Summary:On the scent of something, Fenris and Astryd run into a thief and a creation of an Elder God Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
    |
It's late in Central Park. Night fell a couple of hours ago. That doesn't mean the park is empty but it's emptier than usual.
The pale light from the street lights spill across paths. From the shrubbery, just over there, comes a rustling sound. Someone moving through them. A tall, stern looking blonde emerges.
"They came this way, my heart, I'm sure of it…" She says as she moves carefully onward. "What are you getting?"
Behind her there is a wolf. It's not just any wolf though, it's a wolf the size of a good sized horse. He's got to be at least, what, sixteen hands tall? He's moving very quietly though and an aura of dread permeates the area around him. A little prickle in the back of people's lizard brains that says 'the stories which your ancestors feared are all true.' People react differently to it, of course, but the feeling is hard to escape.
"Too much. They split up I think. There's another scent though. One that smells of rot and places where sanity holds no sway…"
What exactly that smells like is not clear but from the way his nose is wrinkled, he doesn't like it.
*
One particular man's lizard brain screamed for him to climb a tree — and so he did, and with alacrity. Ambrose's quest to see if one chimeric monstress was hanging about the lesser-populated portion of Central Park began so calmly. The distant sight of a dog — nay, the largest bloody wolf in existence — was enough to entice him to remain no longer on the ground.
The master-thief is now easily thirty feet up in one of the older trees and trying to peer through the new spring growth greening its branches. Ambient nightlight catches in his pupils to flash them carmine, a courtesy of the ancient curse inhabiting his person. He mutters to himself in Persian under his breath about how when it rains, it pours — he's swapped one furry lunatic for potentially another! The blonde was a sight for sore eyes, though, this he admits to himself as he clings and peers.
*
Of course, Eve is here in central park. She's here often, of course, especially after night falls and the thrum of people has broken up. It's a good place to relax, regain some charge, and also, consume a little biomass here and there! Discretely.
So Eve is casually sitting on a park bench, hair blowing in the light breeze, while she reads a book on her kindle beneath a lamp.
All going well so far, for her.
The blonde has an aura about her, it's just muted in comparison to the Wolfs.
"I can take wing, my heart, and look around …" she answers guiding them in Eves in direction. She looks up though, towards that tree that Ambrose is hiding in. "Are you sure they've split up? There's something up there, I think."
"Where does that scent lead you?"
Fenris puts his nose to the ground and follows one of the scents. It comes over here. And then over here. And then here. And then RIGHT UP THIS TREE…
That has the wolf actually standing up on his hind legs and peering. He gets up quite high like that though not thirty feet.
"Yeah there's someone up here. Come out come out wherever you are…"
And then the great wolf starts to bounce against the tree, making it shake and sway. Eve will surely hear that.
*
High up in the tree, the master-thief tries to grip tightly to the branches. While an old tree, it happens to be rather flexible when a large wolf taller than most horses gets to shoving on it. About ten seconds into the attempt to see precisely who's up there, a yelp filters down and then the descent of someone wearing dark and practical clothing.
Ambrose catches on to a sturdier branch like a recalcitrant cat and scrambles up onto it within easy view of both the blond and the giant canine. "Desist, you malapert animal!" It's half-shout, half-spit, and the Jackal continues clinging to the branch by dint of a curled leg while he holds on to the main trunk.
*
So Eve does hear that, yes. Something bizarre is indeed going on which, in this city, is more like a frequent occurence than anything else. So she hops to her feet, puts her kindle in her pocket, tucks her hands into her pockets (YES SHE HAS POCKETS) and proeeds to make her way over there.
"…huh," she says, upon seeing the large wolf. And it isn't even Keiko's.
This wolf is far larger than Keikos and it's not glowing blue, either. This wolf is flesh and blood.
"Fenris, play nicely …" Astryd smirks as the wolf tracks the scent and shakes the tree. "You know he'll just huff and puff until you come down …" she calls up. "Please don't make me come and get you."
"Language!!" she reproves the Jackal before looking at the young woman who's joined them. "Well now … look what we have here, Fenris. Hello child. I hope you're not planning on trouble for us."
"I don't think this is who we were looking for." Fenris mutters as he stops the shaking… for about ten seconds. And then starts again. "Are you coming down there, mon frere or not?"
A glance behind him tells him they're not alone. Another darkness is approaching. And if Ambrose may be able to sense that as well. Which may make him LESS inclined to come down.
"Well this is a rather interesting gathering is it not?" Shake. Stop. Shake. Stop. Shakeshake.
*
"You can peel my dead body from this bloody limb," the master-thief calls down in a snarl at Astryd. His British accent is cut-glass now with notes from a time long since passed and a place far, far from Central Park. "I am NOT coming down, not while that damned dog — "
He has to pause because the whiplash of the tree springing back to an upstanding position again is enough to bounce his face from the tree itself. He devotes one palm to his temple now, wincing. "I should have stayed in. They wanted to have popcorn and watch a ruddy movie — ACK!"
Bump-bump-bump and he's caught by another branch clotheslining his solar plexus. A whistling whine escapes him as he tries to clamber up again rather than pinwheel his booted feet not far from Fenris's nose.
