2021-12-15 - It's all metaphysical anyway

Isi's without a cast! This is good, because she might have murdered someone if she had to keep her dominant arm immobile for much longer. Now she has a brace that allows for movement, and gives her fingers free reign. Also, it fits under a coat, which is pretty much the most important thing period.

She's standing in the metaphysical section of the bookstore idly picking up books, flipping through them, and putting them back. At least once she has to put on a false smile and thank someone who asks if she needs help, and shoos them away. The second they're past the edge though the smile falls and a frown returns.

Alexander shuffles in from the cold, pausing just inside to wipe his sneakers off and shake some frost out of his hair. While scanning the interior of the bookstore for threats and/or the latest true crime novels. His eyes skip over Isi on first pass, then come back to her. He hums under his breath, hesitating before moving in that direction. He stops along the way to pick up a couple of books: one a true crime anthology called Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth: Children Who Kill Their Parents, and another on Pacific Northwest gardening. He's not trying to sneak up on her, so clears his throat as he approaches. "Hi, Isi. How are you?"

Isi had just shoved another book back into the slot. This one trying to explain how the mind can heal itself given enough... something. She didn't have to read very far to realize that it had exactly nothing she wanted in it. Alexander succeeds in not startling here - it helps this is public though, so Isi's got a bit of situational awareness in place.

What she doesn't expect was the greeting. Squinting she looks Alexander up and down. "Are you possessed? Is this a Dream?" She straightens herself up and looks around to see if something else has gone wonky.

Alexander's eyes widen in alarm, and he looks around. "I...no? I don't think so?" He turns around in a slow circle and tries to stare at himself. Which doesn't really work. "...why? What is it? Are my eyes glowing?"

Too bad this is a bookstore and not a clothing store. There's a distinct lack of mirrors for Alexander to admire himself in. "You said hi, how are you." Isi replies, her eyes still narrowed. "Like, a normal person."

Alexander turns back around to narrow his eyes at her, in return. "I know how to say hi," he mutters, but his cheeks turn a darker shade and he ducks her head. "It's just usually inefficient if I have something more important to say." He frowns. "This time I don't. I can go. If I'm in the way." He pulls the books closer to his chest like small shields, and adds, not quite under his breath, "I'm not not a normal person."

"Fuck, don't be normal." Isi replies, drawing her brows together at the annoying prick of conscience in her chest. "I've come to rely on a few things in this town." Fingers come up so that she can tick them off, "1) Ravn is going to be nice and welcoming, 2) You're not normal, 3) This town can and will fuck me any time it wants."

Her fingers are allowed to drop. "For a second you violated 2 and 3 at the same time. It was uncomfortable," this is doing nothing for that bit of conscience so she adds, "It's nice to have something to rely on. Don't get normal on me please. And no, you're not in the way. I probably won't find what I'm looking for in a book."

Alexander's brow furrows. He opens his mouth. Thinks about whatever he was going to say. Closes his mouth. Then huffs out a breath and says, "You're still kinda an asshole, you know. I'm normal. I'm a very normal Alexander Clayton." Is that a smile? If it is, it's slight, turning up just one corner of his mouth as he looks at her sidelong and sidles closer, keeping his distance from her while he gets a better look at the books. "All of these are bullshit. What are you looking for?"

Alright, this is comfortable footing. Insulting one another is the level at which Isi prefers her friendships/acquaintance whatever this is, to be at.

The bookshelf get glanced at and she lets out a huff of air. "I kind of figured, but figured it would be worth a try. I... saw something, well, not exactly saw, uh... saw the after effects of?" She trails off as she tries to find the right words, never does, shakes her head, and plows forward, "something. It wasn't a dream," forestalling that question, "It was real, and I don't understand it but I kind of caused it."

"It's not," Alexander says, dryly. He picks up a book called Wings of God: Finding Your Angelic Guide and stares at it with a peculiar expression. Then slides it back into its place, shakes his head. "I did know someone who made ritual magic shit work, once. Summoned up a ghost." He glances at her, looking interested but not skeptical. "What did you see the after effects of?"

"I don't... honestly know?" Isi says, her brow furrowed and glances at the book in Alexander's hand. "That makes me think of the spirit guides Grandma talked about though."

Biting the inside of her lip she shrugs once. "Can I buy you a coffee and try to explain? It's eating at me a little but..." yeah, she doesn't know exactly who to talk to.

