Hello, it's me

[perroquet]

CHARACTERS: EVERYONE
WHERE: Hyrypia - The Swept Manor Grounds
WHEN: Morning of day 12
SUMMARY: Rudely calling like 80% of the Nest out for being cagey.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary.



(Hello! Am I doing this right? Hello!!! Good morning!!)

[ The red sun is hardly up, it's barely after breakfast, some of the members of the nest may still be sleeping - and this one doesn't seem to mind. He noisily floods the network like a one-man-band who just won the lottery, his very thoughts musical and abrasively cheerful. ]

(It's been several long days since my young broodmate and I joined you in this dustbowl, but I have yet to meet all of you properly. I understand we're working covertly, but you're all quite cagey for being connected in the head, you know that?)

[ There's either a slight tone of vindication, as though he believes most have earned this morning call for being so standoffish. Or perhaps he's just being loud because he's inexperienced with the symbiote still. Possibly both. It's hard to tell through the band playing behind every word. ]

(Most of you don't know me yet, but I want to get to know every single one of you. Since we have another day here, I'd like to get started. Here, I'll go first-

My name is Gildor Helyanwe, and I'm a bard from Esterport. How are all of you? Well I hope, not getting too hot, learning to ride those constructs?)

[ The band stops. Crickets chirp, though hopefully not for long. If he's left hanging, he has no qualms over striking up the mental orchestra next. ]

Comments

[aluminumandash]

[ He can't sustain it, not for long. The seal breaks with a pop, and Rust seeps in—like ink, like a gust of frigid air.

His focus doesn't let up, not for the sun or the radiant goodwill. ] ( Don't do that again. ) [ A windswept voice, dispassionate. ]

[perroquet]

[ The sound of the voice seems fitting, and the goodwill he radiates quickly turns to amusement - brief and fluttering like a flute. The pushing and shoving and imaginative suffocation is already forgiven. ]

(I won't - save for emergencies. You have my word.)

[ The amusement fades, because as he thinks the words he means them, commits to them, in the old way giving your word used to mean something. He then settles back to that gentle warmth as the dark expanse of his mind reopens, quieter this time, and makes itself welcome should this host wish to meet more properly. He already introduced himself, so he waits. ]

[aluminumandash]

[ He's suspicious—of the dark and its uniformity, of the warmth and the part of himself that's drawn to it. There's a stiff-backed reticence that's also a form of alertness. ]

( Rust Cohle. Lately of Louisiana. ) [ His drawl more pronounced now, the last three words like sweet tea, saccharine and then bitter. ]

( You break your word what happens, Gildor Helyanwe? )

[perroquet]

(Well, I suppose then I'd be dishonest, and that wouldn't sit well with me. Honestly.)

[ As if to prove his point, he continues. And continues. And- ]

(And if we're being honest, then I must admit I'm really Gildor of Helyanwe. Esterport is just where I made my musical debut and feels more like home. Though if I were to also say lately, then that would be the Greenhill Temple of the Artist. I've been their pianist the better half of the last decade, though really violin is my specialty-)

[aluminumandash]

[ What can be said for this is: it's familiar. He can't tell if it's nerves, some kind of ploy, or the guy's fucking around. Maybe he's one of those people who just can't take the quiet.

Resignation on Rust's end, a mental sigh. ] ( You've never heard of Louisiana. ) [ An observation. ]

( Your training, it's exclusively musical? )

[perroquet]

[ Answer D: all of the above. ]

(No, I haven't.)

[ Likewise, he can assume Rust hasn't heard of any of the places he mentioned. So far no one has.

He settles in comfortably for the interview, the dark and warmth of his mental presence continuing to radiate softly. As if to answer, the music picks back up too - gently, gently. ]

(Musical and magical. I'm a bard, not a plain musician. Though I take it you do not know of bards?)

[ He'll wait to ask this host, this rusty man, too many questions of his own. After how badly he reacted to that entrance, Gildor suspects he's one of the 'anti-socials' Pidge warned him of. ]

[aluminumandash]

[ Magic.

