riley pollard (aknightcomplex) wrote in the_dome, @ 2013-09-26 13:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | 04-11-2017, ember, ember and riley, riley |
No Guarantees
Who: Ember and Riley
When: Morning
Where: Riley's house
Riley had just come in from a ride along the fences. He wanted to be sure that all his livestock were safe and secure before the full moon later on. Not that he could have done much to protect the animals if a wolf did manage to attack. But he had to do something rather than sit around worrying about Lia. He'd planned some great things with his boarders. Fun and games for Sophia, maybe a video one of them had scrounged up at the market in a junk shop. It was all already taken care of so he was at a loss as to what to do with himself until he began his responsibility.
He came in through the side kitchen door from the barn after cooling down, watering, and feeding his horse. Tossed his hat on the hook beside the door and headed for the breadbox on the kitchen counter where Mrs. Haggerty always kept cookies. Sticking one in between his teeth, he opened the cupboard, got a glass, and had his hand on the handle of the fridge when he felt as though he'd missed something about the room when he'd first walked in.
Turning, he looked around the room for what it was but he saw nothing. So he shrugged and got out the milk. He poured himself a glass, took another cookie from the breadbox, and turned back to the rest of the open floor plan that included a living room to the left behind which was a hallway leading off to the boarders' side of the house and their rooms. And a sitting room to the right behind which were stairs leading into his bedroom. He decided on settling at the kitchen counter on one of the bar stools when the hairs on his arms stood on end the same way they'd always done when he was being watched. Usually it had been enemy forces but he didn't figure that to be the case just now.
"Mrs. Haggerty?" he called, glancing straight down the room to the front hallway and the front door. There was someone there but it definitely wasn't his housekeeper.
Ember had somehow wandered up to the ranch today, leaning lazily against the fence as she watched the animals be tended to. The smell was a little off putting, but she could see the enjoyment one could have working with animals. Sometimes animals were better than people. She had taken a small interest in the one seeing to them, following him around and not stopping as he went into what she assumed to be his house. She wrapped a strand of the red waves that cascaded past her shoulders today around her finger, peeking curiously into the kitchen from where she was standing. She didn't think much of his looking around until he seemed to look straight at her.
She froze where she was, watching the man with the cookies stare at her. Only she didn't think he knew he was staring at her. A brief moment of doubt struck her as she questioned if she was visible; she was almost certain she had done her usual deal to ensure invisibility because people typically frowned upon strangers entering their home. Go figure. His lack of asking what she was doing in here confirmed for her that he indeed couldn't see her, though. She could have easily turned and left without him being any the wiser, but she was curious as to what he would do if he discovered an innocent enough looking girl was wandering about his home. She moved through the walls with ease to reach the hall that seemed to section off into separate living quarters, emerging from the same hall with a smile, this time very much visible in her white v neck and red skirt, jewelry dangling about She lifted a hand and waved,. "Hey sir. I'm helping Mrs. Haggerty today."
Well, he'd thought there was someone in the front hall, but he'd thought that a number of times before remembering that about this time of day, the light from the glass pane beside the door cast in shadow the massive, ugly ficus that Mrs. Haggerty loved because she'd carried it as a seedling through the zombie war. It looked like a man standing in the shadows but there was no one there and he laughed at himself. He'd asked her to move it to her quarters before but she insisted it needed the light in the front hall.
Still the sensation of being watched was so strong that he wanted to look around again but he didn't. He was letting the whole full moon thing get to him. And it wouldn't have if he hadn't been worrying about Lia. If she hadn't been involved, Riley would simply have been concerned Sophia and his wife stay indoors and concerned for his animals but not agitated like this.
The milk had the desired calming effect, as did the sugar in the cookies he ate. He was finishing the first one when a red-haired girl made her way out of the boarders' hallway. He brushed the crumbs from his mouth and smiled at her. "Don't tell me she has you doing chamber maid duties?" he asked and thought perhaps that explained the strange feeling he'd had. He must've heard her moving around in one of the rooms or something but not fully registered it. It wasn't strange to him that Mrs. Haggerty would get in some help. Town Hall was always sending him young temp workers for this and that but he usually was aware they were coming. He must've blanked on it thanks to all he had on his mind. "I'm Riley Pollard. I own this ranch."
