Participants:
| Scene Title | A Right Choice |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | After making Freddy Mercury appear on St. Patrick's Day, Cassandra and Eve have a discussion that leads to a prophecy. |
| Date | March 20, 2018 |
The room is large, a mid sized stage with tattered curtains hanging around it and two spotlights that face it. There were a number of mismatched theatre seats arranged in a half circle facing the stage, a long dark purple rug running through the middle of them. A chandelier that is sometimes on and only lights up halfway hangs in the center of the room. Even when music is not being performed people congregate around the stage, drinking or smoking. A 420 Friendly sign hangs near a mirror hung up behind the bar.
The bar area has a few mismatched chairs and boxes for chairs. A lone armchair is placed near the bar, the owner usually occupies it when she is in. The bar is a bunch of wood and steel welded together and repurposed as a bar, there is a black glass that is fitted around the middle of often smear from people's knees and boot heels. A really old television set with a VHS player sits behind the bar propped up on a stand. The bar is as well stocked as you can get nowadays, there's even an exotic alcohol or two rumored to be under the bar. A modest grill stands in the corner right next to the bar, nothing fancy just greasy food.
In the corner of the room near the stage and its green room door is another door that is usually locked.
There were a few people in the bar of Cat’s Cradle this early evening. Some people just getting done with work. Larry, the guy who drank from open to close was taking his late afternoon nap still, stretched out in some of the theatre seats that Eve had placed here before open.
The sassy bartender cleans a glass as a Stevie Nicks song blares over the speakers.
Spinning with arms wide out and head thrown back, eyes closed and face an expression of ecstasy. “Stop draggin’ my heart aroundddd.” Eve sings as she flails her arms about, dressed in a pale blue dress tonight, barefoot and dancing with no end in sight.
The last time Cassandra was here was St. Patrick’s day, and her meandering around the safe zone before dark led her back to the very pub where Freddy Mercury entertained a bar full of drunken revelers and ended a fight with the power of music. She did manage to slip out after in the confusion and headed home to sleep the sleep of the exhausted and pleased, but she always had it in the back of her head that she should come back and say something.
Pushing open the door and peering inside, Cassandra steps in a few moments later, her bag slung over her shoulder. The whole ‘few people’ thing is something she prefers - the bar full of people was almost too much for her so this? She likes this. Taking a short breath she makes her way to the empty bar and slips into one of the seats, signaling for the bartender to come by whenever they have a chance. And chances are the bartender would remember her - a big tip will do that, as well as the black-stained napkins she had been holding over her eyes that were /not/ makeup stains.
Eve is a whirl of hair and fabric and pale skin, she continues to spin until she can’t anymore and she wobbles around almost tripping over herself.
As the strains of Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty fade away, the audio hissing from the extra volume, Cassandra sits at the bar and glances over her shoulder at the whirling dervish that is Eve. “She really gets into it, doesn’t she?” This is directed at the bartender who grins and, setting the towel aside he was using to polish a glass, puts thumb and forefinger to his mouth and whistles once. LOUD.
“Hey boss! Amber Waves, here, thinks you’re really getting into the song!”
Cassandra just /stares/ at the bartender. “Was that really necessary?”
“In this place, sweetheart? “ He pockets her tip. “It helps.”
“WHO IS THE AMBERED ONE!”
Comes a shout and Eve is suddenly sliding over on the floor. Gliding down to the space that Cassandra occupies. The bartender giving a wink before sliding over to polish glasses. Eve’s dark hair is wild in the wind as she moves through the place.
Parking herself on the barstool the owner of this place raises a finger. “Tequila, tequila.” Is said in a singsong voice and the seer gives a wink to the woman sitting next to her.
Another face in the crowd, she wouldn't remember Cassandra from the party. There were so many people there and the mystery of ‘Who Brought Freddie.’ Is still a mystery. “Well hello there!” Eve says in excitement as the tequila is slid over to Eve. A customary free shot is always slid in front of both women.
“I'm Eve, this my place. Get high, drink. Just don't shoot anyone!” At that is a hoot of laughter.
Cassandra looks to the bartender again, then to Eve, and then just plucks the shot off the bar and does the whole tequila dance. When in Rome, they say. She licks the back of her hand, adds salt, gets a lime and then goes through the motions. Salt, slam, suck, and bang goes the glass on top of the bar as she shudders, blowing out a breath. It doesn’t burn too terribly badly, so it’s not plastic bottle well stuff, but it was still a little pale, so it wasn’t some super aged stuff. Decent tequila. Not what she was expecting at four in the afternoon.
“This is your place?” She looks to the bartender who nods in assent. Yep, this is Eve’s place. The little brunette straightens up just a little. “I just wanted to come and apologize about St. Patrick’s day. I didn’t mean to freak anyone out when…um…Freddy Mercury showed up. I hope I didn’t ruin the evening.”
