Summary:Treed by a Tigra, Ambrose makes a new friend! Maybe! Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Admittedly, today's foray out into the city has little to do with deliberately feeding the Bane — that's existence for Ambrose as it stands. Today is more about seeing if he can go an entire day without running into unexpected supernatural creatures. Ever since the return of a 'long-dead' platoon-mate, the Jackal has been more than a little jumpy.
He's taking a breather and brief detour into Washington Square Park, however, because it's less crowded than the streets themselves. The trees are all skeletal in winter and the weather, while not warm, is in the low 40s. It means the brunet is dressed in his long-coat and black fringed scarf, wrapped many times about his neck in its length. A stocking cap in cream fabric is pulled snugly down over his ears. By how he walks, he's thinking rather than actively paying attention to his surroundings — a moment of distraction for the normally-hyperalert master-thief.
Some people don't have to bundle up against the weather when it's only in the 40s. Some of them are from Canada. Others have their own, built in fur coats, and this is the category that Tigra falls into at the moment, walking along through the mark, hands behind her head and fingers laced together, tail swinging back and forth lightly as she stretches her legs and might almost be believed to be patrolling the park. As for people wanting to avoid unexpected supernatural creatures, well, this -is- New York City, and naturally Tigra's path brings her into view of Ambrose, and upon spotting him, she offers a polite smile and nod.
|ROLL| Ambrose +rolls 1d10 for: 5
How to kill something that was once dead, but now is alive? This Ambrose continues musing over even on his approach to Tigra. Seeing movement in his path, he glances up and is visibly ready to give at least a nod back to the person addressing him.
But then he stops stock-still in the path, eyes going bigger until they're nearly owlishly wide. Tigra won't miss the hard swallow. Licking his lips, Ambrose asks as evenly as he can manage, "Please tell me you are not Rakshasa?"
she had planned to just stroll on by after the polite greeting. She tries to make an effort of being 'just another person,' to try to make things a little easier on obvious mutants and others who look…differently speciesed. But then he stops. And the obviously anxious reaction would be impossible for someone without her senses to miss, and so she pauses, and her tail gives a flick of interest, or curiosity. "Rakshasa?" she asks with her throaty voice. "Don't they drive the little cars in parades?"
|ROLL| Ambrose +rolls 1d10 for: 3
When Tigra speaks — or maybe it's the lash of her tail — the man does an abrupt turn and dashes towards the nearest tree. Up he goes, like an oversized squirrel, and with a great deal more grace than might be expected for someone who appears to be human at first glance.
A few twigs rattle loose and some branches creak, but the Jackal is up and safe within the branches. Safe — a relative term when dealing with someone as agile as Tigra.
Now, from on high, Ambrose looks down at the tigress. He appears as if he's trying to slow his heart. Another swallow. "N-No, they do not. You — you are not Rakshasa then?"
Well, he can try to look down at the tigress. It'd be easier if she was still on the ground. And not up in the tree as well, though thankfully enough upon on a different branch. She's able to climb the tree at least as fast as he does, and puts effort into being like Bugs Bunny and trying to appear as if she had always been there. "No, I'm not Rakshasa," she answers, sitting primly, one leg crossed over the other at the knee, hands folded and placed atop. "Think of me as a were-tigress if you like," she says with a pleasant, if toothy, smile.
There's a quiet yelp from Ambrose as the tigress ascends the tree with no issue whatever. Reaching back blindly has him breaking a limb under the weight of his hand and then flailing briefly for balance. He regains it with a grab at the tree's trunk in tandem with the pretzel-like wrapping of strong legs about the branch he initially settled on.
Those teeth make him lick his lips nervously. "A were-tigress." His voice is forced almost flat to calmness. "It would be my luck. I ask you, please, do not eat or maim me. I have a great deal more to accomplish yet in my life and my family would not appreciate it." Now comes the weird flicker of nightshine-red through the man's pupils despite the early afternoon light. It betrays his inhumanity and seems to come in tandem with an upkick of the scent of blood on the air — the Bane, invisible to all but the most magically-proficient, tingles beneath his skin in base defensive reaction. Ambrose keeps it tightly in check as he looks dead into Tigra's face.
