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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
"Oh, well we have met Talmage... Felix drove us here, actually." Jon relaxed a little now that Ashley seemed a less angry. He really didn't want another fight on his hands.
"Sorry to hear about this place; I just came here because it's my sister's school and I haven't seen her in forever. Of course, she doesn- didn't know that."
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
"Oh, right, you've got Fetch troubles? Look, give Gabriel Pope a call. If you're prepared to owe him a favour he can have Summer just take care of that thing for you," Ashley shrugged. "and then you can just step back into your life, bam."
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
Jon frowned a little, as he tried to decide if the girl meant what he thought she might.
"I'll give it some thought... Anyway, how long have you been back? You seem to have things pretty figured out."
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
"What is this, a share our angsty backstories party? I'm back so I'm back, figuring it out isn't hard once you put your mind to it," Ashley shrugged.
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
Isabelle had mostly been hanging to the rear of the group and attempting to implant suggestions in the back of Jon's head with the sheer force of her glare.
She took a brief break to smirk at Ashley's crack, but soon resumed her quest to better her friend through psychic bludgeoning.
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
Charlene was glad to see things calm down at least a little. She had feared more of a row.
"Well, I think we've learned to be more careful in the future," she said, nodding at Jon. "Thank you for your help with the crowd, by the way. So what's up with this place? We met the wolves earlier, must be a story behind that, and you mentioned the dean too?" she asked, hoping to switch the topic to something slightly less heated. She decided not to mention the other Lost who apparently she didn't even want to talk about, so no point mentioning them.
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
"I just told you what was up with this place, weren't you paying attention?" Ashley said angrily.
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
Someone certainly is testy, Charlene thought. She wasn't sure what kind of response the other girl was hoping for, but Charlene certainly wasn't about to let herself be provoked like that. "All I've heard is there are wolves and a possessed dean," she said. "Doesn't tell us much, but if you don't want to go into detail that's fine. It's not like it's our business, I'm just curious."
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
"You want detail go sit in on a lecture. I don't care about any of this so long as you don't validate the goddamn janitor in his Kill All Monsters quest. Christ, it's like smacking a steak against the bars of a cage. It's just gonna piss the dog off."
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
"We certainly have no intention of causing more trouble," Charlene said, deciding to leave it at that. This place was nuts, from the looks of it. Maybe there was more beneath the surface.
[Trying to figure out if something's up with Ashley, beyond the obvious that she's angry about what Jon did. Maybe she's afraid to say too much. Wits+Empathy, right?]
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Deadly
"We certainly have no intention of causing more trouble," Charlene said, deciding to leave it at that. This place was nuts, from the looks of it. Maybe there was more beneath the surface.
[Trying to figure out if something's up with Ashley, beyond the obvious that she's angry about what Jon did. Maybe she's afraid to say too much. Wits+Empathy, right?]
[Wits+Empathy sounds right; no modifiers]
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
[Wits+Empathy = 6 : 7, 8, 7, 8, 6, 5 - 2 successes]
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
On the surface, Ashley's deal was that she was pissed off. The motives for this were subtle, but recognisable.
She had the air of someone who wasn't used to talking to people, and especially not as equals. But this wasn't the isolation of someone who was afraid of social situations, this had all the patterns of someone who had been systematically rejected until she'd found security in self reliance. This made her naturally extremely contemptuous of people who couldn't solve their own problems.
She was compensating, basically, filling some old hurt with anger. People like this tended to be very high strung, touchy and defensive. They also tended to eventually break down.
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
Jon was starting to feel his neck prickle, and he finally turned to catch Isabelle giving him an odd look.
"Everything ok, Isabelle?" His voice was still a little sheepish.
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
“Ugh, no Jon. Everything is not okay” Isabelle retorted, finally breaking her sullen silence.
“Way I see it, Ash here’s got a pretty good point. We came down here for one reason; so that you could try to talk to your sister. We’re not here for a campus tour, and we’re definitely not here to blow the whole goddamn masquerade wide open in the middle of a figging schoolyard. What the hell were you thinking? Charlene and I only left you alone for a couple of minutes!”
“And the part that really pisses me off is that you went ahead and did all that, putting yourself and maybe your sister in danger, without seeing if maybe … just maybe … Charlene and I might have been able to help? You know, like how we offered to talk to Jess for you about twenty minutes ago? You don’t have to do everything on your own!”
