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

[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. ]