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