[Canada Day 2014] - Charlotte Ruse, Pi d'Artois

[Pi dArtois]

“Newborough.” Pi replied, nodding in acknowledgement as the woman moved closer.

She took a moment to look at the woman properly. It didn’t surprise Pi that the other knew her name. During her time in the city she had moments when many knew her name, what she did and why. She was one of the vampire business owners and of a place that was very public. Discreet yes, but still a public house which straddled the line between the world populated by humans who had no idea of what lived among them and the others who tried with varying degrees of success to keep their ‘other-ness’ hidden.

The fact the other knew her name enough to speak to her as if she knew who Pi was, was unsurprising. What made Pi pause was the fact she had no recollection of how, or if she had met the other at all. Surely Pi would remember someone who was so ill at ease in their own skin and sickly. How was a vampire so… sickly and weak sounding. No, it was wrong to think that all vampires were superhuman but surely with their powers they weren’t this… frail?

The female was a mess.

It had been a few days since her and Elliot had talked about Canidae, about their plans and the restructuring of their family unit. Vampires like the one that stood in front of her seemed like a likely candidate to ‘help’ as she’d ever seen. But. Yes, there was a but. But there seemed to be something more at play here than the norm.

“If you tell me where you need to go… I can..” Pi paused here, because she had to seriously think about what it was she was offering. Help yes, permanent help… no, Pi hadn’t got that far yet with her potential altruism. But some form of assistance was surely necessary and … appropriate. “I can make sure you get there… safely.”

It was a compromise. A middle ground that didn’t commit her to much more than delivering the woman to a place that she wouldn’t be targeted. Surely, if Pi expended the energy to ensure this much, it would suffice.

Pi waited for the woman to answer secretly hoping that she’d be blown off. Which, she thought to herself, wasn’t exactly what she should have done but she comforted herself with the fact that the old Pi wouldn’t have done anything at all.

This offer, was actually a vast improvement. (even if the woman in front of her didn’t know it)

[Charlotte Ruse]

Charlotte was always suspicious of people, especially people who - she presumed - were pretending to be nice to her. She stood there and lifted her eyes up to look Pi in the face, to try and see if there was some trick or deception there that she could see. However, as the minutes spread out between them and she just stood there staring, there was nothing that she could see in the woman's face that said anything different to what her lips were saying. Her mind thought back to all the people on the street, all the drinking they'd be doing and the thoughts in their heads and visibly shuddered. That made up her mind for her.

Here was a vampire, offering to help her and protect her so that she could get where she was going. Why would she turn that down? Because of where she was going and why. That's why. She swithered for a moment, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as she tried to decide what to do. She 100% needed to get to the slums, but what could she say was the reason. Would Pi really help her if she knew where she was going and why? Her lower lip, painted a blood red, slipped into her mouth to be lightly bitten by her fang that she couldn't retract and then her head nodded just a fraction. She had to get there, and with all the people on the street - she couldn't do it alone.

"Please!"

It was whispered and easily missed by anyone with normal hearing, but a vampire would probably hear it without issue. Then she just had to think about where it was she actually wanted to go, and why. Then it came to her.

"There's, an abandoned factory - near the station. The Newborough one. Inside, you see. There's a workbench and a working forge. I use it to improve blades, make bullets, things like that. If..... well..... if you could help me there. I'd appreciate it. I just.... I don't think I could myself. I'm..... "

She wanted to say she was ill, she was scared, she wasn't herself. But nothing came out and her voice just died a death, and with that, her eyes dropped to the woman's feet again.

[Pi dArtois]

So no easy out for Pi. Not that she thought she’d get one. It was just her luck to be here in this alley on this night to be the intervention for this woman and help her find her way. It wasn’t a biblical intervention or one that required too much of her beyond a short walk and Pi figured she could do that at least.

What she needed help with just this moment is figuring out where the woman wanted to go. Pi rarely walked the streets of Harper Rock anymore. Not when she had the portals. Not when a simple word and hand placed on the small tome in her pocket would transport her back to the Den and from there, the city was cracked open to her to roam and not set a single foot outside.

That meant it took a while for Pi to map where the woman wanted to go. North of the Newborough transit was the bank, no, that was West. North was the sewer entrance and before that, yes, yes Pi remembered now. Abandoned Factory. Nodding to herself Pi motioned for the woman to follow.

What Pi couldn’t figure out was why the woman needed to go there. Oh there were options but none of them were good. Drug dealers, blood dealers, gangsters, those were the types that needed to go into the abandoned places. Nothing good came or went from there, not now, not ever.