Ember smiled more, though it was less out of friendly recognition and more out of smug appreciation for how smoothly she had just pulled that off. "She's a slave driver." She imitated cracking a whip, slowly moving further into the house towards Riley. Her eyes surveyed everything out of sheer curiosity, ignoring the fact it probably came off odd. "I'm Ember." Once she had reached him where he was seated, she purposefully leaned right against the counter to avoid giving him the opportunity to offer a handshake. "Her cookies are to die for though, huh?"
Riley chuckled and nodded. "True enough, mate," he intoned with his quiet Aussie accent. "But you keep your neck in and don't make too many mistakes and she's alright." He had watched others look around his place that way. Mostly because it was a fairly large house and some of the longer-term boarders had all chipping in to decorate the common rooms. He hoped she wasn't a kleptomaniac, looking for things she could pilfer. That'd happened once and he hadn't particularly liked having to play the bad guy there. "Her cookies are okay. She packs 'em full of fruit and veg to make 'em healthy. You're welcome to one if you like." He made ready to stand if she took him up on his offer.
Damn, she didn't realize just how good she was at this. She decided right then and there that she should do this more often, it was a new kind of challenge. Ember hadn't listened to him enough to pick up on his accent until he really started speaking, leaning forward further as it intrigued her. She shook her head when he offered her a cookie, lying without batting a lash. "Oh, no thanks. If I eat one, I'll eat them all. I have a girlish figure to keep." Really, she looked like she needed a cookie or two.. but she thought that excuse made the most sense. "So where are you from, Mr Pollard?"
Riley smiled at her explanation for refusing a cookie. He'd heard that before but not lately. Of course, he'd been surrounded mostly by men and little Sophia never said no to something sweet. "Suit yourself," he said lightly and bit into the second cookie, relaxing in his seat. "Are you a live-in? I hope Mrs. H didn't ask you to make up your own room." He eyed her a bit more carefully and thought that she might look a bit more attractive if she had a pound or two more on her bones but he knew girls didn't think so. Especially ones that slender and still watching calories. "I'm from a hundred kilos outside Adelaide. That's in South Australia. Where are you from?" he asked, politely making small talk as he would with any of the farm helpers.
Ember shook her head slowly. From the way he phrased the question, it read like she could answer either way and it wouldn't be out of the ordinary. "...just here for today." She kept her answer short as elaborating on it could land her in a difficult to explain situation. She kept herself busy instead with continuing to gaze around, looking back to him when he stated where he was from. "Australia? No wonder you sound so cute!" She refrained from saying anything about kangaroos, he probably heard things like that all the time from people and she was sure it got annoying. "I'm from New York. Best city on earth."
He nodded to her answer and smiled again. "Well, I hope you enjoy it here at least for today. If they send you on rotation here again, I hope to see you though I'm usually out in the fields or the barn most of the day. Happy fluke to have met you today, Ember." He laughed pleasantly at her comment which could either have been positive or belittling. "Not sure how to take that, but thanks?" His eyes lit up a bit when she mentioned New York. "That was the first city I went to when I came 'cross the pond. Times Square, now there's a sight! We had nothing like it back home. I was the worst, most obvious tourist. But you're from there, yeah? What's it like to not be a tourist?"
Ember contemplated coming around more. The house was actually one of the nicer she'd seen in Delphi, if not just because it was bigger, and the ranch was actually a kind of nice change of pace from the usual. The only problem she could see springing up would be that whole Mrs. Haggerty deal.. it wasn't like she could actually start working here. "Maybe I'll see you in the field or the barns, then." She grinned, pushing herself off the counter and crossing her arms. She rocked from heel to toe, leaving him to decipher her compliment as he would. She didn't dish out pleasantries regularly, so she wasn't trying to extend on it. She did appreciate his excitement over her city, though. "It's pretty great." A more genuine smile crept onto her lips. "There's a sense of intense pride you get being raised in such a strong place. I miss everything about it." She tilted her head curiously, "do you ever get homesick?"
