2019-09-19 - Those Who Die For Their Craft

Soon there will be an exorcism. A moment ago August took the life of a tree that has grown longer than their collective years all together. Right now the Prissy and Particular high queen of the zoning commission and Historic Committee representative is standing in jeans and a tailored blouse giving that Rockabilly look a total work out up to the hair scarf and stylized safety goggles. You get the good ones if you use them a bunch.

Looking up to Itzhak who drove all that damn lumber over as she pins the blueprint she designed and made for herself, "You don't have to stay. It's loud, dusty, and generally annoyingly unexciting if one isn't a carpenter." She pauses and informs him, "You aren't keen on loud noises." Either she's scanning his brain or bothered to notice after their previous evening, and leaving it all very matter-of-fact.

Picking up on the other reason he loiters she informs, "I'll be fine. I always am." Hell the woman might be fueled on distilled spite, sangria, and a mint leaf.

Itzhak helped take that tree's life, and he's moody when he shows up with the corpse. He eyes Hya as he swings out of the truck, though, and one corner of his mouth almost quirks up. "Of course you look effin' fabulous to do a bunch of carpentry." Himself, he's wearing tight tank top, snug jeans, and sleek steel-toe workboots. He raises his eyebrows at Hya, puzzled--then shrugs. "Yeah, depends on the loud noise, but saws are bad. That's okay though. I got technology." With a flourish he produces a little tube containing high quality earplugs. "Unless you're tellin' me to get the hell out, in which case," he jerks a thumb over his shoulder, demonstratively. "I'll make like a tree. Not this tree. Some other tree that's not dead."

Hyacinth holds her fingers up, tired. Relieved. So damn relieved. "Thank you for noticing." Someone is paying attention to important details? Maybe?? She's not stupid so it is a really hard cypher there. The earplugs get a smile of approval. Thankfully there seems to be tools enough to handle the work load. "Good plan on the earplugs, because my neighbors are going to have a fit. The larger trunk I'm going to have to get to the saw mill. The rest though I can plane here fine." For a woman that looks like she may never leave a Macy's there is imprint of her all over the damn workshop.

The glimmer bends slightly around her and... well as far as Itzhak knows all of his childhood memories are in tact. She squints at the wood. Nothing. Her hand extends like she's calling a lightsaber...hangs there.... there's a flappy hand. You know what there is? Then! ...an abundance of flapping. You know what there is not? A branch moving towards the flapping. She turns her eyes up to him and blinks twice in the silent expectation of Itzhak, do the thing! Make...that thing...there...do!

She sighs and walks overand hrmms at it. "Well fi you are going to remain you can help." Ah ha! Getting voluntold! "If you will be so kind to bring that here so I can start working on this." This being a coffin that looks like a lot of fine details considering this is her current arch nemesis du jour.

"Tell me, how are you holding up? You could go back to New York if you really chose or Miami, and yet here yooooou remain, fish out of water, for...whatever your reasons. Still it's a significant burden." There's no thunderous Galadrial All will look up on me and despair moment, but there is the distinct nudge of You. Spill it. Talk to me and gimme the deets.

"Notice? I mean, of course I notice a, yannow," Itzhak waves vaguely at her, up and down, indicating her whole thing that she has going on. Hya should know what he means!

He watches Hya attempt to lift the branches, and totally fail. He smirks down at her. "Ain'tcha glad you didn't kick me out now?" His way isn't so much with the Jedi gestures; instead he just saunters his narrow butt over to the big, thick-bole chunks of raw wood and picks one up in each hand like they weigh as much as feather pillows.

As he brings them over to where she wants them, Itzhak hitches his eyebrows at her questions. He tosses one of the branches down--then grabs at it before it can impact. "Shit. Sometimes I forget the rest a the world is more fragile than it usedta be." He sets it down, and gives Hya a droll look. "Miami? C'mon, I ain't that old yet." But he shrugs, dusting off his palms. "S'fine, I guess."

Classic dude answer.

Hyacinth smiles at the compliment, pleased, and rolls both hands palm up in a simple ta-da. Of course she knows. What this also means is she puts this much precision into herself even when people aren't looking? Oh it's no wonder she and Vyv are like separated twinsies.

The question put to her brings some slight confusion, "Well yes, but that's not why you're let to stay. Mechanic, yes?" Her finger swirls in a circle. "Given the aplomb of... art on you and... your cuticles." That. That there. All of that. There seems to be no repulsion in observation, then again she has sawdust clinging to her like stardust sticking to a Disney Princess so there is that. Unlike many man believe she works very hard hands on at her craft.

