[Annie Taylor] It’s that time. There’s been food, water, run, and in the dark of the moon, Annie’s about as calm as she gets. Which . . . isn’t saying much, quite frankly, but it’s something. Regardless, after research at the library, she heads out to the Chicago Times to keep an eye out for whoever might be the one she needs to talk to.
This is a difficult proposition, really, with no description, not even so much as a gender.
Regardless, there is one young Gnawer who pulls up in a ratty VW microbus, red on the bottom and white on the top, riding on a spare on the back left, and hops out. Keys (my, that’s a lot of keys) jingle and find their way to her pocket, where her hands stay – it’s warmer than it’s been, but that’s still fucking cold for the SoCal girl. Idly, she wanders around the building, keeping an eye out for a likely suspect.
[Ian] The Chicago Times building is everything one would expect an old paper building to be, really – bustling, filled with activity, people running in and out, a big warehouse out back that is their printing operation, offices and reporters and people selling papers, and a lot to see around the outside of the building.
There are also things [people] that are so easily overlooked, so easily missed. The gnawer pulls up to the still bustling building – though not so bad at this hour – and there’s a pile of rags in a new used winter coat and gloves, shuffling along the wide steps that go up to the front door. He’s muttering to himself, shaking his head, palsy causing him to tremble as he talks to himself…
“Welcome, it’s the Chicago Times…gotcher news all day.. hey-a hey-a hey-a hey…”
[Annie Taylor] The girl reaches into her pocket and pulls out a (not too smushed) granola bar, which she offers to the old man as she falls into step with him. She is an Ahroun – there’s no mistaking her as what she is, even for those whose minds force that sort of input out and simply look at her as a monster, an aberration.
A wolf in sheep’s clothing.
“Hey,” she says, friendly and – as stated earlier – as calm as she gets. “You know about the Chicago Times?” She could mean the paper. But more likely, with that [Rage] look, she means something else entirely.
[Ian] Hey, someone says heyaheyahyeahey, and offers a granola bar, which he looks on with suspicion. He plucks at his rags and shifts his weight from foot to foot side to side and then hands that tremble and shake take the offering and it disappears somewhere in the wealth of scraps that is his clothing. His eyes are startling blue, but shifty, sliding, distant, clear.. never settling on anything for long as he shakes his head and rocksrocksrocks. “Pretty lil thing, questions asked, songs to sing, gotta task…”
He settles to the steps suddenly, more falling than sitting like a bag of old bones, skinny, too skinny, though bundled up well, gray hair and beard scraggly and flyaway, his face of wrinkles telling the story of a hard life in every line…
“Chicago Times, gotchore news all day, hey-a hey-a hey-a hey… whatcha wanna know, ya pretty lil girl, got the looka questions, mind all a-swirl…”
[Annie Taylor] She blushes, just a little; it’s not many who call Annie pretty these days, who take the time to look past scars and see that yes, she was once – and not too long ago, at that. “Ain’t been called pretty in years,” she says, pleased and a little shy, momentarily distracted. But then! Then, it’s back on track. “‘m Annie. Met a girl named Mary, said she belonged to the Chicago Times, once.”
She’s watching, careful, but lacks in tact – when she wants to know something, she dives in. It’s a thing. There’s no patience for dancing around, no time for subtlety – there’s a question, and she wants an answer. “Did some homework; ain’t gonna come bother no one without a little something, ya know? But what I found said I’d find someone here who might know somethin’.”
[Ian] He chortles, laughing as he rocks back and forth, arranging and rearranging his rags with shaky fingers as he shakes his head, back and forth back and forth… “Beauty from the inside, never the out, pretty lil thing, ain’t no doubt…”
And then he’s cackling again.. “Mary, mary she gets around… so tell me, girly, how did she sound? Knows something, know some things, know them I do… there’s many with questions of Mary, you make number two…”
And then his eyes are on hers – direct and clear and present… “Ask.” and he’s back on the loop again. “gotcha news all day…”
[Gina McClaren] (ahem. ignore the skank!)
