I'm part of the city S-- um." Thinks. "I work in 1999 Broadway."

Subtle. Subtle as a sledgehammer.

"I live up in the mountains though. Well, I live in a tinyhouse on wheels so really I live anywhere I want, with my pack. But right now we live up in the mountains. -- HEY AVERY!"

He's spotted Avery. His face lights up. But Avery is not here to talk; Avery is here to do something and Avery pretty much blows right by and then the door goes flying open and people are yelping and things are clattering and then THUD.

"See, I told you I couldn't promise no incidents," Erich says. On his way out of the booth -- because of course he's getting out of the booth, of course he's going to see what the hell just happened -- he grabs another drumstick. "Come on, this'll be fun."

Erich

[whoops: avery is in the kitchen and not visible. ignore that line where Erich is like HI AVERY! he'll just be like HEY STUFF GOING ON LET'S GO LOOK]

Mary

Mary follows along Erich's friendly subtle sledgehammer hello this fact that and then turns her head (of course of course) when Reverence of Dawn, Radiant Honor (hey, my name's Honor's Thorn: made for each other, heh heh) sails through the front door (are you a thing I know) her thoughtful attention deepening who knows what lies beneath it and then the backdoor slams and Mary looks at Erich. The hot guy's at the buffet. Damn, she should --

Yelp. Thud. Yelp. Yelp. Thud. Mary winces. Mary is a monster, Mary is a murderess, Mary is a bad thing, a wolf in a young woman's flesh, rage in an appealing enough package, but Mary also has sharp ears sensitive to pitch, to yelps, to musical noises, musak drives her mad, white noise makes her teeth feel as if they're riddled with cavities and she's biting into something sweet, Mary's just a sound-snob, and she winces, but listens all poised in that way people poise themselves when they're blatantly listening hard to something that they're not engaged in.

He says Come on, this'll be fun.

"Can't blame this one on sitting!"

Mary fastidiously plucks a noodle from the plate and slurps it up, it slaps her chin and she daintily licks the tips of her fingers, and she half-follows (well, Silver Fangs do not follow, Silver Fangs deign to accompany, and that's there, sublimated into a more socially acceptable response -- stranger in a strange city) half-just-goes to vamp-spy by the door like it's a joke.

Mary

[ooc: oh shoot, I thought Avery strode through front-door-to-back-kitchen too. *grin* Ignore the parts about following Erich's blah and looking and blah.]

Avery Chase

[ack: yeah, sorry. i meant: she walked in through a back door, directly into the kitchen! that's why i didn't describe what was happening with the noises!]

Avery Chase

A heavy thump, and some talking, and then another yelp -- lower, more pained, more pleading.

There are windows in the swinging doors to the kitchen, because the doors go both ways and people are in and out and in and out and you need to make sure you're not about to slam into someone, aren't you. So when one, two, three faces peer through those windows --

everyone else in the restaurant doesn't dare, some sixth sense is making them lean away, primordially wary

-- those three pairs of eyes from three different tribes look in and spy a man wearing kitchen whites that are stained not just with sauces and splatters but also rich yellow pit-stains. That man is face down on the terra-cotta floor, cheek hard against the tiles, his right arm twisted up behind his back, wrist immobilized between his shoulderblades, his left arm twitching but unable to reach the way he needs it to, twisted slightly under him. There is a woman on top of him who seems larger because.

Because the moon is waxing. Because she is in the dominant position. Because she, like Erich, has a certain whiff of something about her that feels like authority and strength and honor, honor. Because she bears the blood of emperors and queens, and it is somehow red hot and pristine blue and searing silver all at once in her veins.

As they watch her, he weeps and she twists his arm harder, her knee hard to his spine. Her teeth are bared for a moment with the effort -- not the effort of restraining him, for it is none, but the effort of restraining herself when faced with helpless prey,

as all mortals are, in a dark and seldom talked-about fashion, her prey. Their prey.

Avery pauses after snarling something to him under her breath, inconsequential, a warning: she glances up, sensing fury on the horizon, sensing thunderclouds and beating wings in the sky. Sensing another like herself, too. And seeing them there, particularly one of her tribe and one she recognizes as a friend, Avery -- who is kneeling on top of a fry cook and holding him in such a position that if he tries to free himself he'll break his own arm -- bursts into a beaming grin. She picks up one of her hands, giving them all a little wave.

