2020-02-07 - The People in Your Neighborhood, man...

Dahlia had been out for a run this morning! Like she was most mornings since her recovery from everything under the sun. Her run ends at Espresso Yourself and she walks into the coffee shop with a relieved sort of sigh. From cold air to warm. Her pale skin flushed red from the cold and the exertion. She's wearing a thermal longsleeved shirt and a pair of jogging sweats, hair pulled up in a ponytail.

Dahlia walks to the counter to put in her usual order as her gaze falls on Iggy, brow quirking a bit. "They lettin you rent out the table for office space?" A casual, curious question.

Ignacio pops a glance up at the ding to see if it's the wonderful lil old lady that made him his scarf he's still got on to keep the chill off. Its not, but Dahlia and her question bring a faint, crooked smile to his face with a thoughtful tilt of his head. Pointing to the crutches he answers with deadpan, "Nah. They asked me to leave two days ago. This is as fast as I go." Looking at his post he popped out and Friendzone and back up he points, "I pay back in advertising and being a coffee addict." Outside though on the wire across the cafe is a large bird that sits there looking at the building. It's likely to not mean anything at all but it doesn't keep him from eyeing the bird with guarded caution all the same. Back to Dahlia he asks "Have a weird question for you- post coffee."

"Dang, slower than the tortoise even. What'd ya do?" She motioned a bit towards the crutches. Dahlia doesn't seem to notice the bird just yet. Primarily focused on the coffee and , "Oh can you add on one of those things." Pointing to one of the baked goods in the case as she took out some cash. Once coffee and baked good have been exchanged for money, she walks over towards Ignacio's table. Her gaze followed his up to the bird, watching it a beat before claiming a free seat at his table. "I'm not sure there are any weird questions. Go ahead an' ask." nibbling at the pastry as she looked over the question container and then back to him.

From the door marked "Employees Only", the familiar redheaded figure of the shop owner emerges. Eleanor must be over this weather, because she looks like she hasn't bothered today, wearing her glasses, with her hair in a messy knot at the back of her head. Or maybe it has to do with August's Adventures in HospitalLand and sitting up most of the night making sure he was ok after he went to see Alexander. She gets handed a large black coffee by the day manager, Della, before she heads over to Ignacio's table.

"De Santos," she greets with a tired smile. "Mind if I join you?"

Ignacio snorts with a roll of his eyes up and a head wobble, "What didn't I do? Uhhhh I think the definitive answer is I didn't ask myself 'How bad can this idea possibly be?'...repeatedly." Really he can only shake his head at his own damn strange luck like nature's backhanded compliment. He pauses sipping his coffee to track the door opening and Ellie appearing from behind. The answer for Dahlia comes, "That ice storm." The one back in January. Now he drinks his coffee. When Ellie asks to sit he moves his book bag, "Ellie, I always got room at my table for you, you know this." He gestures between filling Ellie in on the matter at hand, glances back to the perfectly ordinary crow up on the wire who is absolutely behaving and asks curiously, "You notice anything awake or asleep weird with... birds?"

And now that it's said out loud he sighs really feeling like a crazy person. Pausing he also tacks on to Ellie, "You...alright? Cómo estás"

Dahlia takes another nibble of her pastry after dipping it in her coffee. When Eleanor approached, a smile is given. "Good morning." Giving her a little wave. "Dahlia. I've been in here so many times recently but I think I always miss you." She laughed before taking a proper, careful sip of her drink. At Ignacio's question she looks back over her shoulder at the crow and then to him. "I don't think so? No...strange flocking or anything." She shrugged. "But...also I stayed inside a bunch. Why, are the birds being weird?"

Ellie slumps into the chair and sips her coffee. "Nice to meet you formally, Dahlia. I think I've seen you a few times now and then." She too glances up at the crow and scowls. "August paid Alexander a visit in the hospital last night." That is all she needs to say to Ignacio. He knows the man's issues with anything remotely hospital-like. No doubt she hovered all night to make sure he was ok.

His question about the birds has her blinking at him. "Yes." Is the reply. "Have you?" she seems to wake up a few notches at the notion she isn't the only one to have experienced the bone crows.

