Touch the Moonlit Sky

[Ryn]

"I have other methods." Ryn mutters and objection, though it's kind of a lie. "He just came into my room and laid down next to me when I slept. I should have..." she stops herself from illustrating to Katarina why being friends with her is a terrible idea via graphic descriptions of retaliation. "...not let him get away with it."

[Katarina Kane]

"Hrmm. Well, I suppose we should teach him some manners, shouldn't we?" Katarina said, pushing open the door to the Wyldclay's office. "Help him make something of himself."

[Ryn]

"You have a plan?" As in the sewers, Ryn can't help but be impressed by this (mostly) human being not just willing to go up against a trickster spirit but be so calm about it.

[Katarina Kane]

"I think maybe I can try to be a little like you. Punish the guilty, right?" Katarina said, flashing her smile at Ryn.

[Ryn]

There's any number of reasons why that's a bad idea and yet any objection is smothered by her stomach doing a strange twisty thing at the sudden appearance of Katarina's smile. And not the fake one she puts on sometimes but the real one that shines from her eyes. Plus she does kind of want to see this unfold.

She just nods her head yes.

[Katarina Kane]

Katarina took a couple deep breaths, steeling herself, as the two walked into the Wyldclay's office.

"Good morning, Mr. Wyldclay. No, don't bother getting up, and don't speak, this won't take long," Katarina said, smiling and walking over to his desk. She got a bit of a giddy thrill out of actively using her voice here -- a little nervous energy, a little bit of an adrenaline rush; this was pushing through a new barrier. Then again, Wyll had been mean to her friend! And, well, if she had the power to stop that, then she probably should.

The Wyldclay, for his part, looked up blinking in surprise, but indeed remained seated and didn't say anything.

[Ryn]

"She objects to being compared to seafood." Ryn helpfully supplies to the semi-paralyzed Wyll. From anybody else this would sound like some kind of taunt but from Ryn it's just a statement of fact, laying out what is happening. Though she does have a slight smirk on her lips. She doesn't think Katarina is going to go too far here (and the Wyldclay is very resilient after all) but for Katarina's sake she is ready to step in if need be. There's a line here somewhere between messing with Wyll and taking Ryn as a role-model and Ryn doesn't know where it is, but she's not going to let Katarina cross it. Somehow. It's a plan she's still working on.

[Katarina Kane]

It looked like Wyll had any number of responses to that, but Katarina's powers (and, unbeknownst to her, Wyll's own rules) kept him from quipping back; perhaps the greatest punishment of all. His eyebrows furrowed as he tried to reply.

"I find that quite rude, don't you, Ryn? Katarina said, sidling up to Wyll's desk and sitting atop it, brushing some things to the side to make room. "I mean, we're all on the same team here, aren't we? Peas in a pod; comrades in arms?"

[Ryn]

"It is. He is acting like he wants you to fail and for me to take care of it." Ryn really had to stretch her conversational muscles there to avoid just straight up saying 'tear out your heart and devour your soul'. Katarina probably imagined the worst case scenario to at least end nice and clean with a bullet or a knife and Ryn absolutely did not want to correct her on this assumption. "He says he doesn't but never trust a Fae." she says and narrows her eyes at Wyll, tilting her head down just enough for him to see crescent of blue flame peeking over her glasses. It didn't quite have the same gut-wrenchingly terrifying effect it tended to have on mortals, but even someone as wily and resilient as the Wyldclay would recognize the utter end her eyes signified to any and all.

[Katarina Kane]

Wyll kept most of his calm intact, though he swallowed a bit heavily at the sight of Ryn's eyes -- not immune indeed, though an order of magnitude or two less than most people.

"But we can't have that now, can we, Ryn? We must trust one another, yes?" Katarina said leaning back slightly on Wyll's desk. "If we're working together, we need to be able to trust one another, right? We can't be rooting for one another to fail, yes? We're here to support one another; to help each other out when we need it most. Ryn and I think that's very important, don't we Ryn? And that's why we're the forgiving type, aren't we?"