“You mean to tell me..” Eve scratches her head and then slams her own shot back but she doesn’t bother with the salt and lime. She just wants to feel that nice burn, “You brought Queen back to life!?” The older woman doesn’t look angry she looks delighted. “Why on earth would you apologize my dear girl, DUKE! ANOTHER SHOT FOR THIS SAVIOR! AND A DRINK TOO SHE CAN SIP ON!” Eve yells extremely too loud at Duke who is not even a foot away.
“Got it you loudass.” Eve throws some salt his way, “Don’t you sass me or I’ll tell your mother.” Whether she knows his mother or not is a mystery.
Duke, the sassy bartender sticks true to her name. “Whatever you old kook, you letting me off early tonight? It’s dead.” Eve smacks her hand on the bar and thinks, “Yes but only if you don’t come back tomorrow. Take the day! I have some things to do chicken boo.” Cat’s Cradle being closed at weird, random hours is a thing that’s expected here. Nobody quite knows what the seer is up to then but usually everyone is escorted out and the doors are locked.
Duke mulls it over, he needs the money but a day off is sweet. “It’s a deal,” a beat, “Do not call my mother.”
Watching Eve from up close is like watching a hurricane or a tornado bouncing from place to place; entertaining until she starts heading your direction. Still, with the tequila burning in her belly despite the lime and salt, Cassandra wipes her mouth with a napkin and nods. “Y..yes?” the brunette says, the inflection at the end of that word making it almost sound like a question. “Well, not so much brought them back to life. More like…replayed the memory of them performing. If that makes sense?”
The brunette woman looks to Duke as another shot is placed on the bar, a glass of 7-up right next to it to make the sipping that much easier and less likely to blitz her out of her mind at four in the afternoon, before turning back to Eve. “Some people have the ability to look into the future, yeah? Fortune tellers that really do that sort of thing. My ability lets me look into the past and project it to a room.” The shot of Tequila is taken and poured back without a grimace, the second glass joining the first. “With the party getting rough, I figured who better to calm things down than Queen?”
“Replaying a memory huh.. That is some kind of craziness,” Eve waves her hand. The seer is intrigued by that statement from the young woman, “I’m not too sure I’ve befriended someone who can see the past.. Well not like you.” She grins and slams her own shot back, reaching a hand out to take one of the mixed drinks the bartender set down in front of them.
“I love Queen! Aw Freddie, come back forever. Not just in a memory.” She wishes she could convince Des that going back in time to save Freddie Mercury would save the world.
“Oh heh, fortune teller you say?” A quirk of her eyebrow. “Well wouldn’t ya know it? A fortune teller and a rewinder. Look at us,” Eve looks amused and tickled at the prospect. “They don’t assault just your senses then, you aren’t in it alone.” Which is something Eve finds herself very happy about for the young woman.
“Well…”. Liquid courage is going through Cassandra’s veins, the woman shuffling her bag over and digging inside of it. “Evvryone can see the past. I can just show it to people in living color.” She giggles and rummages around for a few things, laying a blindfold, her shard of record, a St. Patrick’s day necklace and a pair of opera glasses on the bar. Hefting one of the bars’ glasses, there's a little ripple and, for just a second, a woman toasting an invisible crowd appears, takes the shot, and then vanishes to a loud cheer from the bar. Eve may, or may not, remember her as a girl from a day or two ago. “Surface things, like that, I can do /eassssy./”. Cassandra giggles. “For more depth, I bust out the blindfold.”
She holds out the blindfold for Eve to take, letting her feel the lined cloth if she likes. “If I go deep, it looks a little freaky. My eyes go completely black and then, no shit, Black tears, like ink black, come out. I use this to kind of hide my eyes and soak up the stuff.”
She giggles, sipping at the mixed drink. “You're a fortune teller? Tell me mah fortune!”
“Whoa!! Cool!! That is magnificent you should be proud of your gift.” Eve grins at the woman and sips at her drink, eyeing the spot that the woman appeared. Not trusting that she is really gone at all but when she doesn’t reappear then Eve is satisfied and sagely nods.
“Someone that isn’t afraid of knowing things! Well you already know things don’t you,” It’s a wink given to the younger lady and Eve tilts her head, “We normally exchange a fortune for a favor, a trade, a boon but you my dear,” a finger taps Cassie’s arm. “You have already brought my dear Freddie to my bar, the first one's free.” There’s an odd sense of deja vu for Eve, she said the same thing to Sibyl.
Extending a pale hand, Eve looks at the woman in her eyes. “Now, I may ask for a favor later.. but if you’d like to know which way the wind blows. Place your hand in mind.” It’s an offer, not a request or command.
