Liam
Gremlin
Posts: 58
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Post by Liam on Aug 7, 2012 18:55:30 GMT -5
He was comfortably seated in a leather recliner, fiddle rested beneath his chin, lazily toying with the strings. The small home was mostly dark, curtains drawn over the windows to block out, as much as they were able, the bright lights of Bourbon Street. Most of the time he would be roaming the streets himself, perhaps playing in a club or flirting up the next pretty girl at the next bar, but he had an important visitor tonight and it just wouldn't do to appear marked up in lipstick or drunker than a skunk. Or so he told himself.
A man could have as many notches on his belt, and as many empty shot glasses as he liked, but such things did not nourish the soul. Sex and alcohol were easily bought, as much as you wanted, as many nights of the week, but neither a paid for cunt or the finest scotch gave you what you needed.
Still, this wasn't a night for wallowing in self pity or philosophizing upon the vices man used to fill the hole inside himself. How could he when he had such juicy information to share? And on Malakai, the heartless black dog none the less.
He drew his bow across the strings and eased a song into existence, grinning a trickster's smile of deceit and coiled knowledge. No matter how long he lived the pleasure of shaking the unshakable, of backing Mal into a corner with words and watching her grow red with anger would never cease to brighten his day. He also had good money riding on her eventual coming out. Around two hundred dollars with an old friend of their's who he'd bragged to the instance he had found the newspaper, Malakai prim and proper as always amidst the cameras and another woman trailing along side her, one hand slipped over her arm.
Fifty more years of friendship and something like that would have constituted the fast removal of his family jewels.
Time to find out who the lucky lady was that could brave such sharp thorns. Liam chuckled to himself, and had to admit, very quietly, that not so long ago he believed he could conquer those thorns and that the prize beyond was worth any blood split.
Of course it would take a woman to accomplish what he, nor any other man in over two centuries ever could.
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Post by Malakai on Aug 7, 2012 19:17:03 GMT -5
New Orleans was a good place for business, even if the associates were less professional and more desperate. Ever since Katrina had hit the city, drowning the lower levels of the garden's and shotgun camelbacks, companies had been abandoned. Population had dropped fourteen thousand and once upon a time buying property in it's perimeter had been bankruptcy laid out on it's back, leg's wide. But years later the big easy is flourishing again under sympathetic tourist and donation. Buying business and planting foundation was still cheap, but a lot more effective. A investment that if seeded and water would bloom.
Malakai is not here for a social call. All of the interaction she ever needs is in plain rooms with comfortable wheeled chairs and porcelain men in suits. All of the comfort of a relationship is dry and green in bundles at her palms.
Well, once it was.
Conglomerate business affairs and a healthy brunch keeps the shuck on her toes. Despite her delayed flight (and therefore a very irritated Malakai) she'd managed to land in the city and make it to her penthouse without verbally assaulting or murdering anyone. By the time she'd finished packing and dealing with minuscule affairs it was close to late evening.
She's hesitant to go to Bourbon. Malakai is not a fan of the flashy women or expensive (but tacky) shops. She can acutely remember stretching a limo across a road block and nearly being pelted with awestruck men and women when she'd gotten out. Of course they'd mistaken her for some southern celebrity and fighting them off had involved hiding out in a piss smelling alley for several minutes. Her five hundred dollar heels had never quite recovered the experience, and Liam had not let her lived it down.
She expects him to call her out on it today, because (despite her better judgement) she plans on visiting tonight - but little does she know there are other things on his list, and that his smile is spreading like disease across his dimpled cheeks.
However, she has learned somewhat of her lesson and she does not take the mainway as she approaches his house. Opting instead to follow narrow alleyway and slide through scarcely crowded streets. There is a small outer hall that she slips through between buildings, and from there is a sunken stairway that leads to his back door. It smells like alleycats and whores, but it's discreet and she takes it for what it is.
Liam has left the door open as usual. Forgetful man. Although the likelihood that someone would hear his wrist stroke over blaring music and curiously wander over was unlikely.
God, she hoped he wasnt entertaining a woman.
.. and was pleasantly surprised to see he wasnt.
"Well," Malakai says, crossing her arms under her breast and leaning on her hip against his counters edge. "I dont often see you playing without a audience. What's the occasion?"
But there is some itch at her nape between her hackles that's foreboding.
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Liam
Gremlin
Posts: 58
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Post by Liam on Aug 7, 2012 23:24:12 GMT -5
Liam has always fashioned himself a performer and he finds the set up of Malakai drifting in from the back alley, the back door to a dark room and the haunting melody of the violin to be a scene that would fit just as well in a mystery crime novela or a Hitchcock film. In another life he thinks he would have made the stage in a different manner, an actor dashing and brilliant. The tragedy of his life just as great as any play.
