undergrounds | I'm fairly local; I've been around (OPEN)

Entry tags:

I'm fairly local; I've been around (OPEN)

A. DAY:

[ creature of the night he may be, Derek's life is far from nocturnal. admittedly, this is partially because he sleeps less than he probably ought to, especially these days. however, it's also because even in London, there are places that aren't 24/7. yet. a bank. a decent mechanic. somewhere that sells smores flavoured pop tarts. combined with his own restlessness, and a sense that he still doesn't quite belong, Derek is unable to hang around at the den all day.

when he's out, he's watchful. even on the streets of the city centre, Derek has come to learn that he can't afford to overlook anything. perhaps it's an inhuman kind of scent that has his gaze catching, lingering, or perhaps a face he recognizes from the Redbright ball has him staring in heavy, curious scrutiny. maybe he simply has to squeeze past the same PETA collector on the street, muttering something about no goddamn escape. ]

B. NIGHT:

[ after the sun sets, Derek retreats to his own territory. generally speaking, he's not looking for a fight, and lurking around other areas of London at night is sometimes as much a provocation as is necessary. he keeps to the east end, hemming along every county line like a sentry, watching - waiting, maybe - for any suggestion that things are not as they should be on his turf. his. he'd never considered it in those terms when he'd been following Laura's lead, when there had been another alpha running things. aside from an inherent wolfish sense of territory, he'd felt little investment. now, his position has changed, but the disconnect here lingers. in the wake of his own hasty decision making, he still feels like he's standing in. that only makes him all the more tense.

and all the more eager to work. he covers a surprising amount of distance on foot, keeps his ear to the ground to keep track of what's going on. maybe it's quiet. maybe it's not. but he stays out late.

if, on his unofficial patrol, he comes across something or someone that seems like they shouldn't be here - well, Derek follows. ]

C. CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE!

( catch all! feel free to tag in with your own starter - just give me a heads up if you're looking for anything in particular - or let me know if you'd like a specific heading! 8] )

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

[ at the very least, Derek can appreciate that this guy is being fairly forthright, at least for now. while it could be a cover-up, there seems like little reason, and the words are simply honest.

not to mention that he's got an impressive deadpan.

that he's here for information is less comforting, and it keeps Derek rooted where he is.

he rolls his eyes. ]

Does it sound like I'm after your money? [ there was nothing there to outright state the information he'd been searching for pertained to the supernatural, but Derek is inclined to believe as much by default.

he's never been great at the whole secrecy thing, when he doesn't have to be, at least when it comes to what he is. ]

You said you were looking for information. That's always going to raise questions.

That is, Derek reflects, definitely not the manner of speech that one would expect to come from a creature so ethereal. In fact, Derek is left gawking at the fox for a little longer, and that's before the words themselves sink in. His eyes narrow, at best dubious.

"Don't you have a whole other realm to sniff flowers in?"

Derek didn't put that in air quotes, but his tone suggests as much.

[ Oh, so he can hear her. That's good. It rules out the mystery stranger being a mundane human - meta too, as a guess. And he doesn't look like a witch, so there's only a handful of possibilities left.

And none of them are particularly friendly towards people like her. Her mood sours, even as she fights to keep intangible. She needs to keep him on the defensive just in case. ]

It's not an alarm, but thank you. [ Aradia circles around Derek as she rambles, trying to keep him from pinning down her location. ] So, what's your deal? I'm guessing you've heard rumours about me, otherwise you wouldn't be here.

Edited (fuck grammar srsly) 2015-06-12 03:16 (UTC)

[ when a vampire turns up, it doesn't take long for Derek to catch their scent. they're rare here, after all, what with the unspoken rules that tend to be followed, begrudging though it may be. Derek would like to be nonchalant, but one vampire can mean enough trouble.

he tracks him through the streets, until finally, almost an hour later, he manages to cut him off. it's almost a surprise to see him on a bike, of all things. Derek still tends to expect hearses or carriages or whatever weird, morbid thing Islington are into at the moment.

on the vampire's approach, Derek comes to stand front and center in his path. sure, they could swerve around, but why ignore the invitation? ]

Edited 2015-06-12 03:18 (UTC)

"In other words, 'your kind ain't welcome here'?" His tone was a bit ironic and he could talk however he wanted. Heiji settled on his haunches as he regarded Derek, clearly not planning on going anywhere.

Slowly, Derek exhales. Asked in such a straightforward manner, he's forced to think about it while the fox makes a point of getting comfortable. Fae.

"I didn't say that," he replies eventually, and he hadn't meant it either, even if he keeps that to himself. It'd be a stupid kind of lie to claim he wasn't cautious, though, if not suspicious. "Just not used to seeing 'your kind' around here."

"I keep hearing that," said Heiji. He rubbed his cheek up against the drooping head of a Gerbera as he spoke, closing one blue-green eye as he did so. Even if Derek looked human, he felt wolfish.