Katarina didn't have blue flames spitting out of her eyes. And maybe Ryn wasn't as familiar with good-cop, bad-cop as Katarina was. Or maybe she was, as evil didn't exactly avoid the interrogation room. But Ryn was a fast student of predators and prey, and she could tell Katarina was doing That Thing again. You know, where you say one thing and mean another. Maybe that's why she got those roles in TV shows.

[Ryn]

"I'm not." Ryn flatly informs Wyll. Guess she doesn't have to really follow what Katarina is doing to play this part. "But he knows that already." If Ryn is following her instincts correctly then she's supposed to be the terrifying one who distracts Wyll so Katarina can sink her teeth into him out of nowhere and tear out his throat. Or... something along those lines. She's used to just playing both both parts. Scared prey is stupid prey. It'd be easier if she knew what Katarina's goal was, but she'd just have to trust her.

"He just thinks he's safe because I don't know where his mud-pit is." Ultimately she opts to just not even try whatever clever word-magic Katarina is doing and simply be her normal self.

[Katarina Kane]

Katarina shot Ryn a look which there was no way the deva would be able to decode on the spot, but kept going. Wyll shot a look Ryn was much more familiar with; an unspoken "you'd dare?" challenge.

"Oh, I'm sure Ryn wouldn't do anything too bad to your little mud-pit, Agent Wyldclay. After all, you're doing such an excellent job modeling proper, respectful behavior to someone with such poor social skills. You're a role model, a mentor, and I'm sure both of us will treat you with the same courtesy and respect you show us," she said, reaching over and straightening the collar on Wyll's shirt.

"Which reminds me, as you're the head of resources and things of that nature. Perhaps this isn't the right venue; perhaps you're not the right person to talk to about this, but I am new here, and you have made such a point of making sure I report to my superiors about things, so I figure you're the best and brightest person to speak to about it. The bathroom on the first floor; it's out of toilet paper. Be a dear, and replace it for me, will you?," she said, locking her gaze into Wyll's eyes with a smile.

For his part, Wyll's eyes glazed over for a moment, as the power of the siren washed over him. And, without a word, he stood up, and robotically walked out the door.

[Ryn]

Ryn has to stifle a snorting, kind of derisive laugh aimed at the Wyldclay as he passes her by on his way out the door. He's certainly going to hate that.

"I will go and release him in a couple of hours before too much of him is flushed away." she nods. She has no gauge for non-lethal punishments but this amuses her so she considers it somewhere in the general area of appropriate.

[Katarina Kane]

"Take your time," Katarina laughed. "Might be nice to not have him hanging about for a few hours. Or days. Or weeks," she said, trying to hold back her giggles, her face flushed.

Katarina idley picked up a few things from Wyll's desk -- a disassembled Rubix cube, as part of the Wyldclay's ongoing study there; a Walkman with a tape looping over and over again; a strange, thin black box with a glass screen.

"At the very least, it can wait until you help me, erm, remove some of the scales. And I thought...well, maybe I can show you some of the videos I've been in. You did a decent job holding it together, there; you're not a natural actor, but I liked how you sort of went along with things. Maybe we can show each other a few tricks of our trades?"

[Ryn]

Ryn very much doubts she'd have much luck trying to learn the secret art of words, she did really just do what she would have done anyway to play along Katarina's plan. But she is kind of curious to see Katarina in action, so to speak. She does understand the concept of 'stories' after all. "I am good at being the inevitable doom in a prophetic story." she nods. "And I like watching you do what you're good at."

Some of the other agents had tried to get her to watch sports on the TV before and Ryn had been tremendously bored the entire way through. She just could not get what was the point of watching a bunch of humans be marginally less clumsy than average. Now she thought she maybe kind of understands it at the idea of watching Katarina do something that Ryn is atrocious at.

[Katarina Kane]

"Well, then, you must have hated watching me pull the scales out," Katarina joked. "Come on, lets go to my room and let you in normally this time."

Almost as an afterthought, Katarina picked up the small rectangle with the glass front, and slipped it into a pocket.