It has all the great components of such a tale, lost love, unrequited love, a child stolen from the bosom of his mother. Ah, drama. As the years went by Liam found it less and less enjoyable, rather on the screen or page, or existent in his own life.
"Well,""I dont often see you playing without a audience. What's the occasion?"
He turns in his seat, placing a hand over his heart, hurt by such unnecessarily cruel words. "Can a man not play for the sake of his own ears?" He draws the case at his feet forward, carefully setting the violin and bow inside with gentle hands, caressing the blue velvet interior. Malakai had always criticized his materialistic tendencies, hypocrite that she was.
What was the use of money if you couldn't treat yourself on occasion?
He stands up, gives the black shuck, beautiful woman all wrapped into one, and as sharp as the teeth she coveted, a deep bow. There was respect hidden in the theatrics, but rather Mal saw it or not depended solely on her.
There had been a time, as there was a time for everything, that he would have reached forward and kissed the back of her hand with tenderness and more than a little coyness thrown in, but such days were long past and Liam found the action hollow--something she would see right through as just another step in the choreography. A distraction. Look here, not there.
"You look lovely, as always. Decide not to take your woman with you on this trip?" Liam remarks casually, reaching to take a newspaper off the coffee table, marked with last week's date. He flips to the business section and taps his finger against the damning photo. With concise movements he folds the paper and hands it to Malakai face up, as pleased as a cat in cream. "I did some digging; Lyra, is it? How did she happen to find herself in your company?"
Business or pleasure? Or was she perhaps of the supernatural nature, finding Malakai through more nefarious measures. Liam gestures to the seat across from him, before entwining his fingers and resting them over his lap, looking all for the world a teenage girl hungering for the latest scoop.
"Spill, old friend. I'm just dying to know how you two met."
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Post by Malakai on Aug 8, 2012 0:02:08 GMT -5
"Can a man not play for the sake of his own ears?"Malakai watches with an analytical gaze as the ever eccentric kitsune offers her a gratuitous bow. She senses something - she doesnt know what it is - and caught up in her suspicion she does not return the salute. She might have in normal circumstances responded with a witticism. Something relating to Liam's short attention span. But it falls short in her cynicism. He's acting weird. Liam is not a man who sits in the dark playing his fiddle cryptically. There should be a woman here, with eyes big and aglow - awestruck. Or there should be a crowd of bleary eyed thirty somethings with a pocket full of money and lonely wives. "You look lovely, as always. Decide not to take your woman with you on this trip?"She startles, even though physically she's as straight as a board. It's almost accurate to say her heart skips a beat. Either way Liam has almost broken her composure and then he swoops in with his teeth bared to throttle his kill. There has always been this game between them. He has won once or twice, relishing in her wrath, but she always conquers. She always ascends. His digs cover with dirt and age. Not this one, not as Liam slides a paper the length of the counter (because she does not accept it) and points slyly at her Lyra. "I did some digging; Lyra, is it? How did she happen to find herself in your company?Spill, old friend. I'm just starving to know how you two met."There is nothing particularly dangerous about his tone, there is no underlying threat or promise but in the new bloom of her love Malakai is not a woman of chance. In business affair and negotiation she does not jump to assumption. She waits for cold hard facts and evidence. But this is not business, this is not even just pleasure. And she feels the hot sting of a primal fear and perverse possessiveness tickle up from fingertip to core. Flickering white plunge tone spot and snap throat action behind her vision. The seat is not taken, instead she is a flit before Liam. Sharp reflexes and three hundred years of utilizing it coming in handy as she plants her right heel into the valley of his chest. Just beneath the spot between breast bone and stomach. And then presses with hot and violent intent. If he tries to jerk or makes a movement that's too abrupt or sharp - there is a promise of crippling breath as the edge slides pinpoint against the skin. Her eyes, normally intelligent and sharp are suddenly narrowed into black slits. Jaws opening to reveal pointed teeth. "You're going to dig yourself into a early grave." She says sharply. Inches the side of her chin at a angle that's visceral and jerky. Something inhuman about it the way she focuses on the fox's face. Bourbon's street consistent hum outside the window, dull blue neon flashing across the small basement apartments silence. A basement apartment, in New Orleans! How ridiculous. "What is your gamble on this?"Malakai is no fool, she has known Liam a hundred years, and a hundred years have pointed out the man's weakness for bet's and gambles. Anything really of the sort to get him off, blackjack, poker, dog and horses races. Even at one time magic shows. She knows that there is something in this for him. Figures she might repay him for that time he tucked tail in the graveyard, leaving her with a angry demon frat pack who didnt liked being disturbed. "I want sixty percent."Everybody wants to rule the world.
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Liam
Gremlin
Posts: 58
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Post by Liam on Aug 8, 2012 1:06:10 GMT -5
He thinks he has her on the run, sharp ears detect that hiccup of a heart rate, all the subtle physical signs that align to her shock, that give away her otherwise unperturbed person. In Mal one had to look beyond the obvious, peer beyond the surface to gleam their enjoyment.
