Post by Tennessee Whiskey on Feb 22, 2016 14:41:33 GMT -8
There's almost always a stillness to the house, but now it feels ominous. Since Miss Redfern went on vacation to settle her nerves, and the wandering Gangrel wandered off again, it's been mostly family, and family is nothing if not quiet. Amani's been out, too; Whiskey's not sure if it's of the city or the country, but if it was important, she'd know. Sometimes she thinks she hears things she can't be hearing, like footsteps overhead, when the next floor above is through layers of rock, or children laughing or crying when she's the closest thing this house has left to a child. Well, second. Maybe third. Whether it's spillover from the Boss's work or her ears playing tricks on her in the absence of actual stimuli, she can't tell and she's never asked.
The fact that it's so quiet now probably points to auditory hallucination. There'd been nobody left at the gathering when the Hound had dropped her off after the airport. Everything there had been appropriately quiet and clean, as though they'd never been there, but still Whiskey had felt as though there should have been some sign of the struggle that had taken place. When she'd called to report in, the Sheriff had been "unavailable," which wasn't surprising, and she'd declined to leave a message, since all she had to report was "nothing to report." When she'd gotten home, the house had been as silent in the pre-dawn as it would become in the nightfall.
The glow from her phone outlines the ceiling as she rolls over to it and frowns to find she already has missed messages. As she scrolls, the look on her face sharpens and tightens, into something not enough of her acquaintances would recognize as a threat display, something that looks enough like a grin for government work. Her footsteps preserve the unnatural silence of her home as she picks her way across her room, guided by the light from her phone, to the door she hasn't opened in more than a week. Even that opens noiselessly, to the bathroom with its rain of glass shards covering the floor and the corpse-like huddled lump of cloth and leather in the corner. Her expression smooths again and after her reply her phone stays dark; once she was a morning person but now she seems to have arrived late to the party. Oh well.
There's a stillness to the core of her that has been missing the past few weeks, since she heard who was coming to town. Nobody won last night, that was for damn sure, but the losses that touched some had merely grazed her; she had been played like a violin, maybe, but in the end the superior strategist had still lost his gambit, and she emerged unscathed and unashamed. Not a win, but not a loss. Not this time.
Gingerly and grimacing, Whiskey flicks on the bathroom light.
The fact that it's so quiet now probably points to auditory hallucination. There'd been nobody left at the gathering when the Hound had dropped her off after the airport. Everything there had been appropriately quiet and clean, as though they'd never been there, but still Whiskey had felt as though there should have been some sign of the struggle that had taken place. When she'd called to report in, the Sheriff had been "unavailable," which wasn't surprising, and she'd declined to leave a message, since all she had to report was "nothing to report." When she'd gotten home, the house had been as silent in the pre-dawn as it would become in the nightfall.
The glow from her phone outlines the ceiling as she rolls over to it and frowns to find she already has missed messages. As she scrolls, the look on her face sharpens and tightens, into something not enough of her acquaintances would recognize as a threat display, something that looks enough like a grin for government work. Her footsteps preserve the unnatural silence of her home as she picks her way across her room, guided by the light from her phone, to the door she hasn't opened in more than a week. Even that opens noiselessly, to the bathroom with its rain of glass shards covering the floor and the corpse-like huddled lump of cloth and leather in the corner. Her expression smooths again and after her reply her phone stays dark; once she was a morning person but now she seems to have arrived late to the party. Oh well.
There's a stillness to the core of her that has been missing the past few weeks, since she heard who was coming to town. Nobody won last night, that was for damn sure, but the losses that touched some had merely grazed her; she had been played like a violin, maybe, but in the end the superior strategist had still lost his gambit, and she emerged unscathed and unashamed. Not a win, but not a loss. Not this time.
Gingerly and grimacing, Whiskey flicks on the bathroom light.