(no subject)

[synanthrope]

[The camera is expertly handled this time, and it shows the Garage. Saya is currently dressed to nines in expensive couture, as usual, despite the fact that she's working on cars. She has her head under the hood of a car, her hands inside doing something unseen. The camera pans away from her for a moment.]

The Garage is an immaculate place; despite being home to constant repairs, everything is in it's place, much like the owner, who works every day no matter the condition or the holiday.

She attributes this to the work ethic instilled by-

[The narration is cut off by a sudden loud thump, and the camera pans back to Saya just in time to see her, holding the back of her head, stumble back a couple of steps, and then there's a snap as she falls at precisely the same moment, like a marionette with cut strings, not fainting as much as simply collapsing, her limbs tucked under her in odd ways]

Sy-

[Her voice stops and she looks, confused, at the heel of her shoe, which is no longer attached to the rest. The heel snapped off.]

That's never happened before.

[She looks up at the camera for a moment, and then it shuts off.]


[ooc: Action for Garage employees, audio for everyone else. She'll be going to the hospital eventually! Italics are the documentary narration.]

Comments

➝ strange new creatures to scavenge your pores

[pike]

[ Since his arrival in the City (or, rearrival, as it were), Nigel has taken to moving about the warehouse in his spare time to familiarize himself with spaces he can no longer recall. The building itself has proven to be something of a puzzle in and of itself; not because its hallways and doors are perplexing, but because Nigel knows that they hold secrets. His secrets are locked away in a room that Saya had given him the key to for Christmas (steel operating tables, a drain in the floor, and so much white tile that wipes down to brilliantly clean whenever there's a mess made). Rosella, he imagines, keeps so secrets -- at least not ones worth pursuing; her secrets are probably defined by things like manners and appropriateness. Not danger, not the knife's edge between life and death, the way Nigel's are; the way he images Saya's are too.

So he searches when he is alone in the house. He searches until he finds something.

And today is to be his day of days. ]

➝ strange new creatures to scavenge your pores

[signoftheviolin.livejournal.com]

[The fifth floor of the warehouse is much larger than Saya's sylie, but even then, her sylie is enormous - large enough for something the size of an SUV to move around comfortably in, a nest half the size of a football field, filled with webs that look like they're made with steel cables, only white, almost translucent.

There are, with meticulous care, cocoons hanging from webbing, large enough to hold grown men. If Nigel inspects them, he might be able to make out features, blurred and unspecific, like the suggestion of people. There is no dust, no blood anywhere.]

➝ strange new creatures to scavenge your pores

[pike]

[ His first reaction is to stop and hold perfectly still, as if unwilling to disturb what it is he's just found (and what he's just found is, without a doubt, Saya's secret). A thought occurs to him, sluggish and deeply buried in the thick mud that is his slowly-returning memories of this place: a scar that runs down the length of a woman's spine, a brown recluse. The violin spider. ] Oh Saya, [ he says, his voice a hushed whisper. ] What an utter monster you are.

[ (Nigel's second reaction is to smile.)

He makes it a point not to touch anything at first, looking first for signs of human artifact. Furniture, clothing, personal items -- nevermind the shadows of men strung up in the rafters. ]

➝ strange new creatures to scavenge your pores

[signoftheviolin.livejournal.com]

[There is nothing that suggests a human might ever come here, not at first - no furniture, no clothing. But closer inspection shows, in the corner of the vast room, a small tidy box, almost the exact color of the wall.

The box has an open lid, and inside are clothes, carefully folded, clothes that do not belong to Saya and never would.

There is an eerie stillness to the room as well, and a soft smell, almost stale but not quite. It's the smell of her webbing, the protein strands of the old webbing shedding a little in the parts she has to break down still.]

➝ strange new creatures to scavenge your pores

[pike]

[ Nigel is fond of things in boxes; things in jars as well. But where a jar might imply sterility or preservation (the smell of formaldehyde, the satisfaction that comes when looking at thing meant to be inside so cleanly taken out), a box implies something more personal, something meant to kept tidy and private. Back at home, he has a crawlspace full of boxes, each containing a different sacred thing: the rubbings of tombstones, very old decks of cards. Polaroids of his mother.

Kneeling in front of the box, Nigel reaches inside to pull the clothes out, one article at a time, taking note of the way the thing is folded so as to do the same once he's finished. He presses some of the fabric to his nose, searching for the smell of bleach or detergent or human skin. ]

➝ strange new creatures to scavenge your pores

[signoftheviolin.livejournal.com]

[It's clear they belong to different people, once he begins to look through them - a large shirt that could only belong to an overweight man, a dress that belongs to an average woman, shirts and trousers and even some underwear, although not much of that.

The clothing smells. It smells of detergent and wear, certainly, but there is another smell - acrid and sharp, sweat soaked in fear. There are tiny stains on some of clothes, bloodspots, but they are small, nothing larger than the fingernail on a woman's thumb.

There are shadows, too, large shadows, in the corner opposite the box, hard to see between the webbing, but clearly something put away there is casting a shadow the size of a car.]

