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Who: Ivy and you!
What: Wandering, irritation, flowers? Come and bother a barefoot green woman wearing a leotard made of plants.
Where: Mostly around Mog Hill, extending into the surrounding districts (Bonetown, Saltbur, Pincod, Echomire, as far as the river to the west and south) - also the forest in Sobek Croix, around the evening.
When: Today (Coardi)
Warnings: Unlikely but will edit as needed.

She had to convince herself to take anything except her seed case. The vouchers and the money were stuffed into an empty compartment she kept for discoveries made on the road; though she had no intention of staying at the Valhalla Inn, or buying clothes for that matter, perhaps they'd have value as currency. Taking the CiD had been the hardest decision to make - she couldn't imagine a more blatantly obvious tracking device - but overall it was better to be informed than not and she'd bound it to her waist with vines for the time being.

Her encounters with the staff at the Inn had been fleeting to say the very least. Now she was outside, feet planted on the earth, and the faintly disturbing pamphlet had been accurate: this wasn't home. The plants spoke to her, mostly, sometimes in tones and languages she didn't yet understand - but they didn't recognize her, didn't love her as they did anywhere on her Earth. It prompted a sense of loneliness she wasn't familiar with; even in Arkham's most secure cells she'd always been aware of the Green just outside its walls, waiting for her to step back into its embrace.

For time time being she was wandering, taking in the lay of the land, sometimes hesitating for passing glances at the shops and business but not straying inside. More often it would be trees or wild flowers that would make her stop, her eyes closing briefly, the act of communication sometimes coaxing a little extra life from the plants she paused to speak with.

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Liaising with the sheriffs is a standard part of Sol's day job; it's a courtesy that they're better off paying than not in most cases, making sure an area's given local-level law enforcement has at least some vague idea of what Hellsing agents are doing in their canton. Saves hassle, toes getting stepped on, people getting hurt over what amount to bureaucratic misunderstandings - he's down-to-earth charismatic and good with people in a way that's essential to making Hellsing's administration a little more palatable to other people's boots on the ground when his superiors still aren't really used to having to accommodate anyone else.

Cutting a long story short, it's not as unusual as it sounds at first blush to see Captain Desk Job out and about in the city, and much of the plant-life in his more familiar routes is already familiar with him and the friendly way he connects and listens to them by instinct and innate gift. He's subtler and more discreet in it than Ivy by necessity and practicality (he's more useful if the full extent of his capabilities aren't well-known or easily traced), but perhaps it'll be hard for her to miss when he tips his hand to her as he goes by and the roses that grow wild seem to know his name.

He's always done well with roses.

Ivy wouldn't know what discretion was if it punched her in the face. Over the last ten years she's made a career of making damned sure everyone in Gotham and beyond knows who she is and what she's capable of. She's restrained here, not by a particular excess of calm but by the lack of a responsible party to direct her anger towards.

She sees the gesture, and the wild white roses murmur his name; they don't just know him, they know him like they'll know her someday, as a man with an affinity. And it's hard for her not to feel - Threatened? Envious? - but she's not so stupid as to lash out for reasons so selfish. Instead she straightens and offers him - Solomon - a small nod of greeting.

Familiarity makes him slow - not to her, personally, but the way like recognizes some kind of like, coming toward similar notions from wildly disparate origins. They don't know her yet, but he can tell when yet is the right word to use; some plants, like some people, will take any audience offered to them, intrigued by unanticipated listeners.

He's going rather than coming, so he's not in so much of a hurry he can't stop and introduce himself, he figures.

“I'm going to guess you're a recent arrival,” he says, friendly and understated about it - the impression he gives is constantly contradictory, sleazy-glamorous like a new money criminal and dangerous in the honest way a wild animal is dangerous, naturally and without present intent, and then he's warm, somehow, green and grounded to the earth under him in a way that reads like a puzzle on someone so evidently city-slick. He wears diamonds and smiles at flowers and he's probably intimidating to a lot of people who aren't Poison Ivy; it is what it is. “Solomon Koenig.”

"Poison Ivy."

The latter is what she sees in him more than the former; if all she had to go by was appearances then she would dislike him instantly, dismiss him in seconds, but she perceives enough of him through their perspective that she can acknowledge there's more to know.

"I'm going to guess that you're not."

“Good guess.” An educated guess, most accurately. Speaking of educated, it's probably the fact that he works regularly with someone named 'Hellboy' that results in not so much as a second look to the name she gives him. “No, not so much. Call it about a year here for me and my daughter.”

(The impression the roses here have of her is an indirect one, through Sol only; a little girl who knows they are beautiful. Priorities straight, as always.)

“Are you looking for something in particular?”

If she softens at all at the news that he has a daughter here - or the wave of appreciative, if distant sentiment from the roses - she doesn't show it.

"Since I understand that a way home isn't likely to emerge, I'm trying to better understand my environment." And asking people was generally a good way to get (at worst) lied to or (best) saddled with the idea that someone had done you a favor they expected to be repaid.

He's inclined to approve of her methodology (and disinclined to assume that she'd need or appreciate his approval); in general, he's of the opinion the best way to get to know a place is to get to know it. Cautiously, granted, even if maybe he was a little less cautious in the years before he had a child to account for.

He thinks about warning her about the fog - it leaves an impression on the mind whatever species you belong to - but she isn't asking him for advice and he's not sure she'd welcome it unbidden. It's pretty hard to miss if she gets that far on her own, though, and she doesn't strike him as the kind of woman who'd fail to recognize a clear and present danger; he keeps his peace.