Ignacio waits for the response and hears August + Hospital and the tired washes on his face, hand rubbing at it. Man do he need a shave. it's just so damn cold out; why bother. "Cristo Mio, twice in two weeks?" because if anyone's commiserating on avoiding hospitals it's the man who keeps getting imprisoned (read: admitted, but is thoroughly unhappy about it) in one. "Uhhh yeah. More than... normal?" He looks to Dahlia boggling, "Why we even have a baseline for birds being fucked up is beyond me. Uhhh couple months ago they kept crashing into windows." He pauses thinking back, "okay several months ago, then they started, like, following me and I thought... well it doesn't matter what I thought. They were following me. This morning I get a call my boss-" He turns to Ellie and clarifies, "NOT* Tobin or August," switching back to between the two, "Died because there was a house shoot up. Not like a shoot out at the house but from what I heard the house shot the occupants." He pauses trying to collect his thoughts with a wave of his hand held there aloft like 'gimme a moment, oh there is more'. "I check the mail box and my stuff from the office was forwarded with the notice and then this god blessed bony crow dripping with... black... pith? Ink? Ichor? Gooey shit and that's enough I don't care is up in my face on the damn mailbox and speaking to me."

Dahlia listens closely to Ignacio's retelling of recent(ish) events. The first thing she comments on is, "How does a house shoot people? Was it some kind of weird automated house that went rogue? Also, sorry it was your boss." Then she goes back around to the birds, "...please tell me we are not about to have a rerun of The Birds in this stupid town." Another long sip of coffee. "And a boney crow? Like...a skeleton crow?" Looking between the pair in mild disbelief.

"Tar," Ellie says quietly. "It was made of bleached bone and tar. And did it say a name to you? Someone you couldn't save?" She sets her coffee down and rubs a hand across her mouth as if she could scrub away the words the bird said to her. "My abilities got stronger. August was trying to help me with it, bringing me into his mindscape, but the bone crows, they were there. They said the name of my childhood friend who died. And part of his forest, it's been invaded by the creature that nearly killed me as a kid. From Over There."

She grimaces at the information about the death of the newspaper editor and the gun shop owner. "Shit. What were they trying to dig into that made them targets like that?"

Ignacio flinches slowly as Ellie validates his hallucination. There's a slow deep breath pulling his hand across his face briefly massaging his temples with one hand; the other holds the coffee cup very still. "Tar. Cool. That sounds totes sanitary.Really makes it better." There's a lot of salt there if anyone has pretzels. His hand slides down to his mouth and he sideglances to Eleanor, dark brown eyes curious and thinking. "I dunno. he's an editor so I'm going to say...everything? Could be that Joshua Foster case coverage. Could be whatever. Everything weird hits the editor's desk and goes through..." His eyes drift back to his computer where he's working on his column, voice distant finishing that thought, "...the paper." Huh.

Looking back up he says, "Yeah the bird was giving me a name. Right at he juggular too. I mean there's a lot of people to choose from. Naw. there it was, but it looks like that wasn't just me." Theres a pause and some wariness looking from Ellie to Dahlia to back, and forth again, "I don't know if that's a relief or not. There is something we've been looking into though. Aside. Dunno if that had to do with a house losing its shit. That'll be fun to resell."

"I'll be on the lookout. Let you know if any skeleton birds show up on my doorstep." Dahlia offered. She still knew very little about Glimmer and the Veil and the weird shit that went on in this town but she'd seen enough to know better than to dismiss what was being spoken about.

"What were you looking in to? And where's the house?"

"Considering how many people bunk down at the murder motel? Probably not too hard to resell. I think some people in this town want to be in the weird. They haven't really been bitten by the weird yet." She scrubs at her forehead with her thumb. "So the bird thing isn't an isolated incident. And probably not tied to Modr either. The creature from my childhood that is." She holds her fingers up to the sides of her head to mime antlers.

Ignacio offers a sympathetic tone to Eleanor, "Doesn't seem so. I've never run into one." He pauses and says, "Don't think it was the big cats either. You weren't with us at Murray House OR the ice storm with me and Alexander... too weird." He pulls up the news article for Dahlia and flips the screen around. "Looks like it was Sycamore. I mean we could look at it but if a house shot a lot of people do we really want to be walking in there? Seems... like a dumb idea." Not that it stops the many.

Leaning back in his chair he reaches for the very short stack of letters to open and review and add to the column. The odds of people sending snail mail is low but it happens. "You heard of a company called FCN? Seems they make a lot of products, soup apparently, adn other things. They helped host the holiday parade and gave out a bunch of toys that shouldn't work but somehow ''do'' andlooking over the research we're getting a big big Aperture Science vibe from them."

Dahlia considers Eleanor for a moment as she describes the creature. "That sounds terrifying." She decides finally with a light frown. "I'm sorry you had to face something like that." Then her gaze drifts back to Ignacio. "It would be a terrible idea to go to a house that is shooting people. Well. Going inside of it at least." She agreed. The name FCN has her brows raising. "Uh, yeah. I had some randomly in my kitchen cupboard when I was getting over that flu. Thought it was just some random brand my boyfriend had picked up. I was better pretty quickly after." She finishes of her pastry. "What kind of toys did they give out?"

