"The night shift folks will love you. Though some classes are only offered at one time, so you might have to endure a bit of daylight for a little while. It's not a medical condition, is it?"
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"The night shift folks will love you. Though some classes are only offered at one time, so you might have to endure a bit of daylight for a little while. It's not a medical condition, is it?"
Rose sits stiffly in her chair, her eyes locked on McCurtis. Her right hand involuntarily clenches and unclenches, and her mouth is stretched thin.
A moment passes, and she moves to crack her neck. Loudly.
"...I should be going. I'll leave you two to sort out whatever details."
Spring passed across her eyes like a whisper.
It was an involuntary burst of glamour in front of her eyes, like her own magic had slapped her across the face for being a dullard and filled her mind with new information. The sensation had a fleeting desperation, like if this moment slipped by it would be lost forever.
She was talking even before Rose opened her mouth.
"My friend also wants to apply for the position, and she's way better at everything than I am so could you help her with the paperwork as well? I mean, she made me turn myself in, imagine what she could do with a badge."
She was focusing far more on this sale than the last, certain of the transience of the moment.
[Minus one Glamour, 9/10, unless Rose has a secret crush on Stephanie]
[Well, that's not really for me to rule on. Rose?]
The officer nods at Rose. "You should have said so. That's a good thing you did for your friend, she's lucky to have you. Yes, I'll help both of you out, but I can't guarantee anything. There are only so many spots."
[It occurs to me that this is a prime moment to call Marchande and acquire a little luck.]
[Son of a...submariner! I did miss this post.]
"Sales? What, like a used car dealer or one of those door to door men that throw dirt on the carpet so they can show you a vacuum cleaner? Hold on let me look."
She walks over to her desk and pulls out a rolodex with what looks to be hundreds of different cards, each presumably bearing a name and phone number. Old school, but also impressive. After flipping through a few she says "The best I've got is a wine salesman. You get to go to a lot of parties, but you can't ever get drunk and you have to actually know wine. You don't look to me like you know wine..."
Charlotte clears her throat lightly. The sound is akin to a small frog croaking as it dives from a lily pad, the ordinarily raspy, low sound swallows by a high liquid bloolp.
"I beg your pardon, Madame, but aren't you going to introduce me to our hostess?" Charlotte asks with a smile. Her eyes widen at the old woman's voice, but otherwise she makes no move from the head of the stairs.
[No, Rose does not have a secret crush on anypony]
Rose is already standing, trying to make her way out the door when Stephanie speaks up about an opportunity for her, too. She freezes mid stride and turns her head awkwardly to stare at Officer McCurtis. She clenches her teeth and forces a breath through them.
"I... appreciate it."
She walks away a good bit faster than she'd meant to. Out. Out not. Screw everything. Out. Air. Out...
Just outside the police office, she's practically hyperventilating. God damn it, Stephanie. What the hell was that for?
"So -" Stephanie said, glancing between the door and back, hesitating before bolting. "- should I come back tomorrow, then? Is there anything else?"
"Wednesday, I won't be in tomorrow. And, do me a favor and don't talk about stealing all those wallets to anyone, would you?"
[It's Sunday in game time presently.]
"Sure. Thank you! Thank you so much!" said Stephanie, smiling and dashing out the door after Rose.
Upon catching up with her, she immediately asked, "You okay?"
"Oh, sure, of course..you should get going." Officer McCurtis appears to be trying to appear stern but is also blushing a bit behind his mustache at Stephanie's obvious joy as she walks out.
Rose hesitates as Stephanie makes her way outside, but in a fit of passion lifts her up by her shirt and pins her against the wall of the station.
"What the hell was that about?! Who told you to do that? What right do you..."
Kalina doesn't relinquish her grip or look away for one second. Her body trembles, and very obvious tears well in her eyes.
"Do you really think I could join the police now with all the blood on my hands? You idiot..."
The dam named Rose breaks.
Stephanie's mind briefly freaked out when she was grabbed, a haywire series of images of breaks and escapes flashing through her head. She'd been too slow, she'd hesitated, and the rules had changed...
Stephanie closed her eyes and spoke with a voice that was working very hard to stay level. "No one who wants this job as bad as you do could possibly be bad at it."