Turning her hands make two interlocking L's that pull apart as if measuring a square and leaving an after image on the work surface where the final positioning should go like one of those Picture This In Your Home! apps. Very handy. The rebuff on Miami draws a grin and offers, "Not ready to go out to pasture are we?"

S'fine. He guesses. She falls quiet. Eyes green, alert, critical of details focus on the branch and hos she's going to dissect this birch like it's been talking shit about her or one of her girls. Mmmhmmm. Focus there she asks curious, "Based on what criteria?" There's a pause. Come again?" Eyebrow arching she looks to Itzhak askance, "So you just... give up a portion of your soul on the regular. You find some woman and at hr request for back up just... part with some fiber of all security and reality from day to day." Calmly she sets her fingers on the branch nodding without accusation, just observation. "Some balls on you, Rosenkrantz." Her pinky goes out when she cusses. Always the lady.

Running her fingers over the provided materia to familiarize herself with it. Taking a deep breath she says, "If you are not scared or concerned then you are not paying attention. You don't seem a blind fool to me. It's a very real threat you know." That imperious glance coming back to the mechanic as she states with some heaviness, "If we fail the people we care about, and those we even don't will be consumed by this like Sarumon marching on Gondor. So I ask You... how are you really?"

Itzhak curls his fingers under, putting his cuticles out of sight. It's not that he's embarrassed or anything. It's just that Hyacinth is stupidly, exquisitely perfect (even when, or especially when, covered in sawdust) and she's noticing things about him.

"Mechanic, yeah," he says, and as Hya keeps talking to him, keeps needling him, he scowls at her. His long face falls into the expression quite naturally. "Listen, Bex isn't just some woman! She's my friend. And my pocket healer. It ain't--it ain't like I just saw her and went hey think I'll throw myself into grave danger for that one! And you talk like I had any security to begin with," he adds in a mutter, folding his arms. "What's it fuckin' matter. Hey." He looks back at her, those eyebrows furrowed. "What do you care anyway? I'm gonna do my part. I have to. I'm the only one strong enough to do it."

He's resigned to that. Yeah yeah. He's the strongest one. He'll do it.

Hyacinth lets her hands rest on the branch looking to Itzhak. Get it aaaaaaall out there. The more he talks about Bex her eyes get slightly wide. Her face stays a mask because Hyacinth Yvonne Addington doesn't have feelings. Ask anyone. Still there's an electric humm in the air.

Oh got the hawk has zeroed in on him and found the hole in that armor and says, without striking for it, "Why... do you think I asked you?" Now that manicured eyebrow arches. One hand remains on the branch, or her fingertips do. The other hand finds her him, thumb forward. The gossip bee wanting to know maybe? Or this could be a test.

Almost instantly her fingers flick up in a STOP and she pauses rolling into a 'continue' gesture, "I want you to really, genuinely think about that before you answer. Why do you think I asked, because I guarantee I'm not wasting my time in idle chatter because of convention, Rosenkrantz."

Itzhak stares for a long, long moment at Hya. More than long enough to make it weird.

"Look," he says, eventually, mouth twisting. "I don't fuckin' know why you asked me, and I'm not real good at the whole thing where you say something and I'm supposed to understand it means something else and then I answer what you really meant and we do some kind of word square dance. Kinda out of my wheelhouse. So why don't you tell me why you asked me, yeah?"

Hyacinth walks over in that I can buy, sell, and pave over the memory of your garage and zone it into being a parking structure manner. She could easily be defined as classically frightening in a Disney Villain sort of way. Her head tilts, he being not to terribly taller than her at all. Nothing makes her flinch, does it, but she seems to make no point of trying to make him agitated for the sake of doing so.

Words formed with excellent diction but holding her singular idiolect form, "I ask because it's my family's fault. I ask because the entire point of this is that it matters. What happens to this city matters. This is about making it better for everybody and from great success comes a foundation that is set to support the weight of that. We... are that base. This isn't your problem. not really but you have, shall we say, embraced it as your own and didn't run when you could have." Her eyes squint. The unlikely and rarely heard words form. "I approooove. But in that this is not something to be taken for grated, and frankly? We are all rather terrified. Wha twill it cost if we win? What more will it cost if we don't."

Itzhak gets tenser with every step Hya takes towards him. He shifts to face her head-on, arms folded, glowering. She's tall, it's not as easy for him to use his height to tower over her--not that the tallest man in the world could intimidate Hyacinth Addington. Not that this particular man can pull it off, either. Better than he have tried.