Riley shook his head, thinking of safety first. "If I do see you while I'm in the fields, it should be on the outside of my fences, okay? The livestock get spooked and stampede sometimes. Could be dangerous. But if you want to check out the barn, I can show you around sometime. Or Tom - though that lazy bastard isn't always around where he should be." He made a face at that, displeased with Tom but knowing there were slim picking for hard workers. He watched her face change at his response to New York and smiled along with her. "Yeah, I hear that. I feel the same about my family's ranch back in South Australia. Though it's not nearly as glamorous as New York. I do, I miss it all the time, yeah. But living and working on this ranch is similar enough that sometimes I can forget. It's smaller but I'm still on the land so it works out." He had been eating and looking down or away a bit off and on, not looking directly at her for any length of time but now that he had he was noticing her hair. Was there a window open somewhere? He hoped she wasn't cold. He'd have to go looking for it when they were finished talking.
Safety wasn't a concern for Ember anymore, but she knew that obviously wasn't a fact Riley was aware of. Not at this point. "So I could be smooshed by a stampede of animals? That would be tragic." Her voice lacked any real emotion as she made the statement, uncrossing her arms. She was just a little bit jealous that he had something similar here to what he had at home; all she had was the ring that was taken from her, and she wasn't even exactly sure where that was.She simply nodded along to his words, taking the liberty of moving around the kitchen to observe the different items within it. She kept her hands at her sides, peeking in and over and under just about everything. "You have a very nice house." She lifted her arms for a stretch, spinning to look back at Riley again.
"Right," he said and raised his brows as he used the word he would never have otherwise said, "Smooshed. And it would be very bad." He'd had a careless worker killed already in the fields and it had been unbelievably rough for everyone on the ranch. The town officials had given him quite a hassle too, inquiring into his safety precautions. He watched her move around, still looking about her. He wondered where she lived and if its furnishings were spartan and that was why she was so fascinated with his. "Thanks. And it's good to have it full of people. We're going to have a bit of a party tonight. You're most welcome to stay if you like. It'll be very PG, my daughter will be here but we'll have fun just the same."
Ember raised her brows at the word party, but they fell fairly quickly at the mention of a child. It wouldn't be the kind of party she was interested in, then.. and even if it was, she had learned the hard way that ghosts and big get togethers don't mix well. It could be a real bummer, sometimes. "You don't look like a dad." She looked him over from where she stood, shaking her head. "Dads wear dad jeans and act.. like dads." She moved closer to where he was seating again, done inspecting his kitchen.
Riley laughed and looked down at himself, unsure what dad jeans looked like compared to his dusty work jeans. He knew he was pretty young to have a kid too, but he and Lia had gotten married so young. "Married my wife just out of high school. Then I went off to war so I haven't gotten the chance until fairly recently to actually be a dad, I guess." He eyed her again, especially her outfit and jewelry. "You don't much look like a housekeeper's assistant," he countered but his expression was pleasant. "You look like you belong doing something a lot more fun. What would you rather be doing?" he asked, knowing that here in Delphi, what one wanted to do and what one had to do weren't always the same thing.
Ember brought a hand to her face, running a finger along her chin as she thought back to her own engagement out of school. It dug a knife into her heart to remember such memories, so she tried to think about it as little as possible. She couldn't help but wonder then if she would have been a mother by now if the zombies hadn't decided to overtake civilization. She was pulled from her own thoughts, and probably for the better, when Riley commented on what she was wearing. She looked down to her outfit, mentally agreeing that she didn't at all look like the assistant to a housekeeper. Touche, Australian. Touche. "What would I rather be doing?" She repeated his question, finding it to be a very good one. "I'd like to be designing clothes." It was an honest answer, but something she really couldn't do anymore. Expending enough energy on her own to sketch out an idea and bring it to existence with thread and material was near impossible for her, at least at this time. "What were you doing with your animals outside?" She bit her tongue after she spoke, not able to recall if they had established that he had been out with them earlier.