There's a moment when it looks like he might snap at her for no good reason at all, but it passes quickly, although his eyes remain fixed on the book. He clears his throat. "I've wondered. Sometimes. If Veil entities inspire legends of things like that. Angels, demons, spirits." He shrugs. "Insufficient data." He shifts the books he's keeping to his other arm, turns to look at her head on. "Sure." Without another word, he turns and walks to the counter to buy his books.

Isi's not a huge empathy person, but she notes the weirdness and.... has no idea how to react to it. If this were a cartoon there would be tiny ????'s flying around as birds upon her head.

Thankfully, not toon town. Gray Harbor.

"Ah - okay." She'll just trail after him with a frown on her face. Hopefully this doesn't look too weird to the people here who know Clayton.

Alexander's books are purchased without any strange looks; it's a small town, and people are used to him. The townies watch him with a kind of wary pity, and a flicker of relief when he doesn't Make A Scene. Isi gets a couple of odd looks, and at least one person looks like they want to tell her to run away while she still can. But that wouldn't be polite, so small town manners demand they let her go to her sure demise unwarned. Once the books are wrapped in a plastic bag against any wayward snow, he turns to Isi. "Did you have a coffee shop in mind? I like Espresso Yourself. It's not far, if you haven't been." He frowns at her frown. "Something wrong?"

It's probably a good thing they don't say anything, or Isi's newly freed middle finger would get a work out. THAT would be exhausting. "Yeah, that works." A frown still etched between her eyebrows. "I'm trying to figure out why you just looked pissed. I probably deserved it, but my asshole level is only moderately on right now."

Alexander tilts his head to one side, like a confused dog. Then, "Oh. No." A hasty shake of his head as he walks to the door. He waits until they're both outside, in the cold, before he elaborates on that unhelpful syllable. "It's not you. I just used to believe some stupid things. Looking at the book reminded me. And that makes me angry. It's nothing to do with you." He tries for a reassuring smile. It's...well, it's it's an effort. A solid effort at a smile.

A for effort, F for explanation. Isi doesn't look any more not-confused than she did before, but, alright. INTO THE RAIN. She pulls her coat closer. "I'm so fucking glad that cast is off.." Muttering things to herself as she tucks her head under a hood for good measure.

QUICK STEPS towards the coffee shop. "You know, the reservation only gets an average of eight inches of rainfall a year?" This is not what she is suppose to be talking about. It's small talk. She's trying. "I looked it up my first year in Seattle when the damn sky wouldn't stop pouring."

"But no one got a chance to sign it," Alexander says, like this is an actual thing to feel sad about. And, indeed, he looks sad about it. Although that just might be the fact that he doesn't have an umbrella or a hood, so that rain immediately trickles through his head and makes him look like something someone tossed into the river. Possibly in a sack. He walks alongside her. "Eight inches isn't a lot. Would they like to borrow some? Gray Harbor gets even more than Seattle does, sometime. Probably just to make us more miserable." They pass a jingling Christmas display with a hip-shaking Santa and elf statues that appear to be either celebrating in an ecstatic trance or trying to run away in terror of the bearded monstrosity among them. Alexander stares at it as they walk by.

"They probably would. It's just one more example of how the tribes got fucked over. 'Living in Washington! Enjoy the rain - except you fuckers. You can live in semi-drought areas we don't want anyway.'" That last is said with the air of an advertising pitch involving many pissed off arm movements. A glance sideways at Alexander's expression. "I thought you liked Christmas?"

Alexander thinks about that, and nods. "I'm sorry. People have a tendency to take as much as they can--then take a little more. Just in case they can get away with it. And I do like Christmas. The lights, the carols, giving people gifts, peace and goodwill toward man. I just don't like the fucking elves. They blew up the goddamned tree in the park right during my favorite carol. Assholes." His voice goes up loud enough that some of the shoppers give him scandalized looks. Doesn't he know there are kids here? He immediately looks apologetic, clears his throat, pushes some wet hair out of his eyes. "Sorry. I like Christmas. Carols are nice. Do you have any you like?" Alexander's attempts at small talk are just as terrible as Isi's.

"Yep, fucking - anyway. I thought the tree burning was electrical.... ah, nevermind, I got it." Isi has to remind herself midway that this is GRAY HARBOR so bad shit with mundane explanations usually also are bad shit with supernatural explanations.

