Mr. Elocution

He'd never admit it aloud, but Duncan was glad to have someone else holding the reins on the press conference. It wasn't like he was incapable of public speaking, but being in the spotlight made him uncomfortable. On the drive over he'd been trying to formulate words - other than 'stop calling us, please' - and Rob's script was far better than he could have drafted himself. At least not without time.

Duncan adjusted his belt and took up his position. "You got it, boss," he said. He took a breath, rolled his shoulders back, and waited for the cue.

"Afternoon, everyone. There's been reports of strange sightings in this area, but I'm here to let you know that there's no property damage or injury reported. However, we're still going to look into the calls we've gotten, but there's no need to keep calling in - we hear you. We're investigating."

Poor guy.

He did a fine job, of course. Blessed with a hard, impassable face, Duncan never actually looked unsteady. You'd have to know the guy to be able to spot his tells. But Rob had spent enough time with him to know that he was counting down the seconds to escaping the limelight.

When he finished and stepped away from the semi-circle of news station microphones, Rob was there with a firm clap to his back. "You did good, sheriff. Think we've officially earned some lunch."

He'd wait until they arrived at the diner to pitch the next part of the plan. Rob suspected he'd like it way better than the press conference.

"Road sounds good. You drivin' or am I?" Duncan stood up and stretched, his back popping nicely. He'd been inside too long; he felt cramped, cooped up behind his desk. "Lunch sounds perfect, too. Whatcha thinkin'?"

He'd get his lunch next time. Only fair. Rob was rescuing him, after all.

Rob let Duncan drive. It'd keep his hands busy, and he figured the patrol car would look more official on camera anyway. Chandler's was about the best option for lunch--there wasn't a lot of variety in Goodluck, food-wise, but people rarely complained. The one diner in town hit the spot for most folks.

"Pull off right here," Rob directed, guiding them to a patch of dirt right off the shoulder of the road. "Don't think this is exactly where the video was caught, but it's close enough to get the point across."

Duncan was a smart man and plenty capable of rationalizing to everyone that this was just some Scooby Doo type stunt. But Rob knew his own strengths--he had some words ready.

"You say whatever feels right to you, but if all else fails, reiterate that there have been no reports of serious injury or property destruction related to all this--that'll calm folks down about all the weird animal shit. As for the video...that kinda thing can be edited and fabricated. But just for the sake of due diligence, we're checking out the area for anyone who might need assistance. You throw in whatever else you think will stop folks from blowing your phone up. Toss 'em that stern and stoic look of yours and I bet everybody calms right down."

pallas-ailith

"Dwarves?" Ailith shrugged her shoulders heavily as she gave the Mayor a sarcastic look and a slight tilt of her head. Of course they weren't actual Dwarves, unless there was a sudden influx of the Asgardians she wasn't aware of. Realizing that the Mayor was looking for real versus smart-ass answers, she took a deep breath and tilted her head back. Closing her eyes she searched through her memories. Transported within those thoughts she was in a forest where the trees were stacks of books. The world's library. Every trunk she passed she brushed a hand against them. Light seemingly emanating from her palm until her hand left. One after another until she found something. Opening her eyes she whipped her gaze towards Rob. "There is something that matches that description. It goes back quite a ways...but there's even accounts from the late nineteenth century."

They fit the description, but Ailith couldn't fathom why they'd return, why now? Then she remembered the eclipse. Could it be something brought them out? And could the repeated strange light midday be connected to it? "The Cherokee called them moon-eyed people. They only come out at night."

Rob had seen her do this kinda thing before--her face void of expression, her eyes dancing back and forth behind their lids. He knew who Ailith was, which wasn't the case with all of Goodluck's divine folk. He knew where she came from, where she really came from, and he wondered if this is what the oracles of old looked like. Just a slightly darker temple and a lot more psychedelic smoke.

