James Hutchins (0roborus) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2020-10-02 14:05:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | james hutchins, penny norton |
Lucky
Who: Penny and James
What: A 'Real' Introduction
When: Sunset
Where: Curiosities, Las Vegas
Ratings: Low
As the sun slipped behind the storefronts in downtown Las Vegas, north of the Strip, the temperature on the street dropped a few degrees. Scorched streets found relief from the baking heat. Automobile windshields no longer shone like diamonds, making it hard to find the right lane. James leaned against the outside of the brick, two-story building that housed the magic shop, looking at his cell phone while the cars rolled by. Nothing in particular led him outside, other than the desire for fresh air and a couple of quiet minutes while Sam cleared out and handed home for the day. The front door of the shop was propped open. Music drifted onto the sidewalk, a track from Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother. James looked up as Sam came through the front door, carrying with him the smell of incense. The two men eyed one another warily, much as they’d done all day.
Sam broke first, lifting his hand in a casual wave that was either ‘see you tomorrow’ or ‘I’ve had enough of you.’ James watched his back until the old man rounded the corner, then went back to his phone, the sole of his boot pressing against the brick exterior.
Penny sauntered up the sidewalk.
Her red lips twisted up with interest, curious to find something to get into that might promise more fun than the usual circulation of the warm lunch buffet that was The Strip. Bright eyes full of neon flickered back and forth. The thoroughfare around was littered with the usual types - giggling tourists, the tainted locals, and the long lived just passing through another period of time.
She smoothed down her band tee shirt that was knitted in the front at the hem, The Struts. And then she saw someone who looked familiar.
With an arched eyebrow and a grin the siren wandered up to James. Her palm lifted, tucking itself between the phone screen and his line of sight in an effort to gain interest. “Haven’t I seen you around before?” She didn’t necessarily hide the melodic, supernatural lilt in her tone. “James, right?”
James looked up, confused into thinking a customer had gotten the drop on him. It took a second, but his eyes widened with recognition when he saw who it was. “Right.” The spellcaster lowered his phone and slowly straightened away from the storefront. “And you’re Penny, aren’t you?” Of course he knew her name, but she was sporting a different look than the first and only time he met her, and there was a second layer of question there that he wasn’t asking out loud: are you Penny, this time?
He flipped his phone in his hand as he looked her over. The long sleeves of his shirt were pushed up above the wrists, but not far. James could feel the slight abrasion of a cut underneath the fabric. “Penny from Cal-Nev-Ari. But not really.”
She laughed a bit, her hand dropping to her side. “It’s me this time,” she promised, nodding. “Yeah, Penny Mitchell.” She’d taken Derek’s last name, of course. It only seemed appropriate. “What’s all this?” Her finger waved at the storefront. She couldn’t recall having seen it before and was instantly intrigued.
It was nice meeting James in a setting that didn’t include an impromptu exorcism.
That night had been a bit of a blur. She could recall James kneeling before her, holding a bucket or a container, something for what was expelled. But her smile only grew a touch. “Or do you just hang out on the Strip playing on your phone for fun?”
“If I do, I’ve been bodysnatched.” James stepped out from the building so he could look up at it with her. “This is what they call an occult supply store.” The name of it, Curiosities, was done in lettering on the glass door and on a wooden sign that hung from the corner of the building. “Proudly serving Las Vegas since 1997. Why? You into the occult?” James gave her a sidelong glance. The hint of a smile passed over his features before he led the way into the shop. One of the wooden floorboards on that well-worn path creaked beneath his boots.
Penny looked at the shop, really considering it. She didn’t know what the occult was though she had heard of it. “Cute name.” It was in an interesting spot, as if those who needed it could find it and those who didn’t might just wander right past. She may have bypassed it again had James not been out front.
“I don’t think I am, though.” She didn’t care much about or for magic mostly because she didn’t understand it.
Her heels clicked against the wooden floors.
“Some people might argue that point,” James said. On his way past the counter, he set his phone down. “It depends on which definition of the word we’re using. It could be that you are the occult.” He picked up a bottle of water and took a sip, placed it back on the counter. “I don’t think I’ve got a lot of reference materials on what you are, though. Most of it’s magic.”
