gobble gobble . 27th metal

[godsays]

[ GENERAL: DAY

He slips through the crowds, among them but not touched by them, his panther daemon pacing patiently by his side. He checks with his contacts and listens to how the world is moving, what people are saying, what they are thinking. He skirts the market and the docks, dipping into them to pause on the quay and watch the water move. He's scouting.

NIGHT: HUNTING

At night, at dusk and dawn, it's different. He's hunting. He paces up and down the darkest alleys and the edges of the world. He looks for children. Sometimes he does this with his sister. Together, they never come home empty-handed.

CHURCH

He drifts to different churches, preferring the larger ones or the cathedral, with broad stained glass and deep shadows and air streaming with dust. Not Dust, of course; this is just the ordinary kind, but when Zane kneels, when he bows his head, he imagines that it is the other sort, that it is sin that sparkles in the air around him, sin that he breathes in, sin that illuminates the shafts of color from the stained glass.

Here, he prays, fervently, straining for even a hint of the Authority's voice. Riona paces patiently beside him, and watches, ever-attentive, when his eyes are closed and he has no more will to watch for himself.

He stays in here too long, in the near-emptiness, as handfuls of worshippers drift in and out.

THE PARTIES OF THE RICH

But he is, after all, a member of the society of Oxford. His isn't just to hunt, and to listen to informants on the street. Sometimes, what one hears in a party is a thousand times more important.

So at the events of the rich, of the high-class, he can be found in rich and fine clothes, a glass of drink in his hand, dancing and conversing and making connections as is demanded of him.

He thinks of this as another mask.

AT HOME

After dawn, he returns home, perhaps after sweeping up another child in the net of captives, perhaps empty-handed. He slips into the narrow apartment that he holds on his own, though his father owns other places in the building. His daemon steps up on a couch by the window, and Zane is hard-pressed, always, to stay away from the knives perpetually laid out on the table.

OTHER

Write me a thing, we'll do a thing. ]

Comments

at home

[fridgetothefire]

[Anya is drawing wire. Her hands are as steady as she is not, smoothly pulling the painstakingly mixed alloy of silver and titanium through smaller and smaller dies until it is fine as silk, glinting and lovely and terrible, fine enough to slice invisible and ineffable and fundamental bonds. She winds it carefully, eyes dark and intense, and never cuts her fingers. She loves this work.

Malachai hates it. He paces in the next room, as far as he can go from her without pain, sometimes a little farther. When Zane and his daemon return, Malachai is the one who pads over to greet them, mouth slightly open and tongue visible, aping a happy dog, to nuzzle the panther's face.]

[godsays]

[ Riona, the panther, lets out a low rumble - a growl, maybe, but it isn't hostile. It's possessive. She'll bite gently at Malachai's throat, far too gently to break skin, and when she curls up on the cushions in front of the closed curtains, she leaves room enough for him to settle against her.

Zane doesn't look directly at them, though he feels every little brush of fur. Every wordless spark.

He calls for food from servants. He doesn't bother Anya. ]

[fridgetothefire]

[He whines softly, a low, quiet sound, a noise of identification and reassurance more than complaint, then curls up in the hollow she offers, rests his head over her side.]

Where did you go?

[His voice is quiet, not quite a whisper, but too quiet for either Zane or Anya to distinguish the words, if they had been forced to rely purely on human hearing. There are buried edges in his voice, low threads of jealousy and yearning and off-kilter gratitude for vicarious scraps. He wants to go outside, wants to be outside all the time, knows but does not really understand how Anya can will herself to spend full days indoors.]

[codename_duchess]

["Sir" Sterling Archer (a knight, he holds and frequently explains, in breeding and bearing if not technically in title, and we all know which is the important part) is a well-known fixture at the parties in Oxford -- at least during the winter, when all he feels like exploring is how many bottles of wine he can get through. Currently he is on his third, practically sober for him but still over the drunkenness threshold, and sipping enthusiastically from a glass between sentences.]