Erich

Erich, who was only peering through that round porthole into the kitchen to see A) how big an object he should prepare to chuck at B) whose head, bursts into a grin when he sees who's in there. His hand pops up, nearly clocking Dick, and he waves back.

"Avery!" He whips about; this, to Mary: "You should come meet Avery!" And on that note he bursts through the door.

Dick

The two wellbred ones rise to join him. Well, they don't join him. No one joins a Bone Gnawer at a buffet line, not if they want to keep all their fingers and toes (yes toes) intact. But a Silver Fang and a Shadow Lord rise up to listen in, as well. One of whom does not look at Dick, does not notice him, does not deign to accept his presence.

To which Dick merely gives a look to - of all people - the Silver Fang princess (queen? empress? eh). A look that includes a rolllll of his eyes, because until someone informs him that a certain someone else switched teams, Erich feels like the Get of Fenris to him. He looks like it, too, all golden-haired and blue-eyed and hurly burly. And ignoring the Gnawer, typical (of any tribe, honestly). But the Silver Fang noticed him and so she gets silent commentary.

They are the first ones to the door, but damn if Dick isn't a little bit curious about what's going on in there. Who what why what's happening? Does someone need help? Is someone holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night? His plate gets left on the counter (he's already in, he can totally get another one later) and comes closer to the door, peering past shoulders and through a round window to another shining child of Falcon what the hell, is this a Silver Fang city?

A hand comes up right in front of his face and automatically Dick grabs hold of it, neatly keeping it from smacking him right on the nose. "Whoa there, dude, c'mon, don't be rude." He doesn't hold onto him, though, not because he's nervous (he can take you, easy), but because the Silver Fang warrior on the other side is smiling and waving like she's not pinning a cook to the floor. Erich bursts through the door and a half second later Dick is shouldering past him, because that is someone he needs to meet.

"Hey hey, lady, you want any help?" Want, he says, because clearly she does not need it. But Dick plants his hands-curled-to-fists onto his hips and takes a look around the kitchen. Because where there's one person who needs to be pinned to the floor, usually there's another.

Mary

Mary had her backside pressed against (skimming just beside) the wall and look how she leaned leaned leaned to peer with one eye through that little porthole, near but not too near blonde stalwart salt and Fjord-blooded Erich who Mary would never guess was Shadowlord, not ever, not right now. Her eyes are dark as the sea sometimes and as untroubled as beneath-the-surface; it isn't serenity, but density; but weight which lends a gloss of weightlessness to her intent regard, biting her lip in the center like so.

Erich through the door. Dick through the door. Mary not through the door yet yet no, Mary on the threshold of the door, leaning a shoulder against it, her chin lofted and a small smile a warily behaved noblesse oblige coupled with an enthusiastic smolder.

"Okay!" Come meet Avery.

One Ragabash says: Hey hey lady, you want any help?

The other says: "But why's the cook getting tough love? What'd you eat?"

Because she doesn't want to eat it!

Erich

Erich's hand is grabbed. He is not expecting that. There's something an edge too quick, a hair too hard, about his turnabout. Sparks in his eyes. Furrow in his brow.

He cools it. "Sorry 'bout that," he says, easily, but then Dick is trying to follow him through the door and now it's Erich's turn to grab. Shoulder, not hand. "Hey, whoa, wait. Just go back to your dinner, okay? I got this. I'll call 911, don't worry. Just... just go back out there and eat."

After all: Dick boasts neither purity of blood nor an overwhelming amount of rage. Erich makes assumptions. He assumes: human. Curious. Underfoot, possibly in danger.

Avery Chase

Some of the guests of the A1 +++ are finding reasons to leave, and not all of them are making sure they pay. Which is fine, since there are a couple of employees who are totally not sure what to do right now and are scared to call the police, what if the lady back there is the police she sort of has that vibe, you know?

The door comes swinging open as Erich bursts through. The man knows better than to start begging Erich for help, since it's pretty clear this is a friend of the blonde woman's. He does whimper, though, as more and more frightening people join the kitchen. He starts to say something;

Avery yanks his arm up. Well: tugs. She doesn't have to pull hard for it to sting. "Hush," she says firmly, like she's scolding a child, and he begins to weep.

