I imagine it probably wouldn't be too difficult. You might not want to post about it online if you are actually going to try to scam people at some point, though. Not to encourage this, of course.
Depends on how much effort it takes to make them, I guess. And if you'd be okay lying to people's faces like that. At least grift them with something that takes less work. Like pick up a rock on the ground and call it lucky. Or some mulch. Sounds easier. Pretty sure you can even call it art and that will double the price. That's how it works as far as I'm aware.
Isn't a good grift supposed to be imaginative, though? Also, does this count as grifting? A small con perhaps, but it isn't that mean, is it? If people want to believe, who am I to stop them? Same to your rock. Beauty is in the eye on that art label, I suppose.
So if the guy at the pawn shop can sell a creepy grainy photo for that much money, how hard could it be to make a few fakes and make a little on them? I'm not saying I would... I'm just saying you could. The quakes seem to have brought a few new gullible souls to town, and I can't believe they wouldn't be easy marks for something like that.
Pay the $20,000 and you can corner the market on lighthouse happenings, I'm sure. But I don't think Mike will love it if you undersell him to the newbies. Strike a business deal, perhaps?
I am not interested in making that kind of financial investment. But you bring up an interesting consideration. Think he needs someone to hype up the photos and encourage people to buy it? I feel like I'd be a good hype person.
Probably not hard, but I would suggest not. Mostly because now people would associate it with you, if nothing else. Might I suggest making artist renderings of them instead?
I'm not really the visual artist type myself, although I tend to find myself surrounded by them. Perhaps I'll point out the suggestion, see if anyone wants to make something fun.
That is literally just a smudgy blob. Surely no one would fall for that... Right? How much money have people paid for stuff like that? I'm almost afraid to find out.
Foreshadow? I don't know that it's going to be a sign of anything, but it might improve your skills. But also, I'm lost. Why are you visiting a priest? I didn't bring up clergy.
Yes, I am always specific. You're quite helpful. I appreciate it.
Oh, of course. [user attaches 27 images of bear livers and bear paws] Is this sufficient? I believe the bears will like it. They'll see the livers and think, 'that is inside of me'.
TIMING: early february.
LOCATION: caroline's apartment
PARTIES: @raisareigns & @mortemoppetere
SUMMARY: emilio and raisa investigate the disappearance of caroline, raisa's missing coworker.
CONTENT: none!
Raisa tried not to feel like they were doing something wrong.
Her goal was to find Caroline, though, and they couldn’t do that without figuring out where she’d been. When Emilio had suggested retracing her steps as best they could, Raisa agreed that it seemed like the best thing to do. She just hadn’t realized that would be prying their way through Caroline’s life and forcing their way into her home.
But it was for the best. Raisa took a deep breath. “Would you hurry up?” she hissed as she leaned over to see how Emilio was doing at getting the door open. “I keep waiting for someone to notice us.”
—
Most of the time when someone hired him, they sat back and waited for answers. Most of the time. People didn’t call a private investigator to hang out with him, after all, and Emilio could count on one hand the number of people who took active involvement in their cases after handing them over to him. He wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or a bad one that Raisa was now included in that number.
Right now, it was a bit of an annoying thing. Nobody liked someone hovering over their shoulder as they worked, and Emilio would insist that picking the lock would go a lot faster without the audience. He cursed under his breath as Raisa hissed at him to hurry, shooting a glare over his shoulder. “Do you want to pick the lock?” He snapped, looking back to the lockpick in his hand. “If you think you could do a better job, you’re free to…” The lock clicked, and the door creaked on its hinges as he pushed it open. “...take the next one. Come on.”
—
Raisa took a step back at his question, opening her mouth to argue, even if she didn’t yet know what she was about to say. Then it opened, so the point was irrelevant. “Perhaps I will,” Raisa said with a sniff as she stepped past him into the open space.
As soon as she did, though, Raisa slowed, her eyes locked on the kitchen table. A lone coffee mug sat all alone. She stepped toward it to peer over the rim. A dried out crust that had probably once been the last dregs of a cup lingered along the bottom, clearly days old. Almost without meaning to, Raisa said, “I don’t think she realized she wasn’t coming back.”
She lifted her head to take in more of the space. It didn’t seem like anyone had left in a hurry necessarily, but things sat scattered in the same fashion as the cup–a normal kind of messy and lived in that had clearly been intended to be cleaned up later.
