Mystery Of A Blood-Red Rose

[Ryn]

As agreed upon, Ryn meets back up with Wyll Wyldclay out in front of Postlewaith House. She's wearing a plain grey button-down shirt with sleeves just past her elbows, long enough to obscure the bandages still wrapped around substantial parts of her body. Black slacks and plain sneakers. With ehr sunglasses she looks somewhere between an undercover cop, a Miami drug-dealer and an office drone. She is stock-still, which to anyone who has bothered to observe and decipher the deva's body-language puts here at being apprehensive at best, nervous at worst. She can't imagine the place Wyldclay is planning on taking her is somewhere she would seek out of her own volition.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

Wyll, in his trademark white linen suit, left the Deva waiting for just under six minutes before emerging himself.

"Ah, Rynnuske. Looking almost presentable, per usual."

[Ryn]

"You said inconspicuous, not that I'd be presented to anybody." she says matter-of-factly. "If that is your plan you should consider changing it."

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Oh, you could wear an old rag and I wouldn't complain," Wyll said, dismissively. "Though your Siren does seem to prefer the glitz and glamor, so maybe that's something you should look into, hrm yes?"

[Ryn]

Katarina had said something along those lines. Even tried her Voice to make Ryn care about clothes. She'd probably been disappointed by her practical take on it. She wishes she could just impart her with the necessary knowledge because Ryn has no idea where to even begin. Humans don't even seem to agree on what is and isn't fashionable and it seems to change almost as fast as the seasons. "It would be easier if she could just tell me." she mutters. "I don't think she wants me to just mimic her manner of dress."

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Well, that's part of what today is about, yes? Finding out just what it is everyone wants," Wyll said, walking down the street towards the parking lot.

[Ryn]

As dubious as Ryn is, it'd be folly to turn down the help she bargained for. If it turns out to be useless she could always make her disdain clear later. And thus she follows Wyll, closest thing to a human-expert available.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

The two headed towards a white sports car of some description -- Ryn would have roughly zero chance of identifying it, or even really comparing it to Katarina's car, other than this one felt faster.

"Have you given any thought to how you'll appear before the Siren again? It is fairly standard, in situations such as this, for the wronging party to bring some sort of tribute to the wronged," Wyll said, as he gunned it into traffic.

[Ryn]

Ryn doesn't seem bothered by Wyll weaving the car around the slower cars on the road. She doesn't even have the seatbelt on so she can occasionally stick her head up enough the feel the wind in her hair. They spew oily dust on everything but she can't argue with the 'car go fast' result of this particular human ambition.

"I was going to bring the window-cloth from her old home." It only makes sense to her. She now knows that despite the height of the building and the window being recessed into the concrete at least Ryn managed to find a vantage point and this shows Ryn recognizes that something about her watchfulness was apparently wrong. If she understood metaphors and human-words better she might recognize it as symbolic, but to her it's jut sensible. There was a transgression, she strives to show Katarina it won't happen again.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Hrm. More standard for flowers and chocolates in this century. But perhaps you'll start a new trend," Wyll said, running a red light and heading out onto the highway.

[Ryn]

"Chocolates?" she asks, confused. Flowers kind of make sense. They smell nice, are generally edible and some even taste good. "I will find some."

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Or something along those lines," Wyll nodded. "Indulge the senses, add a touch of luxury. You've seen her home in the City of Angels, and can compare it to what you see in the House. She's used to a better class of living than us," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Of course, back in my day, chocolate wasn't exactly the sort of thing you would find lying around. Nor were women so difficult to woo. A smile, a wink, a turn of phrase, a hitch in your hose, and you'd have ladies fighting each other to bob for your apples. Many a man, too, for that matter. Ah, Rynnuske, you've come to the right place for advice; I couldn't even begin to count how many men have wanted to show me their lance."

[Ryn]

These, at least, are metaphors that even Ryn can follow.