Shaking her head Pi led the way anyway. She wasn’t one to judge, nor was she without her own demons and couldn’t throw any sort of stone in her glass house. Pi offered to take the woman where she needed to go and Pi would do exactly that. And she would keep her opinions to herself about it.

“Okay.” she said, stepping towards the street stopping only once to see if the woman followed her into the crowds of people.

[Charlotte Ruse]

The woman said nothing other than 'ok', so Charlotte managed a small smile and a nod of her head. She presumed that what she'd said about going to use the forge had been believed, and there was a wave of relief running through her body that there were no awkward questions or accusing looks coming her way. However, having said that she wanted to go there to make bullets and smack the **** out of some blocks of metal - she was now thinking that it actually might be a good idea. Once she'd got what she so desperately craved of course.

As Pi stepped forwards, Charlotte did too, and the closer they got to the street, the more people Charlotte could see. And of course, the more people she could see, the more nervous and tense she got as she felt the panic rising in her throat and tightening her stomach. She took a couple of hurried steps so that she was almost pressed up against Pi's back, trying hard to resist slipping her hand into the other woman's so that they wouldn't be separated in the throngs. So when Pi stopped to turn around, she walked right into her, but reached out to hold on, hoping to stop either of them from falling over.

"Oh my god! I'm so sorry Pi! Are you ok? I didn't mean..... I mean.... you were so nice..... And I..... I'm sorry."

Her face fell, the look of panic vanishing as she got upset and just stared at the ground, at her feet and felt useless as usual.

[Pi dArtois]

Pi might have come a long way from where she was but she still wasn’t big on casual touching. The only ones who had her tacit permission to lay hands on her were few and rarely, if ever, strangers she had never met before, even if they were desperate women who were in obvious need of personal saviours.

She had been taught an early lesson in self sufficiency and she had seen too many people fall victim to the trap of their own weakness. It seemed to her that lack of success of purpose generally revolved first around the person’s inability to believe they had a right to succeed. Her opinion that the woman, dammit, Pi thought. She couldn’t keep calling the woman .. woman. The woman (Pi groaned at thinking it again, but what else was she meant to call her) obviously knew who she was and it seemed Pi, at the very least, should reciprocate.

Patting the hand that grasped her arm Pi very gently unwrapped the woman’s fingers from her, patting it again for good measure. (because how else did you deal with distraught females that clutched at you in desperation?) and then let the hand drop so the woman (god Pi really needed to find out a name) wouldn’t have such a death grip on her.

“It’s fine.” She answered, although, it was clear by the subtle distance Pi put between them that it wasn’t something she encouraged or wanted to have happen again. “I will walk at a reasonable pace so you can… keep up.” She offered gallantly, congratulating herself on her calm and reasonable demeanour. It had never really been that Pi was heartless. She cared for people and even went out of her way to help others.

“You know my name… but I don’t know yours?” Pi asked. It was a bit of a round about way of doing it but she couldn’t see where it was polite to say baldly ‘who the hell are you’. Pi only hoped that the questioning lilt she hung on the end of the last word was opening enough for the woman (one more time with ‘the woman thing’) to give her a name so Pi could stop referring to her as ‘that woman’ again.

Although asking didn’t mean Pi was ready to stand there in the middle of the street and discuss it. They had a destination to get to and it behooved them to keep moving, so Pi did. She kept her pace even in order for the woman to keep in step and to ensure there weren’t any further panic attacks as far as Pi running off ahead but forward momentum was necessary so she could return to Lancaster’s and the busy bar and to Elliot who would be there soon. And she could find him and talk to him about the events of tonight and get his opinion on this little out take she had taken.

The streets were as crowded as she expected them to be. A certain anonymity was created when masses moved like this. People were too busy with their own happy places they had no time to watch others. There was so much else to see. This made it easier for Pi to navigate the crowds to the station, choosing to walk the path, waiting for an answer to her question.

[Charlotte Ruse]

"Thanks"

She mumbled softly as Pi said she'd walk slow enough for her to keep up. It was appreciated, because there were a lot of people around and she was absolutely terrified of crowds. However, the space that had been put between them, spoke volumes so she made sure not to get too close or touch her again. Even though it was making her really anxious that she'd be swept away in a group and lost.

She blinked in surprise though when Pi said she didn't know her name, then sighed as she realised just how forgetable she must really be. She couldn't help but wonder if the time would come when Jonah forgot about her too. In fact, it wasn't really wondering if, just when. In fact - she had a feeling that he was already forgetting about her and drifting away, and it killed her. However, back to the matter at hand...