The connection almost closes there, snapped shut like a book not worth the finishing. Contempt gnaws through everything—his patience, his suspicions.

The impression of something sharp taking shape, word by word. ] ( You're the first I've known to lay claim to the title. )

[perroquet]

(I'm so very sorry.)

[ For all the suspicion and contempt Rust allows to slip through the connection, Gildor matches it with pity in the form of a sorrowful violin. How sad to not live in a world with magic, especially of the musical brand. No wonder the mental parade made him so upset. But he can't let this tragedy get him off track- ]

(And what would your title be Mr. Cole?)

[aluminumandash]

( Chronically, I'll bet. ) [ This time around he doesn't bother. Doesn't think about snapped strings, warped wood.

He thinks about the one cigarette he's saved. ] ( "Cohle" will do fine. ) [ He holds back what he can, but with the name a sense of instruction—a tattered manual—and shelter jointly constructed. ]

[perroquet]

(Just Cohle then.)

[ Gildor fixates with him, just for a moment, on the images. Memories and associations he can so quickly identify as alien compared to the darkness in his mind.

The cigarette stands out. He picks it up like a thing that was dropped over their mental bridge and hands it back, but not without giving it a curious examination first. ]

(Sorry. I'm still learning to interpret... images.)

[ He does his best to cleanse it from his mind with another round of gentle song. ]

(Well, since magic is off the table, what is it you do Cohle?)

[aluminumandash]

[ Blind. Of course.

An instant's irritation—with himself, for not putting it together sooner, that pervasive black—coupled with thin-lipped amusement. Homer a whisper in his thoughts, the texture of marble. ]

( Back in Louisiana I was a homicide detective. ) [ Rather than throw up walls, Rust pours focus into words he knows will be inscrutable: HOMICIDE stamped out letter by letter, black on white. Takes his time.

Blandly, even as his thoughts keen toward anger: ] ( There's no magic spell clears up blindness? )

[perroquet]

(Homicide? How dreadful.)

[ There's another sense of pity there, but other thinly veiled opinions. The hope that he must take some enjoyment in delivering justice. Faith he's a good man despite the rough exterior. Bright side after bright side after bright side. ]

(Oh, no, there's little that is permanent with... what are those?)

[ He's immediately distracted by the stamped out things - flat shapes with no texture to them. Those are unlike the images he's been shown so far and lack all the other things he's still learning to perceive, like depth and color. ]

(Are those...? Are you a lettered man?)

[ He's already impressed without an affirmative answer, so happy for Rust - he can read! ]

[aluminumandash]

[ It's gratifying, in its way—knowing the underlying emotion is as trite as the sentiment he trots out. Rust brushes the pity aside, does the same with the rest of it.

Like turning away a door-to-door salesman. ]

( It's the norm, where I'm from. ) [ Louisiana, land of the literate. ] ( We have whole buildings full of books. )

[ He calls up the hush of a library, worn carpet underfoot. The crinkle of plastic as you pull down a book, the musty smell and occasional dog-eared page. His mind briefly soothed, memory a narcotic.

Yet he's matter of fact in saying: ] ( Sometimes we throw them away. Sometimes we burn them. )

[perroquet]

[ The memory of the library is a familiar and welcome one. Gildor takes nearly as much comfort in it, only adding the soft echo of high stone walls and the gentle voices of teachers reading aloud. The smell of books and scrolls must be universal in a literal sense. ]

(That's wonderful! What an enlightened place Louisiana must be!)

[ Though on second thought- ]

(Perhaps not the throwing away or burning parts of it.)

[ He could go on indulging this. Though he's never been able to read, he's enjoyed books through the help of others and would very much like to again - but there's still the purpose of his wake-up-call. He's not all interested in introductions and making small-talk. He's interested in skills. ]

(So how does a detective-scribe such as yourself go about piecing together the mystery we are currently living? I've tried charming the dignitaries up on the cliff, but came away with little.)