"Luxury of senses. I can do that." she nods, then thinks for a moment and wonders if what smells good to her might not necessarily overlap with human tastes, considering what they seemed to surround themselves with so often. "Wait. Flowers are good, but they seem to prefer when they imitate nature. Make it less... sharp? Combed cotton instead of springy pine branches to lay on? Water wrought from metal pipes rather than spring rains? They want... tamed things." she realizes at the same time that that's exactly what Wyll is trying to do here. Teach her how to tame herself. She's not sure how well that will work. Or if she even wants it. "I'd rather she liked me, not something tamed and harmless."

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Well, there's the rub, isn't it? If you want her for more than a day or two, then she has to want you, as well. And you are coming from two different worlds.

Be honest with me. You would prefer her wild with abandon, would you not?"

[Ryn]

Ryn thinks on this for a while because this feels important and her feelings on this are enough of a mess as it is. She tries to picture a Katarina without Ryn, without the House, without the fear of herself.

"Yes. But not wild like me. Wild like she wants to be. Wild like she almost is when she sings and dances. Free to be unafraid."

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Almost being the key word, yes? Oh, if we ever let her out, you should go to a recording session. Boring, boring, boring. Do the same thing over and over again, retrack this, retape that, process this, synthasize that. Tamed to within an inch of it's life.

It's about covering that neutral territory, yes? And winning as much of it as you can grab in the struggle."

[Ryn]

Ryn is torn. There's truth to the fears holding Katarina. She can't surrender herself fully to her nature like Ryn. Her monstrousness at least serves a purpose and she's never had anything akin to what Katarina stands to lose. Perhaps that is why it's hard for her to imagine a different kind of fight that Wyll talks about. To fight something in oneself requires one to be capable of change in the first place, for good or ill and a battle that cannot be won or ended unsettles Ryn in ways she doesn't understand. And out of boredom? Another thing she only knows in the abstract. But even if Wyll means tiring on the same things, he's at least right about the crawling unrest of undue restraint.

"But how do you know when it is enough? When you've won the chase but there's always more to take unto ruin?" This is, of course, entirely about Katarina turning into a Siren and nothing else. Especially not anything Ryn has (almost) done.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Oh, it's never enough. It's ongoing and ever-changing; twisting in upon itself over and over again. And when you think you've won one chase, that just sets up the next, whether that's moving on to the next target, or re-engaging with the one you have," Wyll said, almost gleefully, as he weaved towards their destination.

"Perhaps that's the best way to think about it, for something like you," Wyll continued. "Depending on the nature of your conquest. If you want something that will last more than a short while, you're looking not to totally defeat someone, but to find that equilibrium point where they can claw back at you. Take it all, and you win -- but when you win, that contest is over, and you have to move on. To avoid moving on, you can never fully win."

[Ryn]

Somewhere, not very far along the way, Wyll loses Ryn in the metaphor.

"That seems complicated and full of word-twists. Why start a fight you're not going to finish?"

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Possibly, because one loves to fight," Wyll said, pulling off into one of the sketchier parts of town. "Or whatever other primal urge drives them."

Wyll stopped the car in a place where it very much did not belong, judging from the quality of the other cars in the lot. It wasn't the seediest neighborhood, exactly, but this was an industrial area near an airport, a bit off the beaten path. The neon sign in front of the place called it the "4Play Cabaret" -- maybe a step or two up from a dive; somewhere on the border between "historic" and "grimy", depending on one's mood.

[Ryn]

To Ryn the whole city holds a kind of dirty grime and she's not yet picked up on the subtleties of it. But what she can tell is that beneath the thick-sweet smells spilling from this place is rot. Not much, compared to what she's been hunting, but it's there beneath the surface. That more than the run-down location has her take note.

"This is not a place humans come to fight." she notes. While there is sweat in the air, it's not as pungent-sharp as places where men (it's almost always men) go to take measure of their fists. This is an altogether unfamiliar smell.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Fights certainly happen here, when nights get interesting, but no, they don't," Wyll agreed, hopping out of the car. "This is something else."

[Ryn]

Ryn grabs the top of the windshield and in one smooth motion pulls herself up to perch on the edge of it before sliding down the front of the car.