So they bring me into this -- they probably called it a house, but that's only because they've never seen a real one. It was more like a mud hut with straw stuck to the walls with animal dung. We get in there and there are warriors at the door holding sharp sticks they probably thought were spears, and there's an old man sitting cross-legged on the floor. He started talking to me in this gobbledygook, making hand motions to this nubile young nymphette dressed in nothing more than a loincloth. It turns out he was asking me if I'd like to marry her.

Anyway, long story short, that's how I lost the Duchess of Inverness's ruby ring.

[godsays]

[ Despite his appearance of utter uselessness, Zane is pretty sure Archer knows more than he lets on. He's pretty sure that Archer is more than he lets on. The fact that he drinks makes him less dangerous, but it doesn't mean he's not dangerous at all.

So he pays attention when Archer speaks. He doesn't take the words at face value, just stores them away. Takes a slight attitude of smug disbelief, in order to induce Archer to speak more. ]

You gave it to the girl?

[ A flat, disbelieving tone. ]

[codename_duchess]

No. Have you been paying attention? You think I'd waste a duchess' ring on a girl like that?

[He takes a long sip of wine, draining his glass, and flags down a servant to refill it. Zelle, his Siamese cat daemon, washes her paws elegantly at his feet, demanding space from both the serving-man and his terrier daemon.]

Naturally I took the girl, and then there was so much chanting and ridiculous waving of hands, and before I knew it we were feasting, drinking fermented fruit wines, and ushered off into a mud-hut of our own.

I had to give it to her father to get out of there alive.

[secretasshole]

[David Weyland always walks with purpose, and doesn't visibly react to much that's going on around him even on the busy streets of Oxford. He looks normal enough - he's attractive despite being very pale, and he's articulate and well spoken, and always well dressed - but anyone who spends much time with him will probably start to notice something's not quite right with him, even if they're not able to put their finger on what exactly it is. It probably doesn't help that his daemon is a tarantula who never seems to speak.

But Zane's one of the few who would know. David Weyland is Dr. Garrett Jacob Hobbs' assistant, and his greatest success: he'd volunteered and survived being severed from his daemon, and he would be the first to say that he doesn't have any regrets.

At the moment, Rachael is tucked into the collar of his jacket, hiding from the slight chill in the air while her human blandly scans the crowd looking for the man they'd been sent to find. Once he spots him, he makes his way over to him and addresses him quietly, but frankly.]

Dr. Hobbs is looking for you.

[godsays]

[ He dismisses Weyland, most of the time. He doesn't care for his father's servant, and doesn't see him as an equal. Not as human, really. (His connection with his daemon is fractured, but it's not broken, and there is a piece of him that clings to what remains with feral, violent need.)

It's with cold focus that he turns to Weyland. ]

I have business here. [ It is a dismissal.

No doubt his father wants Zane's presence especially because of Zane's dismantling of one of their sources of information. An incompetent and unlucky middleman indebted to the point of crippling his business, saved by the Magisterium and used mercilessly for every scrap of information he had. In their latest meeting, Zane had killed him. The middleman had just seemed to be - scum, suddenly. Utter scum. Nothing. It felt like Zane left the world a little better, leaving his corpse in a puddle of congealing blood. ]

[secretasshole]

[David doesn't really react, or at least doesn't seem particularly bothered by Zane's attitude or dismissal. Maybe he would have, before he'd undergone the procedure, but he doesn't, now.

Rachael, similarly, doesn't really respond. Her black eyes are bright, but she doesn't move from her spot on David's collarbone.]

He made it fairly clear this wasn't a request.

[He might as well be saying that the weather was lovely today, and not implying that their boss - Zane's father - needed to have a serious discussion with him about leaving a trail of bodies everywhere they went. They had important work to do, and it couldn't afford to be compromised like this.]

[beingdifferent]

[Esther is a good girl. She always listens to her father, a staunch and upright man who takes to heart all the church and Magisterium's teachings, and she listens to her teachers about these same institutions. She is a good enough girl that when the group of schoolgirls visit the Cathedral for the service she does not join in the whispering and giggling. Instead she listens attentively without squirming in boredom like her classmates, even to the parts in languages she doesn't understand.

