multiversallogs | never put your hat on the bed, son, never put your hat on the bed

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never put your hat on the bed, son, never put your hat on the bed

Who: Njoki, Bob Barker & YOU.
What: Fixin' horses, seein' clients, chattin' on the phone, etc.
Where: Mafaton, various other places throughout Baedal.
When: All throughout the week
Notes: The remade horse scenario is for Martha, but the rest of the options are open to everyone. If you want to chat and set anything up, give me a shout.
Warnings: Some gore and bodyhorror. These are Remade horses.

Even with the reduced population of cruorvores in the city, Njoki is still busy enough to have regular wait periods between making an appointment and seeing her. It seems those that are left have a vested interest in warding their property and making sure their appearance is as human as possible. For this reason, she's often out and about anywhere in town: tracking down new suppliers, riding the trains, taking a well-earned break in a coffee shop after a particularly difficult bit of work, and so on.

Today, she's on time and waiting for Martha outside a Mafaton stable with a rucksack over one shoulder and a toolbox in hand. It's worth noting that she's wearing clothing to suit a dirty, messy, hands-on sort of job.

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"I met, I guess, you'd call him your alternate a while ago and when he went, I did what I could to help Erik find him." Charles is entirely welcome to pick up on the fact that Njoki is not precisely human. He might be able to gather information from her surface thoughts or just from her body language.

"Probably do? I don't think they run themselves." But around here, who can tell? "You could ask about the guild at the station? Send 'em a note on your CiD?"

"S'all good by me," she says with a huff of a laugh and puts up her hands. "Just to be safe though, you want company to the edge of the canton?"

Njoki doesn't expect that Ol' Yellow Eyes will return to hassle Jae, but it's not a long walk out of her way and it's good press to keep the lost locals from being harrassed.

Well, that's one way to get into Charles' good graces, and his features soften slightly. "I'm glad there were people willing to."

He does a brief skim of Ki's forethoughts --mostly to confirm what she's said (because he's not completely naive, honest)-- and picks up certain details as well as the image of someone's holy water scarred face. Let it never be said telepathy doesn't require a strong stomach. There's a little blink, but nothing more telling.

"I'm on my way to visit him right now. Although I might be moving into the area soon. I recently got a job at the Glory Shada as a genetic counselor."

"Um...I think the pamphlet said my CiD only lets me contact people within my cohort, and I don't know if anyone who works here is in the guild, so I'll just ask at the station." He pauses and glances down at the box when he hears a bit of scrabbling and squeaking from within. "I might want to take these home before asking, though. Carrying around a box of rats might not look very professional."

"He's a good man." Njoki believes it, too. "And I'm glad to hear he's moving in as a deputy. After the trouble here, we could use it."

Since they're both going in more or less the same direction, Njoki motions that they can walk together for a little ways, if Charles is interested. "Glory Shada is a good place. I just came from Nocturn Underpass, which you might hear of for transfer patients."

"Depends on the profession, eh?"

Njoki is a woman who regularly carries around hunks of dead animal and undead individuals, so she's hardly one to talk about what a 'proper' professional does.

"Not for an engineer. Maybe if I was asking about a job at a pet store or something."

"Uhm, sure."

It can't hurt, right? Jae adjusts how he's holding the turntable in his arms, and as he does, frowns a little at the ground - unknitting something inside of him as he does, so that anyone with the right vision or senses will be able to see Magic-user, Leave Me Alone versus just a sitting duck of beguiling humanity.

(He smells human.... ish.)

"I'm Jae." He sticks out his hand.

"I honestly can't think of anyone more suitable." Which is a genuine sentiment, although he's hoping actually working on the side of the law will temper his friend's more, ah, enthusiastic tendencies (oh Charles). He gives a quick grin to Njoki, "Only don't tell him I said so."

He is interested and follows after, keeping the same pace. "That's Aspic, right? They deal mostly with abdead patients." His voice is fairly neutral when he thinks about vampires and such, since he can't read many of their minds and it's difficult to reconcile reality with what was previously Gothic fiction.

"Wouldn't dream of it." Her smile says that she might be lying. "The locals here might get a bit edgy at first and hiss at him for being human, but I think he'll win 'em over in time."

Unsaid is that Njoki didn't have that particular problem. While most of the local vampires don't know exactly what she is, there is a consensus that she's far from human. "And, yeah, it's over in Aspic for abdead that live outside Mafaton. Or other light sensitive folks, but I don't really know much about that side of their work."

Recalling the time that she had gone grave robbing with the Doctor, and of course her time in medical school doing dissections, Martha had elected to dress in dark clothing as well. Dark clothing that could be easily cleaned and that stains wouldn't be visible during her return home. Seeing Njoki, Martha smiled quickly, and raised her hand in greeting.

"Thanks for letting me come along with you and do this, Ki. I appreciate it, and bought coffee." Because really, nothing helped work more than having coffee.

"Nice," she says accepting a cup and taking a sip before leading the way into the stable. "You work with horses before?"

Once they're inside the main room of the 'horses' become visible and it's immediately apparent that someone with a good deal of talent or strange humour has worked these animals over. A few have mechanical parts woven through their bodies, back legs replaced by pistons or treads, while others are new species or merged creations. Njoki is partial to the oddly bioluminescent one with slowly waving poisonous tendrils instead of a mane.

"No, I'm a bit of a city girl, me. The closest I've come is bringing tea to the stablemaster. He didn't want me to get close to the horses." For reasons that she still didn't want to think about, let alone mention.

