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Post by Gabriel on Nov 25, 2018 7:32:58 GMT
The meeting was important. A shame, then, that it was so mind-numbingly dull. Gabriel was a diplomat, had been for centuries, and he could do meetings quite well normally. He was dressed for it, all in black, crisp shirt open at the throat and pressed dark pants with elegant shoes. It made his moonstone skin, slightly opalescent in the lantern and firelight, appear more starkly pale than ever. But he was bored, and restless, and tonight he found himself unable to bear the stiff formality of yet another strategy session regarding the Angels.
It would help if they'd actually seen an Angel recently, but currently the enemy was ephemeral - an idea, a vague threat. This was not motivating to someone like Gabriel, who longed more than most for blood on his claws. Since he'd tortured and killed one of the few known to have ventured into the mainland of Litharia they seemed to have fallen silent, though he didn't deceive himself that they weren't planning their assault in kind. He wished they would hurry up. He needed more time to prepare, but violence motivated and focused Daemons - himself included.
He was sitting leaning back in a chair, listening to some of the war strategists he'd gathered with a facade of interest in his expression. The restless tapping of his foot, though, might have given away his impatience to someone who knew him well. He could be single-mindedly focused, generally speaking, so when he wasn't it was a fair bet he had checked out of the situation altogether, at least mentally. So, when a small silver sprite floated under the door and coalesced in front of him in the shape of a tiny crocodilian thing, he sat up sharply. The four other Daemons in the room - an assortment of colourful characters, all trusted by Gabriel if not particularly interesting to him right now - turned to stare too, fangs and claws already out in instinctive readiness. They suspected a spy - Gabriel, though, knew better.
The sprite imparted an address in the City - the human city, actually, a place Gabriel rarely ventured on account of being wanted to hang for turning the crown princess a few years ago. There were ways to remain unknown and unmarked, though, if you were a creature of magic such as he. The Daemon Lord stood, his companions still staring, and waved a hand for them to stand down.
"A friend of mine. I'm afraid I have to go."
"But...Gabriel, the Angels?"
"Have been silent for months. You can spare me for a night or two. We'll reconvene early next week...and I want at least one of you to come with new information so it's worth my while." The instruction was delivered cheerfully enough, in his characteristic velvet-smooth baritone, soft and pleasant. The threat contained with in it, however, was very real, as the strategists knew very well. Four restrained nods met his orders, and Gabriel smiled just a pleasantly, before his form wavered and suddenly there was only a plume of bright white smoke where the Daemon Lord had been. The sprite had disappeared and now so too did the smoke, filtering out under the door and into the clear, cold night beyond.
He found her exactly where the sprite had said she'd be a few hours later, in the expansive and sprawling garden of an enormous manor house in one of the City's nicer districts. He reformed on the lawn, smoke changing back to elegant Daemon once more, and in the evening moonlight now his skin was pale, eerie blue.
"Jara? What's up with the house?"
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Post by Hadjara Astaeldr Er on Nov 29, 2018 7:59:52 GMT
Under normal circumstances, she would have thought that Gabriel was amazingly prompt. He could have been anywhere in Litharia – and not even strictly in Litharia. The fact that he arrived within the same night she called him was a stunning feat. Under these circumstanced she was twitchy and impatient, and she bit back her irritation at having to wait at all.
Her long tail twitched as she heard him near her and he was only given a slight turn of her head, as much as she could look towards him without turning her gaze from the house. The lights dazzled brilliantly from inside, flickering gently as the figured inside brushed in front of the crystal windows. She could only see their figures through the opaque glass, but that was enough to see the spectacular colors of the suits, dresses, and masks. Gabriel could fit in, Hadjara knew that without actually having to look at him. Whatever he wore and how little he was wearing would fit in with whatever strange and lavished themed party as being held – throw on a mask and no one would bat an eye. Hells, as many layers as humans liked to wear she as pretty sure she had seen ‘indecently’ exposed chests and legs.
If she dressed like him, she thought, maybe the human guards would have allowed her in. Or if she was wearing the skimpy laces and sheer she usually wore when she wanted his attention. As it was they took one look at her – at her heavy, mud and blood stained wolf hides stitched by her own clumsy hand and the giant fuck off crocodile behind her, and told her there was absolutely no way they’d let her in.