➝ strange new creatures to scavenge your pores

[pike]

[ Nigel bides his time, reluctant to rush but with enough sense to at least occasionally check his watch. Saya is working and Rosella is out, and even if she weren't Nigel suspects she wouldn't come looking for him. Unlike him and unlike Saya, she understands the boundaries of privacy. A closed door is a declaration to her. Stay out or go away or (perhaps in her mind) no, thank you. He goes through every article of clothing, unfolding each only to fold them all again, tucking them back in the order they'd been in before pushing himself back up onto his feet.

The corner that houses the large shadow he approaches with more caution. Reluctant to place a hand on that webbing to push it away, he touches a cord of it experimentally with the very end of one of his fingers. ]

➝ strange new creatures to scavenge your pores

[signoftheviolin.livejournal.com]

[The shadows begin to define, enormous but still, and the shape of what's casting them starts to show as he gets closer; a segmented body, eight radiating legs, but they, whatever they are, are not alive, one slightly smaller than the other. They are too still, and parts look almost broken.

The webbing is smooth and slick to the touch; the unworn guidewires that Saya uses to walk on, not the sticky catchwires that make up a majority of the webbing that's closer to the front of the sylie. They are cold and respond to his touch by moving slightly, but it's clear that unlike thinner, smaller spiderweb, this would not be easily torn apart by errant fingers. This is designed to hold something enormous.]

➝ strange new creatures to scavenge your pores

[pike]

What else are you hiding? [ Nigel murmurs to himself, his hand testing the strength of the webbing with more surety this time. He's not looking to get caught, nor is he looking to break it; instead, he's trying to find a way between the sheets of webbing, between the cable-thick strands into that back corner. Even though Nigel knows he's more than capable of guessing based on what's implied by that specific arrangement of shadows, his curiosity demands that he see what it is with his own eyes.

He'd found this place for a reason, after all. So make no mistake, he would do everything in his power to make this reason known. ]

action;

[orangetoughguy]

[Oh shit, son. Orange rolls out from under another car to stare at the downed fashionista mechanic. No it's not the way she's dressed that surprises him. Saya never teeters or totters on her precious heels.]

....

[Get up, Newendyke. He rolls off his rolling panel to scramble to his feet.] Saya? [Where's that grunt?] Eames!

action;

[synanthrope]

[Wherever the grunt is, Saya's not too concerned about it. Instead she looks up at he nameless employee, her legs still tucked under her body, and she reaches for the errant heel and misses.]

I broke my shoe.

action;

[orangetoughguy]

[Whoa. That's not like her at all either. Orange (his mechanic clothing actually doesn't even bear a name) reaches out to steady Saya on the ground.]

Keep cool. Who are you and what day is it?

[They teach that in police academy too mmkay. Orange puts his hands on Saya's shoulders to gently keep her in place.]

action;

[synanthrope]

[She looks at the heel like it's defying her very will by refusing to be in the spot her brain tells her it is, but she doesn't go for it again. Instead she pauses and thinks about it.]

Satya Daphne Wallace. Wea-

[Wait, she's not supposed to say that part, right? She recognizes her employee, but suddenly she wonders, isn't he a shifter? What kind of shifter is he? He always has that damned bird with him, the one that stares at her like it's going to eat her. Is he Corax?]

Do you have an auspice?

[She pauses again, suddenly unsure about that question.]

It's May.

action;

[orangetoughguy]

[Sounds like her name, yep, yep, uh what? Speak of the devil, the flaming orange beaked toucan comes flapping off of whatever perch it had found to settle on Orange's shoulder and stare at Saya. E-e-ee-e-e-e croaks the toucan.]

What's an auspice?

[A pet? Does she mean ostrich? Obviously not toucan.] Good good... [But then!] She's gonna need a trip to the hospital.

[He calls this out to Eames in case the man is within earshot and ready for action. Meanwhile the toucan on Orange's shoulder is leeeeaaaaaning and strrreeeetching closer and closer towards Saya's face.]

action;

[synanthrope]

[The word hospital catches her attention for a moment, and she looks sharply up - a mistake, because her world careens a little]

Hospi-

[Before she can finish, she's distracted by the toucan, who is looking at her intensely. She stares back.]

action; HELLO SORRY I AM LATE JUST GOT HOME

[signatures]

[ Eames jogs in from where he'd been cleaning out the back storage area. ]

Who's going to need-

[ He pauses, raising a brow at the toucan - always a curious sight - before refocusing his attentions on Saya, noting her broken heel. ] What happened here, then?

action; THERE IS STILL TIME TO PARTY HARDY

[orangetoughguy]

[Orange gives the toucan a light knock to the underside of its beak so it stops staring at her.]

Chill out, buddy, she needs her space.

[Oh there he is. He gestures for Eames to come to Saya's other side.] No idea, just one bam and she was on the ground. She's talkin' funny.

[cold_dry_pieces]

What was that?

[synanthrope]

I hit my head.

[cold_dry_pieces]

On what?

[synanthrope]

[This part takes a moment]

The hood of a car.

[cold_dry_pieces]

Hard?

[synanthrope]

They're taking me to the hospital.

[There's no panic in her voice, just a slight quiver to the flatness. Come find me, please.]

[cold_dry_pieces]

Hard enough, then.

[And a pause.]

I can meet you there.

[synanthrope]

Only you.