2022-05-31: Monsters' Night Out
- Log: Monsters' Night Out
- Cast: Xander Lovell, Ruth Pauling
- Where: Guara Bobelo - The Drag
- Date: May 31, 2022
- Summary: Xander goes searching for supplies and continues to be baffled by the kindness of people he's tried to stab before. But maybe there's a kinship to be found with those who also call themselves monsters...
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Guaro Bobelo may not be the most prestigious shopping locale, but Xander is far from a prestigious man these days. There's something more comfortable about the constant cover of darkness and how it might hide the blood staining his shirt where his mantle won't quite cover him. It also, hopefully, hides how exhausted he looks. (It does not quite hide that. Sorry, Xander.)
And if someone gets aggressive enough that Xander ends up having to shank them in self-defense, that would only be to his benefit. But starting a fight in town wouldn't be to his benefit. Even if he'd survive it, he promised Riley he would keep their sacrifices to one at a time.
As it is, he keeps his head mostly down, surveying market stalls with the occasional wince and hissed breath that works against the whole point of not being noticed. Right now, he's going over clothing supplies -- cloaks and hooded cover and the like -- his brow deeply furrowed as he tries to mentally map out the budget he's working with.
He pauses, letting a tattered, blood soaked sleeve peek out from under his mantle. Maybe he should consider some new clothes in general...
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
It wasn't that long ago that Guara Bobelo quite nearly got itself... dealt with, by Solaris. A purge was narrowly avoided. Guara Bobelo was the sort of place where they got used to the idea of various corporate mercenary types just parading around, doing their thing, and then continuing as they were regardless of the fires and death left behind.
It is both a thing of both resilience - and tragedy - that a passable number of pieces have been picked back up and then placed back exactly where they were. New hovels, new opportunists, same Guara Bobelo! Even now, Guild Galad could scarce be made to care overmuch beyond whether it's getting their tithes from the Nightless City.
...
From Xander's peripheral vision towards one of the 'long-standing' clothing outfits (read: someone who has managed to consistently pay dues across a rotating set of 'landlords' over the years), there's a familiar silhouette of a woman in an overcoat too large, a wrapped-up sniper rifle that has always seemed too large to fit on her, and... it's sort of a given who that is.
She doesn't seem to have noticed what ought to be the tell-tale scent of blood, but on the other hand, it's Guara Bobelo.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
For someone who is a wanted criminal, Xander's ability to act and, well, keep it cool, does not seem to exist. Only a flicker of maybe familiar is enough to have his entire body on high alert. But the tension held in every muscle squeezes the cursed infestation of thorns he's hiding.
What Xander hoped: he'd skulk away, very quickly, and find somewhere else to go shopping or maybe hide until all the scary, familiar silhouettes were gone. (There's only one of those, Xander.)
What actually happens: Xander loses his balance entirely, knocking more than a few things over, which he reflexively tries to gather back up and put hastily back into place, before awkwardly looking up right in the presence of the gargoyle sniper.
His shoulders scrunch up in much the same way a cat's back arches under duress.
"...Why are you here?" he asks, but it's really a question for the universe, and not for poor Ruth who is minding her own business.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
There is commotion, there's heightened emotion, and there's someone else otherwise unimportant admonishing Xander's clumsiness. The woman's head turns at a pace that is cinematographically a platonic ideal of tension to revelation, the shawl on her head slipping off in the process to show off the pointed ears and a stare devoid of that glowing purple she should have. She is not the elf she is presenting as in the moment.
As if her entire self is in the middle of successfully lying that it is not a horrible sadness monster. If only one could lie hard enough against reality to make emergent thorns go away, and just keep that curse deeply locked inside until one finds the outlet that speaks to it but can never be satisfied.
"This was home." The answer is restrained, matter-of-fact... and from the way Xander has to adjust his gaze and posture to deal with his mess, he can see that she is currently missing footwear and only has one glove on (her left hand).
She doesn't meet eyes with Xander for long, folding gloved left hand over her ungloved right. Where little of her outward body language matches the tension in Xander's on the outside, both of them are aware of the nature of the other.
"...Your loved one." She has a little smile, which is more than a tiny bit forced. "How is he?"
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander only barely catches himself being admonished, shooting a look in the wrong direction before focusing back at the more life threatening (probably not) situation at hand.
This was home pummels his thoughts back into guilty submission, and his mouth opens, then promptly shuts as his face darkens. He fumbles with the last bit of making up for the mess he made, letting out a long, tired breath.
"Sorry."
But that sounds rude, too, like he's apologizing for her being born here and not for snapping at her for existing in the same place at the same time as him, and he reddens. ...Why should he care at all if he's being rude?! This woman knows the monster he is...!
Ruth has a more physical monster problem to worry about, and Xander wonders if that's as difficult on clothing as the curse of the thorns is. Clawed digits can't be easy on shoes. Or gloves. As if wrestling with a cursed nature wasn't bad enough, life has to throw people like them these assorted inconveniences on top of it.
