Magnus Archives PSL: Gertrude

[scarsolderthanyou]

Stone has been to a lot of worlds, now. He's not unfamiliar with being yanked from one and dropped into another. This isn't even the first time he's fallen through a portal into some back alley in a modern Earth-like city. Western Earth-like, even.

It might even actually be Earth, this time. Or one of them.

His clothes don't stand out too much: gray drawstring trousers, gray long-sleeved tunic. The fact that his skin is a very pale gray and that he doesn't wear shoes might stand out a little more, but he's careful not to smile or taste the air properly, lest he give away his sharp teeth and his long tongue. He knows the routine for not making a fuss.

He wanders the streets to find out where he is, this time, and to see about finding something to eat that he doesn't have to pay money for that he doesn't have (yet). Just a tall, half-blind old man with shaggy hair and an affable expression. And no shoes.

Comments

sorry for the delay!!

[archivisnt]

The man stands out: it's in the way that most people would look awkwardly away from, taking him for a beggar wandering the streets, shoeless, with a bad grayish tint to his skin, baggy and equally-gray clothes that he could have gotten from the discount bin at a charity shop.

It's not the kind of different that Gertrude Robinson is prepared to overlook. She falls in behind him, making it look casual, keeping her own head tucked to help screen her face behind the collar of her big black winter coat. He is different... but he doesn't have the taste of terror in the air around him, not the way that the avatars do. No, he's something different.

She waits, and when the street is clear, with no other pedestrians within hearing range, she closes the distance behind him and speaks, voice low, cold and intent.

"What brings you here?"

no worries! I am not fast with this boy :P

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Looking for dinner, at the moment," Stone says, not sounding particularly threatened, or threatening. He looks over his shoulder at her, resisting the urge to flick his tongue out to taste the air. Instead, he just breathes in through his mouth to get her scent more clearly, before adding, "Any suggestions for someone new to town?"

And someone completely broke, but he'll worry about that later.

[archivisnt]

"That does depend on what you're planning to eat," Gertrude says, just as pleasantly.

Her own scent does carry that preternatural hint of terror, long ingrained by her close association with the Eye; over it is a mild lilac perfume that doesn't quite conceal a hint of acrid smoke.

as advertised, I remain.. Not Fast XD

[scarsolderthanyou]

Interesting. She smells like fear, but... she's not afraid of him. Is that her fear, or someone else's? The perfume he filters out without a thought, the smoke he considers, wondering of it's connected to the fear.

"Pastries are a favorite," he muses aloud. "Does this place have chocolate? Chocolate pastries are good. Meat pies are another favorite." He stops his wandering and turns to face her. "I'm Stone. I promise I'm not hanging around to cause trouble."

no worries! <3

[archivisnt]

"Chocolate and meat pies," Gertrude murmurs, "I think can be arranged."

She slips her hands into her coat pockets, shoulders squaring in a way that makes her seem to take up more space than a slight five-foot-nothing frame would otherwise manage to occupy.

"Gertrude Robinson. What brings you here?"

this is why I can't keep Stone up in a game XD

[scarsolderthanyou]

He's seen a lot of different species, and humans are a surprisingly common one, when you're not on his own world. He takes her in with an air of distracted interest, head tilted with his good eye in her direction, leaned back a little as if far-sighted.

"Would you believe I don't have any idea?" he says after a beat of regarding her, measuring what he thinks she might say. "I might have something I'm supposed to do here, I might not. I might be stuck here for months, or I might drop through a portal to somewhere new tomorrow."