Log:Her Name Was Beth

Her Name Was Beth
Participants Nana, Billy Ray, Gisa	3 April, 2017 The golem is upset after washing a corpse earlier in the day. The Wizened have Ideas on what to do. (Part of Plot:Endurance)
Location
Billy Ray is in the Broken Hearth area again. His battered cooler is nearby and open, revealing beer and soda. Also, French Onion dip and chips. He's got a gun mat down and is fiddling with a broken down pistol on the mat, using small tools as he peers down at it through a set of magnifying glasses. "C'mon you sumbitch, c'mon, c'mon," he says, and with a twang the part comes free. "Ah HA," says the Wizened with the map lines running across his skin. He peers at it, "Slide catch lever was plumb busted," he says to no one, putting a set of calipers on it. ".001 millimeter off. You call that tolerance? Hrmph. My grandpappy had more tolerance and he voted DEMOCRAT," he grunts as he tosses the part aside. He pulls out a closed container - it used to be a sour cream container, now cleaned and full of errant small parts - and he begins to pull through it. His sword belt lies next to him with his Hedgespun rapier, and a cigarette dangles from his mouth, on embers. The whine of an electric engine approaches the door, after which point Nana comes scootering through said door, riding in her standard issue 'I am not planning to go into the Hedge' wheelchair. She seems good natured about having to manage the door knob herself, whatever the truth may be. A tiny furry brown head pokes out of her purse, darting big brown eye around curiously. The chair whines its way up to a table and stops short, leaving the little pink haired granny in its seat comfortably positioned. Nose-level, mind you. But not all tables are created with her in mind. "Well. I can tell you where the kids leave their bubblegum." Gisa comes quietly in, moving as inexorably as a mountain range. She's steady, but today she moves a little less steadily than usual, or perhaps more introspectively. It's tough to tell, with a face made literally out of clay. She leans over Nana and holds the door out for her, but doesn't open the door for her. She was a little too slow to help with opening the door, perhaps. "Shalom," she offers to Billy Ray, and to Nana as well, moving off to a seat a short distance from them, and folding herself down onto a seat. Setting down her canvas bag, she digs in it for a bit, coming out with a Leatherman. Flips out a small knife, and starts cleaning her fingernails, for whatever reason. It makes a scree scree sound against the ceramic. Billy Ray looks up at Nana, pushing up his magnifying glasses up over his head and scratching his mulleted hair. "Hey miss," he says as he pushes himself to his feet, reaching for the cooler and pulling out two beers - offering one to Nana first, and then one to Gisa, "Bud?" he asks. He ashes his cigarette, exhaling politely to one side. "Billy Ray Johnson, at yer service. This here be Gisa and she's super good people. Down home people. Miss Gisa, y'be movin' a bit slow or awkward, y'hurt at all, y'mind me askin'?" "Oh, hello, dear," Nana enthuses towards Gisa, as though apologetic she hadn't seen the golem sooner. "So nice to see you again, and so soon. Aren't we fortunate?" She tugs open her purse to let her little dog out. The creature hops down to the floor and trots over to the easiest mark in the room. Billy Ray. Dogs know dog people. Even if the dog in question is purse-sized. It sits down right beside Billy Ray and stares. Stares until chips fall from the table. Nana's attention then turns to Billy, "Oh, I've met Gisa before. Isn't she just the most sincere person you've ever met? She makes you feel safer, just looking at her." Her smile is so warm, so kind. It's enough to make a person suspicious. Moreso when a breeze that shouldn't be here stirs a cluster of autumn leaves that likewise ought not be indoors around the wheels of her chair. "Yes, Zayde," agrees Gisa, and she says the term with respect. Clearly she's met the older woman before, and on kind terms. She stops cleaning her fingernails, and then looks at Billy Ray, then Nana, then Billy Ray. "You say very kind things, Zayde. From your lips to HaShem's ears. From your lips to His ears," she repeats. Billy Ray's question takes a while to answer. Her mouth opens and closes several times as the golem looks for words -- a strange thing for a