[Annie Taylor] “Well, I guess I wanna know why. There’s three of ’em – the Marys, I mean – best as I can figure, even if I only met the one. An’ they’re all in the same cemetery. An’ this ain’t the first time they been back. So, what does Mary M want? Other than her man to know she ain’t banged no one else an’ ta get married.” It’s avidly curious, though the youngun has no emotional tie to this – mostly, she just wants to make sure no one she does have an emotional tie to is going to get hurt as this all goes down. “And is she . . . a ghost? Ain’t met onea them before.”
[Ian] Pluckpluckpluck, his fingers tug and fluff and flare the rags that cover him, his shoulders hunching against the cold, fingers warmish in the new gloves that the other with the questions got him… Tristan’s kid she was, Tristan the violin man, play ya a song as fast as he can…
But Mary, back to mary, always mary…
“What she knows, what she don’t.. not my story to tell so I won’t won’t won’t… The whys the wherefores, the howdedos… ya need to ask her that’s whatcha need to do…” He chuckles and sways side to side, gloved fingers scratching at his chin, at the gray and dingy beard and he nods, nods, nods… “Getchaself a Mary for a merry good time, Marry an Mary and life is all fine… A ghost with the most, roaming about the city… maybe she’s a message, maybe she wants pity… Chicago Times, gotcha news all day, hey-a hey-a hey-a hey….”
[Annie Taylor] “I’m going to the cemetery where they’re buried ta see what I can find out there. I guess I’ll ask if I run inta onea ’em there,” she says, and there’s a remarkable amount of patience with him, for all her Rage, her energy, her need to move and do. “A message of what? Pity, I get.”
And buried in a place called Resurrection cemetery, maybe she even gets why they keep coming back, to an extent. “Just don’t seem right ta let ’em keep wanderin’ if there’s a way to settle ’em, I think.”
[Ian] He nods, again again again.. as if it’s to something she said, or something only he hears, something, nothing, anything -he might simply be quite mad. But Annie, the pretty lil thing, she’s got the patience for him, for his rambling ways, for what he says (but what about what he doesn’t say? Hey-a hey-a hey-a hey..)
“Settle em down, fix what’s wrong, maybe then a Galliard will sing of them a song… Perhaps there’s something, something there… they can’t all just be wantin’ to let down their hair… Ghostly business restless true.. mayhap there’s somethin’ specific to do…”
[Annie Taylor] “George was the Ragabash. Allen was the Ahroun. Were you the Galliard, then?” She’s sketchy on the math – he doesn’t look quite that old, but then, he could look a lot older. She’s a pretty li’l thing, alright, and he’s old enough to be someone’s grandpa, at least. But he doesn’t feel like a Galliard, one imagines. “And . . . do ya know the specific thing that needs doin’?”
Something there, well, Annie can deal with that – by herself, with help, whatever’s necessary. She knows how to take care of problems that require tooth and claw, but the problems that require thinking take her a little longer to work out. But knowing, “Or the thing there. That’d be good ta know too,” she says with a pop of the gum she’s been working since (long before) she arrived.
[Ian] He chortles at that, finding it highly amusing – he laughs so that he bends over and rocks rocks rocks with a cough that rattles him to his very bones. Eventually he can breathe again and he spits a wad of disgusting looking phlegm off to the side, and cackles a little more…. “Old I am, Old I may be… but do you really think me one hundred and three? Ah, lil lass, you poor wee lil thing… tis me da’s stories he learned, these tales that I sing. Not of the Chicago Times, no, that’s true, but their stories were told all Chicago through….”
He pluck pluck plucks at his rags again and nods repetitively “What they need done, aint a story for me… I no more roam, these steps my home be… The only one who knows what to do, is likely the Mary not in dancing shoes…”
[Annie Taylor] “Ain’t good at math,” she says sheepishly. “Didn’t finish school. But I don’t think you’re a hundred and three, no.” But then, the important part! Mary not in the dancing shoes. “The older or the younger?”
One’s stuck at the cemetery, she knows – maybe Annie’ll see her while she’s there. The other, though, she’ll have to look for. At least she has an area narrowed down for each – it’s a good start, all told.