In their years together he had become a great master of the sport.
Liam is enjoying his victory, about to reach down and flip the footstand open on the recliner when out of the corner of his eye he registers a blur of black and then the sudden sharp stab of pain centered directly over his sternum. The man flies forward on pure instinct, years cultivated in the direction of flight rather than fight, but Malakai's heel keeps him pined there, like a bug for dissection beneath her hard eyes. "I'm not after your lady love! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Mal, don't you think I've had my fill of women?" Liam coughs and sputters, gasping in air like a shored trout. "Besides she's really not my type."
As if he can resist a smart comment even in such a moment as this. Lyra may not have been his type, but he just knew he was her's. He was everyone's type.
"You're going to dig yourself into a grave."
He whines, looking down at the hole she is already twisting in his shirt. One of his nice ones too. "I already have." The Irishman answers, some of the flare gone from his words. There was hellfire waiting for him when he kicked the bucket, there was no denying that. Too many sins and vices, too many wrong doings that no amount of charity and starving children saved could fixed.
The Catholic notion of repentance had never crossed his mind as any valid solution to one's problems. It was all well and good to have a priest say you were free and unsullied now that you had confessed, but what good did it do?
There was no point in relieving a guilty man's conscience, for what would chain him down if not the shackles of his mind?
"What is your gamble on this?" "I want sixty percent."
This was probably something that certain men would get off on, but although Liam is a man of varied tastes a high heel in his sternum is not one of them, even if the rest of the view is rather easy on the eyes. "Hell no, you greedy old hag!" He barks, insulted by the very number. Sixty percent? What did Malakai think, that they were lovers and not just friends? That was certainty not a friend's price.
Liam attempts something akin to smooth breathing again, wincing at the pressure forced down upon his chest and delicate lung. Didn't she know what valuable merchandise she was bruising? "Thirty percent," He croaks out, withering in the agony she is so cruelly putting him through. What a woman to harm an old friend like this. He had just wanted to talk, after all.
"And only because I'm generous."
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Post by Malakai on Aug 8, 2012 15:33:28 GMT -5
"I'm not after your lady love! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Mal, don't you think I've had my fill of women? Besides she's really not my type."
If Malakai was some cat woman she might have lifted her fingers to display stark gossamer claws, glowing neon highlight. But instead she makes a small sound in her throat, licks her beady teeth and brings up blood - pressing her foot harder into his sternum.
"Not your type?" She hisses with the promise of temper. "Every woman is your type, what's wrong with her??" Because if Liam wasnt interested either she'd have to take her snow boots to hell or he was planning something. Either way the shuck feels far too exposed and protective not to be hostile and threatening. A dog backed into the corner ridged backed, and teeth bared.
Lyra is hers, her woman to love, her secret to keep, her precious thing to protect and she will not fall to this fox's tricks.
There is a terrible fear at the thought of it.
"Hell no, you greedy old hag! Thirty percent,And only because I'm generous."
But within threat there is compromise. And although Malakai will likely never bring her fairy around the dapper irish-man. She has no problem earning more than half of his winnings. He wants to bet with - whoever he is betting with - over who she pursues that's not his business anymore. It's her's.
Malakai is a entrepreneur, a opportunist, and a rather negotiable woman when she wants to be. If Liam wants to exploit her, and rather she participates with or without knowledge, she will not do so generously.
"Sixty five or I'll throw it."
It is within her power after all, she could reject Lyra cold and hard in front of a crowd (of course after touching down the subject with her little pixie). Lyra would be all for it, willing to help Malakai get back someone who'd abandoned her in the past. As kind hearted and gentle as the hybrid was when she cared for something or someone she was a warmongering hateful brute.
She was a worthy mate, and Malakai feels pride surge through her at the thought of the woman who waited for her nestled in her home. In a house she paid for, in a room that she denned in , in sheets that smelled like home.
Malakai presses harder, eyes flaming.
"If your daft habits somehow put her in danger I will kill you Liam. You have seen my power. You have tasted my wrath. I can have favors called in."
Because it may be beyond her power, but there were always, always ways.
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Liam
Gremlin
Posts: 58
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Post by Liam on Aug 9, 2012 1:33:22 GMT -5
"Not your type?" "Every woman is your type, what's wrong with her??"
It was if he had pressed some magical button with her and suddenly she hisses in his face like a cobra, some sort of horrific creature of wrath and rage. "I don't like short hair!" He gasped out, "But...but in Lyra's case I'd make an exception," Liam back tracks quickly, the last thing he wanted Malakai to think was that he was after her sweet little eye candy. "If I wasn't already happily committed." About the only thing he was committed to, living or otherwise these days was probably his saxophone.
"Sixty five or I'll throw it."
