A Werewolf and a Sorcerer Walk Into A Café...

[inseine]

Characters: Javert and Lyall
Date: September 24th
Location: A café in the Earth Sector, quite near the border to the fire sector
Situation: Javert and Lyall have a run-in at the beginning of the mis-spell shenanigans. Abilities-switching ensues.
Warnings/Rating: Possible language and adult themes, nothing too terrible.

Javert was taking his early morning breakfast at a modest café between the Earth and Fire Sectors, watching a young but rather elegant young man take a seat at the table in front of him, when a strange and violent feeling struck.

It began as a burning sensation at his forehead, somewhere between an itch and a sear like the familiar zap he experienced in his Charter Mark whenever folks that possessed magic approached him. The burning spread swiftly, and he bent his head and smacked the heal of his palm against his forehead, and for a single horrified moment he wondered if this meant Malicant has come for him again. But just as swiftly as it began, the burning dissolved, and he was left with a cold and hollow feeling in his head and gut.

Then came the smells. The overwhelming smells, from the now-repulsive bitterness of his coffee to the remnants of stale cologne worn about three days past by the man lurking in the corner-table. Smells from the café kitchen, smells from the neighboring kitchen, scents and odors that he never noticed before with such sharpness and acuity. Sickeningly sweet pastry. Cigarettes, one hour stale. Perfume, lightly applied to the nape of the neck. Slight differences in body sweat from one individual to the next. The stench of the neighboring table's breath. And--

Meat. Raw, bloody, tinny meat, from somewhere in the back, yet to be tainted by the frying pan or the grill.

Javert rose from his seat so abruptly he nearly knocked his chair back. He gripped the edge of the table to steady himself. All of this happened so quickly, that he was having difficulty registering his overwhelmed and reeling senses.

The other patrons would be hard-pressed not to notice a pallid, grim, and stern man sweep his way in a hurry to the men's room, nose twitching and twisting in disgust as he struggled to maintain composure and a sound grip in the public eye. Once in the restroom, he all but dove for the sink, twisting the knobs all the way to cold and valiantly attempting to splash the spell out of him.

Splash.

Splish.

Splash--

Then he glanced at his sopping wet self in the mirror and gave a dreadful, disquieted pause.

Something was different. It took him a moment to notice, to realize what had changed.

His Charter Mark had completely disappeared from his forehead.

Several months ago he might have celebrated its disappearance. Now, he felt severely ill-at-ease.

Something has happened to him that he cannot explain.

Comments

[inseine]

Three thoughts, three possibilities struck Javert's mind: First, that This man is a liar. He has done something. Or maybe, Someone else has played a terrible prank on the wrong fellow. Last, and most dreadful of all, came, Did He-icant show his hide again without my knowing? He quashed the cold dread tickling at the back of his throat and appraised the proffered handkerchief with a severe curl of his lower lip. He much more closely resembled a bulldog than a wolf, with his snub nose, pouting grimace, and glinting canines.

"Keep it," he murmured at last. His aggression simmered, reigned, beneath a firm and curt surface. He drew out a fresh square of cloth from his pocket, one monogrammed with the initials U.F. in curled script. "I have got my own to soil."

Javert proceeded to mop his face slowly and deliberately, his intense stare never once straying from the younger man's calm countenance. It was suspicious, how the young man managed to match his own composure and self-control (if not exceed it). What was this man seeing that Javert could not? Did he know something, though he claimed not to? He daubed his forehead and pursued abruptly,

"You were the man at the next table. I remember when you came in, not long after me." He suppressed a strange and sudden impulse to sniff at the kerchief - there was a smell on there, an incredibly faint and familiar stench that filled him with a sense of trepidation, that he felt compelled to identify - and instead wrung out the dampness between his massive fists.

"Well? Who are you?"

[cravats]

"As you like," Lyall answered, folding the handkerchief crisply and tucking it away again. It was just as well not to waste it, since it was clean and it was occasionally difficult to find ones that were just to his taste. He kept an eye on Javert as he did, judging that his mood was not dangerous. Daylight or no, he would have to remember that the newly-minted werewolf was much stronger than he was and behave accordingly.

"Yes, I was going home to bed." He had no objection to telling the strange gentleman that. He would need Lyall's help before this was through- for information, if nothing else. Behaving on instinct put you on the level of the animals. Knowing what was going on was much better. "My name is Randolph Lyall. I manage a clinic in the Fire District. And you are?"

He hadn't missed the monogram on the handkerchief, and was assuming that it was his new acquaintance's, of course.

[inseine]

"To bed, indeed," he echoed abruptly, his lancet stare piercing ever deeper into Lyall's pupils. He darted a quick but meaningful glance to a convenient wall-clock above the lavatory mirrors. "At dawn."

His eyebrow sluggishly twitched into a high arch.

"I am Javert."

