multiversallogs | Noli equi dentes inspicere donati.

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Noli equi dentes inspicere donati.

Who: EVERYONE.
What: Swap meet.
Where: The Apache and surrounding environs.
When: Sukkardi the 14th of Haneden
Notes:
Swap Meet Spreadsheet: Pre-chosen swaps are green. Assigned are blue. There were a few characters that were selected more than once, so objects were assigned on a first-come first-serve basis. If you have any issues or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact the mod team.
For objects that might not be immediately apparent as belonging to their owners, there may be a picture or name attached, or players are welcome to have their characters ~just know~ it's for them. Drr drr drr, bb.
Party post nights are a great time to come join the chatroom.
The topic threads are just suggestions; if you've got somewhere else that your characters simply must be, make your own thread.
Warnings: None yet. Please put warnings up on individual threads.

The Apache is much the same as it always is: dimly lit, with the jukebox playing in the background, and the bartender serving whatever's on tap.

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Having failed to hand the item he received off to the one person he'd actually wanted to hand it off to, Hal isn't so much looking for its owner now as he is lurking in the corner trying to talk himself out of running away. (He has to know, is what he tells himself, and some soft voice in the back of his mind asks whether he's really afraid it will belong to the person he thinks it does, or whether he's hoping it will.)

In the midst of strange new nonhuman scents traveling through the room, however, one catches his attention. It takes him a minute, maybe two, circling the edges of the room, to determine who it's coming from. When he does, he doesn't exactly approach her. His gaze just locks on her through the crowd, a sort of carefully restrained intensity about him, not looking away for a moment despite gravitating nearer and into a seat, drink in hand, paying not the slightest bit of attention to any of the people around him except her.

Which is how said drink ends up upended over his knee, in fact.

"Shit," he swears with a sharply-clipped t, under his breath, pawing around for a napkin.

As attuned as Ilde is to being watched, she hadn't failed to notice his approach - or what he is, identifying with fleeting returned scrutiny that the familiarity of him connects to the same breed that gave the world Mitchell and Ivan - which is why she leans slightly over the arm of the chair she's sitting in with a napkin, holding it neatly out to him between thumb and forefinger, her charm bracelet sliding down her arm as she holds her hand up.

“Hello,” she says, terribly blandly.

If the fact that he was watching her from across the room wasn't indication enough, the way he pauses slightly to follow her charm bracelet down her wrist with his eyes is probably telling that he has a bit more of a problem—to put it mildly—than Ivan or Mitchell. He inhales and pastes on a polite smile, however, pulling his gaze back toward her face, and reaches over to take the napkin from the far edge with two fingers, very careful to touch it and not her.

"Thank you." Dabbing at his pants with a strangely exacting degree of care, it occurs to him after a second that perhaps he ought to say something, too. "It's lucky that was only soda water; the 'gods' weren't kind enough to provide me with an extra set of trousers."

The care he takes not to touch even her fingers and the fixed intensity with which he'd located her in the room are oddly contradictory; curiosity is her first instinct, although it should almost certainly be moving away from him. Known for her excellent judgement and prudence the girl is not.

(Anyway, Ivan's here-- somewhere.)

“I can, actually-- I won't touch you.” But getting water out of fabric is sort of the easiest thing in the world for her. “I can take care of that.”

He turns his head with a slight puzzled look as to how she plans to manage that without touching him, but interestingly doesn't seem concerned about his own well-being in the slightest, just maintaining the distance between them.

"All right." It's hesitant, but. Yes, he will move this napkin out of the way.

Such a small amount isn't what she's used to practising with, but Ilde is optimistically hoping that means it'll be easier and not that she's going to fuck this up and splash herself in the face with Hal's spilled drink; she puts her own down beside her chair, lifting both hands and curving them, slightly, biting down on her lower lip as she concentrates. Her eyes darken, but it seems less like a change and more like that rerouted concentration is letting glimpses of something else through an illusion she isn't as focused on any more - her hands gleam, oddly, in the light.

