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Who: Reilanin Bainbridge and Ravindra Savarna
Where: A park. (THE park?)
When: September 21st, a little after nightfall.
What: Just two people goin' out, gettin' some fresh air ~~and some new echoes~~.

Getting her sense of smell under control was a blessing, to say the least. There were still more than enough bad smells to go around, but she'd gone looking into ways to counteract that, and had come to keeping a small bag of coffee beans in her purse or in a pocket, just to have something to clear her nose. She wasn't the biggest fan of coffee, but there were a million other smells, she'd discovered, that she was an even smaller fan of, and so the coffee beans came along with her.
She'd also used up a fair share of sick days dealing with the matter. It wasn't even so much her head that didn't deal well with all of the change, but her body seemed to be rebelling as well. Unless it was all part and parcel- she couldn't tell, and it was embarrassing to think as much either way, not much on admitting weakness. It was hard to tell if it had really been that bad or if she'd had some reason to overreact. It wasn't every day you had something like the spirit of your past self slowly but surely repossessing your body. And that past self being a werewolf.
There wasn't much in the way of a measuring stick for that sort of thing.
It felt like ages since she'd gone out last, for no real reason. She used to walk all the time just for the sake of walking with some peace and quiet, but she'd become something of a hermit since the echoes had started. Like walking into a landmine, she'd said to Randalph. The feeling never quite went away, either.
But she was getting something akin to a cabin fever, simply going to work and going home, the brief trips to the store and even to Alexander's house doing little to quell it. It took some time to even get up what felt like courage to get up and leave the apartment, but she did it, eventually, rationalizing that this wasn't rational at all and forcing herself out the door.
The park wasn't so bad. A few bad smells here and there- a hobo set up for the evening, a few scent markers from various animals, what she assumed to be some sort of half-eaten rodent off in the bushes- but overwhelmingly it was grass, and fading sun, and a clean breeze and dirt and pavement. She took a moment to simply stand still and take it all in before beginning to carefully dissect each smell, like one would a picture. It was its own sort of calming.

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Ravindra did not drive when he did his volunteer shifts at the LSR clinic. With a car as nice as his, that was just asking for trouble. He was lucky enough to look like the kind of person you didn't want to mess with, so public transit was a not-entirely-unsafe alternative. He was sure to carry his set of throwing knives concealed on his person when he did, though. No sense in being unprepared for trouble.

Unfortunately, the bus route only took him back into the depths of the good part of town before he was forced to walk the rest of the way or spend an hour waiting on the next bus that ran past his apartment. He opted for the walk.

He was not expecting to run into Reilanin when he cut across the park. He did a double-take after he passed her, realizing who she was, stopping and turning to face her. "Ah--you're..." He couldn't remember her name... "Alex's friend, yes?"

Normally he wouldn't have bothered, but the fact that he kept seeing her around Alex made him curious.

He also added to those smells she was trying to sort out. He smelled of hospitals and cigarettes and cats, mostly. His scrubs explained the hospital smell, and her visit to his apartment for the movie night would probably explain the rest.

The sound of his voice didn't bother her, not immediately. Perhaps she thought he spoke to someone else- the words went right past her. But then he continued on and she blinked, refocusing eyes she hadn't realized she'd let nearly slide shut, and turned her head to look at him.

Being a self-absorbed person by nature, it took her a moment- and it really was mostly the smell of him, not the sight of him- to place him. The mention of Alex, also belatedly realized, solidified that assumption.

"Ah... yes. And you're... Vin... Ravindra."

In the midst of that remembrance- could she even call it horrible anymore? So many things had happened, it just seemed to build- she did recall Alexander speaking about Ravindra. Perhaps she'd held on to the name because it had been unrelated to everything else they'd spoken about.

She rubbed her nose. Cigarette smoke was still acrid enough to bother it. Perhaps the cold was getting to her as well. She ought to go home, but she'd just begun getting used to her new nose...

"...work?" she ventured, meaning where he'd come from. Was she curious? That question alone was enough to prompt her asking. Normally she didn't go out of her way to speak to people, but everything else was changing... why not this?

"Ravindra," he affirmed. Only Alex called him Vin. Only Alex was allowed to call him Vin. The faster he could clarify that point to new acquaintances, the better.

