Welcome to Rift, a post-apocalyptic werewolf roleplay set in Point Grey, on the University of British Columbia's campus. We play by liquid time and we're R-rated for the possibility of violence and language. Please have a look through the navigation links to learn more!
Group: Members
Posts: 138
Joined: 20-June 09
Member No.: 87
Wringing favors out of the dead was actually far easier than most people probably assumed. Once a person could see and hear them, all the hard work was done.
Zea made a deal with her incorporeal acquaintances in the morning. Whoever found her Andrea Thorsen--Sybaris--first... would receive half an hour of her undivided attention. A conversation about her, about themselves, about whatever it was they wanted to discuss.
She sent them in the morning, and an hour later the first returned. The words came quickly, in a desperate hurry. In the kitchen eating and please wouldn't Zea fulfill her end of the bargain?
His name was Peter, and he'd kept her a full thirty-one minutes talking about the footwear outlet where he had died. Tedious, but one must follow through on these sorts of bargains. The order of exchange was all that remained, the only cosmic law so natural and burned into reality that death itself could not disrupt it.
After that, though, it had been time to get back to work. Public areas like the kitchen made Zea a bit nervous, but she was getting used to the idea that no one here was going to strike out at her. At least, not publicly. The humans had more pressing concerns with their agriculture, and many of the werewolves were still recovering from the hospital rescue. It was not time for a new battle yet.
Thank God.
Wearing a drab grey sweater and some torn jeans that her mother had retrieved for her, Zea stood in the doorway to the kitchen and knocked on the doorframe. "Andrea Thorsen?" she asked, unsure of the woman by sight. "My name's Zea Mazuo. I was told I could find you here. Do..." Reflexively Zea glanced over her shoulder. "Do you have a few minutes?"
It's funny, some of the things you don't realize the significance and the complexity of until you can't have them anymore, and you finally get one again.
Like, say.
A sandwich.
A smoked venison sandwich with real fresh lettuce and aged (hurr hurr three years will do that) stone-ground mustard and there were even canned tomatoes that could be used.
And Jasmine was a sweet girl. Little off her rocker, but, y'know, it could be said that they all had something going on. Poor thing.
"Andrea Thorsen?"
Andrea looked up, her mouth full of a quarter of the sandwich.
"mmef? Ua if ih?"
She blinked, nodded, and got up, mouth working around the bread that was slowly becoming soggy.
Group: Members
Posts: 138
Joined: 20-June 09
Member No.: 87
Well, this was it. This was the part of the conversation where Zea said something incredibly important and meaningful. A message from beyond the veil of death itself. A desperate plea for aid from a father who'd left his daughter behind in the world to fend for herself. This was where Zea conveyed all of this important information.
And quite likely ended up getting dismissed as a crazy person, or at the least receiving a very odd and incredulous look in reply. Such was the life of a messenger for the dead.
Best to start simple and easy.
"You knew a man named Leonid, didn't you?"
If this woman already knew Leonid was dead, they could continue the conversation. If she didn't know, then Zea would still have an opportunity to spill the revelation with something approaching grace and consideration.
Group: Members
Posts: 138
Joined: 20-June 09
Member No.: 87
Yes to the past tense, but that could mean anything. The fact that Sybaris had not immediately expressed confusion that she was being asked about an old friend who had long since died could mean that she didn't know the man was dead, or it could mean that she knew and had difficulty discussing it.
Overall conclusion: ambiguous answer. No good.
Zea hated this part, if it truly was the part that was coming. It was entirely possible that this person--someone close enough to the ghost that he trusted her with his surviving daughter's wellbeing--had discounted the man as missing and been holding out hope for however long that he might yet turn up. Werewolves sometimes did that; Zea knew.
Yavlinsky would not be. Not for Sybaris.
"I assume you haven't seen him in a while, and if that's true... I'm sorry. I don't know what happened, but he didn't survive it. His daughter did. If I understand him right, you're the only one she's going to trust right now."
He'd left, three months before the Snap. Had to take off. She wasn't sure why, but John had told her it was for a good reason. And they hadn't told anyone that Leo would not be welcome back.
Which meant he was leaving for his safety, and Sasha's (assumed because he took her with).
She hadn't thought about him, after the Snap, for a long time. Assumed he was somewhere now, away from whatever danger. But she'd never thought to see him again. Which was no longer a possibility.
"...How do you know all this?"
Not even a question of the validity of Zea's words. They were correct, or at least taken to be. Why would somebody go through the trouble of finding knowledge about Leo and then lie about his death, and still know about Sasha?
It was true. If Sasha was alive and Leo was not, then she would be a were now, and would be just as cautious as her father taught her to be.
Group: Members
Posts: 138
Joined: 20-June 09
Member No.: 87
Over and over and over again, Zea thanked God that Sybaris wasn't falling apart. There was absolutely no time for it, even if Sybaris--and Leonid Yavlinsky, probably--deserved to have the opportunity to process the loss.
As it was, Zea needed to transition Sybaris from thinking about the loss of a friend to considering how best to help the man's daughter. Standing around discussing her Gift was counterproductive, but Sybaris did need to know that Zea was just the messenger, and had been sent by the other werewolf's late friend.
"The dead find me," Zea said, summing up her entire adult life in four words. She took a few steps forward, detaching herself from the doorframe to enter and converse like a normal person.
"What I know is this," Zea said, laying her hands palm-down on the table across from Sybaris. "She's got someone she's looking after; I don't know who. She's been doing this for a while; I don't know how long. She's having to make some tough choices to make ends meet," Zea finished.
She didn't say she didn't know what those choices were. Zea knew right well what Sasha was doing. But... whether Sybaris learned it or not was Sasha's business, and not Zea's tale to tell.
"She could use a hand, and I suggested that maybe she ought to be where she doesn't have to make it on her own. Yours was the name he gave."