creature whose very existence depends on words, on names. "Her name was Beth. They beat her. For a long time." The golem's eyeflames dim. "Today I washed her." Billy Ray frowns, and digs into his pack he left nearby; he pulls out a bag of chew sticks, opening them up and offering one to the tiny dog, if allowed letting the dog play and tug on it. "From m' dog, Butch," he tells Nana, "Nice to meet ya. If Miss Gisa says yer good people, yer good people." He frowns as Gisa speaks and something close to rage passes his face. "Ain't no honor in'a death like that, Miss Gisa. Y'tell me who did it and we'll wipe the Earth clean of 'em. Sumbitches will pay!" Bitsy nakes a bite of the offered treat and begins tugging at it desperately and without any real heft whatsoever. If it were a mouse, there'd be a dead moust now. But. It is not a mouse. Nana, on the other hand, is looking between Billy Ray and Gisa, trying to piece the story together. She doesn't ask, as that would make curiosity obvious. She just plays conversational tennis and begins to knit like someone not interested at all. Her head shakes, and the golem opens her mouth, sitting and staring off into near space -- as best as once can tell. "We don't know. They found her body outside the Hollow -- maybe not right outside. But nearby, in the Hedge." Gisa sniffs, her lungs pulling in air with a sound something like a blacksmith's bellows creaking. "They took a long time to kill her. They cut numbers onto her stomach. Kyle did the autopsy. I washed her body. We don't even know if a member of the Freehold did it. If it was one of her friends." Billy Ray grunts, "Lemme know if'n ah can help. Kay? I will, Miss Gisa. And ah know people, if ah can help." He grins at the little dog, handing over the chew stick and walks over to put a beer near Gisa and clasp her shoulder. "Ain't no dignity in that kinda goin', and we'll make sure justice is done, a'right?" To Nana, "Miss, don't think we met - where did y'meet Miss Gisa?" "Oh, that poor dear," Nana says quietly, with a note of sadness to her voice. "What a horrible way to go. Such a shame." Her head shakes as her hands continue to knit with considerable alacrity. She gives Billy a double-take, seemingly surprised at his continued interest in her. "Oh. Me? Well. Most everyone just calls me Nana, dear. I've grown rather fond of it, so Nana will do." The knitting never stops as she's talking, even when her focus is elsewhere. Hands on auto-pilot after all these years. "You know, dear," this is offered over to Giza, "I'm sure the Freehold has everything under control, but if you thought it might be helpful, you could bring me any evidence you find and I can tell you the information it knows. I'd hate to think you thinking you didn't do everything you could." Her eyes roll back to her knitting, smile never leaving her face. She turns and looks toward Billy Ray first, the flames in her eyepits brightening as he offers a beer and clasps her shoulder. "No. And I am -- worried -- about people like Lunette. Going about in the Hedge alone." Her fingers clink around the neck of the bottle, and she picks it up, taking a long swallow of that beer, as if her life depended on it. In the quiet of the Hollow, the beer seems to hiss somewhere deep inside her, as if it's pouring over the hot rocks in her center. "I met Zayde in the park, with her pup friend." She sniffs slightly, and mud slides down her face; she wipes her sleeve across her face, getting mud all over her sleeves. (There's already something dark on the ends of her sleeves. Given the context, that's probably dried blood.) "Zayde, her body is in the other room." "Zayde must be yer name?" asks Billy Ray to Nana, and glances at Gisa, "Y'need any help - lemme know, Miss Gisa. Someone said these Harvestmen help guard the Hedge an' Trod, right? This Captain Jonah fella? Mebbe he can post somethin' - askin' people not to go alone?" he asks. Without further ado, Nana backs her chair away from the table and begins to scooter towards the other room, knitting momentarily paused. She doesn't do much more than chuckle at the notion of Zayde being her name, with that same warmth she's had throughout all of this conversation. The little Yorkie stops tugging on the treat and trots along after the chair without having to be called. Apparently they're off to have a look at the corpse directly without another word said.