Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death [Open]

[detectiveofthewest]

The old Kitterick hotel, long since closed and abandoned, sat silently in its abandonment. At first it seemed that this night would be the same as any other -- one more in the long series of nights spent settling, creaking, slowly but surely marching toward the dissolution that surely awaited it. Yet as evening settled firmly over the streets of Greenwich, something changed in the air.

A long car, sleek and black, rolled up to the front of the building. A woman got out; two men aided her in doing so. Her long dress was bright carmine, spilling out behind her in a whispering pool. In the dark of night, the cloth looked almost black.

"This will do nicely," she said. Her whisper was full of promise.

[This, should you choose to use it, is a catch-all post for the Bloody Countess plot! It's for investigations, encounters, and so on leading up to the main event.]

Comments

[eyeforaneye]

"I don't eat too much in one sitting but I eat often." Hi, I'm Mr. Canonically-Orders-Diet-Food.

"... Have you always been able to use fire that well or did you have to train it?" This is more interesting to him than food is, actually approaching to get a better look. He pauses on remembering one or two words, perhaps, but his pronunciation at least doesn't suffer.

[detectiveofthewest]

"Wasn't always able to use it perfectly, but I was always able to use it," said Heiji, grabbing a splatterguard and placing it over the pan as the fish began to sizzle. "It's like a fish figuring out how to swim. You can feel it..."

He turned to Sasuke. "But you should know a little about that, right?"

[eyeforaneye]

"Perhaps for you. With me... more like an amphibian getting in the water for the first time. I thought I was entirely part of one world and then I started noticing parts of me that didn't fit.

I can practice on my own to improve, sure, but honing my control isn't easy."

[detectiveofthewest]

Heiji flipped the fish over with one deft toss of the pan and turned on the kitchen fan. "You gotta start small, then. With candleflames or something similar. That's what they used to do..."

For the clumsy ones who couldn't get it right away, was an excellent thing not to say to Sasuke.

"Anyway, if you can't control your powers, you could hurt someone. Especially if you're all keyed up in a fight."

[eyeforaneye]

That food... smells way too good with as woozy as he admittedly still feels, giving up on ordering takeout and giving up even sooner on trying to cook for himself.

"If I'm in a fight then I'll assume that hurting the other person is my goal anyway." Which says something about his temper and how his fights usually progress. "Making something that small is difficult. Most of what I produce is a little larger than my hand."

[detectiveofthewest]

"Sure, but what if you hit your allies?" Heiji moved on over to the rice cooker, made sure it was properly on and all.

"You got any miso? If not, I've got some instant packets I can leave with you. It's not as good, but I didn't wanna carry too much with me."

Oh, right. Back to the magic discussion. "It doesn't matter if it's difficult; you should still be able to do it if you hone your concentration enough. Why don't you try it now?"

[eyeforaneye]

"I've got some. Second cupboard from the left down below." 'Trying it now' doesn't sound like a very good idea, especially when he's already this tapped for energy... but maybe that's a better thing, glancing to his windows to consider opening them for safety but that would just run the risk of drawing unwanted attention.

And so he turns his back on Heiji instead, drawing in a deep breath... before expelling fire not from his hands but from his mouth, a ball of flame about one and a half times the radius of his fist as he'd predicted.

Which is still edging towards dangerously large in a flat this size, narrowly missing some hanging curtains before it dissipates. "... I try more often than you'd assume."

[detectiveofthewest]

Heiji got as far as opening the cupboard before he turned to watch Sasuke blow his ball of flame into the air. Dude, you're a fire hazard.

"That's pretty unusual," said Heiji. "Expelling it from your mouth, I mean. Humans tend to focus on their hands, since that's how they interact with the world. Might also explain why it's harder for you to control it."

He lowered the heat on the pan; the flames sank slow to the burner. "Do you have any candles? Birthday candles would be good, if you got 'em." Unless of course Sasuke didn't have birthdays.

[eyeforaneye]

"I've tried using my hands, but that just causes another effect entirely." One that he sounds long-suffering about, but then again untrained electricity magic is a pain in the ass too. Do you know how many electronics he's short-circuited?

"... I don't have birthday candles." Despite the fact that his birthday is in a month. Somehow that's hard for him to even register. "But I have a few regular candles." In case of blackouts. For aforementioned reasons. He tugs open a drawer just to the left of Heiji to get to them, pulling out three before retreating to the dining room table.

There are only two chairs, but at least there are that many.

[detectiveofthewest]

Heiji turned off the stove, plated this fish, and checked on the rice. "Those'll do. But eat somethin' first. You lost a lot of blood recently, that's not gonna help matters."

"You should eat the sushi first; it don't taste the same if it's not fresh."

[eyeforaneye]

"I thought maybe having less energy would make it easier... but I suppose there's no point practicing something in a way I won't normally be dealing with it anyway." To be fair.

So instead he follows Heiji's direction and gets to his feet again just to retrieve the bag on the living room table, already digging into it to see what kind he'd gotten.

"Tuna?"

[detectiveofthewest]

"You won't recharge right away," said Heiji breezily, waving a hand. "There's tuna, salmon, yellowtail, and so on. I got a variety, 'cause I wasn't sure what kinda fish you liked. Nothin' fancy on short notice, of course."

He set up the candles one by one so that they were in a loose line, not too tightly clustered together. "So what happens if you use your hands?"

[eyeforaneye]

Tuna is plenty fancy in his mind, though maybe he should reserve judgment until he tries it and sees just what cut he's been given. Still, it's free, which pretty much causes his major concerns to evaporate as he slumps back down in his seat and carefully sets out the plastic containers.

