foolishwren | 126. [Video, action for anywhere in Goldenrod] (backdated to January 29th)

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126. [Video, action for anywhere in Goldenrod] (backdated to January 29th)

_{[She'd been lucky enough to be spared the effects of the past three weeks. BUT SHE'S NOT SO LUCKY THIS TIME.]

[The video opens on her already walking hurriedly down a surburban Goldenrod street towards the downtown area. IF SHE JUST KEEPS MOVING, MAYBE SHE WON'T HAVE TO TALK TO ANYBODY ELSE TODAY.]

[But just in case, she's hoping she can stave off karma catching up with her by making a quick confession to the network.]}

HEY.

So anyone who was here like a year ago and wondered about the weird black eye I had that one time?

I lied.

I didn't get it in a fight with a dude 'the size of Kentucky' like I claimed.

Actually, I just walked into a glass door because I was thinking about how much I wanted a Pumpka-spice latte from Sawsbucks and I was too embarrassed to tell anybody.

_{[The camera then turns abruptly to the sky.]}

THERE! You happy, weird Pokemon gods? I said something embarrassing! Now leave me alone!

_{[The video ends.]

[Spoiler alert: she is not going to be left alone.]}

[ooc: For action threads, feel free to tag in with your character ANYWHERE AROUND THE CITY.]

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_{[She's completely unmoved by his scowl, and doesn't slow down the laughter until it pretty much stops by itself. By that point, she's wheezing. There are tears.]}

Oh man...

In all seriousness, Blake, I'm a fucking treasure trove of secrets.

Having the hots for one of my housemates? Embarrassing, not something I really wanted to get out, but comparatively? It's nothing.

I'm not even saying this to try and sound like a dramatic edgelord.

It's just the truth.

Aaah, every teenager thinks that. What did you do, smoke pot once?

[Blake would be slightly less of a dick, but it seems like anything that comes into his head is falling out of his mouth today.]

I was responsible for the disappearances of roughly two dozen people, and I set my mother on fire.

... Also, I jaywalk pretty much every time I cross a street.

Bullshit. Heather, I am not going to believe you're an arsonist kidnapper.

And use the damn crosswalk.

--hey, did I say anything about kidnapping?

You can call bullshit all you want, but I don't think I'm capable of lying today.

I just told you the honest-to-god truth-- a little simplified, but still the truth. What, do you need to hear the gory details? Because that was just the tip of the iceberg, buddy!

... And also, no, crosswalks are lame and they're too far apart.

You said you made people disappear. That's not that easy, even for somebody over 100 pounds and old enough to rent a car.

You're gonna have to start from the beginning, here.

And don't come crying to me when you get run over by a rhino.

Yeah, as in literally disappear.

_{[She pauses, pressing a hand to her forehead. It's just now dawning on her the path that this will inevitably go down.]

[But man, fuck it. She's known Blake awhile. They've shared a few deep talks. Maybe he'll understand. Maybe not, but.]}

Look, let's go sit down somewhere.

If I'm gonna compulsively spill my guts, I at least want it to be you and not to every Purugly-toting grandma wandering down the street.

_{[Said Purugly-toting grandma shoots them a dirty look from where she'd come out to fetch her newspaper, and huffs off back into her house.]}

What, like David Copperfield? [Blake's half joking around and half plain not following.

He gestures her down a street.]

Here, I'll buy you a coffee before you get mauled by a little old lady and her ugly-ass cat.

What? It's not my fault. It's in the damn name.

... Sort of.

_{[There really wasn't any other word for it but 'magic', except that all the charm and whimsy usually associated with the word was conspicuously absent. Nothing about Alessa's powers had ever been whimsical. Not that she could remember.]

[Or if it ever had, that had been stomped out of it pretty quick once Dahlia Gillespie had caught on and started using it to effectively murder people.]}

But yeah. Coffee sounds good.

Let's go.

[He takes her into one of the cafes he likes. None of this wussy hipster crap with trendy music and art on the walls that doesn't look like anything. Just good basic coffee.

She looks like she's having a hell of a day, so Blake gets her a muffin, too. He is a man of staggering generosity. He takes a seat and gestures her to the other.]

So tell me about it. I have jack shit to do today, I was just walking around trying to make myself feel useful.

_{[As the mug and muffin are set down in front of her, a memory swims back to the front of her mind. Of telling this same story using silverware and salt-filled coffee as visual aids to another detective, years ago.]

[She sighs heavily and breaks part of the muffin off.]

[She's not sure she has the restraint to repeat the off-kilter metaphor use that she'd applied with Cooper. Not today.]}

Well, first of all, how much do you know about cults?

[A girl her age should not be able to sigh like a veteran at the beginning of a long night.

From the word 'cult,' she has his attention.]

Plenty about exactly how much they can do before you can arrest them. Sons of bitches are real good at toeing that line.

Oh, okay. Good. So you're familiar enough.

_{[The Order had been VERY good at toeing the line, at least when in the view of others. And it had clearly stayed that way, or gotten even better, considering that they'd had a real church built at one point instead of worshipping exclusively at tiny shrines and altars stashed away in furtive corners where the law wouldn't think to look.]

[She dumps a spoonful of sugar into her coffee and stirs it, propping her chin on her fist and speaking deadpan.]}

So, surprise surprise, guess what I was born into.

[Also like a veteran at the beginning of a long night, Blake takes a deep drink of coffee.]

Shit. You serious? All this time?

[But as he thinks about it, it starts to make sense. A little wild, fiercely independent - sounds about right for somebody young who's busted out of a place that kept her under control.]