“And what can you tell me about her? I did homework, like I said, but ain’t good at book things. Just found out where, an’ that the one that ain’t always at the cemetery is younger, but all three got hit by cars. And that no one sees the Mary that runs through Chinatown, just bam, feels like they hit someone.”
[Ian] He nods, againagianagian, and lifts a hand to thump the heel of it against his forehead, as if to shake the memories loose, though it don’t come easy, and he’s fading fading – tired and almost time for pick up so that he can have his bed and pee…
“Mary, mary the older of the three.. she’s stuck there in the cemetery… hands against bars, rattle and shake, heated imprints in the metal she makes… the other, a wee lass, died before the married marys two… poor pa so distraught, didn’t know what to do..”
[Annie Taylor] “…..who was her pa?” Might be important, might not. Maybe the Marys are connected by something other than place of burial and being restless dead, maybe they share more than a name. “And what did he do?”
Better to know as much as possible, and discard what isn’t important than to miss something because she didn’t ask. Then, a smile. “I’ll stop pestering you soon, honest. Just don’t wanna miss anything, ya know?”
[Ian] He rocks, side to side to side, and digs at his teeth with a gloved hand, which isn’t easy as he’s lost quite a few of them, gaptoothed and wild the old man… muttering, singsongy…
“Marry a Mary and have a merry good time… but George, he didn’t, he slid under the line – Mary a nickname for his daughter, you see… that’s how they became the Marys three… Chicago Times, got the news all day… hey-a hey-a hey-a hey…”
[Annie Taylor] “How’s the older Mary connected? Are – were all three kin? And . . .” She chews her lip for a moment, a frown creasing her brow. They’d have to be kin; being hit by a car wouldn’t have killed any of them, otherwise. Well, unless they were human, but Garou aren’t taken down by car wrecks, not that Annie’s ever heard. “I guess the only question that matters – well, of those two – is the first one. An’ here.”
She’s given him a granola bar – the only other thing she has to offer in return for all of this is a knit hat, which she hands over freely. What’s hers is his.
“You’ll be a little warmer.”
[Ian] He reaches out, gnarled hands taking the hat and turning it around around around in his hands before pulling it on his head, over that flyaway whispy white hair… “Mary, the Mary, the older gal, was married to Randolf, that sonofagun… the only brunette, was Mary B, but a prettier thing ya never did see…”
He pats the hat and nods, and smiles a gaptoothed grin at Annie. “Gary be here soon, you see… to find me a warm bed, an’ a place to pee…”
[Annie Taylor] “Gotcha,” she says, but not all of it, not quite. “I won’t keep you – well, much. Who was Randolf? Another of the Chicago Times?” Got the news all day, heya heya heya hey. And of course if two of the three are tied together by that, the third must be as well – it stands to reason, or so Annie thinks.
[Ian] He grins that grin and nods his head, hair now captured and controlled by her gift of her cap. “The Chicago Times numbered five, brothers by Tribe, none still alive. Randolf the songster, Rudy the ‘dox, Samual the seer, led a life of hard knocks… Joined with Allen, an’ George, and together they stood, their deeds great an’ many, for they ruled this ‘hood…”
[Annie Taylor] “Hey, I’m Hard Knocks.” For a moment, she finds this inordinately amusing, but then it’s gone. “So the three Marys were all under the care of the Chicago Times by marriage or birth.” And all got hit by cars, and buried in the same cemetery and come back at around the same time every so often. “Is there anyone else I should talk to before I go lookin’ for Mary B?”
[Ian] He starts to gather himself, to rise to his feet, grunts and groans and his joints creak and pop as he does so. “Pretty lil gal, came to chat before, maybe she knows a lil bit more. Moira’s her name, was nice to an old man.. maybe she can give ya a hand..”
And he lifts his hand in a wave and starts back around the building. “Chicago Times we got the news all damn day, hey-a hey-a hey-a hey…”
[Annie Taylor] “Thanks, mister,” she says. “An’ if ya need something, lemme know – I’ll help out if I can.” And so she watches him wander off, then goes to find out more about this Moira girl (and also to find more old Garou and kin who are Chicago natives, or at least have been here a lot longer than she).
[Ian] [and that’s a fade! Thanks for playin! :)]