ᴡᴇ ᴘɪʟʟᴀɢᴇ, ᴡᴇ (plunder) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-08-21 09:45:00 |
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This was a conversation that could have happened a couple months earlier if other things hadn’t gotten in the way. Bo had also waffled a bit on wanting to find her biological mother here, wondering if she’d have the same mental state as her mother in her dreams did. But she’d finally decided that she wanted to know instead of spending the rest of her very long life wondering. So she’d finally asked Killian about it. After gathering what little information she had about her origins, she headed off to meet Killian. Bo was a little early, and grabbed a table. Given the parallels between things in this world and the dreams, Bo could at least give a direction that Killian could start in and see if it led anywhere. It was kind of a shot in the dark, but she was willing to bet that her biological mother’s name here was the same as in the dreams. That might make the search for the needle in the haystack a bit easier. As she waited, she fiddled a bit with a new, and very expensive engagement ring. She couldn’t help but smile as she looked at it. Lara definitely had excellent taste. Perhaps Killian had a lot on his plate in terms of work (and don’t get him wrong, he liked it that way) but he could always make time for favours here and there - favours that he owed. He’d promised Bo awhile ago that he’d help her find her birth mum if she wanted to have him search, and he’d also assured her that he never failed. Needle in a haystack or no, the pirate was exceptionally skilled at hunting down what he was after. And he never gave up either - just ask his dream self, the Captain of the Jolly Roger who hunted and tracked himself a Crocodile for a couple hundred years. To the bar he went, and he’d been here before. He’d been to all the bars in the county, felt like, and he fit right in with the rough-and-tumble, leather jacket-wearing crowd considering he was both; it helped. And alright, he wasn’t sure he’d be staring dreamily at a rock that looked to be worth more than that Titanic blue diamond in a place like this. Yet something told him Bo wouldn’t take kindly to anyone who got the wrong idea about pilfering her goods anyway. “Hate to interrupt, darling,” he smirked as he settled in a chair across from her. Keen cobalt eyes noted that dopey smile the girl had on her face. “You look like you’ve been shot by a whole slew of Cupid’s arrows.” To be honest, Bo didn’t really expect much to come of this. Considering her rather undocumented birth, it would be difficult. But Killian was willing, so who knew what would come of this. Even if Bo didn’t like the answers she got, it would still be more than she had currently. Filling in the blanks was something she wanted to do. It would make her feel less lost. While she’d stopped running, in the physical sense, and had new family here, she still wanted to know where she came from. So she hoped answers would come, even if she felt it would be a nearly impossible task to achieve. Despite her beauty, Bo could finish off a bar fight rather handily if needed. She was dressed all in black as it was. Her own leather jacket was left at home, but she wore a black tank top and her signature leather pants with high heeled boots. But the dopey smile on her face didn’t lend any credence to her being a good fighter. It just made her look a bit lovey dovey. Something that Killian clearly picked up on as she looked up at him. “Oh, yeah, I guess I have been. Kinda hard not to after getting proposed to by the woman I love.” Lara had been the biggest dork when she’d proposed, but Bo loved that about her. “I’ll try not to be too insufferably cheerful,” she teased. “Don’t hold back on my account,” Killian waved that off, deciding to give in to the craving for hard liquor when the bar waitress came by - bourbon, that was what he ordered. It was a good after-dinner drink anyway - tasted like toffee, a bit, with some burnt caramel undertones. He was a fan of sipping it slowly, not simply pouring something so beautiful down his gullet. With rum, sometimes it had been like drinking water with the way he relied on it. But luckily, for the sake of his health and for the sake of easing worry of those around him, he was past those days. “Tales of True Love are so very sweet,” the pirate grinned, one of those patented eye-crinkling ones. The drink arrived quickly; he picked it up and tilted it in Bo’s general direction, just the edge of the glass. “Well, go on then, tell me about how it happened. Kenzi mentioned a Maid of Honor thing but not the schmoopy details.” He was somewhat of a romantic deep down, the secret hidden in the marrow of his bones. Bo had waited until Killian arrived to order a drink, so she ordered hers at the same time. For the discussion about her birth mother, she went with