When Dick says lady, there is no capital L to it. There should be, though, that is in her carriage. She responds to him as though he did. "Oh, I'm quite all right, thank you," she tells him mildly, and at Mary's question, she curls over the cook, eyebrows up, lips curved in a smile. Her dark eyebrows are expressive, her lips curve beautifully. "Mr. Grant here has been talking to some very naughty people about opening up a supply line with them. And behind his owner's back, no less. But Mr. Grant is reconsidering, since he is already getting such nice, clean,"

she twists his arm a little harder on this word,

"meat already from his owner-approved supplier. Aren't you, Mr. Grant?" she says, these last words not a snarl, not a scold, but a growl. There are teeth in it. There is bloodshed.

He whimpers, he gulps. "I only talked to the guy, I swear! It was just a meeting with one of their reps! I took a sample! That's all!"

Avery, savagely, smacks his head into the terra cotta. She doesn't pull it up by the hair and slam it down. No need. She just thwaps him, and it hurts, but it doesn't knock him out. Just makes him see a few stars. "And you'll have another meeting with their rep, Mr. Grant, to thank him for his time and that sample, before you turn down their offer. And when he asks why, when they're willing to undercut your costs so dramatically, you're going to speak poetically of loyalty and partnerships and trust. You're going to tell him about your passion for supporting local business. And when he pushes you, you're going to drop my name."

Her free hand presses on his neck, holding him tightly there, pressing her knee into his spine. "Tell me," she says, low and flat, "that you understand."

Dick

Erich tries to get a hold of Dick, but he's a slippery one. He manages to get ahead and soon as he feels fingertips alighting on his practically bare shoulder, dances out of his grip.

"Dude!" he says. "Call nine one one, why? She's obviously got this." She being Avery of course. And just as obviously, the matter in the kitchen is something personal, well. Dick isn't that curious. Avery gets to "owner-approved" and Dick has lost interest in favor of, well in favor of his empty, growling stomach.

He turns away and, eyes locked onto the Get, keeps watching him on his way out the door back into the dining room. Twists his head to keep watching even as he's out the door, just to make sure the handsy one doesn't decide to try and feel him up next. Rude people everywhere, honestly. He hasn't lost his appetite by any means but he has lost all desire to dine in this fine establishment. Rude people and possibly funny meat and just, well, even Gnawers have their limits, don't they?

He picks up his plate from the line and takes it up to the girl at the register, like maybe he can offer it to her for a return. She probably doesn't, but ah. Well. His Rage is not so great or difficult to control as some people's, but it's riled just the same. Best to get some distance.

[and that is Dick out the door! thanks for the scene!]

Erich

Erich, who is largely ignorant of the almost-incident with the not-actually-a-human, is watching the proceedings with obvious relish. It's better than Judge Judy. Similar amounts of no-nonsense and smackdown, though.

"Y'know, I'd do what she says," he pipes up for Mr. Grant's benefit. And just because it feels appropriate to utter peanut-gallery commentary.

Mary

Mary watches Dick go with, well, Mary watches Dick go, but only for a moment. Her mouth has become a frown, chin pushing out with that expression just as it does when she smiles without revealing teeth, a troubled shadow between plucked eyebrows, but she is still very, very interested in what her tribemate is doing. Much more interested; ask a question, get it answered, and there's delight itching at her palms.

"Seems like it would be the wisest decision you made in quite some time," Mary says, coolly, not missing a beat, Thug-or-Wise Guy #2 to Erich's Thug-or-Wise Guy #1.

Avery Chase

Mr. Grant is trying very hard not to cry. "I understand, I understand," he says, because not only did he get slammed onto his prep station and then onto the kitchen floor by the most unexpected gangster he's ever met, now she's got hench-people. One of whom is an ivory-skinned princess and the other of whom has a bit of barbecue sauce on the corner of his mouth. Jesus. He didn't know that regular was into the extortion game, he's probably the one who told some boss somewhere that he was taking that meeting, that's why the blonde is kneeing him in the back. Shit.

Avery pats his head, smoothing down his greasy hair under his chef's cap. "Now say my name so I know you have it."

He shudders, recoiling from the touch. "Miss Chase. Miss Avery Chase."