He didn't usually go out of his way to speak with people, either. Once she actually engaged him, he suddenly realized what he was doing, and tried not to let the anxiety take over. There was nothing wrong with striking up a conversation with an acquaintance when you ran into them unexpectedly. That was perfectly normal. He was not going to embarrass himself just by trying.

...Except he couldn't remember her name, and there was no polite way to ask.

Hmm. Time to see how long he could avoid letting on about that in a casual conversation.

"Ah--sort of." He folded his arms, immediately unfolded them to gesture vaguely in the direction of the Dead District, and then folded them again. "I volunteer. At the LSR clinic."

"The LSR...?"

There was a vague way in which she spoke, as though she had to expend some effort into remembering details. She nodded when she remembered, not seeming to notice his emerging awkwardness. "Yes, I- I've considered going, but it doesn't seem worth the time. It isn't as though there's anything to be cured..."

She kept her hands in the pockets of her jacket, a light, trench-like piece that she had buttoned and cinched. It'd be nice to say it was the cool evening that froze her fingers but in reality it was simply a matter of her own miserable circulation.

But her own ledger now rested in one of those pockets, and she kept her hand on it while she stood, still and relaxed, without any seeming qualm of the potential danger in being out past dark on her own.

"You're a part of it too, then, aren't you? I'm sorry to hear that."

And she did sound sorry, a slight frowning twisting her mouth.

The fact that she'd considered going was enough to bring a note of concern to his face. There was nothing obviously amiss about her, but that didn't mean anything--after all, it wasn't possible to tell just by looking at him that Alex had no heartbeat.

He'd already known she was a part of this, because Alex wouldn't have revealed his emergent vampire nature as he had during the movie night in front of anybody who wasn't, but he didn't have any clues as to what changes she was experiencing.

He understood the apology she gave. This life was stressful, unpredictable, dangerous. But despite his understanding, he wasn't sure how to respond. He shrugged, his eyes drifting away from her. "If the danger is real, I would rather know about it than not." It wasn't exactly dismissive, but a sign that he'd rather not discuss the intricacies of his anxieties at the moment.

Looking back to her, he asked, "Is there something in particular you would be going to the clinic for?"

A moment's silence passed and she looked back up towards the sky. She sighed a little. "Yes, I suppose so."

She didn't sound convinced of that, however. She would have preferred ignorance, personally speaking, but now that she was embroiled in it, it seemed wrong to back out of it, and wrong to challenge the opinions of others involved. Was it stubbornness? Was it a kind of shame?

Was it the fear that backing out would simply carry it with her regardless? No one knew how far those invisible lines stretched.

She reached up to rub at her nose again, and she sniffed. "I regained my sense of smell. Ah- it's on par with an animal's. A hound's, at the very least. I've gotten used to it since but there are some- some things that I anticipate. Maybe just to... to ease myself into some of the changes, might be necessary."

In Ravi's case, he just didn't like not knowing things, even if they were awful things. But he didn't expect everyone to share that sentiment, and he didn't think Reilanin's opinion was wrong--it just wasn't his.

Her response made it clear to him that she didn't want to discuss it either, and he was all too willing to let it drop.

His eyebrows rose as she explained the sense of smell. What would that make her--any number of things, really, there was a plethora of creatures--real and fictional--with superhuman olfactory abilities. "Some things...?" he echoed, encouraging her to elaborate.

"I'm turning into a werewolf," she said plainly. "Augmented hearing is a possibility... shifting may also present some problems. On full moons, particularly. I don't know how to get around that one. I don't know if I'll even have my wits about me."

She was silent for a moment. She'd spoken of it with Lyall to some small extent but it hadn't triggered anything. Not that that was a bad thing. Maybe it was just a matter of waiting? Maybe it was more random than she thought? Or maybe they simply didn't talk about the right things?

"I feel a little like a time bomb in that respect. It's disconcerting."

"...Oh." Well that was. Certainly straightforward. And not the answer he was expecting at all.

He stared at her for a moment, completely at a loss for what to say. None of that sounded like anything the clinic could help her with, frankly. It also sounded like a perfectly horrifying thing to have to worry about, especially when she probably wouldn't even know she'd regained that full-moon shifting until it happened.

"Ah..." He shifted anxiously, his eyes drifting away from her. "Do you have someplace to stay during the full moons? Just in case."