[aluminumandash]

( A month ago a man shot his wife four times for bringing home the wrong kind of tuna. ) [ A dust-dry accounting of it, typewritten words interspersed. A very faint twinge—gunshot wounds scar and the memory scars with them.

So that's Louisiana. ]

( On your own? ) [ Gildor is blind; Gildor hasn't impressed Rust with anything close to charm, but the source of the question is more fundamental than that. ] ( Next time you take someone with. It's less suspicious, easier to push an agenda. What'd you learn? )

[perroquet]

[ You can't just say things like this before moving on and expecting him not to wonder, Mr. Cohle. He's not unfamiliar with domestic atrocities, but the twinge, especially the wounds - that is unfamiliar. ]

(Shot with...? Never mind.)

[ The sound of an bow string snapping comes to mind, but he hushes it before it can become too quizzical. Right. Focus. The rapping of a conductor's baton against metal gets him back on track. What he found- ]

(Yes, and I really should have gone with another. I went to listen in on their gossip, but could hardly ask any questions...

All I heard was a couple of junior aides discussing a strange sound they heard the night we were camping on the road. I believe they were of the Descendants party. Apparently a friend of theirs spotted a couple of figures passing in the dark.)

[aluminumandash]

[ Gun is there in his head, exerting the same quasi-magnetic pull as the real thing. A weight, a burst of light, ringing in the ears. Blood welling up.

That's a fifteen-minute conversation, minimum. He leaves it. ]

( Coming or going? ) [ A sense of shifting equilibrium, readiness verging on eagerness. Two sets of tracks—an image he's been picking at. ] ( They use that word, "figures"? )

[perroquet]

[ The gun, and the sound, doesn't make sense to him. It's likely the first sound he hasn't recognized yet. The image is completely misunderstood, except that it's dark, wherever it is. ]

(They didn't say.) [ He had warned it wasn't much. ] (But yes, figures.

I believe the friend they were gossiping about was named... Carva... no... Cavanian.)

[ The name is pulled from a collection of sounds, large and shifting through its archive somewhere behind the part of his brain that constantly plays music. The memory is easier to find being so recent. He separates it from other eavesdropped conversations, amplifying a pair of particular hushed parlor voices. They speak over the scent of spiced tea, accents notably that of the Descendants- ]

("You heard it too?"

"Yes, took me out of a dream. But I was so tired from all the walking I had no problem going right back to sleep."

"I did too, but Cavanian had a look. Said she thought she might have seen two figures passing in the dark, but she wasn't sure who it was."

"Strange.")

[aluminumandash]

[ He listens patiently, snapping up the name. His conscious attention on the conversation, and in the background a careful plotting of the camp that night: where the Descendants' tents had been, where Rust had been, the trail he'd followed. ]

( You have an excellent memory. ) [ Somehow it's not a compliment. Memory is unreliable as a rule—spotty, idiosyncratic.

This, this newly pressed record, he doesn't trust. ] ( Thank you. )

[perroquet]

(Why thank you.)

[ It's not a compliment, but Gildor can vaguely tell he's already been branded an asshole by this man. It's not the first time, and he decides to roll with it. ]

(You're welcome. It's not perfect, unless I'm trying to memorize new music. Conversations and voices I do alright with. Numbers are right out.)

[ As if to illustrate this, his mental orchestra picks right back up again, violins striking fervently. ]

(I suppose I'll let you know if I hear anything else then, Mr. Detective.)

[ He chides, but within all the noise and darkness of his mind, there is faith too. Not just faith in goodness, but in the Nest and all their unique and varying abilities. Rust can reserve who and what he trusts all he wants, but Gildor's approach is the exact opposite. He has faith in you, Mr. Cohle. ]

[aluminumandash]

( Then you have a prodigious memory. ) [ He reevaluates, shifting a tile or two in the mosaic of known facts. Trying to ignore the sawing violins.

His interest changes too—as if he could take Gildor's mind and scissor it in his fingers, learn its texture. ] ( Be careful out there. ) [ Concern, of a stripe—more akin to wariness than real compassion. ]