8pm, late into the Dusk part of the evening but not yet committed to the dark again for the day the Bed and Breakfast sat where the knowing soul could find it with the hearth light on. There was someone's car out front, and inside it was relatively quiet for an early evening. The most immediate presence to be found was either a murderhobo hitchhiker...or it was a Darkling. Six of one half a dozen of the other.
In mismatched greys and blacks there was a gaunt bug-man that was hunched up at work on tying waxed thread around a spool on a pencil with the utmost care. There was a lamp for the work, but no matter how he seemed to move the light never reached his eyes. Black orbs and one antennae grew curious in expression and his attention turned towards the door as a car passed on the street. Letting a breath out his fingers left something residing behind his lower back, and the punk turned back to his work.
Doll has been seated in the corner for quite some time, but anyone could have easily mistaken her for just a tossed aside Doll at the time, shrouded in the dark that grows ever darker around her in her perfect stillness. She's patient, waiting. Has been in search of the owner so that she can talk her way into a job in order to stay privately in that nifty attic up above. As night grows dark she comes to life, she's been there since he first entered and began working on his thread.
She stirs to life and with a curious tip of her head she moves closer where one can see the hairline fractures in her porcelain skin and those mostly unblinking pristine glass eyes with hues of green. Everything about her is perfect, too perfect in that uncanny valley sort of way.
Rorschach has taken note, and elsewise remaining disturbing of others. Truth was he's been working with scrap pieces and discarded doodads for a while and building... something? He was no wizened, but there seemed to be method in it, or at lest care.
Two whirls of curious blue seem to be the only colour that survives contact with him, his mantle alone desaturating and leeching color from that it falls over. They could not be more dissimilar as there was very little on him that could in any way be construed as perfect, or ...well... yeah. There was a curiosity and a silent concern. A black pitch leaked like ink out of one eye and was smudged away with the back of one wrist. He blinked and made a gesture with his fingers , one antennae curling into sort of a living question mark. He paused and pointed to a small pile of graham crackers and cheese on a plate and then to her, apparently in offering, or letting her know there was food.
Doll tips her head down towards the cheese and after a moment quietly moves to seat herself across from him. Like he, she doesn't say anything. She just sits there in the silence and nibbles on a few slices of cheese while pondering over his project. In fact it takes a good while for any words to stir forth and finally from the silence she does speak, piece of cheese in hand. "What are you making there?" She asks the bug.
Rorschach' cracked lips cracked into a fiantamused look and he tried to figure out how to describe that. He held the screwdriver in his mouth for a moment rather than putting it down, put his hands together first open, and then closed them, fingers lacing, emulating a bear trap or a venus flytrap. He reclaimed the screwdriver and pointed to the cheese and then to her. Apparently by all means, have at. He worked on tightening what looked likea small mobbile though made out of recollected bottle glass. This in no way looked like it was going to be catching bears anytime soon. That done he glanced back up, tilting his head slightly and made a few gestures. Best guess: You, <watch/eye/look> Soemthing having to do with a dress, pointing to the office in the nack?
Doll tugs at a few strands of her silk curls as she watches him, then eyes the door in the back. "A dress for someone?" She wonders. "Can you not speak?" She asks the bug, still hinted with curiosity. There is no emotion reflected within her empty gaze and none across her porcelain face. If anything her energy matches his own display.
Rorschach was a study in stillness, curiosity, and great caution. Darklings, by far and large shared that the world over it seemed on the surface. In spite of this he blinked at her question, the only motes of light where his eyes should be disappearing for a moment and returning. He shook his head and hooked two fingers in teh collar of his shirt. He was a network of bruises and scars. Something long forgotten did a tune on throating him at some point.
The screwdriver was set down and he flipped to a new page on a nearby pocket notepad and wrote: LOOKING FOR OWNER?
Doll takes note of the scars, she understands but she doesn't seem to feel. There are no drawbacks or looks of remorse. Just that same glassy stare and then soon after another nibble of cheese. When he shows her that notepad she studies it for a moment then nods her head a few times. "I am, yes."
Rorschach watched her with a curious, impassieness. He scribbled a note that read: NAME? BUSINESS? and pointed to her. Underneath he wrote RORSCHACH in the same scrawled all caps writing that was none too neat or worried about any concept of grammar here. He pointed to himself. Apparently that was some name or distinction of sorts. He broke off a piece of the cheese from the plate and chewed idly around the corners of it still sort of figuring her out. From inside his coat thrown over the back of the chair next to him came a trill like a violin section. Odd phone ringer to have, but hey.
Doll reaches forth with her finger, glass nails catch the note and she pulls it towards her so she can write back. Why she is doing this? Who will ever know. She write her name. Vayle or 'Doll' as her kind tends to call her, obviously. Next to business she writes: Seeking inquiry about living in attic, will work as needed but would like that to be a private space for her to live. Will not cause disturbances. She notes his name with a nod then scoots the paper back. "You know the owner well?"
