Some Kind of Nightmare

for Monica Delacore

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A large forest in Central Anaxas, the once-thriving mostly human town of Dorhaven is recovering from a bombing in 2719 at its edge.

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Tom Cooke
Posts: 1485
Joined: Fri Dec 21, 2018 3:15 pm
Topics: 87
Race: Raen
Location: Vienda
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Tue Dec 25, 2018 9:30 pm


She believed him, and he didn’t know why. Then again, what else was she supposed to do? Most people had never met a raen; most people wouldn’t even think of it as a possibility. Most people would think Vauquelin had lost his mind rather than his soul. Tom remembered a kov back in Old Rose who’d gotten clubbed hard in the head during a skirmish with some of Ramsey’s boys: it had made a crater in his skull the size of a man’s palm, and even though he’d lived, he’d never acted quite the same. Wasn’t even necessarily worse off for it, as far as Tom could tell, other than that he fumbled his words sometimes. Just different. Fair different.

All that aside, Thomas Cooke had never cried in front of anybody before. Well, excepting his mother, he reckoned, when he came out of her squalling. And maybe Daven Marleigh, once or twice – but he didn’t like to think about that. Made him want to flinch and duck his head, even now. He guessed Marleigh’d taught him to be strong, in a way. Any boy who was still soft and silly enough to come crying to Marleigh like he was his mother got the belt and some choice words, and living on the streets of Old Rose, you learned to keep it all inside sooner or later anyway. A man didn’t cry, if he respected himself.

So Tom should’ve been embarrassed, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t feeling much of anything. Wasn’t really Tom crying, in a way; the Seventen looked at him and saw a hare-brained, broken-down incumbent, already low on dignity, so a little weepiness didn’t hurt his reputation none. He didn’t have a reputation to hurt, or a life to lose.

The constable seemed interested, and not professionally. He didn’t like it, but what was he going to do? “I’m not, uh,” he admitted, “not fair, uh – not very – coherent. You lose your proper talk, spending time around – these people. Which I have. I’ve been in the factories ever since I went off the path. Ran off, I mean, left the estate. I took some money – it’s mine, ain’t it? – and rented a place here and got some work in a mill. With the young ladies and the little ones, that is. I’m not much use anywhere else.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice; it was fair dripping from every word. “Sparklies, voo. Magic, I mean. I can’t do magic anymore. You want me to debase myself in front of you? Then fine. I can’t do magic. Hence the field.”

As if to drive home the point, he twisted round to where he’d hung his coat on the back of his chair. His hand went in a pocket, ruffled around, found a small box of cigarettes and then a flint and striker. He took his time in front of her, fumbling the flint in his small, shaky hands. Barely able to make a spark. He got the cigarette lit, but cursed when he nearly dropped it.

“So,” he said, taking a long drag and blowing the smoke at her almost intentionally, “you’re – in uniform, but this isn’t an interrogation. You’re interested, and you want me to talk, but you’re not going to drag me back to my folks.” He tucked a scrap of hair behind his ear, squinting at her, then smiled an awful, crooked smile. “Well, I am dead. The man who went to Brunnhold is dead and gone, because the mona clockin’ hate him, and so does his wife, because he can’t please her. Oh, and his favorite daughter’s fucking a wick. Bet you didn’t know that.

“Nothing matters anymore, Monica Delacore. You’re a Seventen – you see the riots? Everything’s topsy-turvy, everything’s vodundun. Smoke and mirrors. I’m sick of fine wine, and I’m sure as hell sick of pretending to be something I’m not, when the world’s about to crash down anyway.”

Though I suspect you got no clue how much. Another drag, another puff of smoke. An impertinent little snort.

“If this ent– isn’t an interrogation, Constable, then may I ask why you’re so interested? Surely you’ve got something better to do than sit around with me, of all people? You a fan? You want me to sign something?”

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Monica Delacore
Posts: 48
Joined: Wed Dec 05, 2018 6:28 pm
Topics: 8
Race: Galdor
Location: Vienda
: mind is willing, soul remains
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Tue Dec 25, 2018 11:24 pm

The Clockwork Stag | Vortas 16, 2718 | Evening
The man's explanations for his speech did little to ease her irritation with it; her distaste for the lower class ringing true in all respects. She didn't care for their simplified and accented slang, and though it was impressive in some measures just how quickly the Incumbent had dropped his formalities, it didn't mean it was a good thing.