It was difficult to explain it otherwise, and there was a certain... a certain desire to, with this person, because he was close to Alexander. She didn't know how that translated yet- perhaps it was simply said to somehow keep him safe.

Safer?

She looked down and then back to him, hands still secure in her pockets. Her head tilted some, not that he would see it, his gaze moving away from her. "...no," she said after a moment, "though there's someone I could ask... but I don't think it would be a good idea." Two werewolves in a single space? Seemed risky. She reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear, even though it hadn't yet fallen out of place.

"But perhaps I ought to go," she mused, eyes falling back to the pavement of the thin path that wove throughout the park. "Just in case. Some brainstorming can't hurt." She paused, looking up again to try and find the moon in the sky. "I haven't been keeping track of the cycles... we just had a full moon, didn't we?" She'd have to pay more attention to that, too.

"What about you?" she asked, looking back to him. "Not a monster, I hope."

"Right," he said, looking back to her, agreeing with the sentiment that brainstorming couldn't hurt. It was always better to be prepared for a disaster that didn't happen, as far as he was concerned.

"Ah, th--" DON'T SAY 'THANKFULLY' IN FRONT OF SOMEBODY WHO ACTUALLY DOES HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THAT. "Um. Not as far as I know." His arms still folded, one lifted to absently set a hand against his chest, as he thought of the warmth behind his heart that even now he could not quite explain. Not monstrous, or at least it didn't seem so yet, but certainly some kind of supernatural.

"I can cure hangovers," he offered dubiously, with a slight shrug. "I don't think there are many monsters with that skill."

She looked at him a moment, arching a brow. Her expression seemed almost amused, however. "Have you had much need to cure hangovers?" she asked curiously.

She paused and continued, "what are the doctors at the clinic like?" She preferred not to go to such places, a mixture of not wanting to depend on anyone and recalling the numerous visits with doctors during her mother's long illness. Perhaps having an idea of what she was walking into would help.

"Not really," he admitted, in good humour. The answer would've been different ten years ago, but these days he didn't do much drinking.

Her question may have seemed straightforward to her, but there was a lot of information tied up in the answer and he wasn't sure what she was looking for. As a nurse, he couldn't answer it from a patient's perspective, either. He rubbed the side of his neck, his eyes drifting away as if checking through a mental catalogue as he considered his response. "Doctor Solus is...clinical. Very direct. And Doctor Strider is more friendly, but they both are very good doctors."

Edited 2013-10-02 00:07 (UTC)

"Is that so... perhaps Doctor Solus..."

Friendliness she wasn't sure how to handle in such a situation. Clinical and direct sounded much more her style.

Another pause passed and she asked, perhaps predictably, "you and Alexander- do you echo similarly?"

Maybe picking the less friendly doctor would seem odd to most people, but it was the choice Ravi would've made, too. Straightforward and clinical was less awkward for him. He didn't comment on Reilanin's choice, but he did acknowledge it with a tilt of his head and a slight shrug, in a nonverbal sort of 'up to you.'

"Ah?" He gave her a questioning look, not certain at first what she meant by the question. It only took him a few seconds to figure it out, and another few seconds to formulate an answer. "...Similarly," he said, hesitantly, like that didn't quite describe the whole picture. "I have memories of him," was a more solid answer.

She had a hard time dealing with friendliness to begin with- to bring such an awkward aspect into a much more sensitive situation seemed foolish.

His answer made her tilt her head a little in question. "And he doesn't of you?... ah, I'm sorry. Alexander and I share memories, so I simply wondered if I would have memories of you eventually, as well, if that were the case."

It depended on the answer, she supposed.

It was certainly pitch black out now, except for the lampposts dotting the paths in the park, and getting colder. The day held the heat in, but night was revealing the changing seasons. A light flickered in the corner of her eye- was one of the lampposts going out?

She looked at it, curious, but saw only a steady light. Still, it seemed there was more than before. Head tilting to look up, she saw it there- lights in the sky. Pink lights.

She found herself frozen and staring at them, something inside of her beginning to panic, knowing the feeling that was building up in her head.

AH-HAH! So that was why she was hanging around with Alex! Of course, knowing that she and Alex shared Echoes only made him more curious about it, because he did assume that meant he would eventually be gaining memories of her as well.