Avery smiles. She's almost beaming. "Perfect. Say it just like that when they ask, and I'll make sure they don't pester you with big complicated supply source contracts ever, ever again." She uses his body as leverage as she pushes herself up; he makes a cry of pain, but she is letting him go, and he's curling up, unrolling his arm, his joints screaming. He doesn't get up as she rises to her feet, looking down at him. She gives him a Look, then walks over to a sink and -- oops, it has sign that it's for Food Prep ONLY!!! and there's another one, separate, for hand-washing. She smiles at him, see I didn't mess up your prep station! and goes about washing her hands at the HAND WASHING ONLY!!! sink.

"Erich, how are you?" she says, turning away as she dries her hands, walking past Mr. Grant towards the other wolves, as though he's not even there. "Introduce me to your new friend!" She beams at both of them, glowing, gently ushering her party back out of the kitchen.

Erich

Considering the chaos that just went down in the kitchen, Erich's pretty damn nonchalant about knocking the double-doors open with his fist so Avery can sail right through. He falls in behind her -- and behind Mary, because again: mama didn't raise no louts.

"This is Mary," he says as they return to his table. Assuming they return to his table. Well, he's returning to his table. He has a whole heap of unhealthy to eat. "She just came to town like yesterday. Mary, this is Avery. But you probably already heard that.

"Why'd you tell him your name, by the way?" Ahhh, drumsticks. Erich has one. He starts eating it. "Aren't you worried about him sending someone after you or your family?"

Mary

Radiant Honor is radiant and so golden when she smiles and dries her hands and gently ushers the wolves at the door back into the emptied out (gutted, get it?) restaurant. Mary is watchful. Mary is watchful with those dark Spanish eyes of hers, carefully lined, ringed in smoke, Mary is watchful and watching the kitchen, Mary is looking at everything before backing away from the threshold, looking looking looking, more eyes than mouth (that's rare, a cousin or a sibling might say with a smirk but only if they're not up to no good because Mary finds out about the no good), like her purpose is to observe and hold her tongue seen not heard seeing not heard.

They return to the table. Mary has a platefull of food! Mary is hungry, slippery supple young woman, and isn't there a certain well-placed and innate arrogance when Erich asks his question? Can arrogance be innate or is it just learned?

"Pshaw," oh yes, she says it. "Her family can probably handle the minions of a fry-cook who cries over spoilt meat."

Avery Chase. Chase. There might be Chases in Mary's family tree somewhere. Branches tangle.

But she respectfully waits for the blonde creature to answer before she says, eyebrows lofting, glance impartial between, "Do you both work 1999 Broadway?"

Mary is enthusiastic. Mary is glad to be here. Mary has gusto, that's the word. Gusto puppeteering a vague linguistic saunter toward the realms of formality, of proprietry, all that: see. "I did just arrive yesterday; forgive me for not already having looked you up!"

Avery Chase

Avery laughs at Erich. Why'd she tell him her name. Isn't she worried.

"I once sent a woman the tanned skin of one of her minions as an invitation to please come after me," she says as they sweep back into the restaurant, which is mostly empty now. She walks like someone for whom doors just magically open. Someone opens them. But not exactly: she smiles at Erich as he holds it. She grins at him.

"Mary," she says, without going into much more detail about sending someone a person's skin as her own personal 'Come At Me, Bro'. She's moving on. She's smiling happily at the newcomer. "You're quite correct, though the meat someone is trying to sell him isn't so much spoiled as it is tainted."

Avery gives a small shrug. "I would quite like the rep who spoke with Mr. Grant to help introduce me to the higher-ups involved in such things," she says, and Mary asks about Broadway. "Indeed," Avery answers, and "Don't even think of it," she adds, waving a hand. "Now, the two of you will let me treat, yes?"

Erich

"Okay, when you guys put it that way," Erich says.

"And yeah. I think we both go out to the, uh, other office too. Sometimes? But mostly 1999 Broadway." He looks down at his plates. Plural. "Well, I already paid? It's pay first, then eat. But we should get ice cream after this."

Mary

"How interesting," Mary says, without a drop of wryness although a bit of the languor promised by her general voluptuousness slipping through the energy sleeking through her tone which is rather sleek isn't it? Sleek and shining. "What kind of meat?" And she looks with sudden suspicion at her plate, nostrils flaring, drawing herself right up --

but someone said ice cream? Mary raises her eyebrows with great delicacy; the delicacy is not evident in the sly sort of grin which accompanies, "Ice cream? Good ice cream? July ice cream?"

July ice cream served to wolves: the best kind.