grímnir

She’s made a mistake, she knows. She sees it somewhere in his eyes: suspicion. But it’s a flash, and then it’s gone and she wonders if she ever really saw it at all.  Still, she can’t bring herself to regret it. Her pack, her family, makes fun of the ways that she’s overprotective, but she knows better. The world is out to get them all, so she will get the world first. 

“Pretty much my whole life,” she tells him, and that’s the truth. She’s been a permanent resident since 14, which is a lifetime when you spend half of it on all fours. She wanders down the aisle, not too far. Just enough to feign causality. “What brings you to Blackrock?”

It sounds true enough. Hell, her body language says as much; casual as she strolls down the aisle, still within conversational distance. But she doesn’t answer it further; doesn’t invite further questions, either. He’s the one being interrogated, now. He makes his peace with it. 

It takes her off guard when she realizes that her gaze naturally lands somewhere at his chest - he’s tall, and it took her too long to notice. Sizing an enemy up was always the first thing she did. But he wasn’t an enemy, was he?

She wasn’t sure of that yet.

She’s fakes a smile now, a upturn of her lips as she tips her chin towards Grey. She’s going to give herself away, doing this. But she has to let him know, veiled or not, that she sees him even if she doesn’t know what that means. “Visiting family,” she lies easily.

"I see," he says, and it's agreeable enough: sounds reasonable, his voice seems to say, makes sense. It's just that her choice of words sends something ricocheting down the hallways of his brain, eliciting a pin-prick of interest at the back of his neck. Family might be pack, might be this stranger letting him know something without saying it outright–– or it's just small talk. Just conversation.

when: December 2019 where: The Last Drop who: open to all @shiverstarters

Generally, Rory wasn’t one to try and start up conversations with the people sitting around them at the bar. But then again, they also weren’t one to find themselves out drinking in The Last Drop on an open mic night. Well, at least not anymore anyway. With an influx of Christmas parties, this past week at work had been hell and with Friday off (a Christmas miracle, if ever they saw one) and no plans (other than perhaps a Netflix binge with two men by the name of Ben and Jerry), it felt about time to brave the bar once more. Possibly even find a warm body for the night too – if there was anyone around as desperate as they were. As it stood, things were getting busier and that was never a bad sign.

Taking a (hefty) sip of bourbon for Dutch courage, they decided to do something and turned their attention to the figure on their right. A lone singer wailed on the stage at that point and Rory visibly winced as the woman tried (very unsuccessfully) to hit a high note. It was with that that they let out a light chuckle.

“Enjoying the show tonight then?” They forced a smile, as naturally as they could (in spite of the bubble of nerves in their stomach), and leant across the bar top. “Or do you want another drink to tide you over until the next singer comes on? God knows that I need something strong to get through more of this.”

_

He rapped his knuckles against the counter – three quiet tap-tap-taps – before he turned to face them, amusement clear in his eyes. “I think I need another drink, ‘f we’re being honest.” His gaze traveled yet again to the singer on stage, Declan successfully keeping his expression neutral despite the, uh, show they were being served.

Half-conspiratorial, he leaned in; close but not too close, the sleeves of his sweater rolled up to the elbows, one-eyed ravens and a myriad other strange designs all in black ink revealed on his arms.

DATE: Winter, Early December (Pre-change.) LOCATION: The Edge of Blackrock Forest STATUS: OPEN