Rorschach read the note and the antennae fell. It was a disappointment, but he answered the question witha shake of his head. THere were soem gesures his fingers worked to express even if she didn't know them; maybe two to three concepts at most he wrote back, BACK SHORTLY. nICE THOUGH. SHE WILL SEE YOU HAVE SHELTER. HOW LONG? he seemed to draw a finger from teh door to her...arriving(?) and then tapped the question of how long on the paper. Likely asking either how long she's been traveling, or maybe even jsut 'out' or how long she wanted it for.
Doll stares down at the paper again and shrugs some. "For a while, forever? I don't plan on going anywhere and I need a safe place to link my hollow too. One where I don't have to worry about others intruding." Her hands fold within her lap. "I was born here, taken from here, and returned here. So why leave here?" The town that is.
Rorschachpointed to himself and nodded, sadly clanking two index fingers together side by side in some agreement. He looked around at his things on the table and sighed with a tilt of his head. He wrote on teh pada dn turned it back to her with a solomn nod: 'I can tell her I can get it cleaned up. You came to pay or trade?'
"Either or." Doll tells him. "I wouldn't mind helping out around here in order to stay. Or offer my talents. I make things, I could make whatever the owner might want me to make at no cost. Something simple as a charm or complicated as a weapon of sorts."
.
Rorschach eyed her with some reluctance but nodded in some sort of agreement. He jotted down, 'The woman you want will be back soon. I cannot negotiate on her behalf. Not my place to do so, but I can put in a good word for you. You have family? Court?'
Doll shakes her head at family. "If I had any I don't remember, my court is Autumn." She responds. It feels like the quiet of Halloween night after all the trick or treaters have gone back home, but its the feint feeling indeed. "What about yourself? And thank you for putting the word in."
Rorschach sat mulling that over tapping his pen on teh notepad taking in her answer thinking of a dozen ways to respond. In the end he wrote, "Family's gone. I think. Don't much remember. Remember some. Have no way to contact her if I did know. Can't remember name. Faces. Happens I suppose.
Doll nods in agreement. "I don't know anything prior to coming back, so I'm not really the one to ask about faces around here and such. She takes a moment to look around the room. "Are you staying here too?" She asks him.
Rorschach ran his hand over the top of his head brushing the antennae back and nodded pointing up up up three times with the screwdriver. He wrote down simply, 'Don't worry about it. You need it mroe than I do. I don't know that you can connect your hollow here though. This is her domain. You'll have to hash that out with her.' he shrugged. There was a faint smile from cracked lips he offered her.
Doll tips her head as she watches him point up. "Well I would have to talk to her about that first before I truly know, but if you are there I can just find another one. Really." She tells him. "Or surely there is more than one room up there?" She has after all yet to see.
Rorschach actually smiled with more than a bit of amusement and scribbled down, 'It's not finished, but it is warm and will take care of you. Besides the view is good and you'll want the heat. If you heed help fixing it, say something. He looked at the odd glass windchime thing and continued work on it.
Doll nods then sits there quietly watching as he goes back to work on the windchime. When he smiles is when she actually smiles for the first time as well. "Alright, thank you. If you really don't mind. I'll keep you're mechanic skills in mind of course."
Rorschach stopped and shook his head with a soundless laugh and found a particular entertainment in her assessment writing down: 'not even in the slightest. I have no idea what sparkplugs do. Maybe if a truck started haunting you, perhaps.' He looked up at the clock and pointed to his wrist and nodded in assurance indicating se'd be back soon.
Doll chuckles some at the statement. "How might you stop a truck from haunting me then?" She asks curiously. Trying to figure out exactly what it is that he does or can do. She nods at the watch when he points to it.
Rorschach grinned wryly twirling the screwdriver in his fingers, then rolled it into an overhand grip and made a short 'stab' at the project he was working on. One eyebrow went up and wrote down 'All things have weakness. Especially monsters because they mistakenly think they do not. Reality might swallow them whole as they have tried to consume reality.' For him it was as simple as that sentiment, and he was unabashed about the idea of making some things hurt. It seems his sense of charitable neighbourliness had its limits.
Doll watches his display with a tilt of her head. "Oh I see. Yes, all things do. If you can find it." She replies to him. "On the other hand, some things cannot be touched. Not easily." Is she hinting at things she may be capable of? "But yes, monsters don't think it through because their 'only' goal is to hurt."
Rorschach nodded, apparently on the same page. There was another trail of black pitch crawling down his cheek from his eye again which, again, was smudged away with the back of his wrist. It left a stain across mottled grey skin just as the last one and the one before it had. Finally he finished tying the last small shell on the glass wind chime. It was more functional than it was pretty but it wasn't bad. One by one he picked up after his things and put them into a beatup backpack that looked as worn as its owner. He wrote in the notebook something that he tore out to hand to her letting her keep: 'Nothing is so esoteric that it has not been done before. Our keepers aren't half as clever as they thing and their mysteries lie all over. Knowing what we are looking for, you have seen, brings us back to life; walking that trod backwards. Funny enough I think the mundane appalls them most. They have no idea how to handle it. ain't that a frightening thought?"
Doll gently takes the page that he hands to her and she takes a moment to look over it. "It is the truth. Not half as clever, and some not half the monsters that they wish they were." She folds the paper up carefully and slips it into the pocket of her soft, black coat. "Thank you for helping out. I enjoy your company." She tells him before he heads off.
| 