2021-04-25 - Brace for Impact

A drizzly rain has Isi squinting upwards into the sky with a judgmental eye. An umbrella keeps her mostly dry, but the puddles about her are slowly working their way up the cloth of her pants. It's time to start the work day, but literally nothing makes her want to ~actually~ go inside. Even with the weather as meh as it is, it's still better in Isi's option. She has a file folder stuffed under one arm, and a small backpack that probably doubles as her purse over the other.

Up. In. Any moment. She'll do it.

Ravn Abildgaard has no such clever device to keep the rain from plastering his copper blond mane to his face, granting him an appearance somewhat reminiscent of a bedraggled cockerspaniel. He may just be out for one of his regular walks -- still not arguing with Coach Kelly about that -- when he spots a familiar face and drifts in that general direction. "Lovely weather they've got here, isn't it? It's almost like home."

With a small grin the Dane adds, "Not even joking. We occupy the same biotope. Only, your water is a bit colder because of glacial melt."

It's almost like Audrey Hepburn blew up and her accessorized into an accessory golem named Hyacinth Addington. Her footsteps can be heard like a soggy warning heralded Sploosh! Tak! Sploosh! Tak!. The one fabricated leg carved in two helix spirals fit just below the knee in blanched wood matching the ivory pencil skirt and raincoat. It's deliberate. She absolutely looks the type to make tactical weaponized choices about her wardrobe. The rain is halted around her with her clear domes umbrella.

She looks annoyed and thankfully, for their say, not at present company. She greets them with the customary Gray Harbor greeting, "Ravn we need to talk about your building." Or maybe not. Looking around at the rain she sighs and says practically with invitation, "Should come inside before the fish swim up here and bite."

"My grandmother would say that the Walla Walla are testing the Spilyáy's order right now." Isi replies, turning away from the building with almost a sense of relief to talk to Ravn. "I should be use to it - it's not like my home was that far away. But I'm realizing my job here is probably completely irrelevant because if the rest of the world generally forgets this place exists there isn't much need to protect against a federal audit, is there?" She's having a small existential crisis okay?

Hyacinth's arrival turns heads - specifically Isi's in this case. She's seen the woman in passing in City Hall, but never ~actually~ went and said hi. Isi's more a puddle of mud in comparison, so there isn't much room for that. Instead she'll cut a glance at Ravn hoping he'll do the whole introduction thing.

"Don't think we can just declare ourselves cut off entirely from the surrounding world, at least I still have to pay taxes in Denmark." Ravn laughs softly and then turns to look at Hyacinth. He raises a hand in a friendly wave and says, "Hello to you too! What did 'my building' do this time? Hyacinth, you'll want to meet Isi -- Isi's an accountant, she's been helping me go through the dead butcher's papers to make certain there's nothing irregular. So far? I think we've established that he was a very boring person. And, I suppose I should add, Isi is like us but also convinced that we're full of it."

"Other people failing to do their job properly is not an indication that suddenly we should start doing ours incorrectly." Dry, but resolute. Her hand goes out formal, direct, and not like some skinny wet fish. "Isi? Awwww Auditing and accounting?" This almost sung with a note of hope and relief. "Oh good! Welcome. hyacinth Addington; Zoning Commission."

Her eyes snap back to Ravn with sharp practicality, "Oh. Good. Nothing irregular other than Being. Present." Her lips press together looking as offended as she feels he should. Outrage can be outsourced fortunately enough. "Did you eat lunch yet? Did you bring the papers with you. They'll get wet like this. Ravn what happened to you? Were you robbed?" Her eyes squint leaping to the furthest conclusions skipping right past some people just walk.

"HEY," Isi interjects at Ravn's description of her state of belief. "It isn't so much I think you are full of it as you start to convince me and then I go home and remember that I grew up on similar stories of spirits and none of them actually ever came true." So she has a BASIS for her lack of belief.

Hyacinth on the other hand leaves Isi without many words. So she will say, "Ah, yeah. Tax law, auditing, all that." She tilts the umbrella forward a bit so the papers are more carefully covered. There is no saving them from the humidity. "It is nice to meet you...?" But the woman's attention is on Ravn again. This is when a smart person shuts up and just lets things happen. Her squinted eyes hint that she had some questions though.