"What?" Not only did she do him the great injury of upping the percentage, but such a threat over someone one she was clearly infatuated with. It wasn't often that people of all things could draw such a reaction from her, perhaps Elizabeth, when she was alive, but Liam figured with her death the black shuck would retreat to her money and business, leaving such sticky things as human relationships to the fools like himself. "You wouldn't dare," He peers at her for a moment, narrowed eyes distrustful of the centuries old woman and her pride. Liam did not want to be the one to break the heart of some poor maid just because he had offended Mal's pride.
He coughed pathetically and winced. "Sixty percent." A groan from a dying man, speared on the blade by his own friend's treacherous sword...er heel!
"If your daft habits somehow put her in danger I will kill you Liam. You have seen my power. You have tasted my wrath. I can have favors called in."
He flings his hands in the air, palms forward in the universal gesture of surrender. "No harm to your's, Malakai." There was now a neat little hole twisted in the green cotton of his t-shirt and he could already feel the bruise beginning to form beneath the wake of her anger. "You really do like her, don't you?" His voice was soft, not meant to goad, but instead ease her down from possibly putting a boot heel through his sternum and into an aorta or something. Something he wanted to avoid at all costs. Immortal certainty did not mean invincible.
"Love is a powerful thing."
Liam only wished it was strong enough to conquer all, as the story books said.
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Post by Malakai on Aug 9, 2012 12:20:37 GMT -5
"I don't like short hair! But...but in Lyra's case I'd make an exception,"
Something sparks flame and Malakai snarls, reaching forward in a blur of movement to wrap her fingers around Liam's throat and then tighten. His next words a garbled raspy act of desperation.
"If I wasn't already happily committed."
And after a tense moment a shallow understanding falls across the shuck's expression as she releases him. Lowering her heel until it's stable against the creaky floorboards again. Smoothing out the black waist shorts she'd worn with smooth wisp of her wrist.
Malakai says knowingly, some malice hidden in the depths. Leftover or bias who knew? "You still care for her?" But beyond that disdain for the woman that'd broken his heart to pieces. (As annoying as Liam may have been, he was a constant in the shucks immortality, the only person able to keep up in retrospection, and that warranted some shred of concern sometimes.) "After all these years?" She says a bit more amused and curiously. She idly wonders what she might have done in his position.
Just as quickly bashes it to skull fragments and sweeps it under the rug.
Malakai takes that seat he was offering, leaning back gracefully and crossing her leg's at the knee, her elbows resting on the edge. Always managing to look a Queen short of a crown. "How asinine." she says. Detached and indifferent. The same drone tone used for everything, a negated observation. Offensive maybe if you had not known the wielder for seventy years.
"Sixty percent.""No harm to your's, Malakai."
"Mine." She repeats thoughtlessly. Fading off for a moment with distant giddy eyes and curling fingers into couch. Malakai then observes him critically for a moment. But lightens up on the bourbon man. Reassuring herself that she'd be able to stop whatever he was planning - that this was the one thing he would never outsmart her on. Her own heart. "Deal."
"You really do like her, don't you? Love is a powerful thing."
A long silence descends. One where the shuck's thoughts are jumbling around her head like a ping pong game. She tilts her head, falling cascades of dark hair on the back of his couch as she relaxes into it's depths. Stares at the ceiling overwhelmed. "Yes." She says after the pause. Feels a pain in her chest that makes her run a finger over her heart soothingly. Reminding herself that she's still here - not back in Colorado with her charming little fairy.
But she knows there is no heart beneath the skin, that Lyra wears it prettied on a golden chain over her own.
"What happened to you and your former spouse again? You loved her too. Still even now."
She didnt understand, but she wanted too. She wanted to understand these feelings - she wanted to be able to act rationally if ever faced with threat. She wanted to be able to think through plot and plan and have a plan b. Malakai always had a plan b.
But with Lyra she was just making things up as she went. It's perhaps the one thing that unnerved her. She was fumbling through the dark, she was feeling her way to the finish line.
She was for once, vulnerable.
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Liam
Gremlin
Posts: 58
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Post by Liam on Aug 9, 2012 18:44:47 GMT -5
There is a blessed moment of relief, the force against his throat and chest mercifully removed, but then he is reminded that there is no such thing as merciful when dealing with his old friend.
"You still care for her?" "After all these years?" "How asinine."
The quiet swipe of skin against fabric fills the room as Malakai rights herself, smooths her temper, although the barbs of her tongue remain sharp as ever. He wished he could feign ignorance, profess his love of Athena or Artemis, of Rhythm or Beat, but Liam, however confounded he was in dishonesty is not a man to deny a lover. Certainty not his wife. "Why, yes, Mal, I still care for the woman who birthed my only son and shared my bed for more than a decade." He rubs his chest bitterly, "If that is asinine then so be it." Perhaps to her shock, to the shock of anyone who knew him well enough Liam still cared for all the women whom he had shared his home and heart with.