With Wyll not volunteering any information she walks up to the entrance to find out for herself. Too many words one moment, too few the next. Stupid tricksters.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

The man at the front door was a large, burly man, wearing a track suit. "Gotta have an ID and pay the cover if you want in, lady," he said, eying Ryn up, with Wyll taking his sweet time behind her.

[Ryn]

Ryn rifles through her pocket until she finds a wad of cash and the little plastic card that she's learned opens doors with a minimum amount of questions. The one with the big 'FBI' letters emblazoned on it. She holds it up along with a crumpled $50 bill. She still has not bothered to learn what arbitrary numbers humans assign to various things, she just knows bigger numbers are considered better.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

The man's eyes widened as Ryn held out the card and money -- it wasn't immediately clear which one he was more taken aback by.

"She's off-duty, Lester," Wyll said, quickly coming up behind Ryn. "Nothing you need to worry about tonight. And the $50 is for your continued lack of worry, yes?" Wyll said with a grin, resting a hand on Ryn's shoulder in precisely the way she would prefer people didn't. "We're not here to cause trouble, are we, sis?" he asked Ryn, with a grin of his own. "Not going to start anything."

[Ryn]

The tension that runs through Ryn's body at the hand on her shoulder says the exact opposite to the story Wyll is trying to sell.

"So I'm being told." she says and puts her ID away but continuing to hold up the cash. She is kind of satisfied with this response by the bouncer, enough to tolerate Wyll's hand.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

The man (Lester?) took Ryn's money, and gave a thin-lipped smile. "Enjoy your evening, folks..." he said, as Wyll patted him on the shoulder and ushered Ryn into the club.

"A note to the wise," Wyll said to Ryn as they got out of earshot. "If you want to go incognito, maybe do not identify yourself as an officer of the law. People don't like that." Still, he took his hand off of Ryn's shoulder, so he would no longer be in danger of losing it.

The place might be a little better furnished than expected, but only just. Some comfortable chairs and booths, dotted around. A bar with a selection of drinks (presumably very cheap, from the way Wyll poked his nose up at them; not that it stopped him from swiping a pair of bottles). But everything seemed to be organized around an elevated stage, emerging from the back and stretching out into the middle of the room, several poles placed strategically around them.

"Private booth, or up by the stage?" Wyll asked, handing Ryn a bottle of the cheap beer.

[Ryn]

Ryn takes the bottle and sniffs it, doing nothing to hide her disdain.

"Private." she says, having no clue what he's actually asking, but presented with being seated in a wide-open room and a private booth she's never going to not pick the later.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Probably for the best. Wouldn't want to overstimulate you right off the bat," Wyll grinned, sliding in next to Ryn in one of the booths near the back, designed to give a little bit of privacy while still providing a view of the stage.

He takes a swig of his beer, and grimaces. "Horse piss. No, that would be preferable. If this matches the quality of the main presentation tonight, this will be a horrid night indeed."

[Ryn]

"What is this place?" Ryn asks. She can sort of figure some kind of exposition or demonstration is supposed to happen on stage and while her nose is giving her some clues, she has no context into which to put the heavy, cloying smells that seem to permeate the place. It's not even unpleasant if one ignores the layer of human-wrought floral-ish that seeks to cover everything, but then nobody ever accused Ryn of having good taste and she'd probably accept locker room stench over a perfume store at the mall. There is a bit of that. Sweat of physical exertion but it's suffused with a strange spice she can't figure out.

Instead she takes another sniff of the beer to make sure it's not actually drawn from a horse, then takes a sip. It's faintly bitter in a way that reminds her of herbs, but not bad at all. It's more foamy than fizzy like the champagne and the fermentation feels earthier but like the champagne it's mostly natural. Ripened grains and ground herbs. She deems it... okay.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"What is this place?" Ryn asks. She can sort of figure some kind of exposition or demonstration is supposed to happen on stage and while her nose is giving her some clues, she has no context into which to put the heavy, cloying smells that seem to permeate the place. It's not even unpleasant if one ignores the layer of human-wrought floral-ish that seeks to cover everything, but then nobody ever accused Ryn of having good taste and she'd probably accept locker room stench over a perfume store at the mall. There is a bit of that. Sweat of physical exertion but it's suffused with a strange spice she can't figure out.