Ruth asks after his 'loved one' (why, why this term, and why does Riley have to adore it?), and Xander stills. He looks over a cloak he's salvaged from his clumy stumbling around, unfurling it to check if the length is right.
"He's... been better," Xander ventures, his voice hoarse as he forces it out.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
'Sorry,' comes the word of half of the bearers of the Fangs of Valmar, and Ruth's head dips a bit. Her arms lower a bit in turn, once more prominently displaying the Granasian rosary around her exposed right forearm. It's a beyond awkward situation at surface even without the context of previous hostilities.
Her eyes track the blood on Xander's cloak as he speaks of Riley's current well-being, and those hands rise up to chest level over her heart as she manages to keep that smile that just doesn't reach the eyes. They close, for some seconds, with a nod. A chance to escape unseen!!
(not)
"That's not his blood, is it...?"
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander wonders if the sight of the rosary making him suppress a growl is a Valmar problem or a him problem. Maybe it's both, which would be the most annoying possibility of all. But having faith isn't an odd thing. Even Xander had a casual connection to Granasian before this mess -- who in the lands influenced by it didn't, really? But that feels like memories from a thousand years ago instead of only a few.
Or maybe he wants to cling to the animosity. There's a lump in Xander's throat and he tries to swallow it down.
"It is."
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth tries her best not to let her train of thought wander so much about being in the presence of agents of Valmar, harbingers of the fell God's revival. Complex feelings build about her own supposed adherence to Granas after she deserted the Etones so long ago, when she has not directly stepped into His house since - with exceptions able to be counted on a single hand.
Maybe she wants to cling onto the simultaneous sorrows of her own feelings and the suffering of the Fangs. There's a lump in Ruth's throat and so far she is keeping it swallowed down.
"Is he near? I know a doctor." There's a pause as her hands clench. "That doctor and I aren't on speaking terms... but I can vouch."
She is entirely too calm about mentioning not being on speaking terms about someone, to someone she was only a guilt-ridden impulse away from shooting somewhere fatal.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
"I'm a doctor." He sighs again. "I was. Or. I was going to be."
Terse, snapped out little details that Ruth doesn't need to be burdened with. Or maybe if he becomes too intense and awkward and says too much, she'll want to escape, and all the better.
But it's getting harder to keep his mouth shut. He's tired. He's in pain. And there's someone here asking him questions and he hates how she looks at him sometimes like she gets it.
No one should get any of this.
"...He -- We wanted to try purifying it again," Xander says, voice quieter. "It wasted a lot of time. It --" the curse, he doesn't want to say, "Got worse. Took hold. Bled him out."
Xander shakes his head, trying to dispel the thoughts as much as he's trying to dispel the uncomfortable sensation of telling them to anyone else. "He's stable. For now."
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
That pain is not lost on her, as Xander corrects her on what was once going to be his career before... presumably, this. A stillness overcomes her as Xander quiets himself, and she has to turn her right ear closer to him to better hear what he has to say when the Nightless City itself provides a louder ambience nearby. (Someone is having a good day at cards. Then a very, very bad day at cards, in the span of eight seconds.)
Riley bled out... but stable. For now. But he's not at Xander's side, and this is Guara Bobelo. (A part of her recognizes now that sending Riley to the doctor she was thinking of would instead end up feeding his 'actual' business of harvesting organs from the freshly dead.)
Her hands lower from her chest as she does not completely level her gaze but is at least looking, nominally, at Xander. "What is so important that you'd leave his side?"
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
There was a lot Xander could have been. Now he's got two choices: die or be a murderer. It's not his favorite career change, but maybe that's clear enough on the dour way he greets existence. But Xander still has enough skills form his upbringing to keep him and Riley barely stitched together. (If it was a matter of money, he might have been someone decent at those card games. Mostly through cheating.)
Xander's not much one for eye contact himself, so it is that two people having a conversation while trying their best to have their gazes sort of in the right direction. Xander, for his part, lets his gaze flick and wander often.
"Nothing." It's an automatic response that speaks to a greater question Ruth may not have been asking. "He asked me for a few things."
He forces himself to look more at Ruth himself. "...You don't have to bother with concern. It would be easier for you if we died. And we'd die faster if we didn't have each other."
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
'Nothing.' That get her gaze starting to level as if it were a thing of shock, as it is handwaved as just 'a few things.'
It allows gazes to meet as Xander tries to brush off concern with his building agitation and resignation. If he looks closely enough, beyond the natural color of the eyes of who she once was, he might see the sorrow trying to come up to those windows to the soul and pound their fists on it. The rest of her body language belies this.
It's all the more eerie when he says that simple pragmatic idea that it would be easier if they died, when she tried to kill them a few times already.
"You're not heartless monsters." It's one of the many, many places the Granas faith runs into trouble when one leaves the comfy confines of absolutes. Those who become monsters under Valmar will be slain, the good faithfuls they once were forever lost. Saint Calucion, canonized under Granasian faith, forgives all and will see all those who suffer beyond death to the Garden of Toldoka.