a pint of a German lager they had on tap. It would be something she could sip, but also potentially guzzle if she felt the need to. When she got her drink, she sipped it, then she grinned, sitting back in her seat a bit. “Lara reacts poorly to loud noises like fireworks, so we went out of town over the fourth of July. We went camping in the middle of the woods, and one evening we hiked to a place where we could stargaze without trees obstructing our view. Once the sun set and the sky was dark, she set up a telescope and aimed it at Jupiter, then as I looked she told me that Jupiter has rings, although they were faint. She then used the rings as a segway into proposing because when I looked back at her, she went down on one knee. It was really romantic, being out there under a sea of stars.” It still gave her butterflies in her stomach to recall that. Reacting poorly to fireworks, Killian could understand - he didn’t really see the need for such patriotic fervor around the 4th of July, but that could just be chalked up to how he was technically British. And Irish - definitely from the Motherland, shall we say. “Aye, I enjoy a bit of the constellations myself. Nothing quite like the stars on a clear night,” he agreed. “The sky is like black velvet, and the stars are like diamonds. A thousand points of light - you feel like you’re at the centre of everything. Though I imagine you felt other things during that circumstance,” he chuckled. It was a sweet story though - good for Miss Bo, for landing herself a complete and utter nerd who would propose by relating the question to Jupiter’s rings and whatnot. “When’s the big day, or have you not selected a date yet?” he asked, sipping on his drink. “It had been several years since I actually stargazed, so it was nice to take that opportunity while we had it.” There weren’t nearly as many stars visible in the city here, nor did the nights get anywhere near as dark as they could when one was in the middle of nowhere with no city lights around to drown out the natural beauty of the universe. “Though you are correct, there were other things I was feeling at that point in time.” Bo had to laugh a bit. Especially considering the first words out of her mouth had been a very eloquent ‘oh boy.’ But she had managed to say yes shortly thereafter once her brain caught up with itself. “We don’t have a date yet. I wanted us to take our time, and not rush through things. After watching my dream self jump head first into things and getting hurt in the end, I want to take the slower approach, do things right.” And she hoped her love life here would actually work out, unlike the one in her dreams. Taking it slow, at their own pace, seemed like a smart idea. Sometimes a dash of an elopement worked for certain couples, and with others they didn’t see the need to rush. Killian was the sort where he couldn’t be rushed into anything, he had to come around on his own pace - were he to ever tie the knot, so to speak, it would likely be a longer engagement as well. “Good, good,” he nodded in understanding. “It’ll be a beautiful wedding, of course. And I’m sure you’ve got womanly Maid of Honor things covered with Kenzi but if I can help or do anything on my end, just let me know. Maybe I’ll get you a bit of Irish lace for good luck.” What he knew about planning a wedding in the States was vague at best - there were professionals who did that sort of thing for a living - but he was familiar with traditions and superstitions from Ireland that kind of made their way across the pond. Glass set down, he reached into his jacket pocket for the pad he took notes on, and a pen. He and Kenzi were working on making everything about the PI business digital, and secure, but he wasn’t about to bring his laptop to a place like this to take those notes. “Well then, go on and tell me a bit more about your mum, darling?” “Thank you, Killian. I may take you up on that offer.” Once she and Lara got into serious wedding planning, there’d undoubtedly be something Killian could help with. She didn’t know if they were going to hire a wedding planner or just do it themselves. But Bo also had some other questions for Lara, ones she wasn’t really wanting to ask since it touched on the whole Lara claiming her inheritance thing that she knew Lara didn’t like. Then talk turned to the reason for this meeting, one that made Bo’s heart rate pick up a bit. She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and slid it across the table to Killian. “I was left on the step of a church with this piece of paper. It only has the name Ysabeau on it, which is what I am assuming my birth mother named me. That is literally all I know. My adoptive parents didn’t even tell me I was adopted until the huge confrontation and fight that resulted in me running away from home when I was seventeen, so I doubt they know anything more than this.” And Bo was definitely