[Ryn]

Ryn eyes the strange rectangle dubiously. The Wyldclay is, after all, in charge of potentially dangerous artifacts. She'd take a look at it later when Katarina isn't looking, just in case.

"I never snuck into your room." Ryn points out as they make their way through drab grey corridors. "You should get some curtains."

[Katarina Kane]

"Getting out and about to buy curtains is a problem, and that wasn't one of the things you nicked from my previous apartment," Katarina groused.

[Ryn]

"I'll go back and fetch them. I know where it is now."

Not that there are a hell of a lot of people climbing around the outside of buildings to be able to look through Katarina's windows. The House rises above it's neighbors by quite a few stories so even the rooftops don't give a good vantage point. Ryn should know, she scoped them out when she was spying on Katarina after all. But maybe it'll make her feel better about that if Ryn gets her curtains.

[Katarina Kane]

"Just be careful. Don't want too many people asking questions about people breaking into a place with a missing woman, as minor of a star as I am."

[Ryn]

"No one will notice me." she reassures her. Ryn debates whether or not she should tell Katarina about Wyll keeping her life warm for her. In a stunning display of emotional intelligence she deduces that this might upset Katarina and decides she doesn't want that. Too much of what has come out of her mouth today has already made Katarina upset and she simply doesn't want to keep doing that.

[Katarina Kane]

"As I said, we'll have to put a bell on you so you don't sneak up on me anymore," Katarina laughed. "That, or I'm going to have to get much better at spotting you. How long were you watching me for?"

[Ryn]

"Ryn mentally tallies it up for a moment. She doesn't really note individual days unless their passage is somehow important. Humans seemed to take 'living in the moment' as being unbothered by (or dismissive of) the future or the past but as most everything, it had a more literal meaning to Ryn she struggled to express. Humans seemed to get bored doing even something they loved for too long. Ryn could run beneath the stars or swim in the rapids and never tire of it. She got restless but never sick of one thing. So the days she spend watching Katarina passing by hadn't left her with a conscious sense of how long she'd done it or that it was somehow a lot.

"Sixteen days." she thus informs her without any fear of making it seem that much worse.

[Katarina Kane]

"Sixteen days?!" Katarina asked, nearly falling over from the hitch in her stride. "Jesus Ryn, what were you doing; writing a paper on me? The lifestyle habits of the caged pop starlet?"

[Ryn]

"I was being thorough since I'd apparently missed things."

[Katarina Kane]

"Next time you want to watch over me, you can ask," Katarina pouted. "I don't bite."

No, obviously, that wouldn't have worked here because the idea was to see what Katarina did when she thought no one was looking. But that didn't stop the pop star pout.

[Ryn]

An authentic observation of the regular habits of the human siren would be perfectly sound reasoning. The truth too, in many ways. What Ryn produces upon seeing Katarina pout is an altogether different excuse.

"I do."

[Katarina Kane]

"Kinky," Katarina teased, chuckling to herself as if Ryn had made some kind of great joke. "But, no, seriously, communication, Ryn. We're partners, right? We don't hide things from one another," Katarina said, as they arrived at her room. "Standing together against the forces of evil. And also Wyldclay and paperwork."

[Ryn]

In Ryn's estimation there are a great many things that they hid from each other. For good reason too. But this was probably just another one of those half-truths or word-trickeries. "They told me I'm not allowed to burn the paperwork. But I will try to be more honest."

Stepping into Katarina's room is weirdly different from her abandoned home. That had been a place she'd once been. This is the place she lives. Looking in from the outside is comfortably familiar, actually being here is still weird, especially when she's not just dropping something off. The House itself is old and cavernous no matter it's shape or occupants, but this part of it feels like she doesn't belong. Maybe that's what upset Katarina, maybe she felt by looking in Ryn had intruded where she should not be. That kind of made sense.

Once they're into the room Ryn awkwardly stops by the door like she's not sure what to do with herself. She looks like a cat placed in an unfamiliar room and not unlike a cat her nostrils are flaring just a bit as she drifts along the wall of the room.