Her daemon Mordecai is patient as well, although slightly more energetic. He coils around her neck as a snake until the part about the Garden of Eden, at which point he settles on the bow in her hair and fans his wings as a swallowtail butterfly. He spends some time curled in her lap as a kitten, purring during the gospel readings, but does not neglect to participate. During the doxology he turns into a linnet, adding his voice to the song:]

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son
And to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning: is now and ever shall be;
World without end, amen.

[Esther is a good girl, and as her father always advised, takes advantage of the murmuring and mingling crowd after the service ends. She and Mordecai, now a lemur trailing a long striped tail after him, weave their way through the crowd to the statue of the Virgin Mary. They both kneel, and Esther lifts the rosary from around her neck and begins to pray.]

[godsays]

[ Zane has noticed her. He picks out patterns like that naturally - most of the children are a blur of irreverence, irrelevance. She is in focus. She prays; she is intently devout, in a way that he recognizes. The ones who pray the most, those are the ones who are besieged by sin. The ones on low islands, with the ocean creeping towards them, reaching to the sky so they don't drown.

He kneels nearby, but doesn't look at her. His daemon is the one that pads over, slipping through the cracks in the crowd. She notices a little puppy daemon ready to pounce on the lemur's tail, and lets out a low, rumbling growl, her yellow eyes focused on him.

He squeaks, transforms into a mouse, and flees to the ankles of the human he belongs to.

The panther doesn't directly look at Esther or her daemon, but she stands watch, making sure nothing interferes with the girl's prayer. ]

[beingdifferent]

[Mordecai is murmuring the familiar prayer along with her ("The Lord is with thee! Blessed art thou among women"). They both know the words by heart, and are both still and seeking out the voice of God just as the schoolmasters and the priests and the pastors say to. There's a shield of sin that keeps the Holy Spirit from speaking to you, her mother once said, and she believed her. Sometimes she thinks she can hear it and sometimes she doesn't, but she always tries.

She listens the entire time she and Mordecai murmur the rosary, and by the time they finish and rise to stretch their stiff limbs he's gotten bored and climbs up her form, changing into the form of a koala bear.]

night : hunting

[versusnurture]

[She is the bait.]

[Bait dressed in finest furs, with Parris tucked up in her sleeve, his tongue flicking out to taste the air. She does not look like bait. But she is.]

[She also doesn't look like she's related in any way to Zane, except at those periodic intervals when she touches base with him in pre-arranged places and they walk awhile. Through a park, a well-lit street, when he transforms by bearing and expression into someone that a lady like her would associate with.]

[Her brother.]

[godsays]

[ This is one of those times. He slips from shadow into the ring of lamplight, gaslight, not anbaric in this section of town. Riona trots dignified next to him, and he offers her his arm. ]

I don't like this area.

[ Spoken lowly. Something in his instincts says they should look elsewhere. ]

[versusnurture]

Why?

[She takes his arm and looks at him coolly. No emotion shows - not even fear, not even confidence. She is a blank slate.]

What about it is wrong?

night : hunting

[patheticvillain]

[It's stupid to go out alone at night, Cassel knows. Doesn't care. They're settled somewhere big now, finally, if just for a few days, and he wants to explore.]

[Cities aren't really alive in the daytime. He walks dark alleys and flashes white teeth in the dark at nothing at all, because he is happy, thrilled even. Lyuba is not. She curls against his neck and whispers fears, all of which he ignores. He's fine. Safe. Nothing can harm him.]

[godsays]

[ They'll encounter the panther first. She stalks in the darkness, ahead of Zane, ranging to the limits of their daemon-human bond. Until Zane imagines that he feels the frayed edges start to tear, and he panics, and he goes back to her.