There’s a wolf on the hillside. Not one of theirs, he knows this, but a wolf all the same. He wonders who it is, who it was, if it was anyone at all, or if he’s just some idiot standing at the edge of the woods staring up at an animal. Sometimes a wolf is just a wolf. His right hand inches across his stomach unbidden to rest at his left side, right where a wolf sank its jaws into him so long ago. It itches, still, sometimes, when it gets cold. Not enough to be some sort of an omen, but still. It’s not itching now, but he scratches it anyway, idly and unconsciously. When will it happen? He asks himself, the thoughts barely forming in his brain, more feeling than conscious words. Will I know beforehand? Leon tries to think back to the year before, to the moment when he shed his human skin in favor of the wolf pelt, but the memory is fuzzy and vague and gray around the edges. He thinks Will would know how to tell when it’s coming on, but she’s not around for him to ask. His brain tries to put feelings to it, tries to rationalize it. Maybe it’ll be like a migraine coming on. Maybe I’ll see auras. Maybe I’ll taste copper in my mouth. He reaches into his jacket for a cigarette, thumbing one out of the battered pack and lighting it up without ever breaking eye contact with the wolf. After a deep inhale, he draws the cigarette from his mouth and exhales smoke. If the wolf were closer, he’d offer it a drag. The thought makes him smile, despite himself, and Leon shuffles his feet a bit, trying to create enough motion to warm his bones. Maybe if I keep moving long enough, I’ll never get cold again. What a childish, hopeful thought. The crunch of boots falls flat on his ears; too enraptured by this wolf that may or may not be a person, Leon doesn’t notice until the person behind him is close enough for him to feel their body heat. Startled, he jumps a bit, breaking eye contact with the wolf to glance behind him. “Son of a bitch tit shit fu—” he hisses, arms flailing slightly, nearly dropping his cigarette. He jams the thing back between his teeth grumpily. “Sorry, you– you scared me,” he explains. “I was just—” He looks back to the hill. The wolf is, of course, gone. He has a built in excuse with the cigarette. He knows this. Still, his brain seizes the first thing he can think of. “…Pissing.” What the fuck is wrong with you?

He laughs – the sound ringing out in a quiet, pleasant baritone – because what the fuck else could he do in the face of the worst excuse he’s heard in half a decade? Pissing. He’ll live on that one for a long time. “Sorry,” Declan says, and it’s both for scaring the stranger and for laughing at his momentary brain-lapse. 

The wolf is gone, just another ghost lost between the trees, but the image is seared into him. Blackrock’s not quite like other towns, he knows this, but it still catches him by surprise, time and again.

His own breath clouds the air, wisps of heat trailing into the dark – not unlike the smoke from the red-lit cherry of the man’s cigarette. How much do you know, he finds himself wondering. Will you be out there? But Declan knows better than asking.

most people found comfort in familiarity. the idea of seeing an old friend and catching up was looked on with nostalgic pleasure. it became significantly less appealing with the looming threat of a barrel in your face or bullet in your back for the wrong word. the hunting community was a rare sort. they were sparse, but connected. they didn’t go around having family reunions or anything, but it was safe to say you had a calling card in your corner on any corner of a map.

which made it all the more difficult when one stumbled on you. it made it all the more difficult to hide the signs.

“look who finally filled out.” jinx said in response, or should she say winter. he may be one of the few to know the difference. it had been years since anyone had called her that. the bottle blonde lifted her drink to her mouth and took a long and much needed sip through her straw. it burned the entire way down.

a quick incendiary rage lit behind her usually icy green eyes. it was a dangerous question. it was a dangerous answer. she could feel the edge of the blade that she balanced on as they spoke. not even two sentences in and she felt the tension of a minefield.

“cold and six feet under somewhere in washington.” may as well tell him the truth. afterall, it would be shocking had that information not already spread through the grapevine. in their line of business, it wasn’t uncommon. “it’s a solo act now, sweetheart. and you? I’m noting a significant lack of odinsons.”

_

He quirked a brow at the way she answered; found himself idly wondering just how deep it truly cut. He hadn’t heard of it – but things got lost when you left the fold in the way that he had. Asking after the Holters hadn’t exactly been high priority the times he made contact with other hunters, either: a bygone curiosity, a memory left to the rearview mirror.

“Sorry for your loss.” How deep does it go?

Declan shrugged his shoulders as she commented on the lack of Odinsons, something like a smile making its way onto his face. “Still just me ‘n Brighid,” he said, his tone easy. Nothing to get rattled over.

Keep reading

Ansel looked over his shoulder, hoping to maybe notice the lost wallet from his unique angle. Sadly there was nothing but presumably stale popcorn and a wet appearance that probably lent itself to spilled soda. “No wallet that I can see.” He says before sitting up and stretching. He feels the all too familiar popping of his back as he lifts his arms up over his head. Hairs on the back of his neck bristled, but he quickly brushed it off and answered the question. “Uh, no. Don’t think so. ‘m sort of new in town.”