She snapped them both out of their separate reveries, voice as calm and cool as ever, even as she delivered bizarre information. The voice of reason, he chuckled to himself.

"See now usually if someone told me it was an old Cherokee story, I'd assume they were making shit up." Folks in these parts loved to attribute every last oddity to the Cherokee without knowing a damn thing about the actual Cherokee. They were a catch-all for all things mystical and as a purveyor of authentic communication, it irritated the hell out of him. But Ailith could always cite her sources.

"So...moon-eyed people, huh? Only come out at night...I'd like to try finding 'em. See what they're doing here, try a bit of diplomacy. Any intel on whether they're friendly?"

#with: ailith #p: ailith

Well, shit. Duncan wasn’t pleased about the prospect, but Rob was right - it would save them a lot of calls, and maybe he could get out of the office for a while. Drive around. Look at all the nothing happening, save for the weird animal activity.

“I’m not a fan, but it’s a damn good plan. Where you wanna hold this little press event?”

"I was thinking right out front." It was convenient, having town hall and the station right next to each other.

"But I can see in your eyes, you're about to lose it stuck in here. If you'd rather take it on location, we can go out toward the state road. They can get B-roll footage of frogs or something." He shook his head and shrugged, just as baffled by the whole thing as the sheriff must be.

"Then lunch, my treat? And you can fill me in on anything I should actually be worried about." It was hard to separate rumor from truth at this point, and Rob had heard tell of everything from a string of disorderly conduct incidents to a guy who was convinced he was a werewolf. Duncan would be able to sift reality from bullshi.

k-wame

COLMAN DOMINGO ⋮ 07 Jan 2024 🎭 ⋮ 81st Annual Golden Globe Awards

#mayor rob inspo

pallas-ailith

The grin that had formed across her face as the Mayor "danced" before committing began to fade as he mentioned the video. Of course she'd heard, everyone had. Normally things kind of thing never went beyond whispers and rumors about the town. But this...this went national.

She fully expected there to be a sudden influx of "researchers." And by researchers she meant amateurs with cameras trying to get their fix for boosting the numbers on their YouTube channel. Them and of course "The Prophets." Those coming with stories of fire and brimstone, peddling their brand. "I did. Shame it got out. But, I can't lead the masses to the truth." She paused long, giving a moment for them both, "That it's just a hoax." Sarcasm wasn't easy for her to present. But Rob had known her long enough to know when she was being just that. What Ailith didn't know was why he was coming to her. She could only convince others to seek truth and knowledge, she couldn't force them to believe what was true and what wasn't. "So, I'm assuming you have some sort of strategy?"

#with: ailith #p: ailith001

He scrubbed a hand through his beard that was in desperate need of a trim, as if the tufting curls of it could ever be smoothed down so easily.

"It'll get handled just fine. Just a little more PR than I like to do, but that's alright. And I don't expect you to persuade anybody about anything, I know that ain't your bag. What I need from you is info."

He'd been in America longer than Ailith, but his grip on folklore was more bayou-based than what Goodluck was steeped in. Miss Keen, on the other hand, had a preternatural ability to find information about the furthest corners of the world from her spot behind the shop counter.

"We both know it ain't fucking aliens, otherwise there'd be bigger names in town by now. That's a good one for the hucksters to latch onto though, that'll kill real suspicion faster than anything I can do. But I still wanna know what the hell's hanging out in the woods."

There was a bookshelf near enough to the counter that Rob could mosey over to it without breaking their conversation. He ran careful, reverent fingers over the spines, not bothering to read the titles. "So riddle me this: what's short and pale with a beard and white eyes?"

It didn't make any damn sense. The office was dealing with a high volume of calls over strange sightings and weird animal behavior. He was the sheriff, not Animal Control's... whatever they called their manager. Leader. Whatever. As he tried to calm down a man on the phone complaining about bats in his yard, another brick fell into his lap. Duncan held up a finger to the mayor himself, promising him a moment if he could just get the guy on the phone to hang up.