[Katarina Kane]

"We're not allowed to burn Wyldclay, either, though we'll get by."

Katarina paused, seeing Ryn freeze up. "I'd give you the grand tour, but there's not much to see. Bed, TV, desk, table. Standard issue stuff, right? Same as yours?"

[Ryn]

It very much is identical to Ryn's in terms of furniture, though the deva's room remained pretty much empty aside from her 'canopy' bed. Here there were at least some personal belongings, some of which Ryn recognizes from when she brought them back. Still, the room smells like Katarina, it's lived in and hers even if it might not fully be like she wants it to be.

"It has the same things but it's not like mine." Ryn's room is an afterthought, a place she returns to to clean herself and, on rare occasions, sleep. Despite the Wyldclay's attempts to decorate. Here she can feel the clashing of the impersonal furniture with what little it's occupant could do to recreate something Ryn had seen in full. Someone is at least trying to live here. "It's less clean." she says and even Ryn catches that it does not express what she means very well. "More of things that are yours but spread thin."

[Katarina Kane]

"Well, I apologize for not having time to pick up. I swear, I will find a way to clutter a room even if I only have one thing."

Indeed, the room was still rather sparse, with pretty much the only non-Institute issued things being what Ryn had stolen from Katarina's Los Angeles apartment. That spoke to the harsh restrictions the Powers that Be placed on Katarina's freedom and mobility; it wasn't like Ryn exactly took her shopping or anything on a regular basis, nor that Katarina particularly wanted to make this more than a temporary stop for her.

Ryn may be pleased to see that Katarina had appreciated (most) of what she brought back from the apartment -- the stacks of tapes and records rather prominently displayed, the books on the shelf, the pictures of home placed where they could be seen. Some of the more important-looking paperwork she had brought back was shoved in a corner, halfway behind the dresser; about as close as it could get to hidden in the bare-bones accommodations. The pictures on the nightstand had to fight for room with a wide variety of jars of various creams, most of which had either the familiar labeling of the medical center, or fancy, hand-written scripts in languages Ryn may not immediately recognize.

Katarina would describe the room as functional. Ryn might well describe it as extravagant.

[Ryn]

"It's okay." Ryn says and she's too straight-forward for that to be a comforting lie, something Ryn pretty much doesn't seem to do at all.

Ryn has a passing familiarity with languages but by and large she'd never cared enough to learn many of them. They always seemed to change and be replaced no matter how much of a fad they'd once been. A linguist would probably tear their hair out at the amount of information Ryn could have provided them if she'd cared enough to pay attention throughout the years. She wanders over to the array of creams and lotions to sniff at them, wrinkling her nose at the artificial camphor scent that clings to some of the doctor-prescribed ones. Even things Ryn would approve of don't seem to escape human-schemes, the scent of what should be stripped bark is tainted with traces of it's artificial petrol-derived creation. In contrast the Wyldclay's concoctions meet her approval a lot more, even if she can't tell for sure what their exact purpose is.

"Which ones are the ones to soothe and heal?"

[Katarina Kane]

"All of them," Katarina frowned. "Though whether any of them work or not is...questionable. The ones the doctor gave me don't seem to do anything at all."

[Ryn]

Ryn pops some of them open and scoops up just a tiny bit with her little finger to rub it on her gums, moving her lips around as she tries to deduce which one will probably do the best, finally settling on one of the Wyldclay's mixtures.

"I can't promise it'll be completely pain-free and this might help after."

[Katarina Kane]

The ones from the doctor tasted antiseptic and artificial; foul and unnatural things. The Wyldclay's salves and tonics, meanwhile, tasted earthier. Hints of cinnamon, of nutmeg, vaguely salty. They left a tingle on Ryn's gums -- not exactly clear what was in it, but it certainly seemed like they were more effective.

"I can't promise this will be completley pain-free, either," Katarina said, popping in a VHS tape of "B.A.D. Cats". "But I do try my best."