"No, he does," he corrected quickly. "So it is possible." But. Well. The details so far didn't quite seem to match up, in ways he couldn't justify. That was the problem.

The sudden shift of her attention to the sky was a curious thing. Automatically, he followed the line of her gaze to see what she was looking at, and he too found himself drawn into an Echo by the mysterious pink lights.

Considering the subject of their discussion, it was almost disappointing that the Echo didn't turn out to be anything related to her.

That feeling didn't last very long. Because what he'd gained was knowledge--the knowledge of how to take the same magic he'd used to cure hangovers and the effects of the tainted water, and use it to heal wounds and restore lost blood volume. That was definitely not disappointing.

It wasn't knowledge or another memory that struck her- instead it was more like a thin sword piercing in between her eyes, and the world exploded with sounds.

She clapped her hands over her ears and it deafened it some. The rush of wind was the most notable- it had seemed like such a still night!- but she didn't realize that that was what she'd blocked out, and she staggered back at the suddenness of it.

Did something else happen? she wondered at first. It was foolish to think it had been a bomb, but something so encompassing- she couldn't imagine what else it would be. But everything else seemed fine and perfectly in order.

Her own heartbeat reverberated in her head, louder than it ever had. What she'd thought was wind was the blood in her own veins pumping away, her own startled breath trying to slow and calm. She stood still, frightened, hands over her ears as she darted her eyes about as though to figure out what the outside assailant was.

"What...?"

Too loud, too loud. Slowly she dropped her hands, expression spooked. Something moved in the trees- cars passed by a few yards away, yet she heard them as though they were right off to the side.

And another heartbeat, another rushing of blood nearby. She looked at Ravindra, wordless.

Concern flashed across his face when he saw her stagger. He rushed forward, setting a hand on her shoulder to steady her. An Echo, he guessed. Something distressing, though he couldn't tell what.

Once she seemed steady on her feet, he stepped back, cautiously pulling his hand away from her shoulder without dropping it. He didn't know what to think of that look she was giving him--she seemed spooked.

"Are you all right?" he asked, softly. But not softly enough that it wouldn't seem loud to her newly sensitive hearing.

Disorienting. Not like smell had been, but she found she had to do it all again, picking apart each sound, identifying it. But sound did not linger like smell did, was short and racuous, nd her hands found their way back to her ears.

His voice made her flinch. So close-! A voice with breath behind it, and the closer he came, the better she heard his heart beating inside of him.

She must have enjoyed that, in her past life.

"Hearing," she said, softer still, unable to look away from him. "My ears- I can hear your heart beating."

Oh.

He stared at her for a moment, not sure how to respond. The implications of her being able to hear his heartbeat were increasingly unsettling. There was a lot of information wrapped up in that sound, including it being an anxiety tell that he couldn't hide, so that was bordering on invasion of privacy. And of course knowing that he was being observed and possibly judged always made him anxious, which increased his heartrate, and she could hear it and she'd know and he couldn't just force it back to normal because focusing on it only made it worse and it was all just sort of a ridiculous snowball of anxiety that he had to do his best to ignore for the moment.

He started to speak, then stopped himself, because she'd thrown her hands over her ears in response the first time. A couple seconds of consideration, and he pulled out his phone, which thankfully was already set not to give auditory feedback to keystrokes. He typed in a message and turned the screen so she could read it. Will you be alright getting home?

She could hear it, just as he feared, could hear his steady beat of before shift, quicken. Could hear his breath, the way he seemed to be controlling it intead of letting it in and out, the intake, the hold, the release. The slight hesitation, the brief beginning of a word before he held it back and went for his phone instead.

The soft slide and push of skin on the screen of a cell phone. Her hands slowly came down again and she swallowed, slowly balling them into fists and settling them at her sides. She measured her own breathing against his, tempted to be pulled into it. She already was, in a way, realizing what she was doing.

She read the message, looking up to him again. Going home? ...of course, she couldn't just stand there forever. She had to get home through the thousands of little sounds that she'd simply taken for granted all of her life.

A slow nod. Unsure, but she would do it. She started, glancing aside- something in the bush. An animal. She could hear its footsteps.

"...just then." It was like hearing a recording of herself, so loud and clear. "In the sky... did you...?"

He looked too, not having heard it but following her glance out of instinct. Her being on edge was putting him on edge. Nothing to see. That didn't make him feel better.