"I think it's considered irregular if buildings stop existing," Ravn points out, smiling. "Also, I'd have to find another derelict building in the run-down part of town." He glances at Isi and nods. "I know, I know. I'm a folklorist -- I live and breathe these stories, I've spent a decade learning them and teaching them, I have a bloody PhD in the topic -- but I never actually expected them to start walking around and talking. It's a lot to take in, and a lot of it doesn't make very much sense. Hyacinth's born and bred here though -- she might actually be better at answering some of your questions than I am."

That last question from Hyacinth gives him pause, though. "Robbed? Why would I have been robbed?"

Hyacinth offers helpfully to Isi, "Well for your sake I hope that continues to be the case." Which is oddly benign for her. Ravn's smart comment gets the faintest of squints. He's not wrong. But there's the question about why would he be robbed and there's very suddenly a sparkly manicure (butter side down, palm side up) gesturing in an emphatic figure eight at him, "Where are your...things?" Hey, the concern is genuine even if the expectation is now.

There's a sigh and she looks to the pair of them, "I wasn't lying about the fish. You might want to get inside with all this rain."

Isi is just gonna squeak a question in here, "Is that a thing? Buildings disappearing? Because that will fuck with property taxes like, yeah."

That said she does mount the stairs to head inside. They can talk there like they can anywhere, and it will be warmer- and less wet.

Ravn technically has no errand at City Hall today but, uh, wet. Not the time to argue and besides, he pays his taxes. To another city in another country but, let's not be nitpickers here. He follows Isi's lead while glancing at Hyacinth. "I actually don't own an umbrella. Never liked them, they always get lost or blow away, or whatever."

Well, Denmark is a windy country.

Hyacinth watches Ravn really unable to tell if he's joking or not. "They took your umbrella?" how she's confused not letting go of why anyone in the PNW would not have one. There is a sigh though and she ask, nicely even, "Please get inside before you wind up with pneumonia." She turns and follows Isi into the historic, not entirely provincial, City Hall. "He tell you about the time all the names changed on half the businesses? What a logistical nightmare. we're still sorting billing out."

"A solid Christmas gift idea there," on the topic of Ravn not owning an umbrella. Inside Isi steps to one side of the door to close and give her umbrella a little shake. No one likes a moldy umbrella.

She stops mid shake, the umbrella pointed half closed in front of her to stare at Hyacinth. "...the...,what?" Excuse her. She is classically trained. The thought of the name changing happening is almost too much for her brain to process.

"Hey, at least some of them changed back. The Poorhouse is the Pourhouse again, now." Ravn smiles broadly -- referencing a dive bar that Hyacinth Addington probably does not frequent on a regular basis (but he most certainly does). "But no, I did not get to that. Nor to how some of us had rather significant parts of our lives rewritten like a bad sitcom."

He glances at Isi and runs a gloved hand through his hair, restoring it to a more normal mop-like state (which for him means, a mess, it always does). "That's a long story. A lot of us just woke up one morning and found out we were believed to be somebody else. We knew. But everyone else? Well, as far as a rather large part of Gray Harbor is concerned, I breed crayfish for an illegal lobster fighting ring, and she's married to a famous writer." He nods at Hyacinth. "Neither's true, but, good luck proving it."

Hyacinth tilts her head to Isi, "Riiiiiiiiiiight???" Someone gets it. She looks to make sure Ravn is following and answers Isi as were this the salacious gossip to be had. "Someone in City Hall's sister office decided to take editorial liberties which were for the most part honestly quite delightful. However it also resulted in several key locations being renamed which I need not tell you blew up billing and also all of the travel promotional materials. So much had to be redone. Then they changed it all back. Quite the mess."

She sighs looking to Ravn with the better news, "Actor, and CEO of his own gaming company, but...not important. At least now people are willing to discuss my business merger instead of pitying me about the things my not-husband that I don't have is doing. So. There's that at least. Justin's happier about ti too." She looks to Isi cluing her in, "My new business partner." It would be so much more informative if she didn't chatter on so quickly and expect the world to keep up. "Ravn, tea? Coffee?"

Isi continues staring in horror long past the moment she should have stopped and then catches herself. She gets busy shaking out the umbrella and hooking the loop over her arm.