[Ryn]

"I will be okay." Ryn assures her. She'd once heard a story written by a man named Aiskhýlos that enraged her so much she'd waited outside a human city for three weeks to crush his head with a boulder. How awful could Bad Cats be in comparison.

What is more daunting to her is that she promised Katarina to trim her scales, which she now realizes means she'll have to poke at her bare back for some time. Ointment in hand she just kind of stands there, hoping Katarina knows how to best make herself comfortable for this because Ryn certainly has no clue how to indicate this or direct her to.

[Katarina Kane]

Katarina did, in fact, seem to have some idea, peeling off her shirt and lying face down on the bed.

The small of her back had about two dozen iridescent scales, spreading outward from the sacrum. Even in the harsh artificial light of the dorm room, the glistened and sparkled; one could only imagine what they would look like in the sun, on a rock in the sea where they belonged. They caught the light like jewels, as Katarina adjusted herself to try to find a comfortable position to lay in.

The TV blared up with a synthesizer as the program started, promising car chases, the police, pool, women in bikinis -- all the hallmarks of a high-quality television product, for sure.

[Ryn]

It turns out that does not, in fact, make it any easier and for far too long Ryn stands there, watching the non-sensical opening sequence playing on the TV with rapt attention just to avoid looking at the bare back of her friend. She promised though and once the loud attention-grabbing intro song is over she risks a glance down at Katarina. Ryn feels vindicated yet strangely embarrassed at the same time. The scales are beautiful up close and the thought of them glistening in the sunlight, shining through beads of water that cling to Katarina's skin makes Ryn feel a twisting weakness deep in her stomach.

She sits down next to Katarina, her legs folded underneath her. She could get to the scales much easier if she just straddled Katarina's legs but somehow she feels like she might catch on fire if she tried. She carefully places a finger on the patch of scales and their firm but smooth texture, warm to the touch. "I do think they're beautiful." Ryn says quietly, almost hoping Katarina won't hear her over the sound of the television. A glance up at the screen tells her very little. Two men are being yelled at by a man behind a desk for doing their job but in the wrong way somehow. They apparently wrecked a car but caught the bad guy and Ryn fails to find the problem with this.

Reassured by Katarina's apparent excellent choice in story to help embody she focuses back on the problem of the scales. She still listens to the show, waiting for Katarina's role in the play to reveal itself. She tries to chase away any stray thoughts of how soft Katarina's skin around the scales must be to focus on what she knows. Doing harm. Albeit it in a careful, gentle way that threatens to bring her thoughts back around to the confusing and warm feelings. She lets out a huff and lifts one of the scales with her fingernail, just enough to slip under it until she finds the point where scale meets skin and rather then tear at it she simply pinches the hardened piece off, her fingernail parting it as easily as they cut flesh or spirits.

[Katarina Kane]

"Did you say something?" Katarina asked, as Ryn successfully hides her confession under the sound of an explosion. Clever girl.

The plot, such as it is, seemed to revolve around someone attempting to run down a series of contestants at a beauty pageant -- a badly shoehorned in plot, seeming to justify why the car-based detectives were called in to deal with attempted murder. Katarina, playing a character named 'Katy Keene', was one of said beauty queens; a favorite in the competition who was one of the initial suspects for bumping off their competition. Investigation showed that 'Keene' was also, in her spare time, participating in illegal street races while wearing a ski mask, knowing that if she got caught, she would be disqualified from the pageant.

...I can not stress enough just how badly written this show is.

As painful as the show might be to watch, Katarina was having the worse of it as Ryn dealt with her scales. They do not want to just pop off easily, requiring Ryn to dig slightly underneath to pry them off. It's almost as if they're replacing the top layer of Katarina's skin; it's like peeling back a particularly bad hangnail. The flesh underneath was red, swollen and a bit bloody as Ryn began to descale her. And she had been doing this to herself!

Katarina whimpered a little as Ryn worked, trying to distract herself by talking about the show. It wasn't particularly working, as her hands dug into the mattress.