"Mine." "Deal."
Typical Mal, making herself at home, a dog with her hackles bristled and now licking them back in place. Liam tugs his shirt back into place, straightens to his full height in the recliner so he can watch her. Keep your eye on the ball and all. "Eighty bucks. I told John, but he never believed me. Always said that you'd taken a vow of chastity or something." He waves his hand dismissively, "Which may be closer to the truth after all." A vow of chastity from men, perhaps.
"Yes."
Liam doesn't miss a thing, not the brush of her finger tips over her heart, the distinct interest of her own thoughts and surroundings than the trickster coiled, waiting, in his seat. Although really it should be no surprise to him. How could anything short of love inspire such rage?
"What happened to you and your former spouse again? You loved her too. Still even now."
It was an absent minded question in it's way, not wholly intentional in the hurt it leaves behind. Former. He clears his throat, winches at the pain still heavy in his chest, whether from Malakai's heel or his memory Liam can't say. "I do, however I sense you've less interest in the tattered remains of my marriage as much as you do your own relationship." He picks at the threads of the blanket draped over the chair's arm, "Have you ever been in love before now? There's a reason so many songs are written about it," A musician's stance on the subject as much as anything. The ramblings of a mind hesitant to delve into place better left behind.
In all these years it's hardly a topic they've discussed before. The murder of a foolish witch, the best way to concoct a poison or steal something of need. But love? No, it was something that had always remained in his domain. Until now.
"I've heard that, when observed by scientists the brain in love looks much like the brain of someone taking drugs." He plucks one of the threads, twirls it between his fingers. "That may be true, but they don't feel anything alike." Liam had experienced enough in the sixties to attest to that.
"Ask away, Mal. What's been troubling you?"
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Post by Malakai on Aug 10, 2012 2:28:51 GMT -5
"Why, yes, Mal, I still care for the woman who birthed my only son and shared my bed for more than a decade. If that is asinine then so be it."
She's tight lipped for a moment, narrowing her eyes thoughtfully. "It's cryptic," Malakai begins, pauses for a moment before elaborating. "of you I mean." Liam is often times a brush shoulder guy. He smiles and laughs and drinks and fucks until he's pink and limp. Malakai deals with her immortality in different methods of course. She smothers herself in money, power, riches - control. For Liam to crumble at his foundations as he does when speaking of his late wife .. it's concerning. It's a shift into deeper water, no longer the shallow ankle of lukewarm. She doesnt know if he expects something, or if she expects him to expect something. All she knows is there is expectation there and Liam has always let her down. Why shouldnt she him?
But that'd change something, that'd reverse their roles.
"Eighty bucks. I told John, but he never believed me. Always said that you'd taken a vow of chastity or something. Which may be closer to the truth after all."
She didnt remember John, and honestly she didnt try to distinguish him from all the poor faces of Liam's debt. She was more inclined to be offended by the expense, and Malakai verbalizes her irritation loud and clear. "Eighty dollars?" She says, calculates the terms from euro's with ease. "You gambled so little on my sexual interest?" She's astounded at the thought. As if Liam thinking her some weird single celled organism was out of the ordinary.
Malakai scrutinizes him and says for the fifty billionth time since she'd met him. "You really do not understand making a investment do you?" If there is a worthy investment it is definitely associated with her name. "You should be a billionaire by now." Why Liam chose to live out the remainder of his existence in this dirty New Orleans pisshole completely flew over her head.
"I do, however I sense you've less interest in the tattered remains of my marriage as much as you do your own relationship. Have you ever been in love before now? There's a reason so many songs are written about it, I've heard that, when observed by scientists the brain in love looks much like the brain of someone taking drugs.. That may be true, but they don't feel anything alike."
Malakai snorts. "Couples often show the signs of surging dopamine, increased energy, less need for sleep or food, and focused attention and exquisite delight in smallest details of a novel relationship. Yes I know, I've researched. I'd rather not hear passively about your disturbing 'hippie' stage Liam."
"Ask away, Mal. What's been troubling you?"
But still she does not know exactly what she wants to hear. There are a thousand things she could ask him, a thousand things she wants to know. But a barrier pride and stark stands in the way, and Malakai would not be Malakai if she could climb it.
She clears her throat, a horrid attempt to change the subject when she exclaims, "She's got the charm of a fox. Could charm you right out of your wallet. That woman convinced me - you know - to change Elizabeth's backyard into a stable yard. You know how much I hate animals." Malakai pauses, for once lost in the moment as she leans forward on her elbows, balancing her chin on the back of her palms. Eyes glittering.
"Bloody brilliant thing too, has everyone at her fingertips. We've got this duo thing going on at the office," Malakai laughs, moves a piece of bang from her face. "Called me Hyde against the desk once, said she was my Jekyll. I didnt even feel insulted. I just kissed her."