He didn't intend on returning to high society, did he. He wouldn't have immersed himself so completely in the culture of humans and wicks if he planned on turning around and going right back to his galdori family.

It was strange. It was completely unethical and she couldn't understand why, why anyone would do such a thing. Even displeased with their current life, a galdor was above all others, a leader in every room into which they stepped, yet this politician chose willingly to give up his riches for a destitute life working the factories.

But more than any disgust that glinted in her light eyes and curved her mouth into a frown, confusion rose above, her questions expanding still as Vauquelin spoke. It seemed she would never come to the end of the road with his vague and confusing answers, but it wouldn't stop her from trying.

"Pardon, but--you said you can't do magic. What..." the woman appeared stuck on the notion, "did you brail? Why would the mona hate you so? Of course you can do magic, Incumbent, you're a galdor. You learned Monite as the rest of us did. You're no damn passive and you're certainly not human or wick."

Monica leaned forward, coming to the edge of her seat and putting out her cigarette on the table. She had ignored the smoke blown so blatantly in her direction, ignored any underhanded comments, ignored the obvious flaws in his story but she wouldn't stay silent forever, not if he continued on. He was testing her patience with each and every slang term he threw out, falling from his tongue as if he'd been raised in a tribe.

"Do not patronize me, Vauquelin," she edged at the mention of an autograph, "I'm here out of curiosity, but I will not hesitate to put you in your gods-damned place. You've chosen to live with your inferiors and I can choose at any point to treat you like them."

Despite the threat, her field remained stable, likely an effort from the blonde to keep the conversation civil. She respected politicians such as the Incumbent, respected older men perhaps even more so, but never would the constable let one make a mockery of her well-intentioned inquiries.

"No, I'm not a fan. I just find your story odd, is that so wrong? I can leave if you'd prefer, sir, but I would rather stay and figure out all of the nonsense you've been telling me. Mainly, the fact that you "cant" do magic. How can you possibly have tarnished your bond with the mona that badly?"

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Tom Cooke
Posts: 1485
Joined: Fri Dec 21, 2018 3:15 pm
Topics: 87
Race: Raen
Location: Vienda
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Writer: Graf
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Sat Dec 29, 2018 9:46 pm


Why, of course Tom could do magic! Hadn’t he heard? He was a galdor, and he’d learned Monite with the rest of them; he was no damn passive, and he certainly wasn’t a human or a wick. Certainly wasn’t a human. Not a human bone in his body. There was a nerve making the muscles around his eye jump and flicker, his right eyelid fluttering, fluttering. He realized how hard he was clenching his teeth and he tried to relax them, but it was like opening up a bear trap. He’d been grinding them and they ached.

Did he brail? Of course he did. He brailed every one and ten of the week. He liked to go up to his study with a glass of wine and brail the night away. What the fuck was a brail?

“I’m – look, I…” He swallowed and licked his lips. For a second his expression turned to pure terror – not just the flutter of an eyelid, not the twitch of his lip, but a flicker of heart-stopping fear in the numb white press of his lips and the slight widening of his eyes. Then he looked anywhere but the constable’s face. “’Course,” he muttered. “I brailed. That’s what happened. I was – uh – that’s why the mona don’t – that’s why I can’t get – that’s why they won’t talk to me anymore. Of course I learned to use, uh – Monite, but – I can’t…”

She could choose at any point to treat him like his inferiors, could she? Like she would’ve treated him if she’d met him when he was himself, when he was still Tom Cooke, still living the life he knew in Old Rose? When he wasn’t Incumbent Vauquelin? She wouldn’t have ever called Tom Cooke “sir”; she wouldn’t have listened to him. Wouldn’t have argued with him, wouldn’t have smoked with him, wouldn’t have drunk with him. Even the gollies he’d known in Old Rose, the Bad Brothers, never called him “sir”. He’d been complicit in a hell of a lot, oes, but there was complicitude, and then there was this. He’d worked with gollies and he hadn’t cared much who got the short end of the stick so long as he got paid, but he’d been a human – through and through.

This, on the other hand, was unbearable.

