THIS IS JUST A PSL NOW I GUESS;

[fossick]

(( used the wrong method with the wrong technique ))

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[fossick]

[She's coming along with that meal rather swiftly, isn't she? Weir crosses his arms to examine her work for a passing moment.]

You'd be fool not to. I'm giving you a place to stay, never mind what you think of me otherwise.

[Neither is fooling the other: Weir will not pretend to be a gracious host, but he will be a host for someone who doesn't belong here, who appeared in the forest through a means that can only be described as a tear in the veil between worlds itself. One more oddity to add to the list of strange things happening about, the dangers that have lurked in the deepest parts of the forest, where there should be no danger at all.

Best to keep her close, if only to keep an eye on her for now.]

[luciole]

Mm. And here I thought you just liked looking at me.

[Lucinda is not above insincere flirtatious jests.

The meal is coming along nicely. She's basically making an open-faced sandwich. First the base of toasted bread with artful char marks. It's covered in a thin layer of butter and a generous spread of soft white cheese. Next is the placement of the meat and then the vegetables she cooked are diced into small pieces and mixed with sweet vinegar, salt, and pepper. And last of all is the hardboiled eggs, sliced and placed on top.

There are two servings, one for her, and one for Weir and additionally, she prepares a tray with the extra leftover bread and toppings. Lucy explains cheerfully.]

Since one won't be enough, especially since you were out all day. You can add what you like after you're done.

[fossick]

Very forward of you.

[He says, noncommittally. Once more: he's rude, not dead. She is very pretty to look at, quite easy on the eyes, and it's hard not to let his gaze linger maybe a little too long on her tattooed skin, but Weir is not fool enough to fall into the trap she's set with that flirtatious retort. He'll keep that to himself else he's teased to oblivion and back — she seems the type.

Best to focus on the food, instead.]

IS she nice to look at? I can nɇvɇɍ ŧɇłł wɨŧħ ħᵾmȺns. Too shaped, too angled, all the organs in the wrong places, the strangest places—

Tomorrow— [He takes the plate with his serving without so much as a thanks. It’s simple, but still a lot more artful than what he bothers with.] —you’ll be out all day, too. Save enough for breakfast, because I don’t want to hear any whinging about an empty stomach come late morning.

[luciole]

[Lucinda is dangerously aware of her appeal.

In her late teens, she had thought it was all Flora's doing. The spirit's sweet scent can draw people towards her, soften them to suggestion, and in most cases (because this is the most coveted for the Collective's operations), forget.

Her mother (the new one), dressed her up and worked around her ghost tattoos and the real ones to enhance her appearance. Working with other Collective members taught her how to use everything about herself to her advantage, not just her abilities to see and speak to shadows or have her three friends do her bidding.

She's a formidable agent for reasons other than her strange ghosts.

Lucinda seats herself against the wall with her serving using a fork to delicately cut into her meal. She's a slow eater.]

No whinging. [Her lips quirk a little at the word.] That's a promise.

[Not that she's done much of it if any at all. It could be mistaken as passivity, but it's more of a calculated move.

Or maybe she's just enjoying her time in this new world.]

Feather can wake me up. [She beams at Weir.]

So if you hear a thump on your floors, that's just her taking possession and making me roll off the bed.

[fossick]

[Weir knows better than to trust anything or anyone at face value. Lucinda has not been in purposefully obfuscating, but she isn’t an open book, easily read — there’s more to her than just her tattoos and the spirits that reside within them. He isn’t stupid enough to think otherwise.

It’s fine. They both have their share of things unsaid for now.]

And you just let her do that? Possess you?

[Gods, it’s hard enough to sleep with a stranger in his lodgings. The idea of one who might be puppeted around by a ghost is (ironic) twice as bad.

Anyway. He’ll sit at the table and eat? Because he’s not a heathen???]

[luciole]

[Look, she isn't sure if he even wanted to share the table ok she'll take the wall (and haunt it like a ghost)]

Mm. [Lucy finishes a slice of egg before replying to Weir.]

Sorry. I forget that casual possession shouldn't be taken lightly. [yeah lucy you should know... she pats her shoulder where one of Flora's blooms is apparent.]

But these three have been with me for a long while so our communication is finely tuned. They would never take over my body unless I let them and even then it's limited.

[No, that still doesn't sound all that great... But better than the alternative of some stray demon taking hold of her sensitivity.]

Keep in mind, they are not ghosts of humans. To be honest, their nature and make is quite a mystery to even those on my side.

[fossick]

[Yeah casually forcing someone to do a thing sure is bad, sweats,]

If not human, then could they not be something more… insidious? Communication does not necessarily equate to trust.