The shuck fades out, black static, before saying helplessly. "Lord, makes me want to get in heaven. To take it all back."
Malakai has never regretted, she has been taught since birth, brainwashed, to move on - to learn from her mistakes. For two hundred years she has done so but suddenly everything bad, everybody she's killed is coming back to whisper condemnation in her ear. No amount of repenting, nor any preacher man could save her soul.
But hell if she didnt wish it would.
If she didnt lose sleep at the thought.
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Liam
Gremlin
Posts: 58
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Post by Liam on Aug 10, 2012 4:22:29 GMT -5
"It's cryptic," "of you I mean."
Were they not cryptic people by nature? Malakai displayed her's a little more plainly with hard edged smiles and narrowed eyes, but Liam was just at skilled at distracting from the truth when he found it necessary. The sleight of hand, a card tucked in his sleeve. Look here, not there. "Would you like some scotch? Or I have some very nice wine, a Cabernet." Liquor has never done the man much good. It either made his blood boil or his tongue loosen, but it also settles his mind, frees him from the claws memories often draw in his flesh. He gets up, disappears into the little kitchen off to the side and draws a bottle from the fridge, freeing the cork with practiced ease, and pours them both a glass in one smooth gesture.
Of course he already knew what Malakai liked, questions merely a formality. Her expensive tastes mirrored his own in many ways and if anything it was her Liam had learned them from in the first place. What did a poor immigrant's son know of wines and fillet mignon?
"Eighty dollars?" "You gambled so little on my sexual interest?"
He gives her a cheeky smile, hands her the glass rested between his finger tips and settles back into his seat. "Perhaps." John was old now, he had grandchildren, but still played the clubs with him most nights. He would get a kick out of this. Of course Malakai wouldn't remember every clandestine peasant she had met, but they certainty remembered her.
"She's got the charm of a fox. Could charm you right out of your wallet. That woman convinced me - you know - to change Elizabeth's backyard into a stable yard. You know how much I hate animals."
He sips at the wine, stains his lip red and it gives him some measure of happiness to hear such praise from Mal of another person, to think of the great black dog twisted and tugged about on her leash by this Lyra. She must be quite woman, as if anyone less could land themselves a place at his old friend's side. There is love and adoration in her words, more than enough to recall times when he sounded just like her, rambling on about his pretty wife, about her sharp claws and her sharper wit.
"Bloody brilliant thing too, has everyone at her fingertips. We've got this duo thing going on at the office," "Called me Hyde against the desk once, said she was my Jekyll. I didnt even feel insulted. I just kissed her."
Liam laughs outright, rich voice flowing alongside her own twinkling laughter. A Jekyll to Malakai's Hyde, how appropriate. "Jethro was like that," These days he didn't know if she had such things in her, but he liked to think there was something left of the woman he had loved, something that Marcus hadn't taken with him with he was stolen. "When she was young. You wouldn't think, but she had quite the sense of humor." He smiles to himself in the wistful way of old men who have outlived all that they have loved. "One more than one occasion, if she thought I had done her wrong, would present me with a dead fox on my doorstep, usually with the head crushed in."
"Lord, makes me want to get in heaven. To take it all back."
The roar of Bourbon street was dulled by thick walls but it fills the hollow spaces her words leave behind. Malakai was condemned by her absence of soul, but Liam thinks his sullied enough he'll end up burning as well, perhaps right beside her. "Love does that. The world narrows, things blur and then all it once it becomes clearer too. You see them, just them." He sees his little boy, lifted high into the air and Jethro's ever protective presence, her smile as he giggled and kicked, when to one person he was nothing more than Daddy, not Liam or "You fucking son of a bitch.", just Daddy.
"She was never any kind of saint, but it made me wonder at times, what kind of God made a sinner fall in love in the first place."
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Post by Malakai on Aug 10, 2012 4:44:17 GMT -5
"Would you like some scotch? Or I have some very nice wine, a Cabernet."
Malakai makes a thin gesture with her wrist, dismissing the fox shifter with a subtle wave. Hearing vaguely his offer. He comes back jostling something that looks expensive and she's pleasantly surprised at the offering. Taking it (for the first time even) gratefully.
And later on when Liam laughs she does not feel chastised, or mocked. She laughs right along with him. Showing bright teeth in a genuine grin. Cheeks light with wine and mirth.
"Jethro was like that,"
And she knows it is her turn to take small sips and look elegant and interested. And maybe there is some thin interest there too, not rooted in selfishness but a true curiosity for the woman that had wisked away this man's heart. Liam had always been the trickster, what woman had outwitted him to the very end?
"When she was young. You wouldn't think, but she had quite the sense of humor. One more than one occasion, if she thought I had done her wrong, would present me with a dead fox on my doorstep, usually with the head crushed in."