Instead she takes another sniff of the beer to make sure it's not actually drawn from a horse, then takes a sip. It's faintly bitter in a way that reminds her of herbs, but not bad at all. It's more foamy than fizzy like the champagne and the fermentation feels earthier but like the champagne it's mostly natural. Ripened grains and ground herbs. She deems it... okay.

"It's a palace to one of the Seven Sins," Wyll grinned. "And my second favorite, I must add. Most days, at any rate."

"It's a place for celebrating the human body, in it's prime condition. For, I shall admit, an audience of less-than-refined eyes, but notwithstanding."

"And it's a place to try to gauge your reactions," he finished, as the club's sound system kicked into gear.

[Ryn]

This music is... different and as the lyrics inform her, about fighting (that part makes sense) and girls, which doesn't until a scantly clad woman saunters across the stage in a kind of languid, fluid dance. It's much less clumsy than most humans and she can kind of see why humans might come here to admire that. No other women though, who would be better suited to learn from the movements than the audience of mostly ungainly men. She watches curiously as the woman's movements keep suggesting removing her clothes at encouragements and cheers from the audience and a couple of things click in Ryn's head.

The first thing that goes through her mind is the thought of Katarina dancing like this, in her room with only Ryn as an audience and her whole body tenses like a steel wire. Her cheeks heat, kindled by a different kind of flame inside of her. "It's a mating ritual." she forces out her other realization, sounding exactly as caught off guard as she is. Then with just a hint of disdain she adds "Are they going to? On the stage?"

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Oh, no. It's a display; a...provocation, I suppose," Wyll said, grinning and enjoying himself. "They might tease that they will; might pretend to try to draw extra money from the audience. But this isn't that kind of establishment," Wyll nodded.

[Ryn]

"Right. Yes, pretending like theater." She thought that would make her less uncomfortable, but it does not rid her of the blush on her cheeks. That, it seems, is as much the lascivious acrobatics on stage as it is Katarina's strange ability to enthrall her even without her voice.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

Wyll, for his part, seemed to more carefully be watching Ryn than the action, though he had plenty of time to spare for one of the more athletic ladies, who was beginning to utilize the pole more and show off her flexibility.

"While most of the people in here are...shall we say, not particularly fine specimens of humanity," Wyll confided to Ryn, watching her blush, "you DO have one thing in common with them.

I'm not sure they'd know what to do if they caught one, either."

[Ryn]

"I don't see how this is helpful then. Unless you mean I should bring Katarina bits of paper-money." she frowns. This pretend mating ritual is confusing, but at least she's just observing and no one expects her to do anything or worse, participate.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Think of it as...training weights," Wyll said, considering. "Giving you permission to feel what you want to feel, to examine the parts of you you don't have much experience with...without ending up with you scaring your Siren half to death, yes?"

"And if you try to tuck pieces of paper-money in your Siren's clothing in exchange for favors, do promise me you'll let me watch. The aftermath would be worth nearly anything."

[Ryn]

That's as definite a no as she's ever going to get from the Wyldclay, Ryn reckons. The idea of training weights, however, confuses her. She kind of gets what Wyll is getting at, but this feels... different. The movements on stage are impressive by human standards and she doesn't mind watching but it only really seems to make her insides curl strangely when she lets it draw her thoughts to Katarina.

"This is not like that. I don't care for making these women gasp softly like I do with her."

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Nothing at all?" Wyll said, raising an eyebrow. "I'm not surprised it's not as strong, certainly; there are people like that," he said, rolling the word 'people' around in his mouth like it was an alien concept he was not used to applying to Ryn, and that he knew RYN was not used to being applied to Ryn, and he knew that SHE knew that he knew that.

"But nothing welling inside, hrm?" he asked, directing Ryn's attention to a redhead which would never be confused for Katarina, but at least had shorter hair.