Then she surprises the hell out of him by approving. Itzhak's upper lip half-curls in a silent 'wtf?'.

"It is my problem," he says, so blankly surprised that it's obvious he's telling the instinctive truth. "How could it NOT be my problem? What'm I supposed to do, leave everybody high and dry, when I'm the third of the Three? When there's nobody else in this town who can do what I can do? I don't fuckin' think so, lady."

He shrugs, expression sour, when she says the situation is terrifying. When she asks what it will cost them to win. "If there was someone else who could do it," he mutters, turning away a little, "I'd fight 'em for the right to do it myself."

Some people in the wild scan as a predator and Hyacinth is one of them. Those eyes that scrutinize, size up, and tear down listeners and speakers put all of that attention on this one uncomfortable, but not entirely unfortunate soul in her workshop. Did she already know this? Is she reading his mind and just fucking with him? He might not know, but she is listening, and for her reasons that may never be understood by the world, is pleased.

"Mr. Rosenkrantz," How she sounds like Maude from Big Lebowski when she gives address. Maybe having that sense of purpose and clarity does this. No one ever really asks her to know, "You'd be amazed as how many would walk and leave these people, this city, and all it has given them behind." Fingers fold until one sticks out and domes dangerously close to poking one shirt button but stops short (Because it's dry and because static!) "Unlikly perhaps as it is for you to grasp, I am not in this for myself. This is my city and my people and unlike my Great Aunt, still see the acute pains of where it suffers and wish to fix that. Everything will be, and must be, better. It can't stay lie this but everyone keeps looking out for their own sweet ass and not the greater need." She smiles and concludes, "In short, few have the balls to do as it takes and it is nice to not be alone in that in this critical hour. Way to rise to the occasion."

Itzhak stiffly stays put, letting Hya stalk him, scowling. "You're some in it for yourself," he counters, like a fencer. "Gohl murdered your parents. You stand there and tell me you don't got any interest in revenge, in justice if you like that better, I'll stand here and call you a liar. Just like I'd call Bex a liar if she told me she didn't want revenge for her sister. This ain't half about altruism. Not for you. Not for me. If a maniac fuckin' ghost runs wild, how long exactly is it gonna be until he slashes the throat of someone I--"

can't live without is what he almost says. He shuts his mouth before he says it, that scowl really going ferocious. He sniffs, turns his head away.

"You ain't in it alone," is what he finally says, grudgingly. "I got your back."

Hyacinth comes to a complete pause and there's a reaction that arcs through her eyes like lightening. If he is trying to get a reaction out of her he succeeded like watching a sharp rock fly at porcelain. She doesn't move but her eyes react letting him get all of that out. She stays quiet for a long time and looks back to teh branch she's about to clean and lathe. She doesn't start though.

"It's all gone you know." A small smile curls on glossed lips that don't reach her eyes. "I lost my father. My... grandfather who taught me," Her hands gesture and pull back in closed hands to the workroom, "All of this. He's gone and... in William's eruption? Revealed everything in my life that i Might know as any honest affection to be in truth some pittying guilt. My... Great-Aunt who was," That smile brightens to Itzhak with acerbic bite punctuates, "whom was my very role-model growing up? Has zero respect or loyalty to the people in the family beyond a function and a service and no matter how much I accomplish in making this city bearing our name have... any dignity preserved in it for people to be proud of and just... try? Oh no. That is... all gone. My aunt? Mu... cousins? Oh yes, all buried."

Pausing she shakes her head, "No... you know I have no vendetta left for William. This is on her." Taking a deep breath flat fingers come up to her voice even and her cheeks dry and emotions... off. The laugh is humorless, "There was never family here. It feels like a very fancy facade on a haunted house if we wish to wax poetic on it. But yes, there's revenge to be had. On all of them. But if we let emotion control us we give them the power and stop thinking clearly and that makes us easy targets. Our rage is fuel, not compass, Mr. Rosenkrantz."

Moving ehr fingers across her cheek again she pulls herself back to center in an almost apologetic tone? "It wasn't always like this... or maybe it was. It all seems stupid in the end doesn't it?"

Itzhak's scowl doesn't soften, but it subtly transforms as Hya tells him with all her brisk acidity what exactly has gone on in her family. By the end of it, he's not scowling at her. He's scowling for her. Arms crossed, he sniffs, staring at the branches. They're ready to be transformed from death into something beautiful, via skill and very sharp edges.