Malakai pales and struggles in that moment to swallow her drink. She leans forward, blanching, "What?" But she's laughing when she tells him. "Liam! That is not attractive or touching in any way! That's- that's -- oh I might have fancied this woman and her dark sense of humor!"
And maybe in another day and age, they would have been good friends. But here and now she could not help but feel a thin shred of animosity. Malakai despite her apathetic display and broken routine of affection remembers a time when Liam had been just as happy without Jethro.
But she could not completely condemn him or judge him, she was much in the same situation. Though she might have been happier before, her life was meaningful now. It was worth a eternity of living. To want to share her existence with someone, to live it only to her partners ends. It changed things. Everything.
"Love does that. The world narrows, things blur and then all it once it becomes clearer too. You see them, just them.""She was never any kind of saint, but it made me wonder at times, what kind of God made a sinner fall in love in the first place."
"Yes." She agree's, narrows her eyes not in spite or contempt but obscuring thought. Thinking outloud as she set's her lips to the glass's edge. "The courses of true love never did run smooth." Malakai sighs dramatically, closing her eyes and leaning backwards. "I thought William a foolish dramatic twit! He's turning in his grave right now."
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Liam
Gremlin
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Post by Liam on Aug 10, 2012 6:24:17 GMT -5
He watches her closely, absorbing this picture he paints for her of Jethro, somewhere in his mind just as concerned with her opinion as she was of his. They are old creatures, stuck fast in their ways and twisted in upon themselves, and it takes another, equally as stubborn and self centered for them to poke their heads up, to value thought or stance.
"What?" "Liam! That is not attractive or touching in any way! That's- that's -- oh I might have fancied this woman and her dark sense of humor!"
"Of course it's touching!" He argued, grin wide on his face, "It showed how passionate she was!" Just what she was capable of and how easily that little fox could be him, oh did Jethro have a way with visuals. "It also terrified the ever living bejesus out of me." Liam has to shake his head at the idea of Malakai and his eagle woman meeting, sparks would have flown for sure. Two women like that, with their prides and their power in the same room? Not a good idea, and precisely the reason he had done his best to keep them apart.
"Yes." "The courses of true love never did run smooth." "I thought William a foolish dramatic twit! He's turning in his grave right now."
How right the man was, some of the seriousness of their previous conversation seemed to lift and Liam was all to happy to join in with her upon this lighter note. "A foolish twit?" He is outraged and his voice rings throughout the apartment, throwing it like a true actor would know how to do. Liam flings his arms out, wine sloshing out of the glass and splashing onto the carpet. "He is one of the greatest authors to ever exist, you uncultured swine!"
Of course Malakai would know that, although he had never determined her exact age the idea of her attending one of Shakespeare's plays, perhaps in the Globe Theater it's self, didn't seem so far fetched.
There is a pause, and this one thankfully not so heavy, but just enough time for them both to swallow their mouthfuls of Cabernet. "So," He narrows his eyes with an impish waggle of his brows and surely she must know what's coming with that look, having seen it used on enough girls before. "What's she like in bed? If this Lyra's got your tail in such a knot then she must know how to un-knot it as well." Long fingers tap against the rounded glass and Liam leaned forward to let it slide onto the coffee table at his feet. Now this was more his territory, away from the deep thought and the hurt of love, just two old friends gossiping and laughing together.
The wine was good and he had another bottle in the fridge, why couldn't it be like this?
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Post by Malakai on Aug 10, 2012 15:53:06 GMT -5
"Of course it's touching! It showed how passionate she was! It also terrified the ever living bejesus out of me."
"Passionate is one word for it." She argues, wondering idly what Lyra might do to ever express her irritation. The hybrid was certainly better at ignoring her then any other person in the world. Talented in the art of ''fuck off''. They are so very different in so many ways, but the term opposites attract had never been any truer then for the shuck and fairy.
"A foolish twit? He is one of the greatest authors to ever exist, you uncultured swine!"
Malakai is still smiling, weaving a dramatic conversation with Liam as she plays the indifferent woman. Shrugging and taking a innocent sip and observing him through smug eyes. "The better part of the 1700's was in his shadow. You know one of my brother's did anything to defy my father, joined a troupe once he was so eccentric! My father was positively livid! He dragged along me and my mother to one of the plays. Expecting to see Johnathan tarnish his good name front screen." Malakai takes another merry sip. Pink at the cheeks. "My father had expectations of only the best, even if his son went off to join the circus he wanted the best! He wanted lead role! So we sit the through the entire play. It smells like piss and it's so crowded Im bumping elbows with some fat bald man!" Malakai laughs heartily for a moment, wiping her palm across her eyes as she recalls. "O woe! O woeful, woeful, woeful day! Most lamentable day. Most woeful day that ever, ever I did yet behold! O day, O day, O day! O hateful day! Never was seen so black a day as this. O woeful day! O woeful day!" She recites, the memory of a woman who'd relived the moment more then once. "And we sit there, we endure, my mother soothes my fathers hackles but he's so red in the face he looks like a plum! And the whole time I'm wondering which one is John, which scene will John come out! and then - Oh! - and then there he is, after the curtains close. Sweeping the stage!"
