Rhiannon Lee (rhiannon_lee) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2020-10-08 21:06:00 |
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Entry tags: | rhiannon lee, ~cian o'neill |
How Appetizing
Who: Rhiannon and Cian
What: Talking Magic, the Cemetery, etc.
When: After the Full Moon
Where: Grimaldi’s, Las Vegas
Ratings: Low
After spending a few hours coaching at the gym, Rhiannon was starving. She texted Cian to ask if he wanted to meet up in the city for dinner. It had been a few days since they’d seen one another, given the full moon. Once she heard back in the affirmative, she showered in the locker room, pulled on jeans, an off-the-shoulder tee, and boots and drove to Grimaldi’s, a Brooklyn-based pizzeria with brick-oven pizzas, calzones, and beers. She found a booth in a corner and settled in for a wait, knowing it might take him some time to come up from Searchlight. A basket of garlic knots sat next to pitchers of cold beer and ice water.
Rhiannon sat with one leg curled underneath her, damp hair hanging over her collarbone. An unlined notebook was open on the table before her. Her pen moved with quick, sure strokes over the paper as she sketched. The restaurant settled pleasantly into background noise: the chatter of other diners, a classic rock soundtrack, occasional noises from the cooking staff as they loaded ovens with bread to bake. She stopped long enough to take a sip of beer or eat a piece of the appetizer, but otherwise let herself unwind.
The ride up had been uneventful, finding parking also easy. Cian entered the pizzeria and saw Rhiannon seated in a booth, focused on her drawings, and enjoyed watching her for a long moment, smiling, before making his way across the restaurant. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her cheek, and slid into the booth, opposite her, pushing his jacket ahead of him on the seat. “Been waiting long?” he asked, reaching for the pitcher of beer to pour himself one.
Rhiannon had sensed Cian’s approach in the moment before he reached her and offered up her cheek with a smile. With warmth in her eyes, she watched him settle in. “Not too long, twenty minutes or so,” she said, taking the cap from the top of her pen and covering the tip. She flipped the cover of the pad and placed the objects in a cloth bag on her seat cushion. The zipper pulled neatly closed.
“How was it?” she asked. This would mark the second full moon Cian had spent with Siofra since forging a stronger connection with his were, and while he could shift at will, she wondered if it might be stronger within the lunar cycle, or in the presence of the Marks cougars.
“It was good, getting better all the time,” Cian replied, with a nod. “After that night at the marina, with the creatures, when I, he, we worked with Gabe, I had a feeling there was more, that it was all coming together,” he continued. “That night, like I said, was the first time I witnessed first hand how Gabe can work, communicate with animals, and channel energy, and how it felt. In the past, when we’ve done it, I had no memory of what had happened, he usually had to tell me, and he tends t’ leave bits out.” He took a mouthful of the beer, letting out a soft, satisfied sigh as he lowered it to the table again.
“It’s probably hard to explain,” Rhiannon reasoned. She doubted she could explain what it was like having a sixth sense before a bad thing happened, one that only kicked in occasionally. The hunter leaned back against her side of the booth, teeth cutting lightly into her lip as she ran back the evening’s events. Afterwards, there’d been a need to clear the perimeter, make sure others were safe, and begin the clean up. It hadn’t left much time for a deep conversation. “What’s it feel like? While it’s happening and afterward?”
“No, sorry, he had no trouble explaining what he can do with animals, showed me plenty of that. And he used to use it especially if we had kids on board who wanted to see dolphins, and during summer the whales. It was always a good way to get them to sleep, and they all got to meet one. And the birds. No, it was what he did during the fight, that’s the parts he used to leave out,” Cian explained, shaking his head and taking another mouthful of his beer.
“He’s talked about stuff, about the different types of things he can do depending on which animals are there. Like he said with Siofra… me… it’s hunting, like he gets the planning and patience, waiting for them all to be close, when the time is right. This time I could actually feel it, like he’s in my head, and everything I could see, and was thinking, he was hearing it. And the energy…” Cian stopped and looked down at his hands, turning them palm up, curling then stretching his fingers before turning them and placing them palm down on the table and pressing them into the surface. “It’s like … running,” he said quietly, eyes traveling from his hands up to Rhiannon’s face. “Like when y’ running, out on the top of a ridge, y’ can see all around, and the air’s clean and crisp and seems t’ part ways for y’ and it’s effortless, and y’ feel like you could just run forever.”
