Just browsing (Lucast)

[Jones]

The noise of metal on metal, the creaking of a hinge and a brief rectangle of light casting itself upon the brown carpet and wooden shelves and then the light vanished and once more all was cast into complete darkness except for the faint green glow of the exit signs. The figure who had been briefly lit up by the door growled softly and not deigning to bother to search for the light switches grumbled to himself and after a moment of searching his coat pulled something out of his coat, the cone of light that poured forth from the tube he held cast it's bright beam of discovery upon the inside of the library, the seemingly random backs off books colors, the semi-stupid posters telling kids that books were just THAT cool, the smell of paper and ink and dust, it was all absorbed by the old man standing there with a flashlight frowning.

"... I suppose hopping they haven't done away with their card catalog would be futile..."

Guessing himself right he started heading into the shelves, his leather patent shoes quiet as a whisper as his leather duster grazed the shelves, the only noises being himself and soft noises of the city out the windows so far away and getting farther.

[rachael]

Lucast had lived in the library for oh... two days now. It was a big place, and she'd got an arrangement with a friend of hers - who just happened to be a librarian in addition to an artist. Lucast was so pleased that she didn't need to sleep at the foot of somebody's bed - fox form was nearly a requirement for this sort of living arrangement. That wasn't a terrible thing, either: People generally blanked out when they saw her - IF they saw her. Blue foxlings don't exist. People know that in the reality bending way that protects them from staring at things all day. Especially not six inch ones that read books.

And so it was: Lucast was spending the night with the midnight candles of insomnia burning brightly in her mind, her muzzle buried in a novel. This was generally how the young metahuman spent her evenings, these days.

When the metallic sound rang out, she wasn't at first clear that she'd heard it. After all, she was in the depths of the library, and the door was so very far away. From her perch atop a bookshelf, she sauntered down the aisle, leaving her book behind on the dusty wood, foxling prints dotted the dust, left their impressions like they were through snow rather than the bookish silence of the library.

Night vision wasn't something that Lucast quite knew how to do. She wasn't really able to turn into a fox, not as such - really, she just wound up the human form and distorted it - longer arms, different bones, fur, etc, and she was suddenly a fox... at least, she looked like one. Scent wasn't a hard thing to pick up - unlike sight, it was just a matter of making the whole muzzle work for her.

So she drew in, took a thick draw of the air. There were books... lots of books... dust that made her nose tingle... and man? Strong. Not so much recent as NOW. And leather. Man and leather. Her eyes caught the green square of light, heard the muttering secondhand, and made a beeline towards the sounds and lights on the backs of the bookshelves.

Luca... for a bit. Old men were good - she liked old men - and he certainly didn't look like a thief. After all, he'd had a CARD! She had a card too, but she had one because she technically worked for the library. He had one... probably because he wanted to look something up after hours. It was a vote of trust - she knew the women who worked here... at least, she thought she did. Liked to think she did.

She smiled at him. She really did like older gentlemen. And this one wasn't exactly bad looking. Handsome was the turn of phrase. It wasn't like she was interested in that sort of thing, though - not like that, you pervert.

Bounding, her feet left the wood. She'd done this a hundred times - turning on the lights was a... knack. She sailed with a whiff through the air past the man with the flashlight, and a paw touched over the place where she knew the switch to be, and the button mashed inward with a crisp click, bathing the room in light. Landing on the counter, she sauntered up and sat on the side, in plain view to him.

"No, sey got ritta tat" she began, in the squeaking, inhuman form's voice, heavily accented. She brightened up, perking her ears high, looking at him with her chin on her paws, tail squirming behind her cheerfully.

"Buh... iffa likes, yiy can show you!"

[Jones]

Darkness, in a library it meant feeling the books pressing it, the smell of paper like the inside of a wooden stomach, quiet as death and a place that Jones felt he was far too used to already. He was studying the books when he first heard the vibrant CLICK in the library, as the lights flared and his fully dilated irises were flooded with screaming light he was already in the process of reaching for an object handing on the inside of his coat, a .45 magnum revolver named Regret, she hung snugly in her shoulder harness and his fingers sought her worn grip, her familiar trigger despite the screaming lights he turned to the source of the voice, that odd... tiny... voice...

The voice coming from a six inch fox... a six inch blue fox... a six inch talking blue fox... he froze in mid draw, Jones's hand stock still as it offered to help... if he was anyone else he would be disbelieving his eyes... as it was it was a sad statement of his life that he had seen weirder. Much weirder... at least he was fairly sure it's head wasn't about to unhinge revealing tongues made of teeth and teeth made of metal... he hoped... that had been a bad Tuesday. As it was he took a moment to think of things, his 'danger sense' that old ExtraSensory Perception as the eggheads called it, wasn't going off, it wasn't so much as muttering at him. It seemed perfectly safe... for the moment and he figured drawing a gun on it seemed like a bad way to say hi.

Jones looked at the fox and instead took his hand off the gun leaving it holstered and instead reached into his suit pocket and drew forth a cigarette and lighter and flicked it to life. Blinking as he stared wordlessly at the being he reached into his suit pocket and drew forth a single pure white cigarette and put it into his lips and pulling free a lighter with the same hand he flicked a blue flame into being and let the smoke spin off his bad habit for a moment, not puffing, not enhaling, just staring beofre reaching into the same pocket and drawing forth an identical tube and holding it out to the creature before him. There was no nervousness coming off this old man, his gray hair simply cut, his steel gray eyes solid in their gaze, his large form steady in it's movements as he laid that cigarette before the creature.