Woops, Tigra didn't mean to spook him that badly. Spook him, certainly, but not enough to make him fall out of the tree. She leans forward, ready to snatch out and try to grab him, but he recovers before any intervention is necessary. "Well that's awfully specific," she notes, still leaned forward a bit, gaze more focused. And then it narrows a bit, at the brief flicker of red, and the tangy scent of blood. "I've never eaten anything, or anyone, that could talk to me, and only maim those whom I have reason to."
"Eh-heh! Yes, well — very good!" Ambrose laughs a few more times, the sound higher and airy in that manner of nerves yet. He hasn't looked away from Tigra still; her lean-in has him considering just falling out of the tree and risking whatever landing might come of it.
But snapping a bone is painful and it takes a chunk out of his life-force reserves to heal — such the conundrum!
The were-tigress hasn't tried maiming or eating him, however, as per her reassurance, and so the Jackal stays put. His gaze remains winking red in the correct odd angles of light. Now he looks her over almost clinically if still dubiously.
"…why on earth are you in this city? I would think you might find the tropics more comfortable," he notes cautiously even as he shifts his weight to get himself more comfortable. That knot on the branch was digging into his ass-cheek, ouch.
She hasn't tried maiming or eating him…yet, at least. "Excuse me?" she asks, eyebrows going up. "Why am I here? I might as well ask you the same thing," she points out, sitting up straighter again. "May as well ask anyone that question. I mean, this is -New York City- after all. Anybody in the world can be here." No weight shifting needed for Tigra. She's got that ability to be comfortable anywhere.
Ambrose blinks a few times before he scowls faintly. "I mentioned that I have a family — that, and…" He pauses, mouth open. "…my hobbies require the necessity of this city and its populace. However, it is ruddy cold and could snow next week. You, milady, have aspects of a creature known to inhabit the warmer regions of this planet. That, and you do not have any clothing," the Jackal notes with all of the composure he can dredge up a la his Victorian upraising.
Still, having not been further threatened, the master-thief risks relaxing more yet. There's no longer any part of the branch digging into him, but he's still very ready to just risk that dead-drop to the ground.
Oh, milady, isn't he a charmer? A swish of Tigra's tail in amusement and a bit of satisfaction at receiving her just due. "Tigers are tropical," she'll concede. "But like my four footed cousins, my fur's enough to be quite comfortable even in colder conditions." And now that she's given a little, it's time to try to take again. "And just what hobbies are you speaking of? The way you're talking, I'd suspect you might be a vampire, if it weren't daylight."
Sinuous movement of the tigress's tail has Ambrose glancing down out of hard-earned chary habit and back up to her. He hasn't been around many cats, but by her body language, he silently hazards that something he said earned this more positive response rather than more toothy smiles.
Her nearly-accurate assumption has the man sitting up taller subtly in shock. "I…collect antiques," the master-thief replies. "And I am…not a vampire." There's still a faint note of questioning and…amusement to this particular response. Slowly, surely, one dimple begins to show. "I daresay I am far more interesting than a paltry vampire, milady," Ambrose adds, this time in deliberate charm.
Ahhha, pricked a sensitive spot there, did she? It was the emphasis on the city's population that got her interest, and she smiles, just a bit, at the change in his body language. The smile gets a hint of a smirk as he tries to turn on the charm. "Me, I'm an Avenger. Maybe you've heard of us? Earth's mightiest heroes sort of thing. We protect this city, and its population, not to mention the rest of the world, and we certainly find all sorts of people to be…interesting." A hint of the Cheshire Cat in her smile now.
A degree or two of the demi-immortal lieutenant's charm melts away like candlewax in the face of the name-dropping. Oh JOY: he's managed to corner himself with one of the Avengers!
Somewhere, Kent is face-palming a la Picard.