Looking around the stable, Martha is immediately taken by the sight of the odd horses. They have a horrible beauty all their own, and Martha can't help but stare at the horses and how their bodies are place together. "They're beautiful." The words were spoken in a slightly odd tone and Martha's hand extended towards one, but didn't quite touch it-it seemed that she had in fact learned a few things.

"You'll want to keep your hands to yourself and don't get behind them. Some of 'em don't go for oats." Some of the horses snort and stamp at Njoki's presence, but get over any nervousness as the stablemaster comes out to great them. He's a short, stocky man with bright, reflective blue-green eyes and visible fangs.

"I've got Big Boy out back for you. I think the problem is that there's a rough part on the piston that keeps rubbing against the bone, but I can't tell from the outside."

Nodding and slipping one hand in her pocket, Martha busied the other hand with the coffee that she'd grabbed, counting on her hands being occupied so that she wouldn't forget and touch one. The warning about not getting behind them was something that had been ingrained in her since she was a kid and had seen her first Western; with the way the horses had been put together, there was no doubt in Martha's mind that a kick would be terrible for her.

Martha doesn't even blink at the man and his fangs instead she greated him politely with a smile and was posed to follow them both out back to see the horse and the piston.

"Does it cause him pain?"

"Enough to make him ornery. There anything you'll need me to do?"

"I'll need you to get him relaxed and down so I can work on the leg." Njoki follows the stablemaster along until they reach a barn with a lone, large draft horse tied into a stall. He's clearly in some measure of discomfort and while the stablemaster takes him out and walks him around so that Ki can see where and how the damage is affect him before he stops, stares the horse in the eye, and ~through mystical vampire whammy~ gets the horse to lay down and sleep.

With a nod to show that she's able to see the problem, Njoki motions to Martha that they ought to unpack her kit and get themselves ready to get to work. First, she takes out a small bottle of water that smells faintly of oranges and herbs. "Sprinkle a bit of this on yourself."

"Njoki, but Ki works if you can't manage it." She accepts and shakes his hand noticing that there's something about him that seems not entirely human. "You need a hand carrying anything?"

"Njoki," he echoes, and it actually comes out pretty accurate - he's a cheater, though, having an agglutinative language for his mother tongue. In Jae's opinion, it's important to pronounce peoples names right; not that he actually expects anyone to be able to get Jaehyun perfect, and so never introduces himself that way. "It's nice to meet you."

"I'm okay. I expected to carry it back." This is not his first rodeo hauling equipment across a city, even if he'd rather not. But fuck Bonetown, man.

"Ditto, even with the jerkoff." Behold Njoki, always a master of the polite introduction. "Him aside, Mafaton's not a bad place to live. Cheap rent, noisy at night, but I'd rather be here than most other places."

It's not the most scenic neighborhood, but it's close to clients and supplies in a way that few other places in the city are.

"Only visible xenian traits are acceptable? Or ones that can be sensed?" This is whole new political territory for him. "I'll be honest, I can't see anyone calling him human to his face going particularly well." That is quite an understatement, sir.

"I don't know if I'd ever be of much use. I suspect they have much more qualified counselors, although I'm trying to learn as much as I can about...everyone, really. Everyone and everything."

The immediate kneejerk response is to say something like If I'm not supposed to be here, then it's not his fault, because Jae understands the sentiment of disliking outsiders, but saying - hell, even feeling it - unsettles him, so he stays quiet.

"I think I'm too new to have opinions about neighborhoods," he admits. "Which probably means I'm being a dumbass looking for work before I figure the whole city out yet, but rent and groceries aren't so patient."

Martha doesn't know very much about horses, but seeing an animal in pain is something that is universal for her. Wincing a bit when she watched as the horse favored his leg, the doctor was relieved to know that Ki was going to be able to fix it up.

Watching as the vampire got the horse to lay down and sleep, Martha just stood there waiting, a bit like she would when she was going to assist on a surgery. After so long of being around new experiences, Martha didn't even question it when Ki handed her the bottle. Sprinkling a bit on herself, Martha then moved to hand the bottle back, spelling the orange and herbs. "What does it do?"

Conveniently enough, Erik just so happens to be on his way to that very stable some time later in the day. Should convenience strike, he may in fact encounter Njoki in the barn proper once her appointment with Martha is over and done with. Since convenience often does strike around here because it would be no fun if it didn't, he shall greet her with a fond look and perhaps a glint of teeth, hands in his pockets, wearing that one black cap that inspires his hair to attempt a few mild curls behind his ears. (It could use a trim, honestly.)

"Fancy meeting you here." He is well aware of the cheese inherent in this line. That's part of its charm, you see.

"Metaphysical equivalent of washing your hands; Florida water's good stuff and it'll clean off whatever you've picked up walking through the city." Njoki rolls up her sleeves, sprinkles some over the horse, but avoids the stablemaster in case he's one of the vampires that doesn't react well to 'blessed' objects.

Kneeling by the injured leg, Njoki runs her hands over the skin and metal a few times before turning to Martha to speak, "Basically all you need to do is sit back and watch. If you're going to be ill, step outside, okay?"

With that out of the way, Ki rubs her hands together a few times and peels the skin back off the leg without any tearing or resistance, muscle groups go curling up and away next. There's a bit of blood, but not as much as one would expect.

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never put your hat on the bed, son, never put your hat on the bed

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One day, I will remember to press 'post'.

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lies

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