“I need ya ta charm me a way in there,” Hadjara said without looking at him. “They’re having some weird mask party an’ won’t let me in. And I’m no good at sneakin’ if I can’t be smoke.” Without looking at him, Hadjara reached out and wrapped a hand around his wrist so she could leach off his heat.
Hadjara finally glanced at him and decided yes, he looked good enough to talk himself into anything even without the aid of his magic. He’d need magic to get her in, obviously, but Gabriel was a fashionable chameleon. She looked away and rubbed her bruised eyes with the heels of her hands. “I, uh. I think I got another familiar. Dunno if it’s a bird or a mammal just yet but I think it’s someone’s pet. I can feel where it’s supposed to be an’ it’s itchy.” Levent hissed from the garden pond and his tail smacked the water. Hadjara didn’t bother to look at him but she said, “no one’s gonna come out this way so Lev ‘n’ Yed’s good staying in that pond. They’ve been eatin’ the decorative fish.”
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Post by Gabriel on Dec 1, 2018 10:34:25 GMT
Rarely had Gabriel seen Hadjara so tense, and so focused. It was a trait he associated with Malak, actually, that intense state of lock on, like a predatory thing, and he almost wanted to double-check. It was her though, and he strolled alongside her before stopping to look up at the house like she did. He could hear the distant thrum of music, muffled by the walls, and the figures inside seemed dressed for a ball or party. Intrigued, he let his gaze slip from window to window, and only became more interested. They were too far away, the details too obscured, to really see what was happening, but Gabriel was getting a distinct impression of fun.
Sadly, Hadjara didn't seem in the mood for festivities. He glanced her over, dressed for hunting and the Marshes more than this lavish manor, and sighed. He could get her in, fashion sense notwithstanding, but he sensed a mission. Ordinarily he liked missions - anything spontaneous to avoid monotony was essential to one both long-lived and born of chaos - but he also liked diversions, and Hadjara looked in no mood to be diverted. Gabriel had the distinct impression he was about to enter some wild and weird Human celebration and not have any chance to actually join in.
Bummer.
He would help though. He didn't react when she grabbed his wrist, although the gesture might have been threatening coming from anyone else. He knew her attraction to his body heat by now. When she told him it was another familiar he understood the intensity of her focus better - not that he understood the whole familiar business really, but he knew how she was with Yed and Levent, how she could barely stand to be parted from them, and how their travels across worlds and dimensions had hurt for their separation.
"Okay," he said simply. Unless there was a good reason for it, Gabriel rarely felt the desire to deny Hadjara anything. He glanced back at the pond, where he could see patches of darker water and the odd bubble breaking the surface as the only hints of Levent's feasting on the original occupants, but soon his attention was on the house.
"You know," he added brightly, "we could go into the City, break in somewhere and get you some clothes, find some masks, and join in for a while on our way...no?" No. Hadjara was wound tight as a spring. He could already tell she was in no mood for frivolity, and he sighed again. Not because he minded helping, but because he was sure he was going to regret not enjoying the party more.
"Let's go then."
It was too easy, really. Hadjara's arm looped through his, Gabriel looking like he was just another guest albeit one who had forgotten his mask, and Hadjara looking like a swamp demon. The eyes of the door men come security guards practically glazed over at his lies, going dull and complacent where they met a direct beam of bright, assessing teal. He charmed, he flattered, and he maneuvered them both into the enormous entry hall with a ridiculous tale, the details of which hardly mattered. Once they were in, the lighting so dim that even Hadjara's wolf skins didn't look too shocking, the door men went back to their idle watching and forgot them, and there was no one else in the entry hall to wonder at this strange pair.
"Your wish is my command. Where next?"
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Post by Hadjara Astaeldr Er on Dec 2, 2018 2:31:09 GMT
The tension in her shoulders released as soon as Gabriel agreed with her, and the grip on his wrist loosened from vice-like. She relaxed enough to tear her eyes from the house when Gabriel suggested stealing clothes from elsewhere before breaking in and a small frown pulled across her lips. He seemed to answer his own question but even as he did that Hadjara reached her free hand up and pulled her hood over her face.