She closed on Jon, the volume of her voice dropping but losing none of its edge. Isabelle jabbed him with a finger, as if to emphasise the point, but there was a trickle of warmth that seemed to linger in the spot where she’d poked him.
“Now get your mask back on, and maybe we can have one last try, together, before we get out of here.”
[Transferring one glamour to Jon, Isabelle has 2 points remaining. PS: Would this count as Charity?]
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
They hadn't exactly got off on the best foot with Ashley, had they? But that could hopefully be remedied. She couldn't reach the girl when the mood was like this and with all this mess. It wasn't the time or place, but hopefully they could improve the first impression.
And then Isabelle burst out, and Charlene turned to watch, nodding solemnly. She hadn't said much yet, but she was upset too and definitely disappointed. More disappointed than angry. She didn't have anything to add, Isabelle had said it all.
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
BlasTech
[Transferring one glamour to Jon, Isabelle has 2 points remaining. PS: Would this count as Charity?]
[Nope. Biggest part of Charity is not expecting anything in return.]
Ashley looked remotely impressed that at least one of the people in the room was exhibiting something akin to a spine. She didn't see the need to add anything to Isabelle's rant.
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
Jon stared at Isabelle for a moment after she poked him; his mouth moved, but no words came out, like he was running through something in his head but couldn't quite articulate it. Finally, he managed to find a place to start.
"You don't understand... I mean, Jess is my sister. Hell, she's most of the reason I'm even back here! And I had to watch her treat me like some babbling idiot? When I know she's dating a goddamned wolf? That there's my fetch back home plotting who-knows-what for my family?" He paused for a breath, and managed to continue more calmly. "I couldn't lose another chance... or even worse, let the guy wearing my face find an excuse to pull them all even farther away from me, now that he knows I'm back? What would I do then? I mean, If I can't go home, why - why did I even come back?"
The haunted look in Jon's eyes said he'd dropped the Mask because he was desperate - and maybe a little afraid that he really was crazy...
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
Isabelle took a deep breath before replying with the same quiet intensity. Despite evidently trying to control her voice, she was unable to stop an occasional tremor of repressed emotion from creeping in.
"No ... I get it Jon. You're the older sibling. It's your job to protect them, and the thought of anything threatening them or their happiness is like ... well, I don't know what exactly it's like, but it makes you angry, worried and afraid all at the same time."
"It doesn't pass with time or go away either, it just sits there somewhere inside you. It gnaws at you at night, keeping you up until you fall asleep from exhaustion or until some other tragic, emo-like thought about the world distracts you for just long enough to pass out."
"I have a little sister too, remember? And, you can believe me, if I thought she was in any imminent danger, I'd probably be on my way upstate right now."
She looked away, eyes distant as they struggled to imagine what her younger sibling would look like nowadays. The reverie lasted only a heartbeat.
"But I've been gone nearly ten years, Jon. Ten years. I figure a few more days won't change things. But if I let that fear get to me, if I let it push me into doing something stupid, then it could screw everything up."
"All I'm saying is think, okay? You've got two people who followed you here through the brambles and through the city. We can at least vouch that you're not totally nuts, that's got to be more effective than turning into a deer-man-thing right in front of her."
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
Jon sighed heavily and seemed to sink a little. "Yeah... ok. I am sorry, I just got scared - I know that isn't a good enough excuse, but if I'd realized how many people were around and that it could be dangerous, I wouldn't have... Let's just try to salvage what we can, I guess, and I promise I'll think things through in the future."
Jon let the warmth tingling in his chest spread out over his limbs and through his body, restoring the barrier between his true form and the mortal world.
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
Charlene said nothing as Isabelle spoke. She couldn't remember ever worrying about her brothers, and she had never let them worry about her. They probably did anyway, and she knew they had always been there for her, but she could handle herself. They knew that, and expected her to.
Whatever had happened in the time she had been gone, it was a different life. Maybe they thought she was dead, maybe they thought nothing had happened. And maybe nothing had happened, maybe that was the truth. Whatever the case, she knew it paid to be cautious.
But she did worry about Jon. Maybe it was a bit like having a younger brother. She wondered what her brothers would have done, probably for the first time in her life. They would have encouraged her to go out and figure it out for herself, because she always had, but what if she hadn't? What if they had been standing here in place of her?
