(no subject)

[golden_dog]

 

The first thing Pearly notices on arrival in Milliways is that the world is smaller, much smaller, far too small. Not in the sense of space – he’s used to the cramped alleys and underground cellars of the Narrows or the Five Points – but in that his vision is restricted. He looks up at the ceiling with a quiet snarl, razor eyes rolling back in his head…no Avenue of the Nine, nor the Twenty. No Sarganda Street, no Diamond Row. Nothing.

He looks around, glaring. The knife in one hand drips blood on to the floor, and he wipes his face with the other, which holds a gun, single-barrel, ivory handle. His mouth opens to speak to the place at large – the first saloon in a long time not to quiet at his entrance – but then his eyes fall upon the Observation Window.

….oh. Oh.

The knife drops to the floor, and everything else melts away.



[OOC: I strongly recommend reading this post before tagging, and perhaps his profile as well. Open until whenever!]

Comments

[the_cupbearer]

What is it with people coming into this place armed and looking for a fight?

Ganymede had been pacing, twining and unwinding a silk scarf around his hands and neck, careful not to catch it on the spines of his bleached snake vertebrae choker, when Pearly comes through the door. It's not that he's particularly afraid of someone bloody--gods know he's been around worse--but it does get his attention rather quickly.

And then the man just drops it (Ganymede's never fathomed why on earth that window is so fascinating to some people, but there you are) and he takes the opportunity to pick it up, straightening slowly.

"You alright?"

[golden_dog]

His mouth has long since fallen open, his lips wet with helpless licking at the sight of all. that. colour. His head jerks to the side at the intrusion of a voice, his silver eyes not wide enough to take in the sight before him.

'What it is?' he snaps out, in a heavy New York-Irish accent, not looking at who has spoken.

'Where'd it come from?'

[the_cupbearer]

"That would be a window," he answers nonchalantly, watching the man with a curious but calm gaze. "As far as I'm aware it's been here since the building. You might want to look away from it periodically, it can have a somewhat disconcerting."

Ganymede waves a hand in front of Pearly's face when he gets no physical response.

[golden_dog]

One wave, and Pearly's hand flies up and grabs his wrist - almost dreamlike - to move it out of his view. It's not too hard, but definitely firm.

Just when he thinks he's seeing all the gold in the world, a wave of red and silver and yellow explodes at some other place; his eyes can't stop moving, there is no way to see it all at once, and it's making his heart smash in his chest, choking his throat.

He licks his lips again, entirely forgotten he's holding some man's arm, and when he tries to speak nothing comes out but a quiet and helpless moan.

[the_cupbearer]

Well, that's a first.

He shifts his wrist, and when the bones merely grind together, Ganymede steps between the stranger and the window, silk scarf still in his off-hand. "Would you mind letting my arm go?" he asks. He's blocking the colors of the window with his body, head tilted as he watches the man. He's never seen a reaction quite like this one, not to simple colors.

[capture_eternity]

"Amazing sight, isn't it?" asks a young man's voice with an odd mid-atlantic accent nearby. "Out in most worlds, people need to buy expensive drugs for such an experience."

[golden_dog]

Pearly's head twitches to the side. Who's talking? No one talks when he's like...goddamn, just when he thinks he's caught the red, the gold flames out and turns to silver, and yellow, and orange, and it's a whole universe of colour in one place, and by the way he feels his hands shake, and a sliver a drool collect at the corner of his mouth, it might be too much even for him.

He starts swaying on the spot, completely unaware, the words of another lost to his ears.

[capture_eternity]

"That, and drugs, might be a tad too much for you," the young man says, calm amusement in his voice. "What did you take? It must have been good."

[golden_dog]

But it keeps buzzing at him, still.

He can't take his eyes off the window, but he can raise his hand - perhaps luckily, it's the one with the dripping knife in it rather than the gun - and point it in the general direction of the noise.

'Shut up,' he says, distinctly, even though it's hard to hear his own voice through the roaring of his blood.

[capture_eternity]

"You are definitely not well," the young man declares. "I should perhaps ask how much you did take."

[lazy_but_loyal]

It's the scent of blood in the air that gets her first.

Then it's the man. There's something rather turn-of-the-century about him, and Pam can always pick up on that. Already she feels as if she's dealt with his type before. When she was human.

The knife clatters to the floor, and her eyes flick down, following it.

She glances back up again and finds the man staring like some kind of dazed opium fiend at the Observation Window. She was never into the Observation Window. She couldn't care less about it.

But she unfolds her long legs and slips off the bar stool, and with long strides she crosses the room toward him, all tight red dress and crimson lips and golden hair. She bends down and picks up the knife, its edge still wet with blood. Holding it up-- not giving it to him yet-- she says flatly,

"You dropped this."