"Not particularly." Isi replies, her lips twisted in a firm frown. "They did the thing where they made us dress up nice and sing a few in elementary school, but I was the angry kid in the back who stood still and didn't sway. Christmas always meant people flaunting their gifts and usually getting shafted."

The small talk does what it is suppose to - it gets them to the doorway of Espresso Yourself. Isi's going to go for that door just in case Alexander is one of those guys who has to open doors for women. She's not a fan of them.

Alexander appears oblivious that this is a thing that he's supposed to do; Isi gets to the door first, so she gets to open it, although at least one person gives him an indignant look, like how dare you let that woman use her arms. He also seems oblivious to that, just reaches for it so she doesn't have to hold it open for him and steps inside, breathing a sigh of relief at the warmth on his cold, damp face. "Compulsory singing is evil. Always evil. And I like to sing." He considers the back of her head, thoughtfully. "Do you like any music at all? Because I feel like you'd like metal. It's a rage soundtrack. I like metal."

Maybe Isi can come to accept Alexander as another semi-functioning human being. He has at least one redeeming quality. As she steps in behind him she gives a cheerful middle finger to the person giving him the side-eye and them firmly pulls the door closed behind her. Because fuck them, they can open their own damn doors.

"Jazz, actually." Isi replies, "But I'm not opposed to something heavier in the right mood." She jerks her head towards the counter.

Alexander runs his fingers through his hair, pushing the wet back as he trails her to the counter. "Just a black coffee is fine," he mutters to the woman behind the counter, who seems to expect this from him. "Jazz is okay," he allows, after thinking about it. "It has emotion to it. I like that."

"I'm paying for him," Isi says pointing at Alexander. She places her own order, though it's not coffee but some kind of fruity tea concoction with extra sugar and ice. Fru-fru, yes, delicious, also yes.

She pays and they move away to let the thing be done and she shrugs. "There weren't a lot of radio stations that reached where we were at, and we never predictably had the internet for long enough to get into that. But Grandpa had these old Billy Holiday CDs, so that's what I listened to a lot."

"Billy Holiday. I don't know if I've ever heard any of that. My parents mostly liked country, and sixties pop." Alexander's coffee is done far faster than Isi's tea-adjacent drink, so he takes it when arrives, and then goes to sit down, claiming a table in a corner that allows them both to have their backs somewhat to a wall and look out at the room, even sitting across from one another.

"Black jazz singer back in the...sixties? Around civil rights, I think. Maybe before." When he leaves off she does hum a small snatch of song - but it's hard to recognize it's music beyond the fact that it does have a beat. A shake of her head and she takes her drink back to the corner. When she sits she pulls both legs up on the chair cross-legged rather than leaving them hanging to the floor.

Alexander makes a thoughtful noise. "I'll have to look them up." He wraps his hands around the cup, apparently more interested in the heat from the coffee than the coffee itself, at least at first. "So." A long pause. "Try to explain? Take your time. And remember that I was once hit by an exploding Ginger, hurled from an oversized mech of Gilligan made from decaying flesh. You're not gonna weird me out." Another of those brief smiles, but this time it's wry and real.

Isi wrinkles her nose. They were doing SO WELL at avoiding the actual topic that they came to the coffee shop to talk about. To forestall it a little longer she'll nurse her drink.

"I'm not sure how to explain it. I don't want to name names - but this is a small town. It feels like shit just... spreads. News and gossip. Whatever." She taps her finger against the side of her cup slowly. "Know that guy, my boss, Emil? He got picked up by the police."

Alexander nods, quietly. "I heard he was arrested. And you don't want to testify about the murder attempt," he adds, still sounding slightly judgy about that. He lifts the cup to his mouth to take a sip, then a worried look flits over his face. "He's not dead, is he? I didn't hear about him being dead. But it happens. Sometimes. If he could inform on someone."

"No." Isi replies, "He's not... dead." The way she hesitates has more meaning than if she actually said it straight out. "But something happened to him. But I don't know what. He looked like the slimy bastard - albeit with the shit beaten out of him, jail didn't agree with him, and then... something happened, and he wasn't any more. It's like he was dead - or broken, a bit, inside."

She's not being helpful is she?

Alexander studies her in silence. He puts his coffee down, cracks his knuckles absently. "When did you see him? If he's in custody."

Isi puts her eyes down on the table rather than him, showing no other sign of discomfort than that. "This is where it gets tricky. He was still in custody. But also not in custody." She's trying very hard to say something without saying anything.

