Random Encounters

[thebrownacid]

[This is a casual rp starter for scenes with Jen Daring, the world's most harmless Malkavian Antitribu. It serves as a warmup spot for character ideas for the After Gehenna game.]

San Francisco was a fishing village now. Bay water lapped the bases of the surviving skyscrapers, so clear now you could see down to the shattered street. Some brave divers went for artifacts down there: jewelry, surviving tools, random items to decorate their chambers with and claim bragging rights just for surviving. An old hubcap could cost you your life now that the Farrallones and the Bay were wed in one stretch of water over the drowned city. Sharks--the main risk in the area and also the main livelihood. They might get a fisherman now and again, but most nights in the high village with its precarious catwalks, it was they who became dinner.

When the sun went down the fishing crews lowered ropes down the side of the buildings and hauled up the boats along with their catch. The hard, ugly end-of-the-day work was necessary, for one breed of shark hunted at night and could take out even the few old yachts they had left.

The grunts and creaks of the ropes and thunk and scrape of the rising boats were the first thing Jen heard when she woke that night. She opened the closet she was curled up in and spilled out, yawning hugely. The outer wall of the hotel room she was squatting in had shattered outward, and a huge, battle-scarred gray cat crouched among the bricks, messily dining on a pigeon the size of a football. He looked up at her with his one good eye and meowed conversationally.

Within half an hour they had both eaten, and Jen was sitting quietly on the edge of the cracked rooftop plaza of the hotel. Other villagers, human and otherwise, milled on the rooftop by torchlight, enjoying a barbecue out in the cool night air. The cat sat next to her, keeping watch. Jen was a little unfocused, distracted by the blobs of golden and royal blue light dancing through the air. She knew something was going to happen soon and she should be here for it, but not what.

Comments

[tookhishand]

"For? Has anyone called your friends?" Pack, she said... Vampires aren't the sort to use that word.

It's a silly word, in his opinion. He'll never have a 'pack', just a family who are so far away.

[thebrownacid]

"Kitty did." Even now said cat is bounding back up, with a rolled up bit of paper in his mouth. She takes and reads it. "Three minutes."

She looks at him worriedly. "They're fierce. I play human better than them. But if you want to stay you can."

[tookhishand]

He tilts his head, just a little inhumanly.

"Not everything is divided into 'your kind' and 'humans', you know."

[thebrownacid]

"Oh I know, I've talked to a few kinds who are alive but not human. Got a friend who turns into a big kitty!" The idea that the Pack is soon to arrive has calmed her some.

"I was curious about you but we were still you know, kind of circling around each other before crazy sharkpoop started happening. But my point is, um, some of my Packmates are scary."

A slim figure in black ninja-like attire and a blank, doll-like white mask is now standing behind Jen. Its eyeholes are black and unreadable but it gives the impression of considering him.

[tookhishand]

"I... can become a wolf." It's so much more than that, though.

"And I've seen scary, believe me." Incredible, insane things. He can hold his own.

[thebrownacid]

They both lean forward a little, with identical headtilts, peering at him. Jen blinkblinks.

"You already sorted out being a wolf? You should talk to Maggie, she's good at that stuff." She notices her increasingly creepy shadow and tilts her head back to greet it. "Hiiii Eight!" It waves back.

"This is Eight, she's my clanmate. She doesn't talk. What's your name? I'm Jen."

[tookhishand]

"I've been a 'wolf' for years, believe me. I don't need help." Not with that. He came to terms with it on his own.

"Donald. My son never speaks, I'm quite used to it."

[thebrownacid]

"Hi Donald! Oh he's one of the quietpeople too? That's okay. I can talk enough for two anytime, can't I, Eight?" The figure, who perked up at the mention of Donald's son for some reason and seems to have engaged more in the conversation, nods enthusiastically.

"Oh no, I mean, she's the one who knows wolf stuff. I mostly know kitty stuff. All I can say in Wolf is dirty jokes." The cat meows in agreement.