Cassandra concentrates again and the woman comes back, like a film strip that can only show a few seconds before repeating, the cheers of the crowd, the shot, all happen again just like it did before. “Thanks.” she smiles the watery smile of someone who’s a little tipsy, taking another sip of her mixed drink, the woman vanishing again as the shot glass is pushed away.
Now, one has to remember that Eve’s reputation, vast as it is, has not hit Cassandra’s ears just yet. While fortune tellers that have evolved abilities are a thing, the vast majority of them…well…aren’t. She’s fully expecting her palm to be read and some platitudes given about a long life and love in her future - things like that - so she extends her hand to Eve’s, resting her palm against the dark-haired woman’s.
“I can show you the past from objects or places….” she says with a tipsy smile. “I don’t know how much of the future I need to know but…well…what do you think?” she turns her hand over, peering at her palm. “Will I meet a tall, dark stranger who’s on a long journey?” She’s teasing a little…
The display of Cassandra’s ability again makes the fellow tipsy woman laugh aloud and clap and cheer with the phantom crowd. Eve is elated and drinks a big gulp of her drink before squaring Cassandra with a look while taking the younger woman’s hand.
“I dream,” as she strokes a pale finger down the center of Cassie’s palm slowly, “If I'm under the influence of meditation.. sedation.. relaxation,” the impish woman snickers to herself, “Then I can seee all there is to see, or what might be!” There still isn't much to suggest that Eve is serious, even in this day and age there are people who are just psychotic without an Evolved ability to be at fault.
There's a tilt of her head and she closes her eyes running her hands over Cassandra’s the she's received. There’s a quiet moment as Eve centers herself and peers down the hallway in her mind, there at the end lies the door. The door that's always cracked just a peek. But in this moment she has need of it being open.
There's a sharp intake of breath as she drags the heavy door open in her mind and steps through.
To Cassandra, the seer looks peaceful and serene until her eyes snap open. No longer the eerie light gray color but a milky white, pupils barely able to be registered. Her pale hands grip Cassandra’s harder out of reflex and she gasps.
The forest is eternal.
An unending cycle of death and rebirth, in constant flux and as Eve makes her way barefoot through that undying forest, she comes upon the River. The one that stays the same, a few ripples here and there but the motion is forward. It's unnaturally still though and a clap of thunder sounds as the midnight dark haired woman peers over the edge at the mirror like surface.
Take the plunge, follow the riddle.
Eyes close as the whispers and echoes fill her head and she nods absently. On her shoulder a red colored butterfly flutters down and sits very still. As if waiting for the woman to make a decision. Red for danger. Eve had come to understand through the years with her ability.
There is another gasp and Eve pulls Cassandra forward slightly. “Red butterfly,” She says absently, not even aware of herself so engrossed with the vision she was going to plunge into.
And plunge she does, Eve’s breaks the surface of the river and a deafening roar enters her ears as the world around her explodes.
Eve can hear the dripping of water, it's the first thing that she can really register before her eyes snap open and there she is in a sewer. The red butterfly flutters off her shoulder and sticks itself on the wall, wings fluttering every few moments.
The sounds of pounding footsteps can be heard next and Eve is pushing herself off the ground to move out of the way of a figure charging down the murky underdepths of New York City. It's a woman, Cassandra. And the look of terror on her face is one that Eve will remember into the night. The young agents hair is loose and wild in the wind made by her movements. She doesn't notice Eve, she sails right by her in fact and then trips and falls to the ground. Her ID and badge skitter across the floor.
Cassandra Tibadeaux Baumann
Registered Evolved (Class B Mental) (LE)
Projective Retrocognition
Field SESA Agent
Her credentials have filth and grime over it covering up some of the other details but it's her, the woman that Eve is sitting in front of in the waking world. Eve peers down, crouching as she cants her head. She wants to reach out for the young woman, she always wants to help them. But that isn't what this is for, this is for viewing and she does as the first large rat enters the tunnel, squeaking and screeching in its wake. There's no sign of why it is following after Cassandra.. but the horde that follows after the lone rat is screeching and squeaking as well. They swarm over the agent, the girl screaming for her life unable to love as the tear into her skin. Legs, arms, her face, in her face, under her clothes. Claws and teeth, claws and teeth, claws and teeth.
“Claws and teeth, claws and teeth.” Eve’s voice breaks the silence suddenly and she throws herself back in her chair eyes fading back to their eerie light gray. They’re wide as she looks at the woman in front of her with concern, with fear.
“Cassandra Tibadeaux Bauman..” A hand snakes out to grab at her drink. “Running into sewers, drip drip drip drip. Can you hear it? Rats. Drat! Rats Rats rats, do you like them? Do you feel them?”
