Log, complete

[maten-rou.livejournal.com]

When; April 2nd, night/dawn
Rating; PG + diabetes warning
Characters; Maria [lorenzavirgine] & Jyabura [maten_rou]
Summary; Maria arrives at the City, visits the forests and meets the local fauna (A nice summary for an effin' huge log! Jeez!)
Log;
Actually, the day started pretty well.

It was the third day after Pascal and Frankie had set off to France. Frankie styled up and somewhat sovereign, despite the things that had happened to him before, giving her a warm-hearted hug, while Pascal was overly nervous behind the façade of sunglasses and twitching mouth corners, constantly fumbling for the gun beneath his black suit. He didn't sound much more unwound when giving her a call this morning, late afternoon in France. Mumbled something about the flight; confusing incident Maria didn't manage quite to gather.

"You got drunk," she guessed into the middle of nowhere. She wasn't really into talking this moment, but it was something she had to take care of nontheless. "No, I did-- just a little! I didn't want to, but Frankie-" "You two," Maria was pulling the joker out of her conversation deck, "still sometimes behave like overly amorous teenage boys." And Pascal yelled at her, pausing rarely ever, over the distance of one ocean. Probably audible without even the phone receiver. Everything was back to normal then. For a second at least.

She didn't tell him about the Rico incident. Though Pascal didn't speak French, losing his vocal chords in the middle of Normandy wouldn't be too useful, so she abstained from instructing him about that. Nothing she couldn't handle herself, was it?

Maria decided to spend the day with wasting time and to go clubbing at night. Five seconds later, though, she instead settled for having a nice dinner somewhere and staying home that night. She needed to recover from the earlier incident's stress anyway. And she wasn't exactly in the mood for fucking some lucky bastard's poor fellow's mind out. Maybe tomorrow, she thought, and she was just up to think of something else when a shot parted the silence's skin to pierce its flesh with the noise of an unleashed bullet. Being a Santargo, she immediately countered with a hushed "Fuck", grabbed her purse, fumbled out her gun and walked over to the spyhole, almost jumped back when hearing a decent knocking. Still, she managed to take a look.
Luscontis, five of them. They didn't look too amused. In fact, they gave quite a pissed look, waving around their cheesy American weapons. Yes, why thank you, what a lucky incident. Especially if two of three brothers are gone for the next weeks and, due to that, unable to help.

She rarely ever had wished so strongly for a place to hide, to crawl up in a corner and wait until the danger had passed. Due to the difficulties she had in deciding what to do now. After practically invading her own brother's headquarters, she didn't think she could just give her father a call to send some of his henchmen over. On the other hand, maybe it was worth giving it a try. Quietly, Maria stormed into the bedroom, immediately reaching for the phone and almost colliding with a tree. Not that she had a tree in her bedroom. This place truly wasn't her bedroom, though.

A... forest. Or something. It wasn't easy to particularise due to the forest being as dark as Pascal's smoker lungs, so she couldn't see much anyway. Just greenish roots sticking out of the ground. What she heard was enough, though. The calls and cries of animals one didn't even see in the zoo now penetrated her ears from close. The creeps crawled up her neck and made her grab her gun, assuring it was still there, releasing the safety then. Insanity? She had always been unaffected by that genom. A dream? Something... else? Staring into the dark, she felt her body hair arising to pray hysterically to the treetops.

A night as usual in the forests. Dark, feral and actually the only kind of entertainment the City left the wolf to have. By having his own house in the rather calm gardens he and his roommates stayed out of most drama, and the past few curses didn't cause to much annoyance either. If Jyabura knew what he went through before his memory wipe, he'd maybe enjoy this silence more, but now he was plain and simply bored. Not that he actually minded the serenity, but from time to time a little action was due. By the standards of an assassin that meant killing. Hunting. Preferably a lot of it.

He had to admit that the animals of the forests were not an easy match, but the hunts never caused him bigger injuries or costed too much effort. While he indeed ate most of the prey he caught, all his visits to the forest were purely for the fun of it, to stay in shape. He never expected something exciting to happen. Just when some new scent reached the wolf's nose that night, an almost full-moon shining from the sky.