Pulling his phone back, he nodded. He erased the first message and replaced it with a new one, then turned the phone to show her again. The light. A pulse.

She tried not to be startled by every little sound- and they were just that, little sounds. She had to try and remember that. "Squirrel?" she said softly. It didn't seem to be anything more, and it was running in the other direction.

She also had yet to deal with vermini and their ilk, so she didn't seem at all concerned.

The new message was read and she considered. Pink lights giving people pulses.

"...are you all right?" She had yet to encounter someone getting a good echo, so she didn't expect it.

"Ah," he acknowledged, and then shot her a wary, apologetic glance, because he'd said it without thinking and wasn't sure if it was too much for her.

Her question received a nod in reply. Honestly, the majority of his pulses had been either positive or neutral, with only a handful of upsetting ones. Though those few were very upsetting, so maybe it balanced out.

It was then that he realized there was a high-pitched buzzing noise on the edge of his hearing. He frowned, looking across the park as though trying to locate its apparent source. It wasn't tinnitus, because it wasn't drowning out ambient noise--oh, no. Hopefully this wasn't part of a hearing-related Echo of his own.

Anxiety rising, he quickly typed out a new message on his phone to show her. Do you hear a buzzing sound? Please say yes...

A small flinch, but it was soft enough, short enough, that she could gloss over it.

A car, honking its horn at something. That made her wince. It carried on for a bit, and seemed to linger even as the car drove off.

Something good... ah, she was glad. Surprisingly so. She didn't consider herself to be the nicest of people but it was good to know someone wasn't getting utterly fucked over by what was happening.

His question confused her, and had she stopped to think about it, she'd have been able to hear his anxiety levels rise. Instead she thought about the buzz. She almost shook her head. No, just the echo of that car still going by...

...but that wasn't true. Mid-shake she paused and blinked, eyes unfocusing as she listened again. Yes, now that she thought about it. That wasn't the car horn, that was something else. She turned her head, carefully, to listen for it, then shifted to move in one direction, then to step into another, straining to hear.

"...it seems louder that way," she said softly, unknowingly motioning in some vague way towards the the business distract. "Whatever it is."

Oh no. Oh no. A look of dread crept across his face, to be frozen and replaced with tenuous hope as her head stilled while she listened again.

With her confirmation that he wasn't alone in hearing it, whatever it was, he released a breath he'd been holding. It was a tremendous relief to know it wasn't just him, wasn't due to some mysterious Echo he'd then have to live with and get used to.

Which was a selfish thought when Reilanin had just experienced exactly that. He felt guilty for thinking it, but not guilty enough to stop being relieved.

With that settled, he felt no need to dig any deeper into the mystery of the buzzing. He could safely move on.

A good set of earplugs should take the edge off, he typed. A pause before showing it to her, and he added, I wouldn't mind walking you home. Are you sure?

There was a brief moment of struggle on her features, pride and petulance warring with a real concern that she might actually have trouble returning to her apartment.

She didn't look at him when she nodded finally, a miserable set to her mouth. Her personal safety overtook her pride, but by a slim margin.

"Please. It isn't far."

Ear plugs. She was sure she must have some, due to a propensity for setting off fireworks at any given chance by the kids in the neighbourhood. She glanced over to him and pressed her lips together, moving away.

"It's just off of Pandora." Three blocks from where they were. She took a step, hesitated. Another, guarded. During the day it might have been overwhelming. At night, it was positively spooky- she felt as though she were in a horror movie, with every little sound jumping out at her. She slid her hands back into her pockets to curl them into fists. One she instead curled around the ledger.

"...it's freaky."

The struggle was easy enough to see, but he could only guess at what she was thinking. Maybe he shouldn't have offered? Insisted, practically. Too forceful? Ah, but she was accepting--definitely not pleased about it, though.

He tried to shove his own anxieties out of mind and focus on the fact that he'd offered for her safety and she'd accepted for presumably the same reason. None of the other details were important. He followed at her side, nodding his acknowledgement when she mentioned the cross-street.

He glanced down at his phone, considered it, and dismissed it. It wasn't really feasible to keep talking by way of text while they walked. "What is?" he asked, clearly enunciated but under his breath, glancing sidelong at her for a hint as to whether that was too loud or not.

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