"I've been looking into FCN as well. They gave out a bunch of imbued gifts at the Christmas parade. And made that soup. And they left a note on August's MRI, which I am pretty sure is a massive HIPAA violation," Eleanor grumps. "Every lead I've followed is a dead end so far, though. I can't even figure out if they are based on the Veil side, or ours."

Ignacio rubs the back of his neck listening with a thoughtful concern and opening his letter. "Man that flu was... awful. I got in so much trouble three times with that damn thing. First with feeling like death, then for getting sick-" Looking to Ellie he reasons, "likely helping out Roen from all I can tell. Then for being miserable and making my girlfriend worry. Then for her getting sick when I said don't come near me you will feel like death...and being right? I dunno. I got in trouble a lot for a guy that couldn't move or stop dying and that's all I remember."

His hand moves to Eleanor's shoulder with a squeeze offering, "I know your'e worried about him. Just ask yourself what would he do and then like... yell at him and make the face at him." And impressively so he really can make the tired ''are you ready to knock it off'' look. "And do the thing he told you not to bother fussing doing anyways. It will make him super proud...of all of us." And troll the man like a sunnovabitch.

"Yeah I saw the soup. Apparently there's another round of soup and some toys that do... some odd things. I don't have a list. And now apparently they're getting into medical stuff. There's a going theory that they're not cleared by teh FDA and that they're using the general public for human testing." His eyes scan the page and pause, both eyebrows going up halfway through the letter and to that extent goes back and reads more carefully and more slowly. Entirely absently he murmurs, "Maybe FCN sent the birds but it doesn't... seem like their modus operandi."

Dahlia finished off her coffee as she listening. "It was...awful. I was sick and then my boyfriend got sick. It was totally the worst feeling." She brushed back a few strands of hair. "Going from...experimental soup and toys to tar and bone bids does sound kinda weird." She agreed. "Anyway, I have to get going, gotta work in a bit." Rising from her seat. "Good seeing you both. Be careful yeah? I'll keep you in the loop if I see anything weird." And then would rise from her seat to discard of her coffee cup and head out

"I don't think the birds are related to FCN, no," Eleanor admits. "I saw them before I started looking into them. I got bath bombs that actually really relax you, and August got disguise glasses that actually disguise him. He gave those to Yule Duchannes to check out, see if we can figure out how they're imbuing objects. If we can figure out how to do it ourselves, that would give us some backup safety nets."

She barks out a tired laugh at Ignacio's spot on "Disapproving August Look" imitation. "That's pretty good, de Santos. I have my own version of the Look that August knows well by now. He got an eyeful of it last night for not taking me with him to visit Alexander." She waves farewell to Dahlia. "Don't be a stranger!"

Ignacio takes the moment to really read over the paper in his hands with a quizzical look. Thoughtfully he folds it up and tucks it into the divider of his messenger bag rather than add it to the list of anonymous questions begging answers. "I think... we should maybe avoid using them and research is probably the best option before we find ourselves turning into little ant-men and stuff. In case. aw it in a movie once and man those guys did not have a good time of it. " Nope. No sir.

There's a slow smile, easy as it is that makes the bullshit from teh bird earlier to deal with. "Dahlia, any time, amiga." He gives Ellie that too-proud-of-himself look and says to her, "And you are doing a bang up job taking care of like one of my all-time favourite people. Just... never let him know I called him that." He pulls out his phone and starts kicking off a text to Pajarito. "Tell you what I'm a do you a solid since it sounds like you both had a log ass day and you, we love ya Elle, but you look like you got beat to the mat by a luccidor sandman. So I'm going to let Finch know I'm going grocery shopping and... will drop dinner off at... your or Roen's place later? Six-thirty-ish? I gotta good for she, I and gran anyways. And you're not talking me out of it."

"My place, and thank you, I won't say no to that today. I'm going to head there now and get a nap in. I just had some paperwork to handle here and couldn't let it sit any longer." Ellie gets up and pats Ignacio's shoulder. "Keep up that column of yours. I read it religiously." She winks. Has she written in? Then she's heading out.

Ignacio warms a smile to her without ego, "That man's a lot to me and.... I will. I'll see you at six- something. Let me know if we need to grab anything els. " he lets her leave and stares at his screen lightly tapping a thumb on the space bar. His eyes scan back to that letter thoughtfully. Curious. Back to his letter he goes.