*
"Oy vey," says Eve. Hey, you can't live in New York for as long as she has without occasionally saying something like that. She rubs an eyue with a knuckle. "YOu," she says to the wolf, "please don't rip that guy apart /or/ tear that tree down. it's a pain for the workers who have to come clean it up. Why have you treed that dude in the first place? I'm not going to make trouble for anyone unless I absolutely have to. I just wanted to read." And no, it wasn't some unfathomable book of occult knowledge, either. "Someone tell me what this is all about, huh?" She doesn't appear to sense any lingering darknesses. Then again, maybe she's distracted enough by the oddness in front of her that she wouldn't even if she could.
Astryd sighs and looks at Fenris. "This is getting us nowhere…" As she speaks her form starts to change. Shrinking down, dark feathers sprouting … her clothes disappearing as well … until an overly large Raven is left where the blonde was standing.
With a beat of its wings, it launches itself to sit on the branch next to Ambrose. "I did tell you not to make me come up and get you…" It's the womans voice, a little more squawky, but it's hers.
"And please don't call my heart, a dog. He gets a bit a growly about that. Now, will you come down? I'll guarantee he won't bite you."
Eve just gets an amused avian look from Astryd.
Fenris does least stop shaking and back off the tree. And, in an instant of flowing shapes and outlines he becomes a man. Or appears to. Tall, dark haired. Still somewhat predatory looking. That dread feeling doesn't go away though.
"Oh I doubt that tree was coming down unless I really leaned on it. I don't think I got your name miss…?" He didn't get the master thief's name either but Astryd is taking care of that at the moment.
*
"Run!" Ambrose calls down breathlessly towards Eve in particular, shocked to see another 'normal' human being so nearby. "They're clearly…" His voice fades into shocked silence as he watches the blonde shift into a raven — oh yes, he recognizes the species — and loses more of his grip. Now it's really just his armpits and white-knuckled fingernails digging into the branch.
"Look," he grits out, puffing as he tries to find totality of breath and struggling for it. "Milady, whatever you claim to be, I am a simple man attempting a walk about the park — urk!"
At least the final drop isn't too far and he lands on his rump. Not much padding there, honestly, but he's quick to get to his feet and press his spine against the tree. The wolf — it's — now he's a — "Bloody shifters, can't make up their damned minds!" the Jackal spits, eyeing the shifted Fenris with a gulp.
*
"Run? Naw. I'm okay," says Eve, eyes on the shifted-bird, and the wolf that has now turned into a person. "Oh, that was kinda cool," she says aft er a moemnt.
"I'm, uh, Morning Glory." The SUPERHERO name she uses from time to time. "SOmetimes, I protect spaces like this and it's evident that something hinky is going on here." Who uses the word 'hink', anyway, aside from someone who watched th Fugitive last night?
Eve watched the fugitive last night.
"Someone wanna explain all this nonsense for me, huh?"
—-
"You weren't attempting to walk the park." The raven points out reasonably. "You were climbing a tree. Which, to my mind, is rather suspicious. Wouldn't you agree?" She seems amused at least. "You may call me Astryd and my heart, you call Fenris." The latter is a name he should know, the former, possibly.
With Ambrose on the ground, the raven takes wing again and transforms as she lands. A fully clothed viking woman, who just … smirks. "And what do we call you, my tree climbing man?"
Looping her arm through the dark haired mans, the blonde smiles up "We are looking for some Sluagh who have been sent from Overworld. Their trail led us here … and we found you instead."
"My heart, we should be moving again. Those Sluagh aren't going to wait for our pleasantries."
Sluagh. The Host. Tentacled creatures for the land of the fae.
Fenris does not close in on the man. He smiles in an amused fashion. "I am looking for something. Well. Someones. Faeries." He grins. "Though they're not quite the way you would think. For starters, they have face tentacles."
Faeries with face tentacles?
"I'd love to hear about your run in's with other shifters…" Fenris nods to Ambrose. "But as she says, we do need to see if we can catch that damn thing." Possibly not, it has his scent but he has to try.
"Which means I will leave you to finish your walk. Good evening to you both." With that and a nod to the woman-turned-raven… Fenris heads back up the path. Still in human form.
*
The names granted to him are filed away in his memory as best can be managed given the overwhelming sense of dread still floating around the dark-haired man. Ambrose swallows visibly.
"Jackal," is all he shares tersely. Already, he knows exactly which book to delve into at home in the vast collection he shares with the aforementioned names. However, Fae with tentacled faces is not something he wants to deal with or draw the attention of, especially given the past run-ins with the Wild Hunt as is.
The very second the shifted Fenris turns to leave, there goes the master-thief as if the night wind carried him. The grass around his feet wilts brown with each sprinting step and he's very swiftly disappearing into the distance, on the retreat from a known threat.
*
"…tentacle faces," says Eve after a moment. She sighs. "Why is it always tentacles?" She asks, rubbing her face. "Uhm.. right… well… as long as you're all… off… to make your messes somewhere else, I guess." It's not like she can, or really wants, to stop them from doing whatever at this point. "Carry… on?"