When she killed the wolf she now wore the giant had been bending to drink from the waters around her cave. The claw marks left on the hide made it clear he had clawed out its eyes before it had died, and the skin had been torn before she removed it. As it was, when the heavy muzzle fell over her face the gashes around the eyes of the wolf gave her more than enough space for her own green eyes to stare up at Gabriel. “Ta-da,” She said, and a grin pulled across her lips – her own fangs flashing under the black lips of the canine. “How’s about ya steal someone else’s mask once we get inside?”
Hadjara pulled the hood down off her head and let it fall back against her shoulders again before she took his arm and let him whisk her off and inside.
Her anxiety had time to rebuild as she waited to be directed inside and as soon as Gabriel gave her an okay she began to walk with purpose, dragging Gabriel along with her. She pulled him around the larger bulk of the party, brushing the sides of the walls as she tried to redirect her desire to do straight to her familiar into figuring out the frankly labyrinthine interior of the house. It seemed around every corner there was a small group of humans doing some weird vaguely sexual nonsense that she just didn’t have time for. She went up a twisting stare and found a second floor atrium filled with messager birds but none of them looked at her with her own green eyes when she flung the door open. Hadjara curled her lips in disgust and turned away, leaving the door wide open and ambivalent to the possibility of the pigeons escaping.
Around the second floor she went, then around the third. As she went she seemed to get more irritable and near-frantic. She actually snarled at a couple of pretty humans dressed in gold with peacock-feathered masks who glanced her way a second too long before she bolted up the next flight of stairs. “Where the fuck is it,” she hissed under her breath, “where is it, where is it?” She gave up walking and turned to smoke to get up the stairs faster. Her stomach was itching and her spine crawled, and she made it halfway down the first hall before she heard a faint snarl and scuffle from one of the rooms and the rattle of a faint chain. “THERE YOU ARE!” Hadjara hissed before she reformed and kicked the door open.
It was some sort of tea room, or small dining room. Across the wall behind the head of the table was a wall-to-wall cage filled with oh-so-stylish toys. In a corner of the cage was a sort of dog house with a chain attached to the front, and at the other attached to the thick collar of an ocelot that looked as frantic as Hadjara, and her wild eyes were a matching shade of green.
Hadjara leaned back out of the door and looked at Gabriel with a huge grin. “Hey! C’mere, look at her!” She cheered as the ocelot yowled and tried to slip his collar.
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Post by Gabriel on Dec 5, 2018 6:54:04 GMT
Gabriel elected not to comment on Hadjara's "outfit" - she didn't seem in the mood. It struck him as amusing that for once he and Malak would agree on something, specifically that wearing the dead carcass of a wolf didn't count as suitable for this party, but it looked like they were going in anyway. It might be interesting to test his magic, see just how far the lies would go, he mused idly as they strolled up to the house.
Once inside, Gabriel found himself being led around the house with force. Really, he should have been impressed at Hadjara's sheer determination, because what he discovered inside made him very reluctant to be marched anywhere at such a pace. Humans were scattered throughout the labyrinth halls and tucked into rooms, all of them masked (at least until Gabriel plucked one fashioned after a dark raven off a man's face as they passed, and tied it onto himself instead, black feathers arching over his brows and tangling into his hair). They wore a lot of typically Human finery, although he noted the bare shoulders and legs of many of the women - an oddity, compared to typical dress. Most were engaged in such a variety of sexual activities that the mind boggled - and it took a lot for Gabriel to be surprised.
He wanted to linger, to explore, to figure out what on earth was happening...to join in, ideally...but Hadjara emphatically did not want that. His protests - that Humans never behaved like this, that it was a rare chance to partake in something the might not stumble across again in a very long time - fell on completely deaf eyes. She was a woman on a mission, and Gabriel - to his deep disappointment - found himself dragged here and there, Hadjara snarling with frustration. Gabriel just about did the same, but for a very different reason.
But then, success. Gabriel winced at Hadjara kicked the door down, sending a heavy boom echoing through the house.
"Was that necessary?" fell on deaf ears too, and intrigued despite himself, he wandered into the room behind her. Hadjara was instantly happier, some kind of pressing need satisfied, and Gabriel tilted his head slightly as he observed the large cat.
"It's better than a pigeon," was his eventual assessment. Gabriel didn't mind cats actually, though he'd reserve judgement until he found out if this cat's opinion on him was more similar to Levent's, who hated him and everyone else, or to Yed's, who was actually quite sweet.
"Did you even notice what's going on out there? It's some kind of weird human orgy. I didn't know Humans did that."
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