From the look on Alexander's face, it's clear that if he were a man who ever employed sarcasm, now would be the time. But he's not, so he takes up the cup again to take a sip of his drink, and sighs. "All right," he says, quietly. "And what happened around the time of this change you noticed in him. You," a long pause, "don't have to mention any names."

"Good, because I won't." Isi says, keeping her eyes on the table. "Not out of some loyalty or shit - but, it fucking scared the shit out of me over all but also..." She licks her lips once. "I was asked to make a choice on what happened to him. I didn't like the choices. None of them seemed.... enough." Her composure is starting to fade, as shown by the way her fingers are gripping her cup. "I wanted him to be afraid - I like I am. Walking down the street, getting into a car - fuck, sitting in my own fucking house."

Alexander's whole face tightens, but he doesn't interrupt. Just listens, although his lips are pressed into a thin, white line on whatever words he might want to say, his eyes narrowed. Even after she's done, he doesn't say anything for a while. Just sips his coffee, and thinks about things. Finally, what he asks is: "Do you feel better now, then? Seeing him...after?"

See, Isi snaps there. But in a good way. Well, kinda. Maybe not a good way. She pulls her eyes up and locks eyes with Alexander. "None of the legal remedies were going to get him what he deserved. Without my testimony they can't go forward on a murder trial - and even if I had there's only some evidence tying it to me. This is fucking Gray Harbor. At least he knows - a bit. I think," and that's where she looks away.

"I want to know what actually happened to him. I figure I owe that much."

Alexander meets her gaze squarely, not looking away until she does. Then he looks down at his cup. "If you asked someone to make him...afraid. And he--they were able to put him in the state you witnessed afterwards, then I imagine it was projective empathy. A strong empath can force someone to feel emotions. Especially if they don't stand out. A very strong empath can create illusions that cover all five senses. Make them experience burning alive, or being eaten by insects, or putting a gun to their head and pulling the trigger, over and over again, while drowning in terror. Someone who doesn't understand what's happening? It's not hard to break them. Sometimes they get better. Sometimes you can put them back together. Sometimes they're just broken." His expression and voice are utterly toneless. It might be a robot, reciting a pre-programmed script at her.

"So whatever that happened to him - it was like it actually happened." Isi repeats back at Alexander, her eyes now on the table. She plays with the straw of her cup, turning it slowly and steadily.

And then they'll fall into some silence as she considers what Alexander just parroted back. She isn't giving a whole lot of cues as to her mental state right now.

Alexander swallows. Reaches for a napkin to wipe off sweat that's beaded on his upper lip, despite the clammy cold his body is otherwise soaked in. "It depends. I could just have been...emotions. Hit someone with something intense enough, hard enough, it doesn't matter if there's no...experience to back it up. Brute force. But effective." He hastily wraps his hands back around the cup to hide the tremors. And otherwise seems content to let there be silence, his gaze fixed on the table.

They look like a seriously awkward first date sitting there, Alexander sweating, not looking at one another, and not talking to one another. Their drinks will slowly get drained, and Isi's is left with ice and bits of fruit at the bottom.

"Your expression and words make me think it was probably a bad thing. The person -" pause, because that's more than she wanted to admit, "It seemed like it took a lot out of them. They were bleeding from their face. Did it hurt them to do it to him?"

"It's torture," Alexander says, softly. "Torture of someone who will never understand what happened, and never had a single chance in all of hell to fight back. Or protect themselves." He swallows, hard. "It's not a good thing. No." He doesn't look up, and his voice is only barely audible. "And probably. It's an exertion. It's hard to force that much on another person. But he wouldn't have done it if he wasn't willing to be hurt."

He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. "I...I'm sorry. Isi. That you felt so afraid. I wish I could have helped. I hope that...helped. I hope it accomplished something."

Isi balances on a precipice here, staring at the remains of her drink. Abruptly she shoves herself to her feet, the chair back smacking into the wall of Espresso Yourself as she does so.

"Fine." She's angry about something - THAT is clear, but what exactly she doesn't say. Unless stopped she turns and leaves the store without another word.

Alexander doesn't try to stop her. He doesn't even look up, although he does flinch when she stands abruptly, almost a cringe back from the motion and sound. But other than that? There's barely any reaction at all to her anger or the single word. If anything, he looks lost in thought, or memory. Unpleasant, either way.