He watched her walk over the painted symbol on the floor. Not a flinch.
“Am I?” She inquired, honestly curious.
Was she this occult? Penny grinned, wandering up to the other side of the counter. “Do you want to ask questions?” She had nothing to hide, and he had helped save her. “And thanks,” she murmured. “For saving me. Helping me with The Lady.” She didn’t dare utter the actual name in here.
There it was again: the ‘Lady’, an insight into the way she’d been introduced to her. James took it in. “Most of that was Phanuel,” he said, observing her approach to the counter. “But either way, no thanks required. It was a nice t-shirt, though.” James took a seat on a round stool, his foot hooking into the bottom rung, hands resting easily on his jeans. Towards the end of the counter, a curl of smoke lifted in a lazy ‘S’ towards the ceiling, the fragrance a blend of tree resins.
They both had equal parts to play and Penny felt as if he might not realize just how important his role was. In her opinion, James and Phanuel worked together but then she’d been compromised enough to not focus on any singular thing that wasn’t pleasing Elfleda, making herself worthy. “You’re welcome.”
Phanuel deserved the pink yard flamingo. It seemed small in comparison to what she and James had actually done, as did a shirt, but neither of them complained.
James only knew only what mythology told him about sirens and it was loose. He knew where they lived, what they ate, and what they could do, but nothing about who they were, or what the difference was between Penny on a good day and a ‘grab an ice bucket’ day. “Actually I do have a question, but it’s blunt.” James’ face was calm but impassive, a contrast from the easy smiles of the siren. There was something unusual about her face; he got the idea that he could look at it a hundred times and never see the same thing twice.
Penny nodded. “Ask me.” She didn’t mind straightforward questions. Those were sometimes the easiest because she didn’t have to filter through the game of what someone was getting at.
“Alright.” James let himself smile at her. “Brace yourself,” he said, pushing his sleeves above his elbows and crossing his arms, “I’m gonna get deep, but I promise not to stay there. I’m assuming with Phanuel helping you out, you probably watch what you eat. But at the end of the day, it’s still a means to an end, so my guess is you do what you have to do.”
His boot heel twisted on the metal rung, a tiny squeak that could be heard as the music faded into a sludgy Melvins song. “My question is, if we ever get trapped in a mine and you have to eat me, are you gonna feel bad about it?”
She blinked at the question. It was a bit random but Penny shrugged a shoulder. “The honest and shortest answer would be yes I would eat you and yes I would feel bad about it because of what you’ve done for me, but it would depend on the circumstances as to whether or not I would consider eating you at all.” Her head tipped, and she looked at James.
“I don’t have to eat people every day, just once in a while. So if I’d eaten prior to becoming trapped with you, then the answer might change. Also, it would depend on how long we are trapped together.”
Those she considered friends or acquaintances she did her best not to consider as meal options.
“So if I hadn’t helped you, you wouldn’t feel bad, but I earned some value, so you would.” James chuckled and leaned forward to get off the stool. “I appreciate the honesty. I’ve never met someone like you before. I don’t know how it works.” James put his elbows on the counter and got comfortable. “People, vampires, sirens, what we do and won’t do and why? It’s interesting.”
Penny nodded. He got the gist of it. She smiled a bit. “Survival is critical. Don’t take it personally. I’ve been around humans enough to know which ones I want to eat and which ones I don’t.” To her it was simple while to someone else it could be complex. “I was taught to go after the humans without strings - the ones who nobody will miss if they’re gone. Never to eat in public, and to never leave anything behind if it can be helped. We consume nearly every part of what we catch except the bones.” She didn’t mind telling James about the experience considering he genuinely wanted to know.
James picked up a small, smooth stone from a display bin and rolled it between his palms. “What about you? Anything you want to know?”
When he asked her the next question, Penny’s eyebrows lifted a bit. “Have you been doing magic for a long time? I don’t know much about magic, only that it’s done and something happens afterward in most circumstances.” She knew magic users, but never really dove into the depths of the process.