"Well," Marchande says, "I can talk wine. I can't identify it by taste, you know, but I know the lingo, old bean. Ah, yes, good vintage, wonderful year. Dry on the tongue, smooth sliding down. Would you like the Milanto or the Miecheray?"
Selling things to people... that was strength. Convincing people that they wanted something, that they truly wanted something. And parties were good. Dogs weren't allowed in parties. Therefore, people went to parties. All logical.
"Hmmmmm? Oh, yes," Marchande says, lightly striking the side of her head. "Charlotte, this is Namine. Apparently a name popularized by Kingdom Hearts? Namine, this is my friend, Charlotte. We escaped together, along with Rose and Stephanie... Charlotte, where's Stephanie?"
Charlotte curtsies again, twisting the fabric of the skirt in her fingers, feeling the slide of fiber and thread against the ridges of her skin, listening to the different hues of rustling. For a moment, she isn't even there.
"What? Oh, Stephanie. She is in reverse, returning wallets and receiving dignity at the start of her trials where schism alone was
Found at the end. Kingdoms have hearts?"
"Well, alright. You look to me like you can't tell a Zinfandel from a Cabernet, but if that's what you want we can make it work dear. Just don't come crying to me if you blow it. Only the first ID is on the house."
She turns to Charlotte. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, dearie. Are you here seeking anything, or just tagging along with your friend?"
"We are here for new identities, miss Nommy-nay." Charlotte carefully forms the name in her mouth, obviously unfamiliar with even a schoolchild's understanding of Japanese. "Although, I have an identity, I don't suppose I need a completely new one? Charlotte for weaving and Blanc like a slate, or easel. Paper? Stephanie and Marchande helped me with my name." There is fondness in her voice, behind the confusion and weariness.
With a step and a turn she pulls the press pass from Marchande's suit pocket by the lanyard clip, and holds it between the gilded crescent moon-faces of her nails, the pass looking for all the world like some abyssal spider with human fingers for legs.
"Like this, I think, non? We need identities to say who we are, but I don't want to be... Stephen Ferrouse, and I want my picture on the card." Charlotte looms over Namine for a moment like a limp marionette, head dropped to read the name on the pass while keeping it stable for the older, younger, uh... Woman. "Like this." Charlotte gazes at the card expectantly, her eyes tweeting to a slow worried droop. She takes her lower lip in between her pearly silver teeth and worries the flesh, an almost a full minute passes in awkward silence before the press pass shifts into blurred splotches of ink, dancing with each other over the surface before settling in to the same slightly Asian face she had memorized in the mirror just yesterday.
Spoilercharlotte uses trivial reworking to change the image on the press pass to her own. This meets the catch (imprinting your own face) and makes her poor attempt cheaper; expression + surf comes out to 0 dice. It too 14 rolls before the die came up 10, which is a pity. I was hoping for a dramatic failure.
"That was a little sad, dear" Namine says as Charlotte works out the example ID she's working on. "I gather you don't quite understand the value here, hmm? Don't worry though, I can make you a pretty card with your picture on it like that one and when you show it to most people, they'll be nice and leave you alone."
As she's bustling about, she takes out a small box of papers and hands them to Marchande. Included are some photographs of a winery, a list of client names, and a contact sheet for the winery she will be representing. Their wine lable is "Faerie Fire" and their logo is a black label with curling vines and several stylized drawings of flames and will-o-wisps. There's also an apartment lease in the city, with the name and date left blank. "So, Marchande. Did you have a particular name you'd like me to use for you, or should I make one for you? I'll need to cut you a new driver's license, and then get the lease and employment paperwork done for you."
"Research," is Marchande's reply. "I'll make it work." There's a moment as Namine attends to Charlotte. Marchande winces, half-listening to the conversation, as she starts making a plan to make "wine merchant" her new vocation. When that conversation comes to a lull, she asks, "So how much is the second ID? Hypothetically."
"Faerie Fire," Marchande says, half-amused and half-contemptuous. "I take it that they have connections to the Court?" Which explained how she could get a job there. Maybe there would be quirky coworkers? And certainly money to be made, contacts. Ah, yes.
"Use Ruth..." The name dies on the tongue. "...I mean, March. March Anders." Marchande is her name now. Why not use it properly?