not about to ask them. She was still very angry and hurt by what they had done. “Though considering how life here tends to parallel the dreams, I should tell you what I know of my birth mother from my dreams. Her name is Aife, and she was held prisoner for I don’t even know how long. She was possibly tortured, and driven insane and she became pregnant with me during that experience. I was taken from her after birth and eventually left with a human couple who raised me as their own until my succubus powers manifested.” She took a drink. “In my dreams, Aife isn’t exactly sane. I don’t know how much of it may parallel here, and I don’t have any family names to give you either. Though I doubt that Ysabeau and Aife are overly popular names, so maybe you’ll get lucky.” And hey, it might be up Killian’s alley as Aife was an Irish name. Perhaps that’s where Bo’s roots were, in Ireland. Indeed, Killian had heard of the name - its various spellings and meanings - and he dutifully scribed everything Bo was telling him before taking the paper with her name written on it. “Your mum was named after a warrior princess, a very famous one I might add,” he said. “Perhaps it’s pre-emptive, but welcome to the Irish family,” the Captain winked. “Now we know for sure you’d excel at owning and running a bar.” It was a joke, of course. But still a kernel of truth in it, no? Regardless of how he’d heard of the name though, it still wasn’t very common. So Killian was feeling rather hopeful regarding all of this. “Do you know where the church was located, the one she left you at when you were a wee babe? She may have been affiliated with it, or some place of worship in the area, considering your birth name has got a meaning that is religious as well. But knowing more about her and where her footprints were left will pave way to a better handwriting analysis - it’s how some people steal other identities, so gathering clues with that is possible too.” Luckily he had connections to only the best in forensics - there were the analyses you could do online, cheap ones, and then the graphologists who were well up on their shit. He knew a guy who knew a guy, and so forth - Killian was a PI who was quite linked in, shall we say. You got the best results when you were willing to get dirty in the process. “That would explain her fighting skills in the dreams,” Bo responded, recalling that fight she’d had with her mother. Though she did laugh a bit at the joke. “I do know my liquor, at least, so I have that going for me.” Was she Irish? At this point she wouldn’t be surprised if there was Irish somewhere in her family tree. Though she wasn’t yet pursuing who her father was. She figured once she found her mother, she would find the answer about her father. Potentially. “Yeah, I do.” She then gave him the name of a church in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. “I’m not entirely certain she was from that area, but you have more contacts than I do. I could’ve missed something.” She had looked, but considering she wasn’t a PI and she’d also been running, it wasn’t exactly conducive to her finding anything of note. “I’m not sure if it’ll be the same here or not, but I know in my dreams whenever I tried to ask about my mother or look for her, I was shot down and blocked from doing so. Everyone I met told me to drop it. If you hit those same roadblocks, you’re probably on the right track.” Bo hadn’t given up in her dreams. She’d just broken down every single wall that was in her way. She had a right to know who her mother was, to know why she’d been given to humans to be raised as one of them when she wasn’t one. “Oh, no doubt it’ll be a challenge,” Killian agreed, also writing down the name of the church. “She may be from the area, she may not be - but depending on how old you were when she left you, that says a lot too. If you were a couple of months that gave her time to travel, so it’s a matter of retracing her steps - hopping backward, really. But a woman who just gave birth isn’t going to be doing much traveling so I would presume she left you at a church she knew, when you weren’t very old at all.” Keeping a baby for a couple of months and then giving her up? That wasn’t likely. More time to be attached that way - and a mother who could wait that long before leaving her baby on the doorstep of a church, no, that scenario wasn’t really panning out in Killian’s mind. But he’d have to see. He also doubted that Bo’s father was a star of the community either. The clues were coming together in such a way to suggest she was perhaps a product of rape, or her father was involved in some seedy dealings that her mum didn’t want the child to know about - but that was another bridge to burn later. “The name is a big help, luckily, and dream names do tend to match.” He tapped the end of his pen against the notebook. “My dream father has got the same name, for example. The similarities don’t end there - what was your dream mum like? What did she do for a living, if anything, things like that?” It’d also give him a straw to grasp out, because starting with the similarities was better than starting from scratch. “I...actually don’t know how old I was. That wasn’t exactly a burning question on my mind when I had just been hit with the ‘Hey, guess what? You’re adopted!’ bombshell in the middle of a very bad argument with my adoptive parents.” She took another drink. That part of the conversation was skirting way too close to the nerve that was still raw. But Bo took a moment to keep herself calm. “If you want to ask them about how they adopted me and what exactly they know, by all means. Just...don’t give them any details about where I am or how I’m doing. They don’t deserve to know.” There was perhaps more venom in her voice than she intended, but she was not over what had happened. “Their names are Sam and Mary Dennis.” She gave him their address, as she was assuming they hadn’t moved. It was a rural farming town a couple hours outside of Winnipeg. The thought of her biological mother having kept her for a few months and then giving her up didn’t sit well with her. It hit on an emotional nerve, but it was one she had been relatively prepared for. She knew this process would be emotional, which was part of why it had taken her this long to bring herself to have this conversation. “As for my mom in the dreams, she was...broken, I guess is the best way to put it. She was crazy, most likely a result of the decades she spent being a prisoner. Her emotions could change just as quickly as the wind changes direction. She and I clashed a bit because she wanted to sow chaos among the Fae by killing their leaders, and I didn’t support that. She and I literally fought, swords, spears and powers alike, and she fell from the top of a spiral staircase. I don’t think she’s dead, but she wasn’t in good shape the last time I saw her.” Bo strummed the fingers of one hand against her glass. “As for work, I really don’t know what she actually did. She had something to do with a club in the city I was in, running a date night thing. She’s a succubus, like I am, so I’m certain you can use your imagination there.” Aife was unhinged, that much she was certain of, but Bo knew she was only that way because of what had been done to her. The name and address of Bo’s adoptive parents, that was all scrolled on the notepad too. Killian had quite a bit to work with, actually - because adoption wasn’t simply a matter of a stork dropping a baby off from where it’d been picked up off a church doorstep. Sam and Mary Dennis had to know something about Bo’s origins - a name or two, a location, even a more specific address. And Killian would find out what they were hiding, come hell or high water. “Fair enough, love, I’ll just get the info from them and keep it vague about you,” he agreed, then glanced up from where he’d been writing. The pen was switched out for his drink, which he took a leisurely pull from. “Your dream mum certainly sounds like a piece of work though.” Because a succubus running a date night? A lucrative career choice amongst singles, however, and creative - he’d at least give her that. And at the very least, it was a clever way to drum up a meal if she fed off sexual energy or what have you. “Anything else you can think of to add? I’ve got to admit, I’m looking forward to a trip to Canada. I don’t believe I’ve ever been.” If anyone knew anything about her, Sam and Mary had to. There had to be something in the adoption records and whatever. But even so, that was something she’d let Killian deal with. Bo refused to deal with her adoptive parents, so it was best to let a third party handle the questioning. Besides, Killian would better understand what questions to ask and not get upset in the process of it. “Thank you.” She did appreciate the fact he’d keep it vague. Bo didn’t want them learning anything about her, especially the fact that she had a female fiance, considering her sexuality was one of the many points of intense contention before she’d ran away from home. “Yeah, she is. She has one hell of a vindictive streak. I got my looks from her in the dreams, at any rate. Her hair and eyes were darker than mine by a few shades, so perhaps she has the same appearance here as well.” She said with a shrug. If names and relationships carried over into this life from the dreams, Aife probably looked the same here. Kenzi was the same, after all. Bo thought for a moment. “Oh. Yeah. When you talk to my parents, call me Beth, not Bo. They named me Elizabeth. They wouldn’t know me by the name Bo.” Best to let him know that, otherwise there would be a whole lot of confusion over things that didn’t need to exist. “Beth?” Killian studied her with a squint, trying to picture it. “You don’t look like a Beth, darling. It seems