She's almost absurdly pleased with herself with the soda water arcs into her hands, leaving dry fabric behind.

“Um--”

Did not think this part through. After a slight hesitation, she puts it back in the glass it had spilled out of, and she shrugs, “I wouldn't want you to look as if you'd wet yourself for the rest of the evening.”

So considerate.

He watches her, apprehensively at first, his hand moving to the edge of his own chair, but as it becomes clearly what she's doing his expression turns to fascination. It's a softer expression, purely curious, not predatory—although that may very well underscore how predatory his interest had been before now. When she hesitates about where to put the water, his smile is genuine, although brief.

"I appreciate that." For other people, there might be a self-depreciating edge to that statement, for his own clumsiness if nothing else, but Hal sails right on by that opportunity for humility. "Are you-- the word I was told is, 'xenian'?"

The day will never come when Ilde is surprised by the ego of a vampire. Humility is not something she imagines them well-acquainted with, and she has yet to be proven wrong. Other things she's accustomed to with his kind: the way he looks at her. She shouldn't be as familiar with that as she is - she wouldn't be, if she didn't insist on spending so much time at Gutters, where there are a lot of people who notice her for exactly the same reason. At least she never goes alone.

But as for terminology.

“Faerie,” she supplies, instead, blinking her own illusions back firmly into place - the shape of her eyes seems to be changing, for a moment, before her appearance settles back to what it was when he first noticed her from across the room. “Naiad. Water nymph.” Which explains her readiness with spilled water, yes, but then she adds: “I like 'rhinemaiden'.”

Ivan appears are her shoulder without warning or preamble. "Sorry I was gone so long, darling, I got a bit caught up." He doesn't tense and he seems completely at ease, but the way he puts his hand on Ilde's shoulder is more possessive (protective) than the way he did it earlier that evening.

"Hello, Hal."

"Ivan." Hal had been about to lean forward a titch, to quote a little Wagner (just a phrase or two, politely, surely that's an indulgence he can be allowed), but when he realizes they're not alone, he pauses. Funnily, he doesn't seem intimidated or even terribly concerned about the potential consequences of having been eying Ivan's lady-friend like she's lunch; it's more sheepish, like he's done something a little embarrassing and would rather everyone looked the other way for a moment.

(He's slipping, again; it's starting to show.)

"You didn't tell me you were escorting such a fascinating young lady."

Ivan's occasional forays into hey that's mine territory have always suited Ilde's temperament more readily than is probably sensible; now is no exception, judging by the way she leans back into him on cue, tilting her head up to look at him on now-habitual instinct, making sure she catches it if he says anything.

“Ilde,” she supplies, it belatedly occurring to her that she's given her species and not her name (and that she'd only got his from Ivan's appearance-- more vampires of his world that he actually knows, that's interesting). “Ilde Decima.”

Ivan knows better than to think he can intimidate Hal. If it comes to an actual fight, his only prayer is that Hal's been truthful about being clean for 55 years. (Even then, he might be out of his league.)

Hal's manners, on the other hand, may work to Ivan's advantage.

"Given your history with fascinating young ladies, you'll forgive my reticence."

Ilde can likely feel tension from him down their bond, unusual. He'd warned her about Mitchell, but he'd been largely unconcerned. Ivan rests a hand on her shoulder, part proprietary, part protective. He glances down at her so she can easily see.

"Hal and I knew one another very long ago, back home."

The way he lifts his chin in response to that may ring familiar to Ivan, the silent distaste for having his pride tread upon--but that he swallows said pride, that's certainly different. He is very aware of his history, thank you, and apparently not keen on having it brought up.

"Very long ago," he insists.