She closes her eyes and breaks her gaze just as it looks like what's beyond those eyes just might assert itself, and there's a tension in her hands and a breath she takes in that has yet to leave.
Followed by a smile that is beyond dissonant. For the tone of Xander's voice and the urgency at hand, that lump in her throat might have just breached the first perimeter.
"Let me help you find what he needs." She is like a completely different person from someone who was grimly resigned to have to shoot them. "He shouldn't be left alone. He... deserves as much time with you as he can have."
Ironically this may cause even more complications given the nature of what soothes the Thorns.
"You're lost. You're afraid. I can't look away from that."
It is, in its own twisted way, soothing for her.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
There's a defiance in the way Xander looks at her. There's a challenge in his words -- there's a challenge in his existence, he thinks, and sometimes when he's exhausted and despairing, the only thing that gives him the energy to go on is the momentum of pushing back against it.
But then Ruth looks sad, and he reflexively wants to dismiss it as sadness for him or for Riley, because it doesn't need to be about them. The situation is sad. Well, they're the ones caught in it. And everyone suffers for it.
He flinches when she says they're not monsters, tearing his gaze away. "Sure. We just behave like we are." Or Xander does.
Just as quickly as Xander can look away, he can whirl around and look right back. "What?!"
It's quite the shocked interjection for such a simple offer.
"Are you -- why would you -- did you forget I've tried to kill you? More than once?! I'm not -- you shouldn't --"
He... deserves as much time with you as he can have.
He cuts himself off with a frustrated noise. Words. Clearly Xander's area of expertise.
"Fine," he relents, because it's easier, because even if the sense of blood makes him want to lash out, he's learned to keep it back well enough that he won't stab her at the first impulse. Turns out the instinct is easier to repress when he knows he'll get shot for acting on it.
"He needs a cloak. Something that will cover... most of him." He gives Ruth a quick look up and down. "That... may even be up your alley."
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
And so, Xander is cursed (further) to have someone they've come to near-fatal blows with a few times over hover around them as a lurking, nefarious presence attracted to the metaphorical scent of despair, anguish, and pain!
For help with shopping.
(Life with bonafide monsters can get charmingly weird in their continued attempts to pass themselves off as not!)
Xander speaks of a cloak, that would cover ellipses-most-of-him. The simultaneously lapsed-but-devout Granasian before a defiant-but-compliant Valmar servant holds her left arm up with only a small hiss of pain, lifting up enough of her shawl in the process that Xander can see that... yes, going by the extensive binding and how weird and scrunched-up they get, he might have the right of it.
"This overcoat belonged to a man, once." Among other things, that would explain the pockets. She lowers the arm, bringing her ungloved right hand up to the opposite shoulder to soothe it. For her attempts to hide that hand, there's nothing wrong with it. No scars, no markings, it's just a hand.
Xander didn't ask for backstory, he asked for help. She looks towards what it is Xander's seeking - a clothing outfit nearby a run-down residence advertising various services. Emphasis various.
"Normally... I borrow from the departed." Which may have been Xander's plan, and there's not really a shortage of that in Guara Bobelo - or anywhere in Zoara. "But there is someone I visit sometimes."
Does Xander really need more people tied up in this?
"Maiden Goltres is an acquaintance who knows the best tailors and cobblers here. When I have money, I stop by to visit them for newer clothes." There's a smile there, which seems a lot more genuine than the ones she's been forcing earlier. "There were some difficult times where... they weren't judgmental."
"One of the few who didn't come to hate the monster I was... before." Before? She catches herself before going too deep into the important question of 'will this get a cloak for Riley and quickly that will cover most of him.' "It won't take long with their help."
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
If nothing else, Xander can certainly provide despair, anguish, and pain. Though on the last point, a good portion of it is physical. And maybe that's what makes him glance at her when she hisses, hesitating, and, being a doctor, not able to offer much at all. He's already learned once, the hard way, what it means to try and pretend he can play that role anymore.
A man's coat. Explains the size. But it is also implying it was not Ruth's coat. He is too afraid to eat his own foot in asking whether it was a man she cared about or a man she killed. Or both. Monsters do that, sometimes.
He would know.
"I don't think Riley would appreciate the smell." She probably doesn't mean that departed. But then something grim and uneasy takes over Xander's face. Does Riley have a sense of smell right now...? He barely has a sense for anything else...
"Before," Xander repeats, flat. "Well... it's none of my business, if you don't want to talk."
Uugggh more people involved. ...But Riley deserves something nice. Or as nice as one can get in Guara Bobelo. So Xander, for all the digging of his heels, nods. "... All right." Then, avoiding eye contact harder than before, Xander's cheeks gets some color back to them.
"And. Thanks. I guess."
It should then be a simple errand. Quick. Efficient. And given the two monsters involved, undoubtedly short on conversation.