I’m HURT.

[He can sense her spirits, in the way he can sense faint essences entwined with her own. Still, they baffle him — he’s not encountered anything quite like it since the acquisition of his own abilities.]

[luciole]

I've been possessed by worse.

[Her tattoos, both ghostly and normal draw attention away from the damage that's been done by "worse."]

Just so you know, I'm not dismissing your suspicions. Even among my own kind, they're unsettled by my current state. A medium usually begins and ends with seeing, speaking, and channeling the dead. More than one spirit that manifests beneath the skin? And I'm not dead myself? Rather unheard of. Not impossible but there isn't anyone else like me.

[She twirls her fork at him playfully.]

I'm what's derisively called, "a special snowflake."

[fossick]

Mm-hm.

[Excuse him as he works on his sandwich for a bit.]

Your “snowflake” status [???] is not unsettling to me. That’s the wrong word for it. I’ve seen worse things than a woman who harbors something strange beneath her skin and talks to dead things.

[Its voice thrums in his head.]

What concerns me is why you are here at all. Does your “specialness” have anything to do with being thrown wide of your own world? This simply does not happen here, in this town.

[luciole]

[it's a very tasty sandwich ngl]

Have you now?

[She masks her interest to make it sound mild and proceeds to answer his question.]

Well. I think the conditions were just about right for it. Prior to waking up here, I was having... A disagreement with a warlock from my world. Fang had taken care of him but his workshop was in disarray. Many substances. I don't really remember what happened after I blacked out.

[It's true. Being thrown into another world was not on Lucinda's to-do list for the weekend.

She rolls her eyes as if expecting Weir to agree.]

Magic.

[fossick]

[He lets it slide. Lets her imagination fill in the blanks of what she thinks a huntsman might find out in the woods. He will not rise to the bait of what only sounds like mild interest, besides.]

Substances.

[His brow wrikles. That isn't particularly specific, nor is it helpful. He does, however, very much agree.]

Magic of that degree, I imagine, is only asking for needless complications. Of course this one had to find itself in my lap.

[weir you're not even the on who was flung out of your world]

[luciole]

Magickind, for all the phenomena they can produce, are all about needless complications.

[Her opinion on witches and warlocks is lesser than most.]

Having dinner in another world with the most jubilant man I've ever met wasn't exactly my plan on my weekend off you realize?

[fossick]

[Well, they can agree about magic equating to needless, frivolous complications.

Even though Weir still uses magic to a (very) small degree, it's not like what used to exist; sorcerers and their ilk, weaving spells and unweaving them over and over again, testing, trying to achieve new heights that seemed far too fantastical to ever be anything than an opportunity to boost one's own reputation, one's own pride. Beyond that, he knows very little, beyond his passing experiences in the city and that one woman; those were never circles he cared to walk in.

And now, those circles very much do not exist. Magic is an untapped well, and those who try to draw it back up are cursed with bumbling fingers.]

You sound as though you speak from experience, from before you were sent here.

[He is not remarking about his jubilance, thank you very much.]

[luciole]

Where I'm from, there are espers and there are the witches, or the magickind if you will.

[Lucinda idly places the side of her fork in the middle of her bread. Most of the toppings have been eaten save for a few diced vegetables and some egg slices.]

There are other individuals who fall in between the categories. [Like her to an extent.] But by and large that's what it mostly comes down to.

Espers outnumber the latter but those with magic are... Troublesome. I can kindly say that most witches keep to themselves and contribute when it matters.

[fossick]

[By now, he's about done with his own meal. Weir can carry on a conversation while being immediately aware of how food should not go to waste — old habits.]

But those that do not… Like your warlock fellow. Is that the sort of trouble they cause? The sort that unwinds the fabric of time and reality?

And how is that TROUBLE when it is, in your tiny mind, so ͓̽f͓̽a͓͓̽̽r͓̽ ͓̽f͓͓̽̽r͓͓̽̽o͓͓̽̽m͓̽ ͓̽y͓͓̽̽o͓͓̽̽u͓̽? You are asking the wrong questions, River-child, if you want to know about this woman and the REAL pains she may cause.

...Why were you there, exactly?

̷T̷̷h̷̷e̷̷r̷̷e̷ it is.

[luciole]

Not all of them. This was a unique case. But if magickind does anything that disturbs the peace or catches the attention of the mundane, well. That's where I step in.

And I was there to apprehend him.

[That's the vague explanation. She cuts her bread in half and takes one piece to take a small bite.

And then she follows up with something more concise.]