"The Pack will be curious. But I'll stand for you. Everyone gets a vote, they can't just be mean or something."

[tookhishand]

"Wolves--the real kind--have never spoken to me, I didn't say that. It must be different here." Very. Sooner or later it's going to come out he's hopped realities.

"A vote for what? To kill me or not?" Say yes and he's leaving. Now.

[thebrownacid]

"Oh, okay. You're not a kang-roo, are you?"

The figure behind her pauses, then slowly facepalms and shakes her masked head.

"Garou," says a raspy voice from the mouth of the staircase. A middle aged nonhuman woman with frizzy russet hair steps out. "Sweetie, just say werewolf, you're never gonna get that right." She pauses a bit away and her nostrils flare.

Jen leans over and whispers "Vote for ally stuff. This isn't like before the war, we don't just kill people."

"Nnf. Nnf. Yep, smells like wolf. But he can't be Garou. He ain't enough of an asshole."

[tookhishand]

Heh. "Can you sum up all werewolves that way? I'll agree some are, but that's true of any group of people."

[thebrownacid]

Jen starts "Maggie--" but Maggie just scoffs.

"The Garou used to like to kill my people on sight when they were around more. If there were nice ones running around, they sure didn't live in Saskatchewan." She sniffs derisively this time, and looks over her shoulder, out over the water.

"Danica and Petra are on their way. He already left, didn't he?"

Jen droops visibly. "...yeah."

[tookhishand]

"The odds are against everyone bitten being a killer, although I suppose the ones that were could murder the ones that weren't as... bloodthirsty."

He did say bitten, not knowing he's given himself away without a doubt. Oops.

[thebrownacid]

"Bitten?" Maggie blinks, and sniffs him delicately again. "Huh! No, sweetie, you're not Garou, Garou are genetic. You've got a wolf-soul, yeah, but not the...crap I forgot what they call it. It's sort of a massive inborn anger management program." She rubs her chin. "Well that's new. Anyway. Hi. I'm Maggie, packmate to these guys. Did anyone level with this guy?"

Jen just blinks so Maggie goes on blithely. "Oh, well then. Hi, we're vampires. No, we're not planning to eat you."

[tookhishand]

"No disclaimer necessary, I guess what you all were." By scent. "And you haven't mobbed me on sight."

On to the main question: "No. Not genetic. It was a lab experiment with me as an unwilling subject, if you're curious. I'm Donald."

[thebrownacid]

"Nah, the war is over, we don't have to play by those shit rules anymore so we don't." A tall blond woman wearing biker leathers comes out of the stairwell with a few others walking behind them. Maggie bumps fists with her as she stops a little ways off.

Jen nodnods. "Made things easier on a bunch of us."

But everyone goes quiet when he mentions the lab experiment. "...what?" the hippievamp asks in mild horror. Not surprise though. As if she's heard of other sorts of...experiments.

[tookhishand]

He seems more awkward than upset. "As I said to Jen, it was years ago. Irrelevant and not going to happen to anyone else. I've adjusted."

[thebrownacid]

Maggie steps back, swearing softly under her breath, and the big blonde woman touches her shoulder comfortingly. Meanwhile a distressed, inarticulate noise comes from behind 8's mask and she twitches agitatedly. Jen strokes her arm and she slowly quiets.

"Well some of us are big on moral outrage. But um...." Jen's lower lip trembles. "Some of us came from labs too. The Technocracy. Big experiments on people. New species. Lots of vivisection and stuff." 8 flinches and Jen goes back to comforting her.

The blonde, and the strangely colorless tall figure in the pale suit behind her, glance between all the participants. Then they step aside to let someone else through.

This is a shorter, slighter woman, pale, thin-faced, with dark green eyes and black hair, in a concealing dark blue coat and boots.

"A werewolf virus. The Technocracy is trying to develop a werewolf virus." Her eyes narrow thoughtfully, and then she steps forward. "Jen. You've made a new friend, why don't you introduce us?"