Riley finished off his milk, noticing her hair again over the top of the cup. His brows furrowed because it didn't seem right for some reason. There was something a bit off about Ember besides that but he didn't feel threatened by her. Even if she had just wandered in to case his house, he could handle it. He'd like it if she was exactly what she said she was though. He continued to give her the benefit of the doubt. He didn't need to feel suspicious of everyone's motives. "Well, with the dome closed down, I'm sure we're going to need that sort of thing pretty soon. You should go to Town Hall and see if they'd give you a grant to get started."
He knew nothing about fashion but he figured that if she dressed the way she was dressed to do housekeeping and she was from NYC, she probably had her ducks in a row where fashion was concerned. They hadn't talked about him being outside but if she'd been just down the hall, chances were she'd known this room had been empty for a bit. "Ah, I was dagging sheep. Er," he paused because he'd been asked by Americans to explain that term before. "Clipping the hair on their tails to keep them from getting infections. Definitely not glamorous." Whatever she was, Ember was an interesting conversationalist. They'd talked about quite a bit in a short amount of time.
"If only it were that easy." There was a hint of sadness in Embers' voice, but she did her best to push it aside. She would have plenty of time to stew over her woes and feel sorry for herself later. It did make her start to wonder, though. What if she could figure out a way to gain enough energy to design again? Or, at least figure out a way to get her designs out there and have them be put together for her. It's not like she'd be assembling her inspirations herself if she had had a chance to be successful in the field.
She had learned quickly how to keep people talking. If they stopped to really pay attention to her or ask a lot of questions about her, they typically began to figure out something wasn't right about her. Having simple conversation like this made her feel like she was one of the living again, so she tried to soak it up while she could. "Thanks for the clarification. I would've walked away thinking you were into some weird things." Her expression remained rather serious, hard to read whether she was serious or not.
Riley looked at Ember curiously. Why wouldn't it be as easy as going to Town Hall and requesting a grant or some sort of assistance? Was she relegated to farm rotation or menial labor because she was some kind of criminal? If that was the case, he regretted inviting her to take part in his mini-party for Sophia. He'd simply trusted that officials wouldn't send him someone he couldn't trust in his own house. "Why wouldn't it be that easy?" he asked, because suddenly it was important he know whether or not he'd been assigned a reprobate.
He was further set on his guard by her response to what he'd been doing with the sheep. Even if "dagging" was a foreign concept, he'd never been supposed to be into weird things for anything he did on the ranch. Not that Riley was to the point he was suspecting everything and anything she said or did. But he was watching her more closely now. Things didn't fit but that didn't always mean something was wrong. A lot of things didn't fit since he'd been assigned to this dome. People were who they were but they were also required to do things to earn their keep that maybe they wouldn't necessarily have chosen.
"Your hair," he said, the thought bursting forth almost unbidden.
Ember paused. "I just can't do things like I used to." She fidgeted slightly at the statement, not appreciating having to admit that. Sure, she knew there were new challenges in many things she used to be able to do with ease, including changing into a new outfit. Still, having to speak of it proved to be quite undesirable.
She frowned when he pointed out her hair. "What about it?" She chose to play the dumb card, noting that despite all her questions, he was still quite perceptive. She wasn't sure why it moved in the way it did, just that she really had no control over it. Maybe it was nature's way of providing a warning to beware, or at least be cautious, around those like her. She continued without hesitation, "Have a thing for redheads?"
Riley appraised her critically now, one brow raised questioningly though he wasn't going to pry. What she said had sounded like something an elderly woman might have said. Yet she was definitely young and able bodied enough to be assigned to housekeeping duties here on the ranch. If she could do that, why wouldn't she be able to do something even less physically taxing like design fashion? Given her age though it was entirely possible she was just lazy and had an excuse for not doing anything. Which would explain why she'd been so long talking to him and not working though he hadn't exactly cracked the whip at her because he was enjoying talking with someone about something that had nothing to do with either work or werewolves.