She mulled that over, one hand on her drink, a ring glinting under the overhead lamp. “I think I get the communication part.” She took a breath. “I guess I thought when you said that Gabe took energy from animals to do his magic, it would feel… like you were losing that energy, because he was taking it and repurposing it.” Rhiannon struggled to find the words. Magic was an area she was familiar with, but not nearly as much as the kinds of things that existed primarily in the physical world: hunters, weres, vampires, hybrids, fists, teeth, claws, weapons. “Like a transfer?” she asked. “Sean, my uncle... he said there was a consequence to magic, like if a hunter runs too long, or fights too much, we get exhausted, but with magic it was on a different level. But I never knew if he meant spiritual or if it had to do with the body.”
Cian’s brow furrowed as he tried to remember times from the past, able to recall some fragments, slivers of scenes he knew he’d been involved in, but seeing it through Siofra’s eyes. “I don’t know the mechanics of it, but it was always Gabe who was tired after, and more ‘n once I had to carry him,” Cian told her, shaking his head. “I always felt good, and t’ be honest shifting was always smoother, almost like an oil had been mixed in with whatever it is that happens to me.” He looked at his beer then back up. “It always reminded me of the saying m’ gran used, ‘give and y’ll be given threefold’, and he never had any trouble connecting with any creature, or at least any living creature, so I figure it’s kinda like that, we give him, help him channel energy, and he focuses it for whatever it is he’s doing.” This was the first time Cian had experienced it fully, all the other times only knowing the aftermath, and what Gabe had told him had happened after Cian had shifted. “I don’t know how else to explain it,” he finished, shaking his head.
Rhiannon turned her glass in its ring of cool condensation. A pair of dark-lined eyes flitted between the beer and Cian as he described the experience he shared with his friend. She noted how he exuded a sort of awe for what he remembered and the way he felt after it. It was a serious bond to share with a person and it had to have taken a lot of trust, especially in the beginning. “I don’t know if I could do that.” She cleared her throat. “Let somebody into that part of me. The hunter part. Even when I was around other hunters, it always felt like… my secret thing. Anyway, it’s interesting,” she said, “How his magic works with weres, just as well as ordinary animals. Like you’re one and the same.” She brought her beer to her mouth and took a few sips.
The moment was briefly interrupted by a member of the waitstaff arriving with a notepad. “Are we ready to order?” he asked, looking between Rhiannon and Cian.
The brunette smiled at Cian. “How many meats can you fit on one pizza?”
Cian looked at Rhiannon and grinned. He looked up at the server and told him, “whatever it is, double it.” He laughed and shook his head. “Or maybe a couple of calzones with that instead?” he suggested.
The hunter nodded, finalizing the order and returning her attention to their conversation as the server left to place it with the kitchen. She settled against the side of the booth that had the window onto the busy street, fingers working idly in her damp so that it didn’t fall into her face. “You know, that’s the first time I’ve been around Mikey or Abby,” she said. “I get the feeling they’re night and day from each other.”
Cian relaxed back into the seat, refilled beer in his hand, and nodded. "You've noticed that too," he agreed. "I don't know Abby that well, she was away in California when I was here last time, doing her yoga studies I think it was." He recalled a conversation with Abby just after he first returned and gave a small lop-sided smile. "She's very closed, not the easiest to get to know, whereas Mikey? He's a bit of an open book! Got the whole heart on the sleeve jib going on." He shook his head, again with a half smile.
"Not easy growing up without y' parents, especially y' ma, like you know, but having her around and not even giving so much as a damn about 'em…" He was now frowning and shook his head before taking a long pull from his glass. "It's just not right."
“Some people aren’t designed to parent,” Rhiannon said. “When I think about my mom, my memories are blurry but she loved me. That I know. Occasionally I wonder how I’d be?” A shoulder lifted in shrug. “If she’d gone to a hospital or, better yet, ducked.” Rhiannon looked beyond Cian’s side of the booth at the seemingly ordinary families sharing meals at the checkered tablecloths, taking bites of melted pizza, passing shakers of pepper and garlic. “Who knows. Maybe this is how it’s supposed to be, and what seems like it would be better would’ve actually ended up worse somehow. It looks like they’re in a good place, just from the outside.”
She smiled as she brought herself back to center. “Mikey’s got guts.”
“That he has!” Cian laughed, shaking his head with amusement at the picture of the young man with the fire axe. “Old man Sean didn’t know whether to cuff him upside the head or slap him on the back when he heard what happened. Had to tell him what happened, explain why there were three burnt out cars in the car park, and not many gas tanks left for the boats. Lucky there was a new delivery before the weekend. The missing ones’ll be covered by insurance.” He leaned forward, his face getting a little more serious.