And he did. Eventually. Just a few minutes after Rob left. Little miracles - you had to take them where you could.

"Mayor," he said, his gruff voice a little more strained than usual. "We sure as shit are. Apparently every other line is slammed too, since people're callin' us now. Don't suppose you know anything about catching bats, do you? Or maybe anything about people doin' weird shit in the woods?"

Rob barked out a laugh. "I mean, weird shit in the woods is kinda par for the course in these parts. As for bats..." he sucked on his teeth and shook his head. "Sorry man, I don't know a thing about 'em."

After fielding a dozen calls himself this morning, it became pretty clear that most folks weren't in any real sort of danger--they were just freaked out. They needed some reassurance from someone supremely competent that everything was alright. And lucky for Rob, there was a small army of news vans itching for some talking head segments.

But he didn't suspect the sheriff was gonna like the plan much.

"What are the odds I can get you in front of a news camera? I'm gonna do it too," he put his hand out in appeasement. "Before you even ask, I'm already planning on doing it. But if we can give a whole bunch of folks one speech at the same time, maybe that'll save us from taking a thousand calls today."

#with: duncan #p: duncan001 #//sorely lacking colman gif sources

Starter for: @ares-armory Location: Goodluck PD

Ask anybody in town where to find the sheriff, and not a single soul would mention his office. He was a man meant for fieldwork. But Rob had a feeling--one of those preternatural gut things he was blessed with--that he needed to check GPD for the man in question.

Sure enough, the poor bastard was wedged awkwardly in a chair that was clearly not bought with him in mind, pinning his office phone between his ear and shoulder, looking somewhere between pissed off and nervous as one of them little shaking lapdogs. When he spotted Rob lurking in the doorway, held up a single thick finger. So Rob went wandering for a couple cups of coffee from the break room and returned just in time to catch Duncan hang up and heave out a sigh.

"You getting slammed with this eclipse bullshit too? My voicemail was full by 9:30 this morning."

pallas-ailith

Starter for: @mayor-rob Where: Antiquities Avenue The little town of Goodluck was anything but sleepy. Outwardly, that's how most would describe it. But its inhabitants knew better. Ailith knew better. And thought it had been some time since the town had made any headlines, the recent happenings after the eclipse broke that spell. Ailith sat in the small living room of the apartment on the second story of the building that housed Antiquities Avenue. Eating her normal, everyday bowl of Nut-N-Honey cereal, she watched the local news. When Goodluck's name came up she paused, holding the spoon hovering over the milk in the bowl. Though she could hear the words coming from the television, her thoughts wandered and she wondered how Mayor Rob would handle this one. She dropped the spoon into the bowl and with her now free hand snatched up the remote and turned off the TV. Making her way into the small kitchen she dumped the milk a few bits of cereal down the drain. It was 8 A.M., time to start the day, and likely to be a slow one. Looking out into the street through the tall glass of the door to her shop she noticed that there were few cars. And the ones she saw were the regulars, mostly heading to one of the various industrial buildings bordering the town boundary. As she unlocked the door and flipped the CLOSED sign to OPEN, she spied the man she'd been thinking about just a few minutes prior, crossing the town square. "Fuck," she said aloud to no one. "So it begins." She'd expected as much, but she wasn't about to head outside and meet him on neutral ground. Inevitably he had a plan. What that plan might be, she had no clue. But one thing she could always be sure of was that it was going to be a disruption. Ailith made her way behind the counter situated along the side wall opposite the door and sat upon the stool she kept there. She quickly pulled up a volume from the Encyclopedia set she kept under the counter and opened it to a random page. The irony of landing on Congress when the man approaching was a politician wasn't lost on her. She acted like she was reading as the door opened, clipping the small brass bell hanging behind it that signaled a visitor. Without looking up she greeted him, "Mayor, here for some bad taxidermy? Or perhaps I can interest you in a vintage guitar?"