He canted his head to the side and almost laughed, his mouth becoming a wide smile in spite of his wonder. "Sure, who doesn't have a thing for redheads? But you're either standing in a draft that I can't feel or you've got something crawling around in your hair. I'm hoping it's the former." In Australia, massive spiders called Huntsman spiders were as large as a man's hand, harmless, but they found their way into every nook and cranny including cars and beds. If she had one of those crawling on her and didn't feel it...
"Are you flirting with me, Mr. Pollard?" Ember looked around at the surrounding windows, bringing a finger to her lips to tap thoughtfully. "Do you see anything in my hair?" She faked panic, surprising herself with how authentic it sounded. "Check! Check!" She leaned forward as she flipped her hair forward, frantically moving her fingers through her the red waves. She out her hand up before he would be able to make contact with her, flipping her hair back and standing up straight again. "I didn't feel anything.. maybe you should get your roof checked or something."
Riley gave her a look. His tone had been too offhanded to have come across as flirtation because the meat of his point had been that her hair seemed to move on its own. Then she was flipping her hair around, seemingly freaking out and he stood up immediately, stepping back rather than forward when she demanded he check her hair. He wasn't about to touch a female employee who had just accused him of flirting with her. He knew a recipe for disaster when he saw one. He had, a moment ago, decided he didn't need to be suspicious of everyone and maybe that was true, but with Ember? He felt the need to be on his guard at this point. "Glad to see it wasn't a very large spider," he deadpanned. "I'll be sure to check the windows." He came around the counter toward her. "Let me walk you out. I'm sure you're finished for the day. Yeah?"
Ember shrugged her shoulders lightly. "You'll tell Mrs. Haggerty I left, then?" She could just imagine the confusion this would cause them and she found the idea incredibly amusing. "You don't have to walk me out, I know my way." She took off towards where she originally emerged from the hall, knowing very well it wasn't the front door. She made a point of walking through the counter on the way, glancing back to Riley with a devilish smirk as she waved and focused on fading to invisibility. She waited there, however, curious as to what his reaction would be to it.
"Right, yeah. I'll let her know." Riley watched Ember begin in the wrong direction and he was about to point out that he would prefer to walk her out because he had no idea what she wanted down the hall, when she walked through the counter. And disappeared. Dumbfounded, he rubbed his eyes and actually turned in a full circle as though she may have been somewhere else and he'd simply blanked the past few seconds out of his memory. "What the ever living fuck -- Ember?" He walked in the direction she'd been, passing right by her as she remained unseen, the hairs on his arms standing up again. He ignored it and looked down the hall. "Ember?"
Ember had to make an extreme effort to hold in her laughter. She took a few steps back so she would be out of the counter, allowing herself to become visible again as she leaned casually against it now. "Are you okay, Mr. Pollard?" She placed her best concerned expression on, standing back up straight. "You look like you've seen a ghost." She was struggling at this point, but she managed to keep the laughter bottled up inside.
Riley whipped around at the sound of her voice, feeling a very cold chill run through him, his skin covering in goosebumps upon the sight of her. He had been scared before in his life but usually it had been in the face of large men with even larger weapons. Never at the sight of a tiny girl. But she was unnatural and if she was in his house and she could disappear... "Why are you here?" he asked, his voice steady as he composed himself.
Ember quirked a brow. It always intrigued her how people reacted to sightings of the ghostly. Some were scared, some were excited, some laughed, some cried. Sometimes it was a mixture of all of the above. She had never particularly paid much mind to the Supernatural prior to being a member of the spooky community, so she always wondered how she would react if the situation was reversed. But, it wasn't... so she decided she might as well have some more fun with it. "What do you think I'm here for?" His answer could be interesting. She moved around the counter, taking a few steps toward Riley.