"Seems like barely anyone's talked to one. But that makes sense. I guess in this town, they mostly just stick to Faery." Of course... that was probably why they had such a mysterious (possibly overblown?) reputation.

He flicked the tip of one tail. "I'm not here to cause trouble."

"You're surprised?" Much of this encounter is not what Derek would have expected. His dealings with fae have been few, and a part of him still relies on fairytale ideology, where the fae are only showing up if they want something. It's hard to doubt the fox's manner, but Derek puts up a valiant effort.

Reassurances, or not. His lips twitch. It doesn't last long enough to be considered a smile.

"I've got a feeling you'd say that either way."

"Hmm... kinda. Where I'm from, we live a lot closer to this world." It was the 'Land of Eight Million Gods', after all.

"But we also don't have a lot of wolves. Either kind; the last Honshuu wolf died at the start of the 20th century."

Malia doesn't move quickly. She's purposefully trying to make sure he can follow her, checking back over her shoulder every now and then to make sure he still is. She's not sure what she'll do if he loses her.

Probably move on with her life, she supposes.

Anyway, her destination isn't far, and Malia drags the clothes out of the cardboard box, one last glance his way as she pulls them into seclusion to change both body and clothes.

She's zipping up a kneehigh boot as she steps back out, watching him with now human eyes, long hair a little bit of a mess.

"It's Derek, right?"

"Neither does London," Derek points out, but he's thinking over what he's been told. Though still on edge, the fox's manner has left him slightly more at ease. His hands unclench, expression turning just a little less dour.

Instead of a warning, he finds himself asking, "why'd you come here?"

[ usually, when someone is trying to throw him off by movement, there are still tells that he can use to his advantage. people make noise, even when they're doing their best not to. right now, there's nothing for him to go off, except the disembodied voice he keeps spinning to try and track. shit. ]

That's right. [ Derek assumes that this must be a spell. it seems the only logical explanation to him at that point - having come here to find a living girl, the idea of a ghost is slow to dawn on him even with the wrecked, empty space. setting his jaw against his own agitation, he maintains some semblance of steadiness. ] You're a medium, right?

Heiji laughed a little. "So you mean An American Werewolf in London was all a lie?"

He sat back, seemingly thinking over Derek's question. He wasn't completely sure why he'd been sent here, honestly. "I've lived in one place most of my life," he said finally. "A lot of things have changed, even during my lifetime. I think they're going to keep changing... but I ain't so sure everyone understands that. It's easier to stick in one place and ignore what's goin' on everywhere else. But you can't hide away and still consider yourself a part of the world."

Edited 2015-06-12 21:39 (UTC)

He stops when she does, brow furrowing in consternation when she pulls out what appears, at first, to be a heap of fabric. It takes a moment for him to put it together - she's going to shift. She's going to speak to him. He's reassured by that, even as he's reassured by the knowledge that he was right: whoever she is, she isn't feral. She's clever. She's planned, perhaps not for meeting him, but for life in a city.

When she steps out, Derek is silent. Immediately, he gauges her age and thinks that it fits. Mouth pressed into a thin line, he studies her face closely. She and Peter share no close resemblance, but that doesn't make the possibility void. Looking at her is making his head spin: he cannot stop his mind from turning the question over and over again, is she? could she be?

Swallowing, he nods, makes an effort to appear less stricken. Warily, he glances around. Just incase.

"How do you know?"

[When Cooper firsts sees the figure step out into the middle of the road, his first reaction is to actually speed up. There aren't many people who willingly stay in the path of a motorcycle coming straight for them. When he still doesn't move, Cooper comes to a screeching halt. He swerves the bike sideways, coming up broadside and stopping less than a foot from Derek.

He pushes his goggles up, his Irish accent colored thick with annoyance as he speaks over the rumbling motor.]

D'you mind getting out of my way, you feckin' idiot? I've places t'go 'n people to see.

[He inches the bike forward. Cooper's got no time for this shit.]

His smile is thin, but relatively genuine, as he huffs in amusement. So far, the fox - would kitsune be more accurate? Honshuu sounds Japanese, at least - does seem non-threatening, though Derek is still having trouble believing that he only wants to sniff flowers. He's surprised to find that his own interest, when the fox speaks, is not derived purely from suspicion.

"So what does that make you? A tourist?"

Yeah?

[ for all he's almost been knocked over by a motorcycle, Derek seems relatively calm, unflinching. the vampire's manner does little to appease him, however - if it could - and he slides his foot forwards. his answer, as well, is not reassuring. ]

I'm a little concerned, about what you could possibly be going to see around here.

"That's what I was thinking when I came here. Visit a couple tourist attractions, maybe see if I could climb Big Ben without anyone noticing. But... I dunno, I might stick around for a bit. Try and be respectable."

He settled a bit on his front paws. "What about you? You don't sound like a Londonite." Well, to be fair, Heiji didn't, either -- he spoke with an American accent.