_

Declan shrugged his shoulders, giving a nod. “So am I,” he said, his tone easy. “–– Guess you got one of those faces, or something.” The guy really did look familiar, but Declan still couldn’t place him. He found himself filing it away for later inspection. “… Declan,” he offered, fishing out his phone from the pocket of his jacket, flashlight illuminating the still-dark seat rows as he began to look around.

“That’s alright,” he said automatically, “we just don’t normally get that many people interested in local folklore who don’t already know the stories. I take it you’re new around here? I saw you and your– um, bandmate? Partner? Your friend… um, I saw your set, I mean.”

“I’m not– I mean, I wouldn’t call myself an expert,” they laughed. “I’m just interested, is all. Um, if you’re interested in that sort of thing too, I’d be happy to recommend you some books. Although…most of them aren’t really what you’d call light reading, so don’t feel obligated to check any of them out just on my say so!”

“Yeah, I’m new. Travel around a lot, but I’ve never been in town before.”

She wonders if he can see how wolf Grey is. How they are barely contained inside of their skin. She wonders if he knows, or if he guesses, or if he just finds Grey a little odd. 

She decides it’s the wolf in her because when he meets her gaze and smiles, she doesn’t look away. She doesn’t flinch. She stares back, a threat wrapped inside a promise. She’s protective of Grey, she knows, but she has to be.

She walks the distance between her and the other man, choosing to stand on the other side of the aisle. The shelf’s chest level, so they’re more or less face to face. “Haven’t seen you in here before,” she says like she owns the place. She’s pretending to browse the self-help section.

She doesn't back down. Rises, instead, to the apparent challenge he poses, and that he takes note of. "–– New in town," he answers, easy as breathing. It's the truth. He's 6'5", and well-aware of it, and so he takes care not to loom – it's a magic trick, really, being able to pull his own presence in like this. (A lifetime of practice has made him good at it.)

It didn’t feel quite as sharp as he thought a haunting should. Then again, she wasn’t quite a ghost, and he wasn’t really haunted – not by her, at least, but instead by the time in his life in which he’d met her. (He could still smell his father’s funeral pyre, even then; the scent clinging to his clothes and his hair like smoke to an arsonist.)

So it wasn’t a haunting, and it wasn’t sharp enough to truly instil an interest, until he heard some other patron refer to her as Jinx, like it was her name, and he saw her respond, like it was her name.

It wasn’t, he knew.

Last he checked, her name was Winter, like the season they courted, and she was still in the company of her family, the Holters.

So it wasn’t sharp, but it resonated through him anyway, like the iron string of a fiddle being plucked. Whatever visual similarities there might have once been between them, they were all gone – she’d traded the piercings and leather for bubblegum pink, her hair blonde like a field of wheat. Declan himself had grown into his height and broad shoulders, more tattoos on his body now than there had been back then. The rolled-up sleeves of his black sweater revealed the circle of nine spears for Odin on his arm, joined in the years after by portraits of one-eyed ravens and burrowing serpents. The ink hid scars, among other things; a select few marking him for what he was to the initiated.

He gave her a nod of acknowledgement before he approached, a beer in his hand.

“Been a while,” he said, which was an understatement.

status: open to everyone location: twilight cinema, early november All of his bones ache. That he knows for sure, even if Ansel is one for dramatics. He lays out dramatically on the bench, the smell of popcorn and dust saturating the air. Not one smell was more familiar, and it was just faint enough to not make him nauseous. He would nap here if he could, but some movie theater attendant was not happy with him last time. Plus Twilight Cinema was his favorite spot to get away, so he couldn’t risk the threat of getting an unneeded banned for life punishment. He feared that may be coming true as he felt a presence loom over him.  “I know Oscar, I know.”  Ansel, as graceful as ever, rubs his eyes as he sits up. “I’m not sleepin’, just waitin’ for the theater to- Oh.” He stops in his tracks. It wasn’t the old usher standing in front of him. “Sorry, thought you were someone else.”