Riley had no real answer for why a ghost would be in his house pretending to be an alive assistant to his housekeeper. Unless it was for the pure fun of the reaction she got by scaring people. He supposed that was as good a reason as any when you weren't alive. But he couldn't have her here scaring Sophia. "I think you're here out of some misguided notion that it's funny to freak people out." He slowly folded his arms across his chest, standing his ground as she approached. He could feel himself relaxing some more as his brain began to work again.
Ember rolled her eyes. While he was right to a point, that at least wasn't her original intention when coming here. "That's awfully judgemental. What if I'm here because some terrible accident happened to me here? I could have been smooshed by cattle." She crossed her arms, a rather cold expression overtaking her face. "Or, what if I'm here on some type of official business. For all you know, I could be a harbinger of death." She wasn't sure why his stating a partial truth aggravated her so much, but it did.
Riley looked at her, not buying it. "You wouldn't be looking around the place as though you'd never seen it before if you were here for either reason. Harbingers of death I would imagine would get to the point." But what if she was something of a grim reaper. It wouldn't be illogical to assume there could be things like that what with all the werewolf nonsense and the ghosts that had been seen around the dome before the doors shut. "Or maybe you had nothing better to do than start up a conversation full of lies and then disappear for effect?"
"Well aren't you brilliant." Ember said with an irritable sigh. "I wouldn't have disappeared on you if you didn't get all in a huff earlier and try to kick me out, though. You need to loosen up a little bit. Have some fun." She ran a hand through her crimson locks, hanging onto the end as if it were a handle. "How funny would it have been if you actually tried to help me with that spider, like a gentleman.." She gave him a frown before continuing. "And your hand went straight through me?"
His look descended to further levels of anti-bullshit. "When an employee looks like they're casing the joint, accuses me of flirting, then attempts to get me to touch them, I tend to be very interested in having them somewhere much farther away. That you find any of this funny just proves my point. You're here for the shits and giggles of frightening people. Well, I have a six year old and I can't have you terrifying her. What will it take to get you out of my house?"
Ember hadn't been expecting Riley to offer her something to leave. It was kind of sad, actually. First, because he had automatically defaulted her to being some kind of monster. Not to say she wouldn't spook a child, but she never did it maliciously; it was always a "want to see a trick?" sort of deal, if she would reveal herself to kids at all. The majority of her sadness, however, stemmed from her lack of really having anything to bargain for. What could she ask for? She didn't really need money, couldn't change outfits that she knew of, and it was incredibly doubtful she would have the energy to muster up to haul anything out of here. He couldn't give her what she really wanted; her life back, her fiance, and the future that was stolen from her. She let go of her hair and lifted her hands, scowling at him. "Don't worry about it." She moved for the front door, not giving him a second glance.
Riley was not up for games right now. His wife was possibly a werewolf and he had to sit at home and take care of their daughter rather than be there with her. Not that he begrudged taking care of Sophia but he needed to be doing something active, productive right now. It was making him grumpy and his tolerance for BS was very low. If Ember had told him anything about herself that hadn't been a lie, hadn't seemingly been amused by scaring him, he might've had a lot of compassion for her. As it stood, she hadn't bothered to defend herself much. He didn't see a monster but he did see a sly spirit who could potentially really frighten his daughter. "What guarantee do I have you're not lurking around somewhere invisible?" He'd offered her something to leave for a reason. He didn't trust her at all.
Ember didn't stop walking towards the door, though she slowed her pace. "No guarantee." She said over her shoulder. Only she could manage to be insulted that someone whose house she essentially trespassed through wouldn't want her around, and wouldn't trust her. At this point, she didn't care to explain herself or her actions; she had had her fun, and that's the only reason she had decided to stick around. She wasn't the kind to look for or expect sympathy, just like she wasn't one to give it. She knew she probably wouldn't be back, but he didn't need to know that.
There was obviously no point in arguing with her. He couldn't compel her to do or not do anything. What force could he wield against someone who had no physical properties? He watched her go then took out his phone and began dialing. Tonight's party for Sophia was definitely changing venues.