“Since I was a kid,” he said, examining the piece of onyx in his hands, its black base and white layering of quartz. “My parents are both unique, I guess you’d say. Magic runs in my dad’s family and my mom’s clairvoyant. I think they were both watching with bated breath to see which way I’d turn out to be. My dad won. Sometimes I think I’m more of a weird hybrid.” He picked up the stone and held it between his thumb and forefinger. “Hold this.”
Penny nodded. Her family all were sirens, her sister was the exception and even then it was rare to stray too far from the origin point for them. But she listened to James’ story. A parent who was a magic user, and a parent who was something that sounded like magic. From the clues in his tone she guessed that it wasn’t magic, though.
Her eyes dropped to the stone in his hands and then made their way back up. “They must be proud of you.” A hand extended out for the stone and her gaze dropped again, watching her palm and for the stone to be placed in it.
James laughed, head lowering so that a lock of hair fell into his eyes, and he had to recapture the stone in his palm before he lost it or messed up. He cleared his throat and looked from Penny’s outstretched hand to her face. “I’m sorry, I lost my concentration. There’s a lot of ways to be a magic user, and they don’t all fly with our human parents. Imagine if your father wanted you to be a doctor, but you decided to be a sniper.”
His laugh made her smile a bit with curiosity. “I’m not sure we have those same expectations with us.” Whatever role the siren fell into would shift with the times just like any long lived creature. “We do like to be around people, though.” But his explanation was interesting to her. She tried to consider that perspective, how a human parent would object to a magic user and her memory brought her back to the first time Derek’s parents discovered he was a vampire. The expression on his mother’s face, the way his father reacted.
James took her palm in his hand and laid the onyx in it. “Magic can be a transfer, a way of making the world shift the way you want it to. Whether it’s coming from the earth, a spirit, or inside you, you’re telling the world to stop being one way and be another. It can do the same thing for us.” He closed Penny’s hands around the stone, and left his hands in contact with hers.
Within a moment, the stone vibrated and began to break into its silica components. James opened her palm so she could see the fine bands of blacks and whites disintegrating. If she was susceptible to it and allowed it, she might feel what came next, though it would last only seconds in this state. “We can use onyx to integrate dual natures. It can make you feel calm. It can anchor the parts of you that fly too far. It can make you feel safe when you’re afraid.” He tipped his head. “If you’re into that sort of thing.”
Her fingers closed over the stone and her gaze held steady on the demonstration.
And then her fingers slipped open from the palm and she watched the stone begin to break down. That sense of calm crept over her the way the warmth of bath water would skin when you entered it. “I don’t know if I am into that sort of thing,” Penny confessed. “But I would like to try.” Anything to keep herself and Derek safe.
She kept her palm there, suspended, and her skin began to change. Once pale and perfect it transformed slowly into purplish blue scales. The process stopped at her wrist and she offered the limb to James to examine. “I heard a rumor a few decades ago that siren scales were supposed to be lucky.” Her sister once told her about the feathers of the gamayan having some properties but she couldn’t exactly recall the conversation details.
James angled his head to study her arm from more than one angle, observing the way the light from the store windows shone on it. “How was one supposed to get these lucky scales?” he murmured. “They’re attached.” An eyebrow raised as the magic user straightened again. He cupped a palm under hers to catch the porous remains of the rock, if she wanted to let it go. Upstairs in the restricted section, the bins and trunks were full of objects that had, at one time, been attached to a living thing, be it plant or animal, and were removed.
A few moments to allow observation and her scales receded back into the normal texture and tone of a human hand. “Luck,” she offered, shrugging her shoulder though a playful grin settled across those red lips. Like any other creature, Sirens shed scales. With her sister it was feathers. But it didn’t matter.
Then her hand turned and she let the onyx tumble gently out of her palm, into his.
“Oh, so it’s the finding them that’s lucky. You can’t just take them and create your own, just like a penny.” James set the rock on the counter and dusted off his palms. He walked out onto the aging floor, hands going in his pockets. James looked up at the high ceiling, the loft overhanging the shop. “I’m not sure I believe in luck. I always thought we got what we asked for. What do you think? You’re the one with the lucky scales.”
“How often do you run into a siren?” She inquired, laughing softly. “That has to be luck, right?”