"From the looks of both of you the stories are, uh, reasonable? Is there a record of what was changed? In case I find discrepancies in my auditing?" Given that the offer of tea was not made to her though, Isi doesn't comment there.

"Pretty sure we'll both take coffee?" Ravn at least seems to assume that the offer included both. "And, for what it's worth? I'm glad things are working out between you and Justin. Sorry I got his job wrong -- I've only met the guy twice and I don't really keep up with town gossip much outside of my very specific field of interest. I take it you got a -- well, not divorce since you were never married in the first place, but, whatever it takes to convince the rest of reality about that?"

He glances at Isi and then shakes his head, dripping. "On the contrary. The records all changed to reflect the new reality. For a while I was trying to prove that I'm not Swedish -- but even people I grew up with back home in Denmark insisted that I was. Things got rewritten a couple of times. I'm not going to lie -- it wasn't always fun. Some people were pretty traumatised. There was a girl who ended up with two husbands and a flock of kids. Myself, I nearly ended up in trouble for a sexual assault that never happened."

Hyacinth seems to take no offense to people not keeping up the small details. They're there to have. She turns to Isi and looks the woman over and decides, "Coffee." She slides her coat off and hangs it on the hook in her office which is neat, organized and well cared for. The plant on her windowsill alive only because her current PA Hyaproofed it.

"Jenna, Coffee. There's three of us. Also I require an umbrella. Black." She's not forgotten. She looks up and then hits the intercom again. "And towels." Finally she sits at her desk promising Isi, "I'll find you what I have in notes. Ravn, I'm honestly shocked your family was duped. your parents are not even Sweedish."

Isi is like a little sting on the end of the kite as she tries to process all of this into a scheme that fits. Spirits, other worldly stuff, that can be nearly fit into her people's mythology easily enough.

People's addresses and lives suddenly playing a game of life swap? That is harder to find an niche for. He faint, "Thank you?" As she follows is a major clue to the somersaults her brain is trying to do right now.

"Eh, I do have a fair bit of Swedish and German ancestry as it happens," Ravn admits. "I couldn't quite ask my close family, though, seeing as that they all suffer from a little bit of being dead. I know, I know, that never stopped anyone at Chez Abildgaard, but dead people can't testify in court. Either way, I appealed directly to the Revisionist -- that's the Veil creature that did this stuff in the first place -- and she actually agreed to change my story. So instead of being a Swedish celebrity chef, I'm now that weird Danish guy who definitely isn't running an illegal lobster fighting ring on the marina. Do you like lobster? You should come by one evening, we eat the losers."

The lopsided smile he tosses at Isi is sympathetic; Gray Harbor is a lot to swallow for an outsider. He knows, he's been there. He's still there where a lot of its mysteries are concerned.

Hyacinth's head tilts, "She's from the Pacific Northwest. Yes she likes lobsters." Hya really does distill down a conversation doesn't she?Her smile warms at the thanks and her fingers move the hair in her face back to a place of professionalism. Really, she's touched, "Awww you're welcome. Ravn, we need to talk about that merry-go-round later. I need you to take a look at it and let me know if we need to close it for repair or if we can leave the park promotional materials as is."

Isi does and abrupt mental recalculation of their conversation before blurting out, "Wait, did you read about me or something?" That would be the simplistic explanation of how Hyacinth knows where Isi is from.

The conversation is flowing on so Isi puts up a single finger, "Sorry, rewind just a second. Does he or does he not fight lobsters and eat them?"

Ravn laughs softly. "I run an illegal lobster fight club. Which is basically a group of men in lumberjack flannels gathering on the marina every now and then to joke about how our lobsters are absolutely fighting each other before we decide which ones to eat. It's absolutely ridiculous. But, the guys are sweet enough, and as far as stories made up by the Veil goes, I've heard a lot worse so I decided to just roll with it. Besides, knowing the lumber mill workers isn't a bad thing for someone in my position."

Whether by that he means someone who's a folklorist, or someone who does the day to day management of a community centre, or something else entirely is up for grabs.

He glances towards Hyacinth. "That damn horse bit me, you know? Which reminds me. Isi and I were in the park yesterday -- we bumped into Baba Yaga. Told us it's going to be 'very soon'. Since we still dont know what 'it' is, I am leaning towards bracing for impact."