[golden_dog]

'What's your point?'

He doesn't look away, of course. He's currently not capable of it, his scarred cheek twitching erratically in a face otherwise slack with obvious hunger, and lust.

So much colour. So much. He can't hope to take it all in, but unless distracted, he'll stand here until he's tried.

[lazy_but_loyal]

She blinks at him, slowly, an eyebrow raised.

Seriously?

"Just thought you might want it back. Fortunately you're no longer at the scene of whatever crime you perpetrated, so it's all good."

[golden_dog]

He lets out a silent huff of almost-amusement, his eyes swirling like whirlpools of molten silver, never once moving from the view.

'In this neighbourhood?'

Seriously. No one's going to catch him at anything he's done, and he hasn't yet registered he's not in New York any more.

[lazy_but_loyal]

And it dawns on her that this man is a newbie. Oh, how precious.

"Well, you're going to have to change 'neighborhood' to 'end of the fucking universe,' because sweetheart, that's where you are right now."

[demisemidemon]

There's barely any color at all in the young woman who comes in the door. Skin leached pale, hair a colorless white-blond, clothes of white cloth and silver armor, right down to the huge sword carried easily on her back. There's a bit of mud on her boots, and that and her sword's black grip are the only leavening of the paleness. Even her eyes are an inhuman, metallic silver.

To those who can sense power auras, there's a little more to see. But still, by her kind's standards, it's not all that strong.

She halts just inside the back door, studying the man transfixed by the Observation Window.

After a few moments, she begins to make her way over.

[golden_dog]

Pearly isn't capable of looking away, and is barely aware of his surroundings at all. It registers as saloon, and that's fine, he's used to them. Some new place opened up in the Five Points probably. He couldn't care less. The only thing that matters is the colour, so much of it he could happily drown.

[demisemidemon]

Clare's patient. Well beyond the point of tact.

So she's entirely prepared to stand around for hours watching him, if he's going to stand in one place that long. All the same, when she comes around enough to see his eyes, she startles visibly.

They're not exactly like the eyes of her kind. But they're more similar than anything she's ever seen.

(His aura's not exactly like her kind or like a yoma's, either. But he's got one, all the same.)

[OOC: Assuming he's got an aura based on the whole demon thing, but if you want to hash out more cross-canon detail just let me know!]

[golden_dog]

[OOC: All fine. *grin*]


He stands there for at least two hours, until he can't see anything but red and gold and yellow, and his head is reeling from the overload. Only when he realises that his sweat has run cold, and his hands are trembling, does he get the sense someone is watching him. It's still an effort to turn his head away, and it takes a good few minutes before his vision clears enough to take note of what's in front of him.

His head tilts, curious even though he's reeling. And full of far too much energy, like a drug addict after the morning's first hit of cocaine. Her eyes, though. He's never seen any come close to his own before.

'How long you been there?'

How long's he been here?

[demisemidemon]

"What are you?"

It's genuinely curious.

And a little wary. But not afraid.

(Clare's not very good at fear. She's also not very good at small talk.)

[necessary_child]

He's not the only one in the bar with odd eyes: Sam's are black as black, disconcertingly so, as they peer unabashedly at Pearly from his place at the bar.

"Always takes you aback, doesn't it?"

[golden_dog]

He's been standing there a good long while now, long enough for his heart to be smashing in his chest with the lust for it, long enough for his scarred cheek to be twitching with energy and his eyes to be shining like someone flicked a light switch inside his brain.

'Always?'

It always will for him, but he doesn't get used to colour like this. Not so much. It keeps changing, how could you ever get used to it?

[necessary_child]

Sam chuckles.

"Well, time's a little interesting here. But I've been coming for a good while, and I'm not bored of it yet."

[golden_dog]

'Time's interesting everywhere.'

Even more crazy where he comes from, but he can't compare because he doesn't yet know where he is.

He drags his gaze away, the room flashing in silent explosions of red and gold and fire and orange behind his eyelids, blotting out the details. It's a saloon, that's all he registers. That, and that this man feels...not entirely as he should.

He pulls a huge ruby from his pocket, and tries to catch reflected light from the window so it'll tell him something. But the light doesn't seem to work that way, and there's no moon in sight to help him.

'Goddamnit,' he mutters, and drops the thing back out of sight.

[necessary_child]

"Telling the time?" Sam tilts his head, smiles a little, wryly. "Doesn't work here."

Can't tell the time, by magic or by physics, doesn't work when you're somewhere that's everywhen and everywhere.

"I take it you're new?"