“–– Nah, that’s fine; I’m sorry if I startled you,” Declan said, all-too-aware that he looked like fucking Slenderman while traversing the interior of Twilight Cinema – he’d left his wallet behind, and the usher had let him back in. “Thought I’d ask you if you’d seen my wallet. Didn’t realize you were asleep until I was standing right here.” Declan’s brows furrowed together for a brief moment as he studied the other. Why’d he look so familiar… ?

LOCATION: Topping & Co TIMESTAMP: Flashback, late November DIRECTED TO: @lymskr·

She made a habit of bringing Grey lunch at least once, sometimes two times a week. She initially packed it under the guise of having made too much and fearing it would never get eaten. Now she packs both their, and her own meals, and they eat between the stacks of books. Today when she walks into Topping & Co., he is the first thing she sees. And he is staring at Grey and she doesn’t know if it’s the wolf in her but it sends shivers down her spine and she swears her claws tickle in her fingers, begging to erupt. She stands in the threshold, staring back at the man until he meets her gaze.

The odd little bookclerk at Topping & Co. is so far the best bet he's got – outside of the one they chased here, but he remains Brighid's prey. Declan really is taking stock of the collection of historical fiction, but that doesn't stop him from studying Grey. (Twofer.) Doesn't stop him from wondering how much is simple human mistreatment, and how much is a wolf on two legs play-acting the part of human.

DATE: dec 8th, 2019 TIME: 9:24 pm LOCATION: buckshot bar & grill STATUS: open

“We’re closed,” Nia deadpans, not caring enough to check and see who exactly she’d been speaking to, earning herself a dirty look from her manager, as they’d been nowhere closed. Nia merely shrugged in response. It had been a busy night, which only meant good things if you were a server or hostess, neither of which Nia possessed the charisma for. The one night she filled in resulted in a near altercation with a customer, but what was she supposed to do? Magically make the onions they’d been out of manifest out of her ass? The influx of customers had begun to slow, and Nia had taken to lazily wiping and rewiping down tables to keep busy. “Well, make yourself at home, I suppose,” Nia says with a sigh, eyes flickering up momentarily to finally discover who’d entered the bar. She blinks for a few moments, before returning to her absentminded table wiping. She’d actually welcomed the company of someone else in that moment— not that she’d ever admit to it. “You’re not thinking about ordering a five-course meal or anything, are you?”

He’d kicked the worst of the snow off his boots before entering Buckshot, warm air immediately sinking through his coat, heat seeping into him. We’re closed, she said, and he huffed out a quiet laugh; little more than air, much less sound. “–– That’s exactly it, actually,” Declan replied. “No holds barred, five-course meal, ‘sign says 24/7, can I see your manager’ type shit.”

“Obviously,” Raine said, wiggling their eyebrows at the other. “Yeah, would be nice if we could keep that between us. I think this is not really the kind of thing someone does in a bookstore,” they suggested. They noted the tattoo, found it sexy, ignored it, nodded to the other. “Thanks for the date though, might take you up on it if I ever get desperate,” they called after the man, before getting back to rolling their cig. 

“Me?”

It was a stupid question, Kenny knew; there was no one else the man could be asking. He was just unused to strangers addressing him directly outside of the library, and they couldn’t actually recall seeing him there before – which, in itself, wasn’t uncommon, but niche interests like local lore usually brought people to them at the library itself, not outside of it.

“Um, yes, actually. Sorry!” He paused, trying not to seem too eager, then added, “It’ll be available in a few days, but honestly, if you’re looking for…well, anything that isn’t borderline fiction, I’d recommend– anything else, really. There’s nothing even remotely helpful in it.”

“Sorry if I surprised you,” he said, looking appropriately sheepish, “I’ve just seen you with some other folklore books the few times I’ve been there. Figured you might be the one other person who’d be checking them out.” 

He recognized them from the library – with their nose in a heaping stack of books on the topic of folklore; locally written titles like Welcoming the Wolves: Fact or Fairytale? and Blackrock County Almanac of Stories sticking out in Declan’s mind. He’d pocketed it for later, and here they were – later; right off the heels of his and Brighid’s set at the barn party / vigil. They worked at the library, he was reasonably certain, but what he was less certain about was their folkloric interest. Werewolf, or just an enthusiast?

“Hey,” he said, approaching them, friendly as ever.