Since he resisted, Fang took care of him as I've mentioned before.

[How? She actually hasn't been forthright about his power, how out of her three spirit companions, he was the most dangerous and posed the most threat to espers and magickind alike. Fang has a non-corporeal form and yet a physical and mental threat of significant proportions.

Lucinda is a perfectly well-rounded agent.]

[fossick]

[He doesn't need the details, though he would like to know them, but it's clear: Fang is the dagger she keeps beneath her skirts, so to speak. He wonders at his power. He can sense it, but he cannot make heads or tails of it.]

So... you are something of an authority figure in your community.

[aRE YOU THE POLICE, LUCINDA!!]

"Took care of him" as in, you killed him. How?

[Might as well see what he can get out of her about this Fang of hers.]

[luciole]

[how DAAARRE yOOOUuuu yeah i guess]

Mm. Enforcement is part of what I do but I'm not a go-to authority. I'm given assignments. More often than not, I perform damage control.

[Thanks Flora.]

Unfortunately, yes. It's really just my last resort.

[Lucy takes another bite of her food before answering Weir.]

Fang got the jump on him. [And she stops there, looking pointedly at Weir.]

What? Are you going to write a book about me?

[fossick]

[sounds like the cops to him

He gives her a pointed look in return.]

Haha, dangerous to you, my boy. ᴬˡˡ ᵗʰᵉ ᵖᵒᵗᵉⁿᵗⁱᵃˡ ⁱⁿ ᵗʰᵃᵗ ⁿᵒⁿ-ᵃⁿˢʷᵉʳ...

Am I not allowed curiosity? You come from another world, operating on a standard of rules utterly alien to a man such as myself.

[Deflect right back!]

We may eat in silence if you prefer.

[luciole]

You're almost done anyway. And so am I.

[She only has half a sandwich left!

Lucinda tilts her head at him just so and smiles sweetly.]

If you wanted to see Fang so badly, you didn't have to ask me in such a roundabout way, Weir.

[fossick]

[She has a point. But her last remark has him stretching a thin, insincere smile across his face.

He may usually sidestep her little potshots of innuendo or flirtatiousness, but this time, he'll step up to that challenge.]

Show me, then.

[He'll either call her bluff, or she'll provide him a few more answers.]

[luciole]

[Her smile doesn't falter.]

Alright.

[Lucinda stands up and sets her plate aside.

And starts unbuttoning her front blouse.]

Turn around please. I have some modesty you know.

[fossick]

[Not a bluff at all, then. Credit where it's due; she's fearless. Well, Weir won't balk or suddenly become a blushing mess just because she's undoing a few buttons down her shirt, hiking up his brow. This works in his favor where trying to puzzle her out is concerned.]

Some.

[Anyway,,

He stands, turns his chair around, and sits again with his back to her. Don't worry, he won't peek.]

[luciole]

[Ah what a terrible man. But it's a thrill in its own way when both parties assert themselves, neither willing to back down. It's almost like feeling alive.

The rustling of cloth ceases and she calls to Weir.]

You can turn around now. And don't worry.

[The dragon stirs under her skin.]

Fang won't bite.

[Not this time.

Fang is stationary and engulfs the whole of her back while resting between flowers that were added on by another artist. While Flora and Feather are boldly colored, but innocuous, Fang is a black outline to contrast with the painted blooms, but intimidating all the same. He remains the most hidden not only by virtue of being on her back but because anyone with even a lick of sixth sense can't help but recoil at the fierceness that radiates from his glare.

And Fang is glaring at Weir.

Try something. I dare you.

Fang doesn't speak of course. Only Lucinda can hear her friends' voices for they only deem her worthy of their words.]

[fossick]

[He stands again, but doesn't bother to turn his chair around, only turning himself to face her and-

Ah, there it is. Good to put a "face" to the thing he can sense lurking beneath, that ineffable power that he could only ever describe as sharp.

And now he sees why. Fang is named appropriately. Claws, a maw with teeth, curving horns as though they might be carved from wood. A serpentine body, though, that coils and drifts through those inked blossoms. There's something... familiar about the sight. Distantly, it reminds him of something.]

𝔻ℝ𝔸𝔾𝕆ℕ.

[No, that can't be. It's unlike any dragon he's seen depicted. Or wyvern or wyrm, for that matter. The static hisses in his head again, as though to sense his doubt.]

A dragon of CALIFORNIA, we told you you should have asked-

[But it would share the same ferocity, that piercing glare, the danger of being rent in two should one wrong move be made, feeling small in the face of a greater, sublime creature.]

Is Fang a dragon?