The panther growls, low and deep, rumbles in its chest. It eyes the little daemon. Probably not young enough to still transform. ]

[youwill]

[Boudica presses her nose against the back of his neck, hidden as ever down the back of his suit jacket. Garret hears Zane come home, and Boudica makes a curious noise, her eyes moving toward Zane's daemon. She doesn't move more than that, and Garret keeps his spot at the table, legs crossed, a glass of wine sitting in front him, just in front of the knives.

Another father would be concerned, perhaps, but this is nothing new in Garret's eyes.]

You've had a long night. [His mein is, as always, perfectly calm when he settles on Zane.]

[godsays]

[ He doesn't let his body stiffen or react at the presence of his father. Riona, the panther beside him, draws slightly closer to Zane, a vaguely defensive move. He steps away from her, turning the movement into a turn towards the cabinet and the drinks there. She doesn't need to protect him. They don't need to be defensive.

So he killed an informant. The man was unreliable. Zane's fingers rub together, remembering the tackiness of blood between them. He's cleaned his hands since last night, obviously, but the memory remains. ]

Not any more than usual.

[ Dawn makes the light grey between the curtains.

Zane pours himself a drink, and can't stop his eyes from drifting to the knives. ]

[youwillgotohell]

[It's an accident; she wasn't being as aware as she knew she ought to be. Morgana is usually better about this, better at avoiding people entirely, but the streets are crowded today, and her skin is already crawling from her latest row with Drustan. Her daemon is clinging to her shoulder, small hands latched tight to her shirt, but it's a furious closeness that Morgana knows she feels even more strongly than him. He makes her so angry sometimes that she doesn't know what to do, and there's no way to escape him, either.

The worst is that when she thinks all she'd like to do is set him down and walk away, she remembers what it felt like when he was being pulled away from her, and guilt taints her anger.

He's right in front of her, but she doesn't see him, even though she would recognize his face, even though she ought to turn in the other direction and walk away as fast as possible. Maybe they never should have come back here, where she could quite literally run face first into pieces of her past - but this is where her father is, and it's the only way to have revenge. She startles when she hits him, takes a quick step back.]

Oh, I'm sor--

[And that's when she sees his face, and words leave her.]

[godsays]

[ She hesitates; he reacts. A quick shift of weight from one foot to another, a turn, leaving just enough room for the panther to spring, which she does. Her target isn't Morgana. It's her daemon. Take her daemon, stop her from leaving. That is the first thing that must happen. ]

the dock.

[tobelieve]

[ It's somewhere that Helena comes to think, or at least shed her mind of the thoughts and worries that she might have had. Today there weren't many worries, but sitting (or like today, standing) for a while and watching the flow of the water, or even the boats come and go is nice and peaceful.

Her daemon is up having somewhat of a better view, although Helena always doubts that he's watching and thinking as she does, particularly when he's not in her line of sight.

It's when Helena turns to leave that she takes the opportunity to look at whom else might be there, whether known or not. She's heard some of the more recent whispers, though how much she puts into them she doesn't give away. She does like to see what others think, or know, though ]

It's a good day to watch.

[ She's spent a moment watching him watch, trying to see as to where he was looking, to what had caught his eye. But she couldn't, or he wasn't looking at anything specific ]

[godsays]

A blank day.

[ That's how he thinks of it. Not much sun, not rain either; blankness. The day is a slate on which weather could be written. Cheerless, but without tumult, either.

He focuses on her, eyes automatically searching for her daemon. When he doesn't immediately see one, he frowns. ]

Day

[canfindrope]

Red hangs around the college, mostly; only going out when Rube convinces her to - when they won't get found out, basically. Time between classes. The truth is, that she craves it as much as her daemon of course - the freedom beyond stone walls.

Still, it's her wolf - with his nose to the air - who inevitably brings her toward trouble. It's as if he can smell it on the wind.

"I smell cat."

[godsays]

The low rumble of a growl in Riona's chest similarly alerts Zane. He is immediately tensed, and he watches her, and her smooth movements, carefully; the last thing he needs is to get involved in a daemon's tussle.