"My name's Charlotte. I..... used to work for you, and Elliot. When you were in the Necropolis."

A large group of women spilled out onto the street with cackling, alcohol fuelled laughter and Charlotte skittered aside and balled her fists up. She shoved them into her pockets and kept her eyes locked on Pi's feet, following her step for step and trying her best not to freak the **** out again. She could only guess at what Pi must think of her, and she was trying her best to not make the opinion she guessed at worse.

[Pi dArtois]

“Oh. Sorry... ” Pi answered, her step faltering a little. She hadn’t expected that answer. She expected something mundane, another name to add to the list of names of people she had met for the first time, and would attempt to recall when a second meeting happened (if ever). Although, Pi suspected she would forever refer to the wo… Charlotte (she corrected quickly) as Victim Number 1. Or something similar. But this? This knowledge that Pi had known her, interacted with her maybe, even employed her to work for them.

She didn’t have great recall but she liked to think she retained knowledge of those she had worked with (even as many as had). For the life of her she couldn’t drum up a single memory of the wo… Charlotte at all.

Turning her head to the side Pi took a second to look again hoping that another look (with this additional – relevant information) would jog her memory. It didn’t. There was still a blank where the… Charlotte was concerned. And that made her pause, frowning.

With the influx of drunk women Pi glared at them, her expression stormy. She wasn’t tall, so her glare shouldn’t have been of menace to anyone, but she did it anyway, her expression clearly showing her annoyance at their antics. With another frown she reached back, grabbed Charlotte’s arm and navigated them around the gaggle, sidestepping.

“I did not…” she started, dropping her grip on the other woman and turning the corner to walk down the street on what she knew what the home stretch. The sewer entrance was ahead and beside that the abandoned place Charlotte apparently wanted to reach. “I don’t think we … worked together did we?” Pi asked.

It was another thing to ask Elliot, another piece of the puzzle that would fall into place as an example of the six degrees of separation created in her life. Pi had always thought their community here in Harper Rock was an incestuous marriage of knowing and not knowing. And these days more knew than didn’t. It’s a wonder the national guard (or whatever it was called in Canada) hadn’t been called in to eradicate their menace already.

Stopping at the sewer entrance, her feet standing over the access point she had taken many times in her life she nodded towards their destination. Pi turned to look at this woman called Charlotte who had known her a year ago, whose face Pi had forgotten. “We are here.” She said, stating the obvious.

“Can you… take it from here?” She asked, hoping this time she’d be let off the hook and her good Samaritan moment would come to and end.

[Charlotte Ruse]

"It's ok"

She nodded, looking up and offering a smile as she was grabbed and moved aside, propelled through the people and away down the street until they were almost alone. It seemed that not many people were in this end of town, which wasn't a surprise. There weren't too many nice bars down here, and all it would be really were the students heading home she thought and the folks she was looking for. But they didn't normally travel and hang around in groups. She thought back on when she worked at the Necro, and she couldn't remember who she had and hadn't worked with. She knew who Pi was, because she'd seen her in passing, around the place, and she'd spoken to her on the intranet. But she didn't think they'd ever actually spoken face to face.

"No, I don't think so. I mean, I wouldn't have been important enough. Not really. I was..... human.... then. I didn't.... know about vampires. Not until I read the internet. I..... kinda..... freaked out. Then I got sacked, paid off and told to keep silent. I did! I promise I did!"

There was suddenly worry in her eyes, on her face, as she thought about what Jonah had said about the whole secrecy thing. That he and others like him would kill people to keep the vampiric secret. If Pi thought she'd blabbed about it in some way, then she could perhaps be in danger right now. However, she hadn't told anyone, would never tell anyone. She didn't want to die, she didn't want Jonah to die - and she knew he'd be there on the front lines, fighting and trying to protect her and those he cared about. He would sacrifice himself to save her, she was sure of it - even though she thought he was drifting away. Her mind really was a bit stuffed up and confused! - and she couldn't live without him. He was as much a part of her and her life as blood was. Without either one, she'd die.

Looking around, she saw the road that would take her to the factory and then to the other side the road that would take her to the slum area. There were even fewer people around now, so she was able to relax a little further, and she could feel some of the tension leaving her body as she nodded her head that she was ok.

"Yes. Thank you so much. But....."

She needed to do something, say thank you in some way. Then she remembered the gun and smiled.