Instead, amiably, “Well, if you get as far as Sobek Croix, say hello to my roses.” He smells faintly of them, as always; like blood and earth and clean, healthy roses. He's never worn cologne, not because he wouldn't like to but because it's not something that occurs to him on his own - he dresses the way he does because an ex-girlfriend taught him what looked good on him and he's stuck with her formula ever since, figuring he might as well not fix what isn't broken.

Left to his own devices, he'd-- probably look not unlike Ivy, but professional and personal obligations mean wearing pants. They're nice pants (tailored, expensive, luxuries he's become accustomed to only in recent years with recent successes), but it's a costume he wears - comfortably, and even so. Beyond not being someone who grew up with money, he's just not civilized. (They call Verbena barbarians; contrarily elegant, he still wears it like a badge of honor.)

“The enclosed nature of the place makes things interesting-- you'd think limited, and yeah, but not in terms of environmental variety. Funny.”

Ivy smells faintly of smoke and chemical pollutants, the remnants of Gotham clinging to her like dust soon to be blown away; beneath that is the scent of the forest in the full bloom of midsummer, sweet and heady. What's human about her is less palpable than ever; she abandoned it long ago. Her re-entrances into 'civilized' society ('civil' being a relative term, of course) are brief, shot through with ulterior motives and tend to end badly, if not violently. None of it interests her enough to guarantee her dedication, any more.

"'Enclosed' how?"

She'll find out eventually, of course. But he comes with good references, and it wouldn't hurt to know how knowledgeable and forthcoming the (more) locals are.

Now, that is a good opening.

“The city stretches the coastline and south into farmland, and that's about it for the world as we know it,” he says - his manner betrays the ease of experience in appraising people of this, that or the other. It's another of those things that isn't technically his job, but tends to fall under his purview more often than not, anyway. “Surrounding that - over land, over the water - is the fog. The further in you get, the more broken reality is; the tendency for people to die or go insane means there's not a lot of straight answers or documented facts about it, besides 'you'll probably die or go insane'. Foghunters guild does what it says on the tin - they go out, not too far, bring back valuables to sell. It's profitable work, but you don't see 'em growing old.”

She tilts her head back, not unconvinced by the information, just absorbing it. 'Broken reality' is an interesting turn of phrase, as if it might completely malfunction or end when the fog grows too dense, which is of course ludicrous (isn't it?).

"The nature of the fog is that it causes madness or worse but that it also brings valuables into the city?" She appreciates the poetic irony, on a certain level. "From where?"

“About everywhere, by the looks of things. Same as things that come through the city less-- psychotically, same as people.” He reflects, briefly, that he'd feel for whatever poor son of a bitch ended up in this city via the fog; if they even came through whole. (He's heard things about what you find out there - a friend of his was on the early cohort fog expedition.) “Baedal's a patchwork, made up out of what comes from outside- people, architecture, plants, animals, cultures. That'd be how we account for the varied population.”

A dozen (more) different kinds of fucking vampire. Who decided that was necessary.

So there were a number of paths into the city. Some were made safe, in some sense regulated, but others weren't. Which could indicate a number of things.

"But I assume there's no means of accounting for the process itself." That no single person or body could be held responsible.

“Officially? No.” Unofficially-- Sol rejects the idea that there isn't an explanation or responsibility, but whatever it is...it's not available right now. There's a hell of a lot about Baedal that they're expected to simply accept or take on faith, and it's not the kind of city in which doing a whole lot of that seems safe. “Everybody's got a theory, but Burnworth's pamphlets are the party line.”

With about 80% accuracy in terms of its basic facts, condescending propaganda all over, and not a whole lot in the way of straight answers where 'why' is concerned.

“That said, as a xenian or magical citizen, if you need or want any assistance or information in dealing with Baedal, Hellsing--” he displays his badge, briefly, as he digs inside his jacket for two different cards, “--has a social services department that's mostly about ensuring people get what they need to survive without putting themselves or anybody else in legal or practical danger. Madrasati's newer, hopefully a little more extensive in what they can offer. My card and theirs.”

She doesn't have to take it, but he's inclined to offer; his own card provides his contact details and Hellsing's in general, listing him as the department head for legal ('bureaucratic jack of all trades' in his own opinion, when he isn't-- doing other things), and the Madrasati card is no one's in particular but swiped from Martel, who gets student referrals from the xenian services safe-space.

Her hand just hovers at her side for a moment, and she's tempted to just walk away, but it's been less than twenty-four hours since she tore apart a city block and was torn from her home and maybe she's burnt (demolished) enough bridges for one day.

She takes the cards.

"...thank you."

It comes out like she's not used to saying it.

He doesn't push harder than that on the friendly-helpful thing, once she accepts; he's a pretty good judge, that way, intuitive and more emotion-driven than he tends to seem at a glance. (--and he has a knack for befriending people who'd generally rather not be befriended, but it's a gift that works best when he's not really trying.)

“No problem. Madrasati's south of here a bit in Echomire - you'll find Hellsing in Sobek Croix, nearby the forest's edge.” Dense forest that they are, in fact, surrounded by on all sides; in the village, it's easy to forget for a while that they're also surrounded by 'an actual city', and it's exactly Sol's kind of place. The non-Hellsing community tends toward Moroccan in spite of the 'aulde English village' feel of the architecture; he feels like he lives on eel tagine and taktouka. “Which is where I should be heading back to,” because Ivy seems like someone whose time shouldn't be imposed on too much, and he's inclined to respect that, “but it's good to meet you.”

It's a relief that he's moving on. She wants to be getting back to the plants, the trees, establishing a feel for the place from life that's rooted in the earth and not simply wandering the streets. Things happening this way saves her the possible offense caused by dismissing him or simply walking away.

She doesn't return the sentiment explicitly. Time will tell if it was good to meet him. But she nods, and doesn't scowl, and as a rule that's more than most people get.

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