"Dear, don't think in money. You've got to get it into your head that we trade in favors here. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head because it depends what I need at the time. Past favors have included someone making a new contact for me, equivalent to the one I was giving them. One fellow got me a pass into several of the city's most expensive restaurants whenever I wanted for a couple months, which is really a coup for someone who likes like a 12-year old to most of the world. Another one made me the most beautiful music box you've ever heard.
"March Anders, got it. And yes, of course they have court connections. No changelings work there, but one of the humans was ensorcelled in the past, using the label was a favor he did as part of a pledge, helps mark his vineyard as a safe place for fae folk. Feel free to ensorcell one of them yourself, if you'd like, pledges aren't a half bad way to get glamour, and you can give them a little extra luck to ensure their vineyard does well."Quote:
"Faerie Fire," Marchande says, half-amused and half-contemptuous. "I take it that they have connections to the Court?" Which explained how she could get a job there. Maybe there would be quirky coworkers? And certainly money to be made, contacts. Ah, yes.
"Use Ruth..." The name dies on the tongue. "...I mean, March. March Anders." Marchande is her name now. Why not use it properly?
"Pardon me, miss, but... Ensorcel?"
Rose looks uncertain, like she might go through with it and slam her fist into Stephanie for daring to presume what she feels, but also that Stephanie might be right.
[Want to give you a shot to add more, Thanqol, before I take over for Phoe[
Namine rolls all her spider-like eyes at once. It's a rather odd movement, but you understand the vexation well enough. "Don't you know any fairytales, child? Rumplestiltskin weaving hay into gold, witches enchanting young ladies, talking animals, and elves and dwarves and so on? There must be some way that mortals picked up on all that, and ensorcellment is it. Tis a grand and dangerous pledge, but a rewarding one. And one you'll need to try for yourself."
Stephanie's mind had started moving far faster than she could keep up with. Images flashed against the inside of her eyes, pounding into her skull along with pulses of blood.
She had a knife in her shoe. She could grab it, pull it, strike - an image of stabbing into Rose's throat flashed before it was replaced with an image of the knife skittering off Rose's silver armour. An image of trying to cut through her own shirt showed before her mind decided it wasn't fast enough. Trying to escape from the grip, implausible -
She didn't want to be thinking these things but she couldn't stop.
The visions started to give way to pounding pulses of red, terror and desperation that made her want to throw up, shallow useless gasps for air that didn't do anything to stop her head from spinning.
Rose just stares at Stephanie, her breathing getting faster and shorter, sweat beading on her brow. It was the first time Stephanie had looked really scared, really vulnerable. Without another word, the pressure on Stephanie's body is suddenly gone, Rose's arms released. She turns and walks away, heading back towards Namine's place.
It took long minutes of sickening churning inside her head before Stephanie felt capable of standing up.
This was not something she could dwell on.
An observer would have found it disturbing how quickly she stood up and how seemingly calmly she started jogging. She looked like she'd instantly forgotten, or at least tried very hard to forget the entire sequence. She'd started running again and didn't look behind her.
She took a different route from Rose, but headed back to the same place; a certain fixed seriousness to her features.
"So an ensorcelling pledge lets someone know... That we are... What? Changed?" Charlotte sounds like she is working out the details rather than questioning it. "That is a good thing?"
Although Stephanie takes the more circuitous, route, her naturally quick pace sees her arrive back at Namine's before Rose. She catches a glimpse of Rose slowly walking back at the end of the block as she heads up the stairs just in time for this line.
"Oh dearie, you'll just have to try it and find out." Namine lets out a cackle more in keeping with a warty old witch than a 12-year-old spider girl.
She turns when Stephanie comes in
"Oh, hello child. Might you be one of the others that ran out on us and let the draft in earlier?"
"Yes," said Stephanie, moving in and coming to a complete stop. "Sorry," she said focusing on something just a little in the distance.
"Well really, girl, you ought to know better than to freeze out an old lady. Now come in and join your little friends here, where it's warm, and we can see if we can help you out with anything, hmm?"
Rose comes in about this time. She walks up the stairs as well, making absolutely certain to avoid any eye contact with Stephanie, and moves over to a corner, intently examining a bronze telescope next to a particularly voluminous wall-hanging.