"Your whole family?" he murmurs, and it comes out quieter than he wants. Pity, no, not that. Itzhak Rosencrantz has never pitied anyone in his life. Rather, a recognition that this shit sucks. Her whole family, dead, or what could be worse: worthless. Or both. She's left to stand amid the wreckage and decide what she should do, and that, Itzhak understands.

He looks at Hya, his brow furrowed, his lip in that half-curl of a sneer. Sure she's rich. Sure she's gorgeous and haughty. She's also been left high and dry, just like he'd said, by everything and everyone she'd ever known. And that pisses him off.

In fact, he hadn't been trying to get a reaction out of her. He just shoves back when shoved, no matter how rich or haughty the shover, and accidentally he'd hit her where she's the most sore. Maybe because he's been thinking about that, too. About the difference between revenge and justice, and rage as fuel or as compass.

"That fuckin' sucks," he says. "But it ain't stupid. Tragic maybe. But not stupid."

Hyacinth stays, for all the world composed. She's grown up fighting and she's not stopping now. Being angry and tired though has its limits. Her fingers and broken sparkle nails curl into loose fists that hang by her side. Taking the moment she speaks, less harshly to Itzhak and more to the casual, "My brothers are alive. Vyv... has... survived. So... someone gets me." There's a sigh looking around and there is a pause before convention catches up to remind her, "Thank you." Not a total bitch, or at least a well directed one.

And with that the pencil comes out and she starts marking the planed pieces. There's always something very matter-of-fact and completely informational about conversation with Hyacinth that results in near all of her statements being able to be preceded with the phrase Did you know..., "This city, Mr. Rosenrantz, has stood nearly two hundred years there. It started as a fur and logging camp, and not technically by my family. We stepped into turn it into an enterprise and the city... that it is today. It was on the broad back of forestry we even...have this town and how we have sustained it." There is a pause while she wanders over and finds a set of unopened earplugs to hand to him and a set of headphones.

Details matter.

There is no conversation while the saw starts taking the corpse of the tree and shaping it into something more. Metal ruler comes out and then a second one. Trusting the tools but checking her own work over.

A hand lifts to send a metal triangle whipping across the room like a ninja star but slowing where her hand plucks it out of the air once momentum's slowed. Who needs an assistant? In the break of the whirring she asks Itzhak curiously, "Learning to do that, how many times did you hit yourself with things?" A wry smile finds some amusement, "One only makes that mistake with their coffee once." Liquids hate being moved at high speeds. There's a mental mess easily imagined.

"What I mean to say is this city can be... more. It takes work, sacrifice and effort to be the very best for people to...fail to appreciate. Simply put? Just because we do not intend to race the car doesn't mean you do not bring it up to its very best potential. What we build here will stand longer than we will. Immortality through our work, our contributions. The pictures that are in the museum, the finish of the ceiling, the pavilion bandstand that's stood since 1886. This is, believe it our not, our moment of contribution to a great legacy of providing people a town and a community. This extends beyond some... anient beef one psychopath had with people of concerning banking practices. This affects our home right now. This place. These... people. And now? You are a part of this. For better or worse you are giving up quite a bit for generations to come that may never say thank you but will enjoy the," her hand waves and eyes squint as she marks her cutting line. Eraser of her pencil bobbing in the air , and fingers exploding in separation slowly in grandiose gesture, "A mew murder-free... or at least crime lighter city... where the shit I've spent months on stops getting wrecked. I swear people are the reason no one can have nice things and the squirrels have taste in their ass so... we have what we have to work with."

Itzhak pushes the earplugs in, settles the mufflers on, and something tense about him untenses. Ahhhh. Some invisible knot in his face suddenly loosens. Then he loiters about, passing over tools as requested or lending his eye. As a fellow craftsman, he's very interested in what Hya's doing. He's got opinions on everything, and although they can't hear each other over the squeal of the saw, he's actually pretty good at lip-reading and communicating in silent, emphatic gestures. It's a gift of his people, that last one.

When she breaks, he hangs the mufflers around his neck, and leans back real casual just in time for the triangle to go flying by. It wasn't in danger of hitting him and yet he just felt the need to dodge, okay? "Honestly, I'm pretty good with liquids," he says, also real casual. "Liquids and machines. Maybe better than I am just moving stuff across a room like that." He shrugs. Just one of those things.

As Hya talks, he listens. He's...actually quite interested in what she has to say, like he's interested in what she does with her tools. "You know what Jews say about that kinda thing. We're not obligated to fix everything, but we're not allowed to ignore it, either. We got a lotta work to do, and that work won't ever be done, not really. Sweeping back the tide, but if we don't sweep, what then? Then the tide comes in and gets mud in the carpet."