So tell me which one. Scientologists? Moonies? Those fringe Christian types where you all wear Little House on the Prairie dresses and everybody has seventeen kids?

[He isn't as flippant as he sounds. He knows that the more aggressively wholesome they look on the outside, the nastier it is on the inside.]

_{[After taking a long sip, she sets her mug down with a clink and folds her hands in front of her.]}

They're called the Order.

And they're a really nasty cocktail of small-town Christian and Satanic, with some corrupted stuff yanked out of the local native mythos thrown in there to keep things spicy. _{[How much of it had come from the town's original power and how much of it had been spun into existence like catgut string from the thoughts and words handed down through generations, she had no idea. The gods were real, but they were also sick, demented creations of the very people that claimed subservience to them. A mad scientist's fusion of old and new mythology cobbled together from their desecrated corpses.]}

My mother led the biggest, most central sect-- but she had her fingers in every goddamn pie so really, she might as well have been responsible for all of it as far as I'm concerned.

[That's a new one. Blake's never heard of them, but the name's vague enough there could be a million of them. He remembers the Satanic Panic back in the 80s, how once they got to the bottom of it there was nothing there but mob hysteria, but Heather doesn't sound like a kid somebody accidentally talked into making up memories.

Don't lead. Let them talk. That's what they always told Blake, though he was usually working with the kind of assholes who needed to get lead with fists before you could get anywhere.]

Christ. Your mother?

["Big" and "Christian" suggests one of those money-grubbing megachurch things. Must've been good at keeping the Satanic parts quiet until the members got too deep in to get out.]

_{[Far from it, and she'd laugh if anyone suggested the possibility. She wishes those memories were planted and not real.]}

Yep.

I use that term in the loosest possible sense, for the record.

She was a monster.

_{[He's not far off the mark, although the Order had been significantly more on the downlow back then. Vincent had been the one to monetize the whole thing and bring it into the public's eye under a more harmless-seeming facade. But even in Dahlia's day the darkest parts had been kept well-hidden.]}

I don't know just how long it was around, to be honest, but it's old. Had its roots real deep, and there were plenty of people going along with it even if they weren't members proper.

The police. The government. The hospital. Especially the hospital.

It was bad.

[Blake believes her when she uses the word monster. He's known plenty of parents he could call that. You don't run into a lot of model ones, in his line of work.

There's one word in there that makes his hands suddenly fist and his teeth clench. In a reflex like doubling over when you're punched in the gut, he spits out,] Police don't--

[He bites it off and stares hard down at the counter. It takes a minute to wrench his head back on track.]

How'd you get out?

_{[She can't help but shoot him a look at his cut-off exclamation.]}

Crooked cops exist, Blake. Get over it.

_{[Lifting her mug, she takes another deep swig of coffee before continuing.]}

The quick and simple way of saying it is that my dad-- adoptive, not blood, I have no idea who the biological one was-- got me out. But it's a lot more complicated than that.

_{[She normally wouldn't specify that Harry Mason had adopted her-- in her mind, it doesn't matter and she doesn't like how sticking it in there automatically puts distance between them no matter what her intent is. But in this case, she wants it clear as crystal that her father'd had no relation of any kind to Dahlia Gillespie the cultmaster.]}

[It's too sharply that he snarls] I know that. The worst son of a bitch I ever knew was a cop.

[He knows it better than anybody.

He didn't mean to say that much. He takes in a deep breath and shoves that old anger back down to where it lives.]

But that doesn't have anything to do with you.

Your dad tracked you down and got you out, huh? Must've been a resourceful guy.

_{[She huffs a little, but doesn't offer a rebuttal. As long as he's listening, this doesn't need to turn into some kind of debate on the broken police system.]}

Yeah. He was.

Very.

_{[Ironically, more after the fact than before. After all, he'd discovered the truth about Cheryl and the existence of Alessa practically by accident. But only the resourceful could survive the Otherworld to begin with.]}

But we weren't talking about how I got out, we were talking about the disappearance thing. Might as well get it over with, and I'm gonna warn you in advance, this is gonna sound crazy, but I've sat down to dinner here before with someone who was literally the metaphorical human embodiment of the nation of France, so take whatever you know or believe about where you come from and just throw it out the window for the duration of this conversation, okay?

_{[DEEP BREATH.]}

I had powers.

I could make shit happen with my mind.

Even when I was really young-- no, especially when I was really young.

And the second my mother found out about it?

She found plenty of uses for it.

Including making people who were a threat to the Order conveniently 'go away'.

[Blake listens. Every word makes his grip on his cup get tighter.

A strange look comes over his face. The corner of his mouth twitches like it's not sure what direction to go in. He looks wary and hope-tinged, like he's not sure whether or not there's a joke getting played, but he wants to look like he's in on it.]

You're shitting me, right? You're playing around and trying to see how gullible the old man can get.

[He sounds like he's trying to convince somebody.]

I've known you for a hell of a long time now, Heather. You may've had a rough childhood, but you're not some kinda psychic assassin thing. You're a normal kid with a smart mouth and a bigass dog.

[Aren't you?

His knuckles are pale as he grips the cup. The look on his face is immobile.]

Tell me you're joking around.

Edited 2016-04-07 13:34 (UTC)

_{[Sorry, Blake. When Heather plays jokes, they're a lot more obvious. And sometimes involve weapons.]

[She stares back at him, and it's with eyes more serious than she's ever looked at him with. Not just serious, either. There's a sadness there, too. A deep, exhausted sadness.]}

... There's a lot about me that you don't know, Blake.

126. [Video, action for anywhere in Goldenrod] (backdated to January 29th)

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