The idea of a coin being lucky was something she had heard of but never truly believed in, though. Much like magic, she was no expert and luck never really got a chance to form into anything more than a second thought.
She twisted around as James moved. Penny leaned against the counter slightly, propped on her elbows, and she watched until he paused. “I think the world is out of our control. Things happen, you meet people you never expected, and then your life takes a turn from there. I don’t know much about luck, but if you asked me if my fortune was favorable because of the unexpected things, I guess I would say yes.”
But there was a difference between coincidence and luck. James’ feet had come to a slow halt in the middle of the store. He pivoted and listened to the rest of what she said. “Let’s rewind to when you said that me coming across a siren is lucky. Not your scales. You.” There was a fascinated look on his face, but it was friendly. “Like I’m fortunate to be in your company. Are sirens arrogant, too?” James lifted his shoulders. “Don’t get me wrong, magic users are. Especially anyone calling himself a warlock.”
“I suppose we are, like anyone else may be.” Especially these warlocks. Lucky, or arrogant, but she had been leaning more towards the latter for the sake of the conversation. “Few of us ever come up on land, and fewer stay as long. I was curious about the world. And arrogance can be fitting in some situations, don’t you think?” In small doses.
“It helps. I try to go into everything knowing I’m capable of it.” James noticed a figurine out of place on a display and set it right. As he looked at the small statues of brass, wood, and stone, each icons of faiths, he knew that there were other things he wanted to ask Penny — one burner in particular — and that this whole conversation was a substitute for it, but he didn’t know how to bridge into it, and not without exposing too much about himself. Instead he asked, “Did you ever think about going back? Before you met Derek, I mean.”
“To the water?” she inquired.
“I thought about it. Taking small periods to go back to what I know. To my family. It’s comforting. But then I met Derek and everything changed. It brought perspective. Before him I thought I was living and really enjoying myself, but now I feel like my life has meaning.” Maybe that didn’t make a lot of sense to anyone else but to her it did.
James’ eyebrow arched. “A couple of months ago, someone walked through that door and left me staring. It takes you by surprise, when it happens.” He stopped inspecting the shelf. “It’s a good thing you had him. It looked like he would’ve done anything for you.”
She suspected his revelation was the source of the inquiry. Penny smiled a bit. “I’d do anything for him. Derek is so special. And I’m sure your someone is the same.” You do anything for them. Even kill if it made them happy. Maybe not in James’ situation but then they weren’t exactly the same.
“She’s one of a kind.” Going to the door, James watched a group of people pass the shop on their way to one place or another, their conversation circling around a group vacation or personal drama, the kind of things ordinary people talked about. The question he wanted to ask Penny floated through his mind and he weighed it, knowing the window was closing. He wanted to know about what Elfleda had claimed, that Penny was learning to become more when she consumed her. Did Penny think that was true? What did it feel like to come back out of it? But the questions tasted sour in his mouth, a mix of curiosity and dread. Also, he’d promised Penny he would stay in the shallow end.
In the end, he kept his mouth shut.
Penny was glad for James. This mystery person seemed to be the buoyancy the magic user needed to stay afloat on the sea of life and death.
She remained silent, observant, as he went to the door. The siren noted his posture, the way his shoulders set as if a large weight sat upon them that may never be removed. It was as if he’d transformed just then, taken on the persona of Atlas - the god who bore the weight of the world on his shoulders - and then shifted back into a man with a gift.
“Will you tell Derek thanks for me?” he asked her. “And he doesn’t have to look like he wants to melt into the floor, next time he runs into me. I’m not judging him. For anything.”
“I will,” she confirmed. Penny moved to stand up. Her feet shuffled, the heels of her shoes grazing the wooden floor. “He can be a bit sensitive, without confidence, but I’ll let him know. He’s been through a lot in a short amount of time.” So many shifting moments that lead to the final endgame.
“Thanks for talking to me, James. I hope we can do this again soon.” She meant it. If he wanted to hang out, there were plenty of places to do it. “Let me give you my number, or Derek’s, in case you need anything.” Like a lucky scale.
“Yeah, good idea.” James nodded. “It was nice talking to you, too, Penny.” He went to the counter to pick up the phone and trade info with the siren.