Just Javert. Not what he did, if he did anything at all. Not a title, for he believed he had none.

He tucked his woefully damp U.F. handkerchief back into his pocket and steadied himself with a hand on the sink-basin. He felt distinctly like he had been struck by the broad side of a barn, and concentrating on the conversation and problem at hand was a challenging proposition. Nonetheless he blindly pressed Lyall further, his chin sinking into his collar in disbelieving, doubtful thought. He had no other straws to grasp.

"So you run a night-clinic." A pause. He bent closer almost imperceptibly. Perhaps he could sniff the truth out of this man. He resumes in a swift murmur directed to his own coat collar, "Not one that specializes in nicking brands from other people's flesh, apparently. Possibly a Bender, like that fellow in the clown-mask. Do you bend? Or sap?"

Though he would admit he found it difficult to fathom why in Hell anyone would want to swipe or sap a tattoo from his forehead... unless they knew about the magical properties of the Mark. Most did not, but he should not discount the possibility that this one had an inkling.

[cravats]

Lyall stared back, his gaze politely blank, as he nodded in agreement. "Yes, at dawn. Someone must work nights, after all, and I am quite accustomed to it. It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Javert."

Niceties must be observed, of course, even if someone is leaning in slightly too close for comfort. Lyall decided that it was perhaps time to go on the attack- in a manner of speaking, of course, as he had no intention of fighting with this man. And there was something tickling the very edges of his memory, something he had heard from the Howlers- a creature that could steal the powers of werewolf or vampire. He did not think that was the case here, however.

"I am not the only one in this room who could be accused of stealing another's powers," he observed, his voice gaining a very mild edge. "If I have sapped your powers, then you have most certainly bent mine away from me. Your behaviour is just as suspicious, sir."

He paused and then just had to point out the obvious. "Besides, if I had intended to steal your powers, I would not have followed you in here after I'd done it and revealed my crime."

[inseine]

"Yours!"

Javert was thunderstruck. It was an idea he never considered.

That this fellow had worked out he had powers to steal was one matter. That Javert might have swiped whatever Lyall's talents were had not even crossed his mind until then. But it was true, the young man had a point. Whatever happened to the two of them felt like an out-of-body experience, like his very soul was plucked out of the familiar and dropped into a foreign object. He was like a mole who had suddenly learned to see, a fish dropped onto the shores and told he must walk.

Most insane of all, Javert discovered that it made sense. Improbable and impossible in most planes of existence, but he has learned long ago that Tu Vishan was full of impossibilities.

He whipped around to the mirror and searched himself again. This time his gaze darted around, searching for any pronounced changes. The mark was still gone, yes, but it was his eyes and the astonishing gold sheen that held his attention fast.

Javert's jaw twitched.

"I am an ass," he cursed. "You are right. And the true criminal responsible for this is long gone, I am sure!"

He glanced to Lyall and offered a wry, humorless grin.

"Come, you have some idea what you've got from me. What did I inherit?"

[cravats]

At least Mr. Javert was capable of admitting that he was wrong, which made some of Lyall's stiffness fade away. Whatever he'd gained from Javert was easy enough to deal with, it seemed- he'd had no strange feelings or urges. The opposite was not the case for a newly-made wolf. Javert would need his help.

He hesitated, considering what exactly Javert would need to know first and how to explain it to someone like the gentleman in question, who seemed unlikely to take it well. "I don't know if you've ever heard of werewolves, Mr. Javert, but you now have the joy of becoming intimately acquainted with their nature."

His voice was as wry as Javert's smile. "You've noticed your new sense of smell already. There are other factors as well, thankfully mitigated by the daylight. You have a slight reprieve."

[inseine]

Javert blinked. Robotically, he resumed a dull gaze into the mirror. Yellowed eyes, like the lone wolf at midnight. He lifted one side of his upper lip, then the other, tilting his jaw back and forth and examining his teeth intently. Did his canines lengthen? Difficult to tell. He hummed and rolled his tongue thoughtfully.

"Fine," he conceded at last, deceptively calm. All those years he was snidely called The Wolf by the lower-ranked men assigned to his quartier. He could hardly suppress a rough, dry, almost silent bark of a laugh. Were they to see and hear what he was now! "That suits. I can live by the sun. And will I lose my mind by sundown? Shall I shackle myself in my bed-chamber, prevent any nasty accidents? Or is it just the light of the full moon that does the trick?"

Javert was numb to it all. But the horror, discomfort, and infuriating lack of self-control would come - late at night, most likely, when the moon shined bright and his stomach rumbled for a raw snack.

He turned on Lyall again with piercing eyes, and this time, he consciously inhales and attempts to isolate and memorizes this man's scent - no small feat, when one was in a marginally-kept café washroom. He smiled, wide and humorless.

"It strikes me that you've got the better bargain out of this!"