“Thus 'history',” she offers into that awkward stand-off, curiosity more piqued than it really should be by Ivan's reaction to Hal - the danger she was conscious of already underscored by this unfamiliar response on his part, and that's...interesting, and she really shouldn't keep nudging at it when she can feel how much Ivan would rather she were somewhere else right now.

It's only a conversation, though; how terrible can a conversation be?

(Hal is presumably familiar with Ivan's own history with women-- 'stability and good judgement' just don't seem to be things that draw him in.)

After a beat, “Like Mitchell?”

Except Ivan never clamps his hand on her shoulder like that around Mitchell.

Though he doesn't relax, he lets a quiet laugh at that. "Not quite like. Much farther back. I trust he's been charming you, my love?" He has no plans to leave them alone together any time soon - or ever - but they can do polite conversation if that's what's being done.

His brows furrow at the comparison, and he mouths Herrick's--? rather like he's asking about that smelly second cousin nobody likes but who keeps showing up to family get-togethers anyway. (Which is mostly in reference to Herrick; he hadn't had occasion to pay Mitchell much attention before.)

Anyway: "I spilled a drink on myself. I doubt it was charming in the slightest."

(...He's not planning to sit here and needle Ivan forever, for the record, but he apparently feels the need to be clear about that. Look at all the seducing he isn't even attempting right now.)

For Ilde's part, the less this is a conversation and the more it tends toward territorial posturing (which is how she interprets, probably correctly, my love)-- the more she finds it both gratifying and slightly boring.

“It probably would have been moreso if I were a Hugh Grant fan.” It's hard to tell if she intends this to be comforting somehow, or not, but that is probably the least appropriate comparison possible. (Well, no, we could try harder.)

Anyway.

Deferring, just this once, to Ivan's better judgement and her own desire to go and find someone she'd seen earlier (Mycroft, actually, although she has detours first), she touches Ivan's hand and rises. “I'll let you catch up.”

He flashes her a small smile. "As you like. I'll join you shortly." He doesn't anticipate that much reminiscing; of the few things he has to say to Hal, some are best left for a more private venue.

Once Ilde has moved off, he says, "Yes, Herrick's Mitchell. He's here. Herrick isn't." Thankfully.

His eyes follow Ilde for just a step, then land back on Ivan again. He clears his throat, shifting in his seat. If her presence were some manner of litmus test, he's probably failed already, but it's evident he's trying. (...Not that that helps, necessarily.)

"Small blessings." Oh, Herrick.

"And no Daisy, I take it?" he asks carefully. As vampire romances go, he'd always thought Ivan and Daisy were rather sweet--for a given value of thereof.

Ivan inclines his head - he's no disagreement with Hal's assessment of Herrick's absence.

Instead, he meets Hal's eyes over the latter comment. "No. I died. In Bristol, about a year ago as I'm experiencing time. She died sometime later, but she hasn't come here."

Daisy is a raw wound, and will be for a while, but he can speak of her with calm.

"I'm sorry." His remorse sounds genuine, which may be a little surreal coming from Hal Yorke of all people, but there you have it. He's silent for a moment, out of respect at first, but then tensely, like there's something he should add, but can't quite. Finally: "And there's no one else? From our world?"

Only, he still has the folder. The pictures inside it. He hasn't moved them or so much as glanced at them in their position against the arm of his chair, but he can't forget they're there.

"No one like us, not from home. There's someone Mitchell knows." He hasn't met Nina in person, but her original transmission was video, and that rules out that.

Ivan tries to evaluate Hal's mood, and finally says, "We should talk, soon. Somewhere less public."

That answer is not much comfort. It's difficult to imagine Mr. Snow being here without Ivan's knowledge, but it's not impossible, either. Once again, he's certain of nothing, and it's not helping put him at ease.

"You can find me at the Inn." It's only a little less public, but for the moment it's Hal's home turf—and considering the one or two things he can guess that they might need to talk about privately, he'd rather do it somewhere he's comfortable. "Until then," with a small nod, gathering up his folder and his glass once more.

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