the broken mirror never lies

Recently I've had a few issues with Livejournal, but this new policy of changing without asking or needing -- much like Facebook's -- has me a bit sour. So I'm moving this writing journal over to Dreamwidth, here, as they've finished their open beta and anyone can now register for an account. No new writing will be posted here, but all writing previously posted here will remain. Please follow me there! And thank you, if you've read all of this.

(For anyone who hasn't looked into it, DW is pretty much how LJ used to be when I joined about a billion years ago. And you can set up cross-posting to a LJ account, very easily, so that you don't have to really leave anyone behind.)

“Here,” he said, as he dug up the seashell.

“It’s cold!” she objected, holding her coat around herself firmly.

He smiled, pulling the large, spiny shell from the sand and scrutinizing it. It was perfect, just as he’d left it. He offered it to her.

She took it, pricked her finger on a spine, yelped, dropped it.

“Got you,” he said, pretending.

She made a face and stormed off to the sea of concerned parents, umbrellas, fire pits and cups of hot chocolate.

He buried the offering again.

Some day, a girl would accept the shell.

Title: Consultation
Part: 04
Universe: Dungeons & Dragons (Needle), World of Darkness
Rating: R
Previous: 01 02 03
Summary: Shapeshifters, hackers, information brokers, and one lost kid on the wrong damn road. (Takes place sort of during Future Storm.)

---

Quinn knew only the adrenaline that came from six people leaping at you, her fingers working fast to deliver an arrow -- thud -- to each of them. A few got more than one arrow, screeching and falling back. Bercini, who was clearly the oldest and also had magic, was the trickiest to aim at; he seemed capable of being in more than one place at a time.

Devica was right. This was the opposite of a good idea. Why are you acting like an idiot when you have a person you need to protect?

Where is she?

Underneath the big table behind you.

Two dead.

I've got her covered. Don't worry.

I always worry! It's my job!

Four dead.

( I know, Clarence, and I wish you'd stop. Do you have any idea how annoying that is? )

Title: Consultation
Part: 03
Universe: Dungeons & Dragons (Needle), World of Darkness
Rating: R
Previous: 01 02
Summary: Shapeshifters, hackers, information brokers, and one lost kid on the wrong damn road. (Takes place sort of during Future Storm.)

---

Nursing a mug of coffee and a plate of pancakes (the latter wasn't getting much attention), Devica Baines stared blearily at the strange woman sitting across from her. Quinn Riddle, she'd said her name was, dressed in leather and some sort of shiny, slick fabric, all of it dark. She had a tall grey umbrella perched next to her in the booth, in the middle of a hot spell in Los Angeles, and her cat also had strange eyes: solid black. Not a spot of color or white. It was a scrawny, grey thing with dark stripes, and Devica felt like it was constantly staring at her -- even though she couldn't see where exactly it was staring. Which just increased its creepy factor.

"So... you walk me home, when I'm strung out of my mind, and then you stay at my house all night and pry on my computer. And then, when I wake up, you take me out for breakfast instead of splitting."

Riddle nodded, chewing on waffles. "S'right."

"This situation is so weird, the only place I could be sitting is LA," Devica noted wryly. "So tell me, Riddle, what's the story?"

"I'd prefer if you were sober for it."

"Trust me, I'm pretty much sober. My head feels like a volcano."

( All right. I'm with an organization that's trying to track down the same guy you are. The guy with the grey fuzz, who's chasing your client. )

Title: Consultation
Part: 02
Universe: Dungeons & Dragons (Needle), World of Darkness
Rating: R
Previous: 01
Summary: Shapeshifters, hackers, information brokers, and one lost kid on the wrong damn road. (Takes place sort of during Future Storm.)

---

Days folded into weeks. Weeks into months.

A different bar, a different hotel, a different country -- whenever Quinn Riddle, once called Kita Riddle, could stand it. She did nearly anything that struck her fancy, including plummeting from the top of the Empire State Building. One gob-smacked police officer later, and she was back in a bar. Having a drink, laughing with the locals without really meaning the noise.

The computer in her brain, Clarence, her old conscience who was now just kind of a prissy buddy, kept telling her to knock it off. Clarence insisted that she just needed to get back to traveling. That it would make her feel better. But she argued that she was traveling and she just felt worse. Traveling between bars, but still.

It was in one of those bars -- in London, sooner or later everything came back to London -- that her drunken stupor ended. A tiny little place with polished wood and old mirrors. She didn't even remember the name after looking at its sign. Her cat, Alastair, sat on the counter, and no one dared tell the woman with the feline eyes that animals weren't allowed in the bar.

"Kita Riddle?"

"It's Quinn, actually. I turned over a new leaf."

She didn't even bother to look up at who it was. The voice was unfamiliar.

( Can't be too careful. And I wouldn't have wanted to run into you. )

Title: Consultation
Part: 01
Universe: Dungeons & Dragons (Needle), World of Darkness
Rating: R
Summary: Shapeshifters, hackers, information brokers, and one lost kid on the wrong damn road. (Takes place sort of during Future Storm.)

---

"--look, if that's the way you're going to start this call, maybe you should hang up and try again. Rehearse it. My time costs money, pal."

"I wasn't really concerned about appearances, Devica! I thought this guy would be a friend of yours! He's as friendly as the last one I met! Are you going to help me or not?!"

Devica Baines rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. Five days. Five days since a decent rest, and the drugs had run out two days ago. Five days of living off a few frozen meals, two bags of fried potato skins, a case of the most caffeinated soda on the market, and a large bag of candy bars. With a sigh, she turned on her bluetooth headset and wandered into the kitchen for another soda.

"Okay, let's start from the beginning. How do you know me?"