Curious he followed the track of the scent on quiet paws, interesting enough not making a sound due to his size and the speed in which he meandered through the trees. He stopped when the person was in range of sight and looked over from some thicket he hid inside. A girl. Interesting... And judging the amount of cold sweat that covered her natural scent, she was definitely not used to be in the forests. Well, and judging by that pulled gun, of course. Which really wouldn't help her in those forests. The wolf decided to just keep on watching, as he learned in the City that he shouldn't underestimate people by their looks. Maybe she was one of those freaks from inside of the City who were a good enough match for him.

In the usual, Maria was a very calm person. Maintaining her subtle logics functional normally wasn't a problem for her. So she often managed to come up with half-way good ideas, even if stressed. Usually. Too bad this situation wasn't quite usual to her. As the crying animals continued with slight sounds, but nothing too dramatic happened, she decided to gather some information about the whole situation. So, she thought, I'm standing here alone in a forest after passing the threshold of my bedroom. The forest is dark, obviously filled up with nauseous trees and - judging by those sounds - possibly dangerous creatures.Slowly, she stated to herself that maybe Luscontis were a peril rather to put up with successfully.

She took a decent look around, analysing her surroundings. The shadow of a tremendously grown, though apart from that nonhazardous looking tree close to her practically burned itself into her retina. Carefully not to stumble with her high heels, she stiffly walked over to that tree, stretching out her hand and finally touching the crenated bark with her fingertips. For a second, she almost caressed that plant before turning her back to it, doing a step backwards and finally touching the slightly wet and cold bark with her back. Wow. That feels a lot safer, doesn't it. Her glance ran over the various tree trunks that all looked the same in their darkened, shadowy manner. However, this view was now pierced by a pair of illuminated, yellow eyes, presumably glaring at no one else but her. Insane and paranoid, it's more likely than you think? Okay, she thought, now I'm officially creeped out. Don't move or I've got to run.
Maria drew a breath while knee-jerkily pointing her unlocked gun at that pair of eyes or, to be more specific, at a point between. Now that wasn't a too great idea, she had to admit that, but spontaneous reactions often lacked something called reasoning. And it made her feel a bit safer at least.

To shoot or not to shoot, that's the question.

What, did she really think she stood a chance against him with this itty-bitty piece of metal that shot other, even itty-bittier pieces of metal? Yes, they had guns in his world. And canons, too. But against the freak-infested part of the inhabitants of his world, a gun really wasn't too useful. Compared to that girl's gun the ones from his world seemed horribly archaic. Which, in fact, they were. Still, by pointing one of those things at him no one could really scare him. It bothered him that she obviously noticed him, though. Oh well. Not that he cared to hide properly.

For the split of a second he thought about killing her. Or at least bite her hands and with them the gun off. Which pretty much equalled to kill her. For some reason he decided against it, at least for now. She seemed oh so obviously confused and scared, maybe she had just arrived to the City. Anyways, he didn't know her, neither personally nor by scent. Randomly killing unknown girls didn't seem like a clever idea, though the fact she carried around a gun with her didn't make her exactly trustworthy. It seemed more of a thing that criminals would do. And really, work-related he couldn't stand people who didn't obey the law.

Inwardly, he sighed. Changing shapes would just confuse her more. Moving wasn't a good idea either. Not that the bullet would cause him harm, but it wasn't a comforting feeling either. The last option was talking to her. Depending on what world she was from, this would either be a good or a bad idea. But as the girl seemed rather... normal, he didn't see himself in danger, no matter what her reaction would be. "You can't hurt me with this thing" he finally said in the human language and as calm as possible, not even bothering to show himself. Talking was a little challenge in that shape, but everyone would have problems to properly articulate themselves with a mouth full of sharp teeth. Well, and his deep voice wasn't really a plus in that situation. Not to mention what he just said, sounding more like a threat than a reassurance.

Now Maria was standing in an almost clichéd dark forest, which used to be her bedroom, with her gun pointing at an oversized wild animal that just had stated she couldn't actually hurt him with her beloved Beretta. Talking animals. In her bedroom. She liked metaphorical animals in her bedroom, that, because of their metaphoricalness, indeed could talk, but rather resorted to slight moaning and other sounds of pleasure most of the time. But talking animals in the way those severely defined words were meant gave a feeling of her brain being broken into a shimmering variety of sherds. For a second, a mere second, she managed to have an idea what Pascal must have felt while taking Frankie hostage. Her finger on the trigger twitched, both managing to maintain seemingly exact the same temperature. Shoot. Shoot it. That's nonsense. A dream or something. But... no. Don't shoot it. At least it's able to talk. On the other hand, it's most probably able to devour me. Albeit animals rarely bank on human prey, a snack of this huge predator - it was a predator most probably - might have just her size. Again, if it was able to talk, and if this wasn't just a weird trick either her mind or some fool played on her, it most probably possessed self-conciousness along with other signs of intelligence. And because Maria almost always was fond of communication, she ultimately gave an answer. "Still, it makes one feel safer." Sensing the cold steel beneath her cold fingers, she drew a breath to make a brief request: "Could you please..." Then she paused. Her state of mind was a tremendous ball of yarn hopelessly knotted. Confused.