She takes a sip of her drink with a shudder and Eve looks straight ahead at the bar in front of them. “Be careful in the sewers, you might get bit.”
That may be a common thread with mental powers - intoxication and inebriation making the evolved ability that much more potent, making the effect that much more than it was. Lord knows that Cassandra, when she drinks, finds it much easier to pull the echoes from things, and the projection she makes becomes that much more powerful. If one can imagine plucking threads from a pool, darker threads against a white background are easier to find, and the more tipsy she is, the larger and darker the threads can appear. It works kind of like that.
Cassandra is fully expecting the basic script of fortune tellers. “I see great things in your future. I see the past, I see the cause of this issue. Could you donate $10 to find out more?” Stuff that could apply to anyone, anywhere, with a little adjustment A party trick at best. The thing is? When Eve’s eyes fly open, milky white, and she grips Cassandra’s hand tighter, the postcognitive takes in a short, quick breath. This is no parlor trick. It can’t be. She’s experienced something like this before, the coin flipped to the opposite side. The brunette leans forward to gaze into those sightless orbs, studying them for a moment. Eve’s eyes are like hers when she delves deep into the past, but the polar opposite - her’s turn black as india ink, as if her pupils expanded to see everything, seeing what was, while Eve’s turn as white as the fallen snow, seeing what could be.
“Red butterfly?” she repeats softly, getting tugged forward, almost off balance as Eve begins to speak a second time, throwing herself back and nearly causing Cassandra to fall off the bar stool, the second, ominous part of her prophecy.
Cassandra takes up her drink, wishing it were just a little bit stronger as the woman who’s she not introduced herself fully to /at all/ uses her full birth name, even pronouncing ‘Tibadeaux ‘ properly. the brunette lets out a slow, shuddering breath. That kind of settles it. Whatever she saw, she saw, and the implications are rather…grim. “I’m…investigating something in the sewers…but rats? What…what do you mean?” She shakes her head. “I don’t…I don’t understand. What did you /see/, Eve?”
There is a meeting of eyes as Eve thinks on her answer, “Red means danger, you must watch your back Cassie.” The nickname falls easily off the seer’s wine colored lips. “There was a swarm,” she plucks a joint off the bar’s ashtray and lights it, the air making the smoke curl and swirl around both women. That Cheshire Catlike smile crosses her lips as she exhales smoke, passing the joint to Cassandra. “Of rats they are coming for you. Careful, careful. You looked scared darling,” a hand goes to pat Cassandra’s knee.
“Either you stay out of the sewers… or you bring lots of rat poison.” If she’s joking there’s no indication of such.
The air is becoming more smoky and hazy and Eve turns a lazy eye up the ceiling, “That is what I’ve seen. Those seem to be your choices.” A sly grin, “But there are so many choices. Do you wear red that day? Or white to project protection? When you are faced with your future.. Do you run?”
A crack of laughter escapes the woman, “It’s all doom and gloom in the dark. This place is named Safe. It’s not.”
There’s another quick swallow of 7 and 7, Cassandra draining the glass and placing it down next to the two shot glasses, the thick-bottomed glass clinking against the others on the bar. A swarm of rats….she shivers at the thought of being overrun by them, teeth biting, claws scratching. “It’s the way poor William went.” she murmurs to no-one in particular, looking up to Eve with wide eyes.
“In my world, the past is the only thing that isn’t able to be changed. It’s solid. It doesn’t move. What has happened has happened, and there’s no changing that.” Well, there /is/ a way, but no-one’s thought to inform poor Cassandra about time travel being a thing just yet. The joint, when passed, is taken and toked - the brunette has a bit of experience with this sort of thing. It’s good at taking the edge off things. After all, how often do you get told to be careful of rats while you’re investigating things in the sewers? She blows out a stream of smoke and passes the joint back, coughing a little as it burns her lungs, chasing it with the dregs of her drink.
“I can’t stay out of the sewers. There are answers down there, in the dark that the safe zone needs. When faced with my future…with a future, I can’t just run away.” She looks down to the hand on her knee, reaches to the ashtray and takes her own joint, lighting it up and taking a deep, deep breath.
Yes, she smokes on the job when stressed. There’s an exception in her file somewhere.
“By you telling me….that changes things already. I won’t be going alone into the depths anymore, that’s for sure.” She glances at the clock on the wall - broken, and then at the empty bar. “After that, I need a drink. Like, four of them. And I owe you a memory.”
“Smart cookie,” is said in a singsong voice the older woman nodding her head. A right choice. Eve seems pleased. “Knights are vaillant.” An afterthought before Eve is grinning and nodding her head at the younger woman. “I would like that..” Eve’s musings of the past are few but when she does go there it’s a deep journey. An examination she doesn’t let go of easily. What she did wrong in a situation and how she could have fixed it. Not something she usually tells people.