Jen nodnodnods. "Danica, this is Donald. Donald, this is Danica. She handles alllll the weird stuff."

[tookhishand]

"You... have nothing to worry about. I can promise you that. It didn't happen in America, for starters." Details are going to be kept to himself, thank you. It was several worlds ago he was altered.

"Besides, I have to assume none of you can catch diseases. Any sort of diseases."

[ka_sera_sera]

In times of chaos, it's not difficult for anyone to slip into a place relatively unnoticed. Normally he wouldn't bother, would see that chaos and move in the other direction. Normally he's following no particular path, and for the most part problems that are not his problem are easily avoided.

This one is his problem. His problem is in the form of a 5'8" grey-haired man standing in the middle of a group Roland would want to keep an eye on even on a regular day. He tries to stay unnoticed as he edges closer, but it's difficult to look like a random bypasser when he can't keep his eyes off his friend and the crowd surrounding him. He finds himself sending out his mind a little, trying to feel around the edges of their thoughts to see how likely that the crowd is going to become a mob.

[thebrownacid]

The crowd is agitated but calming, partly under the influence of a tall figure in a grey hat and fedora standing with the knot of vampires. She is sending out waves of Zenlike calm touched with caution.

Of other note: the woman in the dark blue, almost wizardlike cloak, whose mind gives a weird sense of being hugely expanded. And the pink haired girl with the cat, who feels...bubbly. Cushy. Kind of euphoric. Finally, the masked and completely covered figure next to her, which is balled up, closed in on itself, and strangely animal-like.

Danica lifts her chin, her voice rising slightly to command the attention of the group around her but also making it audible. "We have a problem. Apparently there's a Gangrel in this region who considers this his territory, and he's challenged Khan to a one-on-one using the sharks."

The woman(?) in grey speaks up in a calm, light tone. "There's an eighty-five percent chance that the traditional terms of the challenge will not be honored, and that Khan is walking into a trap."

Danica nods grimly as Jen whimpers and Maggie swears under her breath. The witchy-looking woman goes on. "Petra and Noor are already tracking them. We gather our forces, we make a plan and we wait for them to get back in touch."

[tookhishand]

All of you, stop sending foreign emotions into his brainmeats. Once upon a time he had practiced shielding against intruders. Remind him later to get back into the habit...

And their new topic doesn't have much to do with him. This is where he stands awkwardly, plate of cold food in his hands...

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland notes the names and basic facts of the speech even as he dismisses them. They're not important to him now, but who knows? The most important thing is that everyone seems so focused on it. Before he'd closed his mind again and put up what defenses he has, he'd gotten enough vague feelings to know a little about who it is he's walking amongst. Don't mind Roland, he'll just be slipping behind and between a couple of you, trying to get closer to Donald. He'll stay away from the woman in blue - if what he'd felt in that one was the touch, there's too much chance of being noticed and noted as an outsider - but he has to get close to one or two others. If they stay focused on that speech long enough for him to grasp Donald's sleeve and lead him away, then everything will've gone to plan. Things usually don't, but it never hurts to try.

[thebrownacid]

It's the goddamned cat that catches him. Of course. Something roughly the mass of a furry bowling ball winds around his legs trying to get his attention. "Mow. Mowwww. Mow."

And then Cotton Candy Brain notices him too and squeaks, bouncing. "Oh hi new person! Did you eat yet?"

Their witchy leader pauses and looks over with a baffled scowl. "What the fuck--Jen! Are you trying to break your old record for taking in strays tonight?"

Jen replies cheerily, "Maybe!" and their fearless leader sighs and rubs her face.

[tookhishand]

People's scents stick in his brain, never to be forgotten. He picks up on it as soon as Roland approaches, turning around.

"Roland. It's good to see you. I thought you'd gotten... left behind."

Which was depressing as hell, these last weeks.