“I heard there was someone killed, up in town, a woman out jogging. D’ we know where these things came from? We know what happened last time, in the bar, after the smashed skull, but have y’ heard anything about what caused this?”
“Yep.” Rhiannon went into her bag again, this time to root through its contents of notebook, paperback novel, ink pens, lipstick, and such until she found her cell phone. She wiped a smudge off the screen and pulled up a recent article from a local newspaper, one that was based in Las Vegas but served the Clark County region. It was placed on the table and rotated for Cian’s perusal. “Look at this article. It says the pet cemetery in El Dorado canyon was vandalized the same weekend. There’s not much detail, but this one guy mentions the ground’s torn up out there.”
Rhiannon slipped it towards him. She ate a garlic knot while she waited and wiped her fingers on a paper napkin.
Cian’s frown deepened as he read the screen, carefully scrolling it to read the full story. “He got drone footage,” he commented, glancing up at her. “I know this place, up near Nelson. Don’t usually go that way, but may be worth a visit?” he suggested.
“Maybe,” she agreed. If it was being monitored, as the article implied, it would be easier for Cian to slip into the area in his animal form. Then again, she doubted Clark County was springing for twenty-four hour coverage of a square of dirt in the middle of nowhere. “We could look. I wonder how much evidence would be left, especially if the police are trying to throw people off the scent. That night, when we went back to town? The military was already looking around.” Rhiannon touched two fingers to her forehead. “God, I wish that guy hadn’t mentioned the drone flyover in the paper.”
“Oh? Why’s that?” Cian asked, pushing her phone back across to her and collecting one of the garlic twists on his return.
“It’s the kind of thing people might want to take off his hands,” Rhiannon said. “Willingly or otherwise.” The phone made its way onto the fabric of her bag and rested atop it. She pressed her lips together and contemplated the sidewalk beyond the window. “For every hundred deniers out there, there’s got to be one believer. As much as it kills me to think of somebody blowing the lid off the supernatural to the global population, I equally hate the idea of somebody getting there first and hiding it from us.”
Cian nodded. It had been different back home where they were raised with the stories of the Aos Si, and other fae-folk. The idea of the supernatural world was a little more ‘mainstream’. It didn’t make it ‘everyday’, but it was different from what he’d experienced when he’d first arrived in Chicago.
“I guess we need to figure out what to do with whatever we find,” he suggested, adding, “If we find anything.” He paused for a moment, lowering his voice before continuing. “Gabe said he had the impression there was black magic involved.”
Rhiannon finished her beer, swallowing the last drops before saying, “I mean, it makes sense.” She placed her pint glass aside. “They had to be reanimated, if they came from the ground. They definitely smelled dead. The only other thing I can think of is maybe a necromancer or something demonic, but I don’t know how that would work. To me it wasn’t that weird that they were dead, it was weird that they were mixed up together.”
Settling back against the cushions of her seat, she fiddled with the loose neckline of her tee. “Maybe we’re looking for Dr. Frankenstein.”
Cian’s eyes followed the movement of her fingers as she spoke, having been nodding in agreement. A smile widened on his face at her suggestion. “Pretty sure this lot would have made him proud,” he grinned, shaking his head as he remembered some of what he’d seen.
“Whatever it was, it wasn’t just that they were dead, and reanimated. They looked like they… kept going, even when parts were hacked off, or separated. And when they did finally stop, it was like they dissolved, or turned to slime.” He shook his head again. “Even when you’d been able t’ see bones, they were gone after, nothing left. And not like they’d been incinerated, like… they’d just liquified.”
“Mm.” Rhiannon stared at the basket of garlic knots soaking in warm, melted butter. Her brow arched. “I don’t know about you, but I’m excited about eating.” Making a face at the mental image of a pepperoni stretching in cheese, she tried hard not to connect the dots to animal parts dangling off tendons. A deep breath was attempted. “Back when I lived in Chicago, I went off meat for a year once.”
Cian realised what she was saying and huffed an apologetic laugh, sitting back with another of the garlic knots in his fingers. “Sorry, yeah, probably not the detail we need to discuss right now,” he replied, shaking his head before taking a bite of the garlic-laden knot and swallowing. “How was work today?” he asked, shifting the conversation to a completely different topic.
Rhiannon laughed. “There’s a loaded subject.” She put up her hands and leaned forward into the circle of light, ready to launch into a story from the afternoon’s string of coaching sessions at the gym. “Okay. Let me tell you about this kid I’m working with…”