...still confused.

"Are you hostile? Usually, I would have judged by your body language and overall behaviour to find it out myself, but as I can't seem to see anything but your eyes, I have to ask you this question directly." Her voice sounded very polite, with a hint of sorrow, as if she was sorry to have bothered the predator with such a question.

The situation was so hilarious and cute, he had to grin. And it was damn good that the girl couldn't see him baring a whole row of rather unfriendly teeth while doing so. "Hostile? I'm a nice guy!" he commented and brought up his standard line whenever his victims pretty much faced their death. The only different thing about this time was that he actually meant it and didn't think about killing her anymore. And well, compared to his colleagues he actually was a nice guy, especially considering his profession. It's just that the wolf-shape didn't underline his best sides. "It's just that we guys have a very bad rep..." he added sarcastically before stepping a bit outside and decided to better lay down and put his head on his forepaws, trying to look as harmless as possible. And especially as small as possible. Wolves really had a bad reputation, and facing one of them in eye-height was tactically not too good. Even he knew this.

Her confusion and helplessness had kind of won his heart and she definitely was new to the City. Also, she seemed to pretty go get eaten.

Although it was dark, now a shadow was visible to Maria, and because her eyes had grown a bit more accustomed to the dark, she even managed to see grey shades depicting scrubby fur. A wolf.
A talking, oversized wolf - though it looked more like a domesticated dog in this position - in a forest that used to be her bedroom. However, as she had repeated those words earlier, they somehow lost a bit of their effect. So she resorted to staring at this wolf. They don't hunt down humans, do they? They might hunt down men's sheep and therefore gain that bad reputation. But they don't feed on humans... in the usual. Too bad it was still an unusual situation.
If this was an animal, a real animal, the probability of it attacking her was quite low, judging from their normal behaviour. Wolves don't devour humans. Wolves aren't needlessly sadistic. Wolves hunt in packs, which led Maria to throw a glance into the forest, but other eyes weren't observable. They would have killed her before anyway, without any talk. Though it maybe was a trick to catch her off-guard, maybe it wasn't. She leaned towards the second possibility - even if she wasn't too familiar with the wolf's body language and that... wolf in general, she didn't feel uncomfortable. That means, not more uncomfortable that somebody confronted with a huge carnivore in the midst of a forest would ever feel. But the "something isn't right there"-feeling was missing. Maybe her instincts had left her behind. On the other hand, maybe not.

After staring at this animal for a few seconds, she noticed he actually wore pants. Which disclosed a whole new approach on that. Pants were human. So was most of the sadism she had encountered, along with killing just for fun. Logics were confusing her, so she dropped the thoughts and finally decided to listen to her heart instead. Or instinct, to make it sound less kitschy. With a tender voice, she pursued to engage in conversation. "'Bad rep'? Are you wearing pants to contradict those rumors and adapt to humans, then? I think they deserve a far worse reputation." Now she was standing in the middle of nowhere (also known as the forest that used to be her bedroom) and instead of getting back where she came from in the first place as fast as she could, she had decided to ask a wolf about his pants.

The wolf in question could practically see the woman in front of him thinking. He flipped his ears to catch a sound of some clockwork inside of her head working like mad, but couldn't hear any such thing. Almost disappointed he switched his ears back. He twitched his abstrusely huge tail for a second instead. The poor thing came from some obviously boring world, because shapeshifters seemed apparently like a whole new concept to her.

"Well, I don't exactly prefer to run around naked when shifting back to human, you know?" he said amused and observed the girl interested and curious, possessing an excellent night-sight that allowed him to come to the conclusion she'd be an even better sight in daylight. He could have brought up some actually witty line of sexual innuendo, considering the abstinence of his pants, but luckily decided against it. The presence of a woman usually intimidated him a lot, and exactly this was happening right now. Slowly, though. Shyly he run a paw over his muzzle to cover a blush that wasn't visible anyways before lifting up his head and looking the girl in her eyes. "I'm what you'd very likely call a werewolf in your world" he shortened the upcoming conversation.