"You don't remember?" His call was full of static and distortion. She winced as the end of 'remember' went into the shrieking range. "We met at Grey's, the bar. Ring any bells? I got your number because I wanted some info on -- well, that's not important. Not anymore! I've been running since dawn!"

She raised an eyebrow, opening a soda and taking a long drink. "I'm impressed by your stamina. But I think I remember you saying something about marathon running." Frowning, she squeezed the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. "Okay, so. A thing with lots of teeth and grey fur is following you around. No one else is reacting."

( That could be a lot of different things. )

It was late, the moon casting a spotlight on the roof of the inn. Nerje, running his thick, black fingernails through his hair, sat down and pulled his stolen treasure out of his pocket—a roll, leftover from dinner. His mother, the owner of the inn, would have been cross if she’d known he was eating this late at night. But Nerje always got hungry right before he went to bed. He was growing, by leaps and bounds these days.

He was glad to be growing. He’d always been the scrawny kid, the one everyone made fun of; the kid no one wanted to touch, for fear they might break him. But now that he was finally gaining some height, perhaps they’d listen to him more. Maybe they’d bully him a little less.

Biting into the roll, Nerje, with his other hand, ran his fingers through his hair again, feeling his scalp. Daerys—another Tiefling—had told him that his cousin had grown horns during his growth spurt. Horns made you a badass, Daerys had insisted, and maybe Nerje would grow some too. No one would mess with you if you had horns.

Nothing seemed to be developing yet, but Nerje wasn’t about to lose hope. He wanted the whole nine yards of his demonic heritage—the scales, the wings, a tail, hooves. It was too bad that that stuff never came in later. You were born with it, or you didn’t have it. With wings, or hooves and a tail, none of the neighborhood bullies would feel like picking on him, surely. He could just look at them, and they’d run as fast as their legs could carry them.

“Nerje!”

He groaned. His mother? This late? “I’m on the roof!”

“Get in bed! Now! I won’t say it again!”

Something had woken her. A nightmare, maybe. She’d had more and more of those, lately. Probably about when his father had been taken out and beaten to death—when the town had been convinced of his guilt in a murder case. Law had never seemed right to him, after that. It was just a bunch of idiots trying to control you for their own purposes. Or trying to kill you, like father.

“Okay!” he called down, stuffing the last of the roll in his mouth.

He was going to make a name for himself. He was going to make those stupid guards cower in their boots, one day. They’d beg him not to hurt their families, or to mess up their reputation with the leader of the guard—or, worse, the king himself. He’d take tea with the king, someday, and the king would look forward to his visits. One day.

But first, he needed to get tall.

As though the window held the secret for his happiness, Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt would always find their son sitting in it late at night. He would never go to sleep until he was absolutely exhausted, preferring instead to look at the stars through his telescope.

“He’ll be an astronomer,” Mr. Schmidt later boasted at work. “My son, learning the stars as one learns a map.”

But Niklas Schmidt, when pressed, did not agree. He said that he didn’t know why he felt such a need to learn and track the stars. He said that he felt a great draw to them, a need, and that it was more important than sleeping. It felt familiar and kind up there, old and wise and young and new at the same time.

In time he stopped with his telescope altogether. He knew all of the stars that he could see. He knew their paths, and how they would change from season to season—as best as science could tell him. Niklas just liked to watch them.

( 'Go to bed!' his mother began to tell him crossly. )

 Tabitha had always run a tight ship.

She'd always kept within her budget, had never needed to take out a loan, and had made a tidy little niche for herself within the community. Even the dark turns that the Cliff District sometimes took couldn't keep her down. Everyone needed a distraction now and then, no matter how desperate--and that was why her knick knacks had always sold. Magical objects and mundane alike.

It was near closing time, half past seven in the evening. Summer. Still, the streets never got the warm rays that the tops of the buildings did--most of them seventy stories up. It was always cold on the street. But sometimes, during the summer--like right now--there was a warm breeze.

As she opened one of the windows, to let the breeze in, the chime hanging above the main door let out a merry song.

"Hi, Tab," murmured a familiar voice. It always made her heart stop, briefly, every time she heard it. Like some sort of big, shadowy thing was walking in to--

"Tab?"

"I'm sorry." She turned around. "I'm swarmed with my thoughts, this evening. How are you, Eri?"

Eri--and she'd always just gone by Eri--was standing there, half admiring her display of magical kaleidoscopes and half eyeing her. A human, or so she looked. But Tabitha knew better. No human lived as long as Eri had lived. She'd met Eri when she'd been a little girl, hanging on her father's pant leg as he'd stocked the store--back when it had been his. Now Tabitha was an old woman with two grandchildren, and Eri still looked the same.

( Always pale, her black hair at shoulder-length and a scar down her face... )

Quinn wandered out into the gardens, Alastair purring idly on her shoulder; the gardens seemed about the best place for her to be. Away from everyone else. A good way to stave off the beginnings of the headache she seemed to be having. And a good place to get away from the less-than-good thoughts that were rolling around in her head.

--Stop that.--

"Shut up," she muttered. "It's my head. I can do whatever I like in it."

--Well, we have to share it, and you're starting to scare me again. You wrote Jenn a note. That isn't what we were rehearsing, but it's something.--

"It was a long note, and now I feel like a creeper. But at least I said it. I told her what's going on." Quinn sighed deeply. "Now I just have to relax."

--That's the way. There's no need to stew about events that far in your past. You're a different you, and people will have to accept it, now. Ted accepts it. He's a good influence on you.--

Quinn flopped onto her back in the grass. Alastair leapt off and started skulking through the plants.

"That he is," she agreed, closing her eyes.

--Don't worry, you'll feel better soon.--