very...demure. But alright, I can handle that. I’ll make good chums with your adoptive parents - they’ll invite me in for tea and tell me everything they know,” he promised. Because this pirate? Could charm the knickers off a nun. He could sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves, even - it was simply part of his nature, the slippery and roguish persona and masks he wore well. Now, as far as timing, this would probably take a little bit of work - travel ate up a good portion of that, but Killian was efficient and not one for wasting money while on the client’s payroll. Since he wasn’t planning to charge Bo anything, this was out of his own pocket. Extra efficiency, mind you. “Give me a few weeks? Three or four, I’d say. I’m finishing up a couple of cases so I should have more time. And I’m going to try to get as much info as I can from your adoptive parents, however, should even more travel be required to chase a lead I’ll let you know. I’ll keep you updated, to ensure you’re getting what you want.” Bo might not even see the need for him to go to Ireland, for example, if it turned out she did have roots there - she may want to go on her own, or perhaps once she knew why she’d been given up for adoption that might be enough. That made Bo smile, the first one she’d smiled since talking about her engagement. “Thanks. I definitely don’t feel like a Beth anymore.” She’d left that name behind with her life on that farm. She wanted nothing to do with anymore if she could help it. Though at least Bo had recognized her adoptive parents undoubtedly had answers that Killian would need. This was another reason why Killian was going to do the searching. Bo didn’t want to go back to Canada at all if she could help it. Though she had a feeling both Kenzi and Lara might drag her there if they thought she needed to go. “Though good on the charming part. They are friendly, though way religious, just as a warning.” It was a warning she gave mostly so Killian had an idea of what to expect when he got there than anything else. It would also probably clue him in as to some of the reason she’d run away in the first place considering she wasn’t exactly religious. “Of course, take your time. It may or may not be tricky to retrace my biological mother’s steps. But thank you for doing this. It’s taken a while to get there, but I want to know where I came from in this world, to know what biological family I may have. Family is important to me, though I’ve put more emphasis on the family I choose to have around me.” Meaning Kenzi and Lara. Most people that she considered friends, she considered family. Killian was in that circle, both because of him being Kenzi’s half-brother and because he was helping her with this. Things changed as one grew up - and, interestingly, there were a lot of orphan-types in Orange County, people searching for a semblance of family. Or people who wanted to know the very thing Bo was looking for herself - where they came from, what that meant. It was important at a certain age, when perhaps during those younger years it might not have been. “Family’s important - and I suppose there is also the point that self-discovery in this shithole known as life means that you ask different questions. Deeper ones,” Killian noted. “And also, realising where you came from is crucial to paving some sort of path for the future. I’ll do the very best I can for you, Miss Bo.” Not Beth. Christ, that was awful - a stifling religious upbringing, church eight days a week? No wonder the girl had taken off. “How about another drink, then? We’ll toast to a successful fact-finding mission.” Before she’d become a succubus, Bo would’ve had liked to know her family for medical reasons. But as she was now largely immortal, the whole medical history thing didn’t really come into play. Thus far in her dreams, Fae didn’t seem to fall ill much, and as a succubus Bo figured she could just cure herself of any ill with chi if it came to that. “Family is definitely important. Sometimes we just need answers, even if we’re afraid to learn them.” She was a little scared of what Killian would discover, especially with the way her dreams had gone in regards to her biological mother, but she was at a point where she wanted to know who her family was. Especially with a future wedding to Lara, it would be nice if some part of her family, biological at this point, would be able to be there. She already knew her adoptive parents, even if they were on speaking terms, would never come. Bo liking women as well as men had been one of the points of contention that had come to a head before she’d run away. “And thank you, I really do appreciate it.” Bo didn’t like the name Beth either. Despite having called herself Bo for the past twelve years, she did still answer to Beth now and then when she heard someone say it. “I think another drink to make a toast would be a great idea.” |