"We all learn. Just remember that we're here," she said, in a tone she thought felt oddly brotherly, turning her eye off the wall she'd been staring through. "When it really counts it's not the best time to rush in alone, or to figure it out as you go. But let's not dwell on mistakes," she added, feeling that the lesson had been learned and the drama moved on.
"So what is the plan?" she said, moving on. "I expect Jess finds this all a little overwhelming, how do we talk to her without upsetting her even more?"
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
Jon lowered his head a bit farther as Charlene spoke. He really should have consulted his friends, even if he wasn't sure how they could help; he would remember that next time, or rather this time, as he tried to talk to Jessica again.
"Well, I think she'll be a little better if she can see that I'm not permanently a monster. Still, it would be good if you guys can come along and help explain some of what we've been through, and try to reassure her that I'm not going to eat anyone or anything like that. Assuming she hasn't run off, of course..." Jon glanced toward the doors and grimaced.
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
"Yeah, first things first lets find her. Then we can try talking to her as a group, but preferably somewhere public. If she doesn't believe us about magic, I think Charlene or I can figure something out?" She asked, glancing at the other woman.
"I think though, that we'd need to figure out what to tell her about your fetch. She might not react well to learning the truth ... I don't know your sister that well, but do you think she might do something dangerous if she thinks she's living with something that isn't a real 'you'?"
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
"Yo. Uh, this is just me," said Ash, raising her hand as if to a teacher, "but before you bring your sister in on the creepy world of magic and mystery and tell her that there's a secret world of supernatural crap going on everywhere that she can't see and make her paranoid as all hell, maybe you just kill the damn fetch and take it's place and act like nothing's wrong? Saves you a complicated explain and you're probably going to have to do it anyway sooner or later."
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
Charlene looked down. She didn't like the idea of killing the fetch. Somewhere in the back of the mind was still that sliver of doubt that perhaps it had more of a right to be there than they did, that they just lied to themselves to have an excuse to start killing and let out the demon. She said nothing, leaving that decision to Jon. It was his life, his fetch, his family.
"How much did you tell her already? That might be important. When we talk to her, I agree it should be in public, so she knows we're not going to abduct her or ... anything like that. I don't know how she'll react to a bunch of people just walking up to her after what happened, so perhaps we should arrange a meeting first."
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
Jon looked at Ash quietly for a moment, apparently thinking things over. "I'll... give it some thought. At the very least, I need to figure out what he's been up to all this time before I can take his place..."
Turning to Charlene and Isabelle, Jon shrugged. "Well, if Jess is still out there when we leave, she probably isn't going to run if we just talk to her and try to explain the basics. I didn't really go into detail about very much so far, I was still trying to get her to understand what had happened, but it wasn't really going very well."
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
the_druid_droid
Jon looked at Ash quietly for a moment, apparently thinking things over. "I'll... give it some thought. At the very least, I need to figure out what he's been up to all this time before I can take his place..."
"Hire a private detective," said Ash. "Freehold's got a few, including the Magistrate. They can trawl dreams, speak to friends, build you up a report and send you in prepared. Seriously, there's a system in place here specifically to help people like you do this easy. That system's also there to stop you going running around like a maniac babbling about faeries and getting yourself locked up."
Ash grimaced. "You especially want to avoid getting locked up 'round here because the Asylum is frucked up."
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
"Eugh, sounds charming." Isabelle shuddered, worried about just how bad it had to be to elicit that reaction. Especially after the all the crazy they'd seen so far.
"Well, how about this. Let me and Charlene have a quick word to her first to reassure her. Then we'll follow your lead on the fetch thing, whatever that may be. Just ... make sure you have something to tell her if, or when, the subject comes up."
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
The hair on Jon's neck prickled a little at the mention of an asylum. "Gotcha. I have zero desire to wind up in a place like that... and I'll talk to an investigator. I'd at least like to know what he's been doing with my life... even if I don't decide to replace him quite that way."
When Isabelle spoke, Jon relaxed a little, "Yeah, I'd really like to try and calm her down. I think that should be our first step..." As he spoke, he glanced back to the doors outside.
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Re: Waiting For Rain IC: Spring Slowly Comes
"'kay. Don't let me keep you," Ashley said, turning to leave through the other door.