He wanted to flip the table in the golly’s face – that perfect, gods-awful face, that clock-stopping mask of a face. With everybody looking at them – everybody looking at him – nowhere to run off to. Nobody else to talk to, nothing else to spend his time doing. Why not just tell her everything, let her turn him into a little greasy spot where an incumbent’s stolen body used to be? Then he’d just be a ghost again, and he’d find some other poor sod to strangle and replace. Over and over again. Endless. Fucking unbearable.

Thomas stood up suddenly, stumbling and grabbing onto the table edge, setting his mug to sloshing. His chair clattered back; he couldn’t seem to get his limbs to work right, couldn’t seem to get a grip on his hands. Everything was thick and sloppy as if he was drunk, but he wasn’t drunk. He was stone cold, painful sober. “Sorry,” he muttered, then looked up, right into the constable’s face, and spoke louder. “I’m about done with this chat, ye chen? I don’t give a clock what you think of the way I talk, nor of the company I keep, nor of my – field. Nor of what my family thinks that I’m gone. I got plenty to deal with that’s not you harassing me. With all due respect.

“Now – good to meet you, Constable, but – I got to go now. Work in the morning. No offense, but I hope we don’t meet again.”


He grit his teeth against the pounding in his head, holding onto the table for support as he began to move around it, around the golly auntie – toward the door of the tavern. His breath was shuddering in and out of his chest. His legs were shaking and the other patrons were giving him looks like he’d grown a second head, but as long as he was headed toward the door, toward the streets and the Soot District and his apartment without any mirrors, without any reminder of who he was now, he didn’t give a damn.
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Monica Delacore
Posts: 48
Joined: Wed Dec 05, 2018 6:28 pm
Topics: 8
Race: Galdor
Location: Vienda
: mind is willing, soul remains
Character Sheet: Character Sheet
Plot Notes: Plot Notes
Writer Profile: Writer Profile
Contact:

Sat Dec 29, 2018 10:19 pm

The Clockwork Stag | Vortas 16, 2718 | Evening
Something about this galdor in front of her shifted. She couldn't trace this shift back to any of her words in particular, rather it seemed everything as a whole--the entirety of the evening--had suddenly become too much for the man. It was a display of such irrational and unnecessary fear in her mind; the officer having to stop herself from recoiling in disgust at the mere expression of fear in this man, the hard-pressed whitened fingers and strain.

She had driven a multitude of people into various states of distress. Toying with the lower races was expected from her, after all, after so many years of spitting on their very existence and making every possibly effort to display dominance over them. Fellow galdori were treated with a basic respect, but even then, it was hard for her to be nice to anyone. Not her coworkers, not her superiors, not the galdori citizens she vowed to protect and serve... she made an effort, but it was strained; unlikely to ever blossom into authenticity.

It was why she found the Incumbent's lack of respect so bewildering.

She was being nice to him--wasn't she? Was it not kind of her to come over and chat with a man on his own? Was it not kind to keep his dirty little secret? Monica had no mind for these things. How pointless it was to make an effort when it did so little. She found herself doubt that these efforts would ever be noticed, not by her peers, not by anyone. She supposed she would just have to stop them, then, wouldn't she.

The constable was strangely quiet as the older man spoke, so clearly confused and... still so strange, so curious, so rude. The Incumbent was so obviously down on his luck--he had left his family and the mona had left him. Monica had even felt the uncharacteristic itch to provide aid in his magical struggles; help him figure out how to repair his relationship with the mona and restore his spell-casting abilities, for her own curiosity if not anything else.

Monica refused to speak as the man offered his farewells, light eyes flicking away from him to stare at the chair in which he'd been sitting. Her field budged only slightly, a ripple of what perhaps could've been embarrassment or... no, that was it, embarrassment, and it mixed with her cold irritations to create such an uneasy, unsettling feeling around her form.

It was only when the older galdor made it to the door that she moved her eyes, gaze practically burning a hole through the serving woman at the bar, who stifled a laugh with a hand over her mouth. Monica remained quiet and still until the Incumbent had left, finally picking herself from the chair and approaching the bar with a steady expression.

"I'd like to speak with you privately."

It didn't take much to release her frustrations, not the small ones at least. Beating a human woman half to death certainly wasn't enough to get rid of it all, but it was a distraction.

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