"I need to give you something, to say thank you. Can.... Can I make you some bullets? For your gun? Well, it depends on what sort it takes. But - I can make a few types, I'm still learning though. Just, I need to say thank you. Somehow. It's not far, if I can."

[Pi dArtois]

Pi was one of the best crafters she knew. She was as skilled (she was told) as any of the masters of the trade, she only needed to work on her dexterity with tiny parts, maybe a little more knowledge on the intricacies of each component but there wasn’t anything she couldn’t make for herself if she tried. Hell, her new weapon was a perfect example of that. She’d made a more accurate, more powerful gun than the forge. It might not last as long, as the forge weapons were well known to be unbreakable, but it sure as hell did a good job of it right now.

And this woman wanted to make her bullets. It was a nice offer really. If Pi wasn’t so eager to leave Charlotte she might have had the grace to accept the gift as it was intended. But she couldn’t’ imagine standing around in an abandoned building waiting around a dingy lit area waiting for this near stranger to make her bullets she could get as easily as buying them. Just because she could craft them didn’t mean she wanted to. Just that she could. Her and Elliot between them had millions in a secure bank account, there was no need for her to make everything herself. She only ever did, because she wanted to.

Pi pulled a smile on, hoping it was as benign as she intended. “Merci, non.” She answered politely, declining the offer. “I hope you will take care on your way home.. oui?” No, she was done for tonight. Her good Samaritan moment had run its course and she was eager to return to Lancasters, the place where she was comfortable.

“Bon nuit.” She said, checking the street once more for traffic or danger (she just couldn’t help herself, she was too much a predator herself not to know what was out there) and turned on her heel.

The return journey was uneventful. No one disturbed her, no one jostled her. She walked in an isolated bubble of her own making and was happy for it. The moment hadn’t dissuaded her from hoping to convince Elliot to walk with her in the night before he settled on stage, to take in the sights. That lonely woman, with her desperate eyes and fearful demeanour made Pi want to leave her safety net and venture out. Sure she hadn’t walked the streets in a while but maybe it was time to change what she usually did and do something… not so usual.

With a smile Pi pushed her way back into Lancaster’s, spied those men at the bar and her gaze narrowed. Well, maybe before that there was a lesson to teach three men who thought it a good idea to prey on one woman.

Walking forward with a cutting smile she approached the group. This night, would not end quite so well for these three. She’d make sure of it.

ooc: That's me, I'm done with my ten posts. Feel free to continue RPing on to get yours. Thanks for the RP. Was great

[Charlotte Ruse]

Charlotte was a little dissapointed when Pi refused her offer of bullets. She'd been working hard to improve her metal working skills after she'd gotten bored with the electrics and intricacies of the traps, gadgets and guns. She could make the noisemakers that she found so handy and almost necessary for some of the more tricky buildings in the city. That's all she needed to be able to make - though she was ridiculously short of cellphones and needed to get her hands on some more. Plus, when it came to the guns, her family were helping her out there and there were a couple of people playing with parts to see if they could better them. Instead, she was looking at the metal blocks and the blades, trying to better them and improve what she had. She'd found she could make bullets in batches of 500 or more at a time, from one of the blocks she..... liberated from the buildings she snuck into. She liked seeing the metal all liquid and molten, pouring it into the little molds and then squishing a second on top to make sure they were hollow, seeing the extra metal spill from the sides as if trying to escape. It was relaxing, and it got her frustrations out, giving her lots of little bits and pieces to concentrate on and shape. After all, you had to make sure each one was perfect so that it flew unhindered and didn't ruin someone's aim.

So being turned down, not being able to thank the woman somehow, not being able to show off a little, to try and prove she wasn't as useless as she'd appeared - stung a bit. However, she just nodded her head and listened to the foreign language, not having a clue what was being said. Pi seemed like she'd had enough of Charlotte's company however, so Charlotte didn't push the matter and just hoped that maybe one night she'd be able to repay the kindness of tonight. She nodded her head when Pi asked if she could find her way, and then watched as she turned and left, heading back the way they'd come. Which of course left Charlotte in a quandry. Did she go to the slums, to find a dealer and get a wrap. Or did she go to the warehouse and melt down some metal and play with it in it's molten state? Decisions decisions. However really - there was only one answer to that one!

Making sure Pi were completely out of sight, Charlotte checked the road and then scampered across, heading north towards the slums. She wasn't strong enough to resist the cravings she was having. Besides which, when high, the metal always shone that much brighter and almost seemed to sparkle. It was normally pretty, but high, it was beautiful. The decision was made, and the plans for the rest of the night were in motion.