"... ah, there's roe..." Which he's immediately securing for himself after snapping a pair of complimentary chopsticks. Too slow. It's with a full mouth that he considers how best to answer Heiji's question: with words or with a demonstration?

It seems he's made his choice when he raises his left hand, snapping fingers and immediately increasing the charge in the air surrounding them with two little sparks flying off the invisible ball, at least able to keep this one proportionately scaled.

[detectiveofthewest]

Appalling manners, just appalling. Heiji watched Sasuke eat one or two pieces, then straightened one of the candles that was leaning over.

"Well, that'd come in handy for givin' someone a jump start, but you could erase someone's hard drive with it, too." It was frankly weird to Heiji that Sasuke did one kind of magic with his hands and another with his mouth. Not like that, sicko.

"Don't eat so fast; you'll get some down your windpipe!" He leaned over the first candle and blew, gently. The candles lit up in series, one by one and then went out, starting from the one closest to Heiji. "Oh, wait. You can put fires out, right?"

[eyeforaneye]

Hey, at least he didn't talk with a full mouth. And I was not thinking anything perverted at all until you said something.

Sasuke shoots him a look of annoyance -- not just at the command to slow down after he told him to start eating but also at the memory of damaging one of his own computers -- before his gaze redirects to the candles, small flames flickering in the cramped kitchen.

"... sure, in the same way that anyone else can. With a hose."

[detectiveofthewest]

That was true. Good job, Sasuke. A+ manners.

"Eesh. In that case, it's a lucky thing that fireball of yours broke up before long. But I think this is something you might wanna practice. Just try and light 'em up one by one, and think about what ya need to do to make that happen. You already have a pretty good feel for how to produce fire on command, right? If so, you probably have some instinctive knowledge of what it takes to control it."

P.S. How does it feel to be ordered around for once.

[eyeforaneye]

He had a terrifyingly overbearing father and this is a teaching moment where he can get stronger so it's all good in the hood. Onward, Heiji Yoda.

"That's like saying that because I know how to pick up a sword and move it I should be a master swordsman." His temper's flaring due to frustration at himself and he tries to dampen it, focusing in on the wicks. A deep breath... and he lights them all at once by again using more force than intended, wax melting on the sides of the candles where they're licked by flame.

Damn.

[detectiveofthewest]

"Don't sell yourself short. What you've learned how to do already is pretty good." He watched as Sasuke lit the candles on fire.

"Well, you did light 'em all. Not exactly one at a time, but you've got that much control. I'm gonna suggest a few things. First, try practicing just lighting one and dial back the amount of force you put in a little bit at a time. Second, if you get real frustrated during an attempt, stop and take a break for a bit. Fire magic's pretty volatile, so it'll get even harder to control if you're upset." He was ticking points off on his fingers as he spoke. "Third..."

He reached over and snagged a piece of salmon nigiri and popped it in his mouth. "Wow, this is good. Have you already tried to find out how much fire you can put out at once?"

[eyeforaneye]

He actually expects something profound for the third point. This long of knowing Heiji and he still has high expectations, too slow in slapping his hand to keep him away, and both his irritation and the fae's point are shown when an angry huff just expels another tendril of fire. One bad mood swing and his power grows exponentially... and he destroys his own home; not worth it.

"No. I already know I'd have to be angry to do that, and that's too risky. It isn't exactly something that's easy to hide."

[detectiveofthewest]

"You should try it sometime, though. Know your own limits. Not anywhere you could do some real damage, of course." Or being arrested for arson would be the least of Sasuke's worries.

A brief pause. "Oh yeah, to answer your question: yeah, I do miss home."

[eyeforaneye]

"If you have a suggestion for an entirely private and thus likely indoor spot that can withstand an unknown amount of fire damage, let me know." Yes, he's a little bitter, but maybe he just feels inadequate and behind the times in training his abilities.

"... you lived there all your life?"

[detectiveofthewest]

Gosh, what a crabmeister. "Maybe a spot of shore in the early morning? If you do it over the water, you might be okay. And you can always tell any stray jogger than you were practicin' firebreathing or something."

He smiled. "Yep. My family's lived in Osaka for years. Naturally, I was born there. It's not like we don't go to other areas of Japan sometimes. But this is the longest I've ever been away."

[eyeforaneye]

Really his main line of defense is the suspension of belief, the idea that the truth is far more impossible to accept. Fire-breathing... it's worth a shot.

But this actually captures his interest, causing him to pause in his eating and redirect his gaze when he notices himself watching too closely. "Sounds like it'd be a real adjustment." One Sasuke can't imagine himself making, not with so many other things having been stripped from him in his life. "It's been years since I've been able to see that place. I thought... ah, I thought I might lose my heritage. It's why I focused on retaining the language."

[detectiveofthewest]

"Yeah. It's completely different." Heiji tapped the tip of one finger against his temple, thinking. "The language and the streets, of course. But a lot of other things, too. Back home, it ain't as tense as it is here. London's 8.3 million people all tryin' to get the better of someone else. Back in Osaka, kids like me."

By which he didn't mean him personally, of course, but they liked foxes. They knew what he was, and they wouldn't necessarily scream or run from him.

Heiji listened to Sasuke for a few moments. "Even if you forgot some of it, you can't lose what you were born into. It'll always be there for you."

[eyeforaneye]

"... Yeah." Sasuke chooses silence for a few moments after that, gripping chopsticks so tightly that they grind together, lost in a single flickering tongue of fire that shudders on top of the nearest candle.

"The memories of it, sure. But if I actually went back to that country now, alone, I don't know if I'd feel like I actually truly belonged in any sense of the word. It's been too long for me."