"Konica... Konochi... Kokohar... Dang it what was that word for hello?... and as a follow up are you a Kitsune? haven't met many of the easter "Cryptos' Cause if you are I think I am suppose to offer some booze, I got a hip flask."

[rachael]

Lucast wondered if she had been wrong to reveal herself to a random man with a library card. This was how incautious little foxes became soup, she remember reading somewhere. She wouldn't make him need it... hopefully, that would prevent him from thinking so. Besides... it took an accurate shot indeed to kill her with a gun. She knew this to be true - people had tried.

Luca was relieved when he didn't though. She HATED pain, and now... now that she wasn't precisely human, she got hurt a lot more often. Maybe getting hurt was a natural state, and being able to heal just made it happen more often to balance it out? It didn't bear thinking about.

Her polite hesitation from attacking him paid off, and she squirmed her tail at him - it had stilled, a moment's tension only evident after it was over. 20/20 hindsight and all that. Now it didn't. She hadn't expected him to stare like that, and certainly hadn't seen the cigarette coming. She blinked, and, not wanting to offend him, took it. Being the size she was, it was pretty big in her mouth. She grew to match it with little ceremony, her body giving a faint crackle as she did, making her jaw set harshly.

Now the size of a cat, Lucast shook off and sat again, her eyes continually trained upon the man, but not unkindly. She smiled. At this size, it was harder to miss, even if the smile wasn't human. It was a strange enough situation that when he tried to greet her, she found herself correcting him out of pity and interest at his slaughter of japanese. It wasn't that she knew the language... but she certainly watched anime when she could.

"Konichiwa, I think? And ah..." she considered this. Her voice was less squeaky, less distorted now. She had proper lips and tongue to work with. She looked herself over, and put her head on one side. "I don't think so... Think I'd know if I was?" there was no joke in her voice - she was serious about it. The fox looked at him sheepishly, her tail sweeping and squirming behind her.

[Jones]

Jones watched a bit stunned and reached up to scratch his nigh permanent five o clock shadow, the gray hair scratching his hand back as he watched her swell to the size of a cat. His eyebrow raised in interest as she also corrected his Japanese and... sassed him... no... she was serious... great this was gonna get more... was she... and he had to think of her as a she from the voice, was serious. He thought on it a bit as he pulled out his fore mentioned hip flasked an knocked back a slug. The 'jet fuel' as some called it burned on the way down. There was no way he was facing this situation completely sober. Far too messed up.

Spinning the cap back on the flask and shoving it back into his pocket he thought on her question.

"Nah... I doubt it... from what the R&D lads tell me you don't show the signs plus they are more... subtle then a six inch blue fox from what the stories say. Tricksters and what not. Plus I imagine you would know if you were."

He didn't add that she didn't seem quite clever enough either, nothing against her brain but from what he had heard of kitsunes too cleaver by half didn't come near enough. He looked at her again and then spun off the cap of the flask again and flipping the cap over filled it with just a bit of the substance within, he put it on the counter next to the growing fox.

"Wanna wet your whistle?... and while you are at it tell me who or what you are? Cause I gotta say I have been doing this job a while but I have never seen something like you."

[rachael]

Leaning down, she politely accepted the offered drink. If she could have read minds, she might have been offended, probably. But it was true - she wasn't all that clever. Simplicity as a lifestyle has a knack for simplifying you, too - couldn't have one without the other, most cases.

Just the same, she gave him a soulful stare as she tipped back with the offered liquid and winced a bit, but to her credit, she did not spill a drop down the sides of her muzzle. She probably didn't even let it touch her tongue - but she did. Lesson learned. She respectfully set the glass on the counter and nosed it toward him

"I'll answer" she began, and clicked her tongue once in her mouth, not out of conversation, but because the taste of the jet fuel was... well, it wasn't sublime, I can tell you that much. But the taste is not why she drank it. "but only if you answer a question, too - turnabout is only fair, don't you think?" and she put the bite on. That wasn't an offer of trade. That was an acceptance of an agreement.

"You know those mutants you hear about now and again, the ones with lighting in their trousers, or ice in their veins? Well, one of those, like." She gave him a megawatt stare with vulpine features well suited to the task. It wasn't like she was using the statement as ammunition, but the stare WAS saying something like 'that's how it is, buster, take it or leave it'

"Call me Lucasta - Luce (loose) if you like." she offered a paw

[Jones]

Jones inwardly sighed a bit in relief, a metahuman. He had dealt with them fairly often, hell for that matter her saw one in the mirror on a daily basis. He shrugged and took the paw in his own and shook it once. He resisted the urge to say 'shake' and instead took another puff as he debated how much to tell her, he decided on the truth... at least part of it.

"Metahuman huh?... odd one but I'll buy it. The name is Mister Jones, You can call me Jones ma'am. I'm with Icarus International and might I ask what exactly you are doing here? I was told this library was supposed to be as empty as my partner's head when he sees a pretty face... including his own."

He thought on how far to take things but she had offered to help and he had to admit... without a card catalog or someone to help with the computers he was lost here so he figured he would go the distance.

"Ma'am I was sent here to find a book called... just a moment..."

Reaching into one of his coat pocket he pulled out a expensive looking pda... a pda with a note pad taped to it. He caught the fox's look and sighed.

"Company makes me carry it. Doesn't mean I can use the dumb thing."

He flipped through the pad and then nodded.
"Right, I am supposed to find a book called 'The silent twilight of prospective nova' supposed to be very very old. Kinda an emergency check out and I was in the area so they asked me to get it, any idea where it is? I think it is from fifthteeth century England... or is it sixteen."