Derek's torn. The fae sounds innocuous enough, but Derek feels he's probably purposefully trying to throw him off. All the same, there seems little enough harm in answering the question - Derek's hardly been secretive about his new position.

"No, but I'm not here to sightsee."

"Hmm. So you're here for the forseeable future. In that case, maybe I can ask you: what's it like here, from your perspective? Do you think it's true what they said at the Redbright ball? That the Institute's aim is safety and inclusion?"

Heiji, of course, already knew what he thought. But he was interested in Derek's opinion.

[ That one-track mind is going to get him in trouble someday. Derek wins back some respect by at least appearing steady, even if it doesn't convince her to stop with the games. Fucking with people is the only consistent defense she has these days.

Medium though, that's one she hasn't heard in a while. ]

I can talk to the dead, if that's what you mean. [ Which technically isn't a lie. Aradia does do her best to keep in contact with other ghosts, even in her current state - if she doesn't look out for them, who will? But admitting that would give confirmation about her existence, and she needs to know exactly what he wants before she'd feel comfortable revealing herself. He could still be some sort of serial killer.

Actually... ]

Is that what you're here for, then? Because I don't do calls to personal victims. Death is meant to be an escape from the living's drama.

The night was quiet mostly the sounds of cars in the distance broken only by the occasional car closer to the border between Havering and the East End Pack's territory. A nearby streetlamp flickered and then burnt out dropping the area into a pool of darkness. After a few minutes, almost like a trick of light, one of the plate glass shop windows seemed to take on a luminescence. It rippled into blues and greens starting so dark it was almost impossible to see and then beginning to glow brighter until light shifted through the surface enough to spill out onto the sidewalk below and as it did, frost started forming. Around the edges of the window it crackled downward in lovely bursts and fleurettes, small puddles from an earlier cleaning cracking suddenly into ice. The surface of the glass rippled again and a woman stepped through, gracefully but with an ease that seemed as though people commonly walked through plate glass windows that glowed. As she stepped through the scent of fresh snow spilled out and the air turned suddenly so cold that between the new coldness and the old heat of summer, fog congealed, spilling around her feet. Once she was through the window the colors dimmed and the door closed, slowly resolving itself back into a standard storefront with mannequins in the window and safety lights behind it.

Her gaze was almost eerie, eyes lambent in the darkness, the pale skin almost seemed to glow as well. She smoothed her hands down what seemed to be a sort of evening gown that looked off in this quiet part of town where no apparent galas were occurring. It looked odd as well because it was difficult to tell where dress and long hair ended and fog began. If the fact that she seemed out of place bothered her you wouldn't be able to tell it, instead she spent a moment taking in the area, breathing in once but rather than relying on a sense of smell (and really what good could that possibly be in a place like London that was rife with every smell imaginable, unless you were built for such things) she instead seemed to be sensing with something else. In this case she let her magic twist out with the fog, checking for hostility or anything of interest. This was a part of the area some of her associates had described as being uncontested as of yet and it was important to know what it was you were expecting to assist in taking over. Not the werewolf territory but that territory next door.

[ Oh good, someone as terrible at subtlety as he is. ]

... fair enough. I don't know much about the East End pack outside of what I would call wholly biased rumors. My intention was to come here and either speak with a member to get the truth myself, or -- if I couldn't find one without exercising discretion -- to listen to the people who live here and see what I could glean that way. I heard about one or two disappearances that I couldn't necessarily credit to the group and not much else.

Are you satisfied that I'm not your enemy? I'm not here for a fight.

[ How's that for forthright and deadpan. ]

[He's a cool customer, Cooper will admit that. He wonders if that composure would remain if he brought out his fangs and tried to take a bite out of his jugular vein. His answer is clipped with impatience.]

If it's business of yours, which it's not, I'm looking for someone. Happy now?

[He shifts around on top of the motorcycle. Get out of the way already.]

If she was in coyote form her ears would twitch. There's no one around, she's sure of that, having picked this particular alley for the lack of people that come down it. She's become accustomed to tracking people, figuring out when they were there last, how often they come down. This kind of life in the city, digging through the dumpsters, getting bottles and whatever else on hand thrown at her, having to dodge animal control and humans in general—this is what she knows how to do. Malia wouldn't have brought him here if she was concerned they might get caught.

For her, getting caught means, at best, death.

Still, his wariness has her listening, too, albeit probably not as intently as he is. She regards him with some measure of aloofness. His questionanswer is all the proof she needs to be sure that she's right, although she's... not impressed. She didn't expect someone so normal. Not after the things she's heard about her father.

"My mom showed me a picture, once. She wanted me to know what you guys looked like, in case we ever rant into you." Granted, that was mostly an 'In Case of Peter' scenario, but...

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 2 of 6

I'm fairly local; I've been around (OPEN)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

B

no subject

no subject

no subject