She's in a fit of laughter now, clutching one side of the couch as she hoots and shakes with the memory. Eventually settling down enough to wag her finger at the fox man sitting across from her. "You shouldve have seen his face when he saw us! Father sent him to the horse stables for the entire summer! Said he could sleep like all the other commoners if he wanted to act like one."
But she remembered too the stories that John had told her, she remembered his excitement. Even if he'd been a sweeper he'd gotten his taste of freedom, he'd seen some of the world! The violent wrist stokes of a Italian painter, the cunt of a versed whore! "He told me many grand stories, painting out the world in vivid color. But ''what a sham!" he'd said once, broom in hand and mud on his face. "Shakespeare was nothing but a love giddy fool!". And all of a sudden the mirth faded from his eyes. He didnt talk much about it after that. Broke his spirit some I think."
Malakai suspects her brother had been bitter, bitter for being embarrassed in front of his father, had sought somewhere - somehow for his approval. She'd never quite forgiven William Shakespeare after that, for sloping her brother's shoulders down just a little more.
Malakai takes the last sip of the carbanet. A long pause falling across the both of them.
"So," What's she like in bed? If this Lyra's got your tail in such a knot then she must know how to un-knot it as well."
Malakai startles, debates on narrowing her eyes at the fox shifter and saying something cruel - ruining the moment for the whole. But the wine settles whirlpool and her gut and she chuckles into her wrist as she wipes the last of the red from her mouth. Glass empty.
"Wouldnt you like to know!"
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Liam
Gremlin
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Post by Liam on Aug 14, 2012 2:21:53 GMT -5
He listens, and smiles, and thinks of a younger Malakai, perhaps unburdened by the weight of demons and curses, although it is hard to think of (Mal seldom anything but serious, stiff as starched fabric), it is easier to imagine when she's grinning, red lipped and animated by the good wine.
And the whole time I'm wondering which one is John, which scene will John come out! and then - Oh! - and then there he is, after the curtains close. Sweeping the stage!"
"Sweeping the stage? A brother of yours?" Liam says it with his usual dramatic air, but he means it as well. He snorts, leather cushions creaking as he leans back to watch Malakai gesticulate and further challenge his perceptions of the great poet. He has to draw back in his memory to remember a time when she's ever told him of her family, or at least in this way. Warmly drawing their character to life with well worded description, rather than the flat answers he had received before. "Do you have any siblings?", "I had several brothers, how does it concern you?" As nothing could be for one's own simple curiosity. At least not in her mind.
In a smooth motion he reaches down to slip the wine glass between his fingers, swallow the last of the Cabernet. "Aye, the stage can do that to a man." He winks at business woman, a sly look of intentions and beckoning, but in Liam's possession more a standard greeting than anything. Once, years ago, it was between them, with a certain added heatedness on his part.
As Malakai has shared so he sees it fit to do a bit of spinster story telling himself. "I never got along with my brother much, though I raised him, so I've got no one to blame but myself and bad genes." He smirked, tapped his chin with the pad of his thump and pressed the finger to his lip in thought, humming quietly. "Although I think it was more for Momma's favoritism that he hated me more than anything." The Fitzpatrick matriarch certainty had chosen favorites in her family, loving as she was, no mother was completely free from such things. "My mother would say, 'Liam, me laddie! I dinna ken how ye be born so sweet, too sweet for this world ye are, too sweet for Ireland!' " His voice is rich with the accent, a call back of times long past.
A tired smile pinches the corner of his mouth and he heaves a great sigh, green eyes closing for a moment to absorb the sight of the little kitchen, his mother, red and full faced, dabbing flour on the end of his nose as he howled with laughter. " 'I never shoulda let ye from me bosom, should I.' " He nods his head in a sage like way, "That's what she would tell me."
And perhaps Liam's love of the breast all started there. Was it not true that men simply ached for the warmth they had held as babes? To go back in the womb and be safe once more. So was the true wealth of a woman's embrace.
"Wouldnt you like to know!"
Malakai's voice carries over his head as he lifts himself up, trails back in the kitchen to retrieve the rest of the bottle. He taps the rim of her glass, smiles ruefully and fills it to the top, repeating it with his own. "What? Is it such a sin to wonder how the great stoic woman I have known for nigh on," He sets the bottle to the table and stands above her, counting fingers danced above her head with glee, "Oh, fifty years? Sixty? Is it such a sin to wonder how she would make love?"
There are great mysteries in the world and Liam reaches down, pats her hip with the palm of his hand in indication to scoot over, thinking that such a thing was most definitely one of them.
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