Oh.

"Now that you mention that, it does make a lot more sense," she stated, practically blurting out what had come to her mind in the first place. No, really. A talking wolf actually made more sense if he was a werewolf and thus blessed and cursed with human intelligence. She didn't worry about the physical and logical problems encountering her. This revelation, if to be acknowledged, would have caused Pascal's brain to implode, splattering the blood trespassing the holes in his head all over the floor. She instead managed to accept that fact. Okay, if that's not just a weird trick, he's a werewolf. So what?

After that, she took a long at her gun before dropping the shaft. The gun was still unlocked, just in... case. Now that she knew she was confronted with an actual human. An actual human out of his shape, but still.

Silently, she asked herself whether Vincent would have wanted one for his army of henchmen. Seconds later, she came to the conclusion that a werewolf would have made a nice addition to Vincent's entourage, although it would prove more difficult to make that wolf join him, as he wasn't intimidated by a gun barrel pointed at him. Despite that, she didn't put this task past Vincent. Although on the other hand, Vincent had preferred a more... traditional approach with guns and everything. Anyway. Now that he was locked away - and most probably in another dimension not set in her bedroom - she had no reason to bother with that. "Are there more of 'you guys' in this place?" The helplessness lost ground the curiousness gained. "Whatever this place is," she added quieter.

"This place is full of weirdos" he answered bluntly, most probably coming up with both the shortest and most accurate answer to that question before explaining her the basic knowledge of the City. The whole parallel-universe thing, the mixture of people from all over other worlds, the little detail with no exit and whatever was needed. He didn't even expect her to believe him, he was more than confused himself in both of his arrivals to that place. Everyone was. You just had to be. Not only because of the City itself, but of the weird ways it decided to pull you inside.

Noticing that he was actually having a chat with a stranger that aimed a gun at him mere minutes before in the middle of the forest, he looked around and got up on his paws, ignoring all of his attempts to not scare her with his size. "Um, this is not the best place to chat" he said and gave the girl a worried look. Concerned, even. Really, what a pity it would be if one of those panther-things torn her to pieces. Not that he'd allow them to... "You can chose an apartment for free, that's a better overnight-stay. I'll show you the way outside of here. Or well, you can come with me. I live in the gardens. It's a far nicer place than the filthy City" he said, knowing that this sounded like a lame attempt of flirting. Which it was. "...I live there in a house with my brother" he added helplessly to let his offer sound a bit less like, well, rape.

Ultimately, Maria let her guard down and locked her gun to throw it into her purse. Not too hasty, Mister Wolf-Guy. She still had to decide whether she was in the mood to screw some guy's head off or not. And besides that (quite enjoyable) activity, she usually clinged to her social network or her family if in need of a favour. Too bad she didn't know anyone here, so she might as well accompany this wolf. He didn't seem overly suspicious to her. Sure, she wasn't always right, but she didn't have the time to muse about what to do then. Most probably scream, reach for her gun, shoot without an effect and wake up. Or die. Something she didn't really wanted to.
Still, if that wolf had wanted something from her, he would have reached for it right here. Although the other creatures might have disturbed him - he wouldn't have bothered to explain it all to her. Except if he sick and twisted, the Vincent-kind, but she was positive about noticing those things with an ease again. "Your brother? Is he a were?" Not that she was concerned. Just curious.

He gave her a look and shrugged, or, you know, whatever a wolf does to shrug properly, before he simply turned around and started to walk, into the direction of the City's middle. She could follow him or not, as it would be dawn soon, he'd be on his own way home anyways. "Uh, Kaku? Well... yes, sort of." he mused and got used that calling themselves were-whatever was a shorter and better explanation than the longer version with the devilfruits. "He's a giraffe and another guy from my world's a leopard" he continued this obvious smalltalk, but paying more attention into chosing a save way towards the carousel.

It didn't take them long unil they reached the edge of the forest and he lead her through some alleys towards the mentioned carousel which was an even weirder sight at night than it usually was during daytime. There weren't much people en-route and no one gave the wolf and the girl even a look. Stranger things gotta happen to make people stare at someone. The wolf sat down at the edge of the city middle, did his weird shrugging again and looked at the woman. "City center. Good luck in finding an apartment, Miss...? What was your name?"