Still, slow to admit defeat in the instance of social fencing, Ambrose brings back his own crooked smile and turns its intensity nearly to megawatt. "Reeeeally?" comes the drawl oh-so-fascinated. "I am honored to have been treed by such a paragon of virtue. What is your name then, milady, that I might tell others of my good fortune?"
Ahh, another point scored, Tigra thinks. Not that she actually knows what the game is, here. In truth, she's more or less playing with her prey, just with words rather than claws. "Reeeeeaaallly," she confirms for him. "They call me Tigra, for obvious reasons." Though the obvious reasons aren't the reasons why she's actually called Tigra. "And now that you have my name, would you be so kind as to give me yours, so I have something to put with your scent?" Nope, no warning there or anything. Not at all.
Something harder flickers in Ambrose's eyes now along with that eerie candleflame of red in the back of his pupils. Still, his smile remains, gleaming like a diamond necklace.
"Milady Tigra then," he confirms in a tone now very urbane. " — and you may call me the Jackal." It's no first or last name and, unless Tigra has connections to the underground of mysticism, perhaps completely unknown. "I did shower this morning, however," he then notes in dry, dry humor…and a canine-like tilt to his head that Tigra might read correctly as being, again, not entirely human.
"The Jackal. Well I'll certainly remember that." Unfortunately for Tigra's sake, she's not sufficiently connected to have recognized the name, though it doesn't take a super genius to recognize an alias, code name, secret identity, or nom de guerre when she hears one. "Ahhh, you misunderstand," she says. "I didn't mean that I thought you had a bad odor. I meant that I know your scent now.
It's enough to make Ambrose laugh, this time truly. The sound curls up behind his smile before finally breaking out in two sharp barks.
"I daresay I should not underestimate you, milady Tigra, if you can track by scent. I shall not infringe upon your person to see to your own. Another time, perhaps, if the need becomes necessary," he muses, still smirking. "But truly, I mean you and your Avengers no trouble whatsoever. That you assume I do, right off the bat — "
And he shakes a forefinger at her, tsk.
"Not all of us who are misidentified as vampires mean the world ill."
Oh, trying to turn this around on her? No, no, she doesn't think she'll let that go quite unremarked. "Says the gentleman who withholds his real name," Tigra points out lightly. "Of course, if you don't mean the people of this city ill, then you certainly don't have to worry about trouble from me. Why, you might even draw comfort knowing that you would be protected just as surely as they are," she adds with a fluttering of lashes.
A touch of color appears at Ambrose's cheeks. He grins again, this time harder.
"How am I supposed to know if your own name is your true Name?" A subtle emphasis on the word marks him as knowledgeable of the currency of titles — of what folks count to be their true mark of identity. "For all I might fancy, it is a nom-de-guerre like my own." There: he admits it with a lazy showing of his hand of cards. "I like my privacy, milady Tigra. It is a hard thing to come by with modern technology these days. I mean no one ill and I need no protection." A subtle lift of his chin is pride showing forth.
A half-nod, with a tilt to the side as Tigra silently concedes the power of Names. "If you mean no one ill, then you've nothing to worry about from the Avengers," she bids him. She carefully doesn't put emphasis on the 'if.' "I certianly understand the value of privacy," she allows, quite sincerely. A quick flash of teeth in a mostly friendly smile, and then she stands up on her branch. "And since you need no protection, I'll wish you the best of luck should you meet any Rakshasa," she says, preparing to backflip off the branch and be on her way.
"I thank you, milady." Perched seated on his own branch, Ambrose dares to execute his best courtly bow from the waist, fist to his chest and all. It means testing his balance, but this is old sport in itself. "Should I meet an actual Rakshasa, I shall know my past has finally caught up with me." Again, he thinks morosely to himself.
"I wish you well in your day and your travels. If I see you again, I shall remain upon the ground. After all, you did not maim or eat me." He grins, those eerie eyes still managing to twinkle at her. "Good day, milady Tigra." It appears as if he means to remain treed until she disappears.