Talk:Czcibor Kowal/Temp

The Captain lets out a distinctly embarrassed laugh. "Yes, well, when feeling gothy, where better to goth out than a graveyard?" As he steps in behind Ziv, then closes the door behind him, he's already shrugging out of his coat: it is comparatively warmer, and a renewal of the heightened sensations of a body that's not made of hollow-cast lead makes for distinctions in temperature. His silver eyes soften at, indeed, the hominess of the space. "Thank you for inviting me."

There are also, currently, icicle type lights draped along the upper bannister, which casts a soft glow over the cabin even before Ziv reaches over with her wingtip to flick on the lights and illuminate the... kitchen. So it's about half illuminated, leaving the rest in soft, pleasant light that's still partially shadow. "You're welcome," she chirrups, heading along into the kitchen before starting to fish around into the refrigerator. "It's why I have a nicer home in the first place, so I can have company... make yourself at home, and um... Anything you want to talk about?"

In the meanwhile, she's taking out some milk and putting it into mugs.

Czcibor's quiet for a moment, losing himself in the icicle lights. It's not quite long enough a silence to be awkward, but his voice is really quiet when he does speak. "The second problem is just... stupid. I'll get over it. The first problem-- is-- I met a girl who I think lives in Fort Brunsett? I met her in the woods when I was working up to the catch to turn into air, and I was just sitting on the mountainside near one of the entrances to the Looptrod. I'd just been killing briarwolves with Vorpal..." He shakes his head, then moves over to the futon and sits on the edge of it, still holding his coat. "She looked exactly like an old friend of mine. Someone I dated on and off, back in Vienna. Almost exactly like. Physically exact. A star-wolf, my friend had called herself, part wolf and part Telluric... she had a similar way of speaking around her teeth, she had the same constellations, the same mannerisms... but it wasn't her. She said she didn't know the girl I was talking about. She said she looked exactly like someone who was not... the girl I was talking about, but that it was not something to talk about, there; we'd gone back into the hedge so she could claim some of the biggest briarwolf corpse..."

Ziv listens to this while she stirs in one packet of powdered hot chocolate, and then puts the first mug into the microwave, letting it run for a while. A few steps are taken to put her nearer to Czcibor, and a little further away from the hum of the microwave, so that she can hear more easily. A small pinch comes to her brows, a line forming at the center of her forehead - it's there, but hard to see, considering her short, black fur.

Rather than giving her thoughts at the moment, she gestures with a wing for Czcibor to continue, dark eyes on him.

"...we used to be afraid," he finally says, voice low, not the resonant hum it is normally when this quiet. Just there, in the air with them, his words and his hands clutching the wool of his coat. "The lot of us, who were lost and new to all of this, in Vienna. We used to be afraid of what could make one of us into one of Them. We used to be afraid of what might make one of us finally snap. And we were afraid when we saw it happen to some of us in stages, piece by piece by piece, losing their minds or their hearts, and nothing we could do could stop it. No words we could say, no hopes or havens we could offer. She-- I knew her when she was human, and I tried to protect her from those of us who wanted to keep her locked away for her own safety, but I couldn't. She was Taken by one of Them, and I was there when she came back one of us." He looks up at Ziv, and his face is blank, and his eyes are distant. "I watched her go from small and afraid and powerless to one of the most powerful among us, as I lost other friends in other ways, and as we all grew in power and scope, and lost the things that we treasured. When my brother got Taken again, and my motley went after him... when I came back, she was gone, and so was her cat-man boyfriend."

He lets out a breath. "This girl looks exactly like her. And she says she looks like someone who is not my friend. And she doesn't like cats. And I know that if we lose ourselves, we become Them. What are the odds, Ziv? And that this girl should be here, in Vermont, new, just after I arrived?"

Ziv continues to look thoughtful, not immediately answering what Czcibor says. Eventually, her voice is very soft as she answers, "I'd be... really, really careful about this, Czcibor. In this case... it... it really sounds... fishy, in this case. Either she... could be the person and is lying, since... well." She kind of gestures with a wing, in indication of Czcibor. What could that mean. "...It could be she doesn't remember... or it could be someone made to... look like her. To trick you."

The last part is said very quiet, with an almost dire undercurrent to Ziv's tone. She seems about to continue, when the microwave chimes. That gets a blink, and then she goes to take the mug out, and add another packet of hot chocolate powder to it, mixing it up with the spoon held between her thumb and the upper ridge of her wing.

"I know," the Captain says miserably, hunching over on the couch, putting his head in his hands. "You haven't even-- it's not to trick me. She's not her, and she knows she's not her, she knows who she is. She has an accent from this area, even. I think it's worse. I think she's innocent, and that-- that the girl who was my friend, she's one of Them now, and she took this girl and made her to look like her. And put her near me. I'm terrified that she might know where I am. I'm furious that she might do this to an innocent girl. I'm-- I'm--"

Ready to explode, as he'd said before. "She's so new. So young. This isn't her fault. She was hurt just as we were. Whoever she is, she survived it just as we did. But she's too new to be Liane, this girl. She doesn't have the magic. But she has the same habits born of horror-- starving, being without-- and going for the liver first if allowed at the guts. If she's a trap she doesn't know it."

Leaving her own mug of hot chocolate on the counter for the time being, Ziv circles around to where Czcibor is sitting and reaches out to try to take one of his hands from him. If successful, she presses the mug into it, curling her own chilled, leathery wing around his fingers and holding it there. Her voice, when she speaks, is incredibly soft - scarcely above a whisper but fervent. "It is -not- your fault. You... you can't control everything that happens, Chee. You can't do it... you're just... part of this world like the rest of us. If you -could- control everything... you'd be one of Them, too."