Practically drowning in thoughts and impressions at first, Maria finally managed to pull herself out of that flow. Overviewing it all, there obviously was a city set in her bedroom, too. Or at least a city her bedroom had leaded to in this specific moment. Parallel universes and all that... why not. If her mind was able to believe in Catholicism, she obviously could believe the things now happening to her with an ease. It took a second until she noticed the question adressed at her. "Maria." Unwillingly, she had told him her real name. But normally, she introduced herself with that one anyway. When staring at those high-risees, another confused look crawled over her face like stock prices on TV. "And you say I can just walk right into those buildings and take over any empty appartment I wish? ... Are these even furnished? Damn, I'll have to buy some new clothes. Can I access my bank account from here or will I have to work? ... How does one earn money here in the first place?" She frowned. One of Maria's typical facial expressions.

A bit overwhelmed by her mood-swings or whatever it was, he ran a hand over his neck in a confused manner. Yes. Hand and neck. While she looked around he decided to change into a more fitting shape, thus standing in front of Maria wearing nothing but his pants and the crimson-red sash around his waist, shyly playing around at his neck where his long black hair was losely tied to a pigtail. "Why um, yeah. So I heard. I wouldn't like that, having an own house and all" he continued and scratched his nose with one hand, the other in his pocket, while looking at the floor. Well if his insecurity wasn't painfully visible in that shape.

"Uh, Kaku and me have enough money left over from home, we don't need to work" he explained, and yeah, CP9 were indeed some well-payed Government thugs who wouldn't have fun in any other job that didn't involve killing people. "But people have jobs here, so... well, basically, everything's possible that assures you a longer stay here" he finally said and gave her a shy look out of now dark eyes. "Oh, I'm Jyabura."

Awww. Awww! No!

Jyabura's sudden shy behaviour put Maria on the spot as she had to oppress the slight urge of giving a hug. The cuteness was even emphasised by the other's seemingly unfitting appearance. Broad shoulders and facial hair almost paraphrasable as badass. It was a stroke of luck that the wolf had abstained from wearing a shirt, too... Nice physique, Mister Wolfy-Guy. It took her only a bit more thinking to accustom to this new situation - nothing you couldn't find at least two terrific novels about that she didn't read. She'd worry about the consequences later. Now she had to find a place to live, a job to earn money and some place to shop. This place must be crowded with waitressing people, she pondered.

"I don't like living all alone, either, Jyabura..." She stated with a tender voice, giving him a short side glance before a flimsy smile managed to crawl upon her face. In her head, a makeshift list describing the pros and contras of accompanying him was constructed.
"I think I'll have enough questions to ask you... Could you give me your phone number or something?"

The not so subtle phone number-hint completely missed him, as telephones (or their snail'ish equivalent) weren't really common in his world. He probably would have missed the hint anyways, but at least he caught the positive intention behind it. Now that he pretty much literally found a girl in the middle of the forest, wouldn't it be blatantly stupid to let her go like that? Yes, it would. Considering her looks, there'd be enough other guys who'd take a chance on her. But he had the "Hey, I saved your life!"-bonus, after all. And luckily the lead of Miss Kitty suddenly popped up in his mind right in time: behave like a gentleman. The question was how a gentleman would behave in that kind of situation though, because Jyabura wasn't really well known for his calm and gentle temper.

"Um, I'd rather offer you a cup of green tea, Miss. My house is not far away, and Xanadu Gardens is much more comfortable than the forests or the rest of the City" he started insecurely and to such an extent with completely innocent aims, even if he was lying, there'd be few people who'd notice it. "You can stay as long as you find yourself an apartment of your own, but I'd really like to see you somewhere safe until then" he finished with a blush on his face and his hand rubbing his neck again. Nobody could have demanded to act more like a gentleman from him in that moment. Seriously.

...AWWW!

Though shy behaviour tended to bother Maria in certain situations (i.e. as for trying to dress a wound set below the belt), Jyabura now gained five points extra for his blushing and overall body language. And another five points for that offer. Green tea - Maria guessed they'd get along pretty well. And after all, he didn't seem much of a rapist to her. Sure, that shy behaviour might be an excellent example of a construct entirely built with lies. On the other hand, it might be not. A second of thinking.

"I'll gladly accept your offer," she then said with an amused smile.