—
“Sure. I’d like to see you do better.” In all honesty, Emilio had no idea if she was the sort of person who could pick locks. She didn’t strike him as such, but maybe he was wrong about that. After all, in a town like this one, no one was quite what they appeared. Emilio included.
He trailed behind her into the apartment, carefully shutting the door behind them. Raisa’s deduction was a good one; there was a coffee mug on the table, still half full of liquid. Two pieces of bread stuck out of the toaster, an open jar of peanut butter and a butter knife beside it. The television was still on, playing reruns of some show on cable, laugh track filling the quiet of the apartment.
There were no signs of a struggle; that was the next thing he noted. “Nobody took her from here,” he mused, walking over to switch off the TV. It was a little eerie, the sound of it. “If I had to guess… she stepped out for something quick. To get the mail, to take the trash out, to run to the store for something she was missing for breakfast. Must have been morning.” That ruled out a few things, too. Vampire attacks usually happened at night, for obvious reasons. Werewolves were more prone to losing control when the sun went down and the full moon came up. “We should walk to the mailbox first. Then the dumpster. Finding out where she disappeared from will tell us more.”
Or… finding out where she was killed. Emilio was more prone to believe they were looking for a corpse than a person, but he wouldn’t say that to Raisa. No one hired a private investigator to find someone they didn’t care about, and telling someone that someone they cared about was dead without knowing for a fact that it was the truth was a dick move. “Come on.”
—
Such simple words, and yet they made a chill run across Raisa’s skin. She knew it was naive to hope Caroline could be fine with the way she’d disappeared. Some people could blink out of existence for months and come back like it was nothing, but that had never been Caroline’s way. She was dependable. She didn’t make commitments she didn’t plan to keep, and she didn’t blow them off like they were nothing.
“Morning makes sense,” Raisa said. She reached for the coffee cup, then hesitated. Probably best not to touch. She shoved her hands back into her coat pockets, then watched Emilio move around.
She nodded and followed him toward the door. At the last second, Raisa paused to ruffle through the basket by the door. “No key,” she said. “Your mailbox theory might hold a little weight. Unless she carries it with her. I suppose that’s always possible too.” Personally Raisa didn’t like to carry more than she could help, but one up and down of owning her own house: no lock on the mailbox.
Raisa followed Emilio outside at that point. She closed the door gingerly (though didn’t lock it) behind them. She found herself falling back as they approached the mailboxes for the apartment. She glanced around. “Won’t people get upset if we look like we’re breaking into the mail?” she asked.
—
Contrary to what hyperbole might want people to believe, no one ever disappeared ‘without a trace.’ There was always something left behind, always some kind of evidence to be found so long as you knew where to look for it. Emilio had gotten pretty good at knowing exactly where to look for it.
More often than not, the things he found weren’t what his clients were hoping for. He found corpses, found broken watches or bloodied wedding rings or undeniable proof that the person he was looking for was being digested somewhere by something ravenous. Optimism wasn’t the kind of thing he clung to anymore, hadn’t been a thing that interested him at all in years now. As he led Raisa towards the mailboxes, he prepared himself to stumble upon some such proof of tragedy, got ready to tell her that the story they were writing wasn’t one with a happy ending. It was an inevitable thing, after all. Most stories didn’t end in ‘happily ever after.’ Most stories ended in blood.
He slowed as they got close to the mailboxes. Still no outward sign of a struggle. But… something gleamed from the concrete, and Emilio leaned over to pick it up, ignoring the protest from his bad knee. The key was small and silver, and he held it for Raisa to see. “We don’t have to break into the mail,” he said. Finding the box with Raisa’s friend’s apartment number on it, he slipped the key inside and, confirming his theory, found that it fit. He turned it and pulled open the box, finding several days’ worth of mail inside.
Turning back to Raisa, he nodded towards the box. “Gone before she opened it,” he confirmed. Hesitating, he glanced around. No one nearby, but there was a camera on the wall across from the mailboxes. He nodded towards it. “We’ll get that footage,” he said. “But… Look, before we go any further, we need to make sure we’ve got all our facts straight. Wouldn’t normally ask this, but you and me took down a damn snowman together, so I figure you know more than most people. Is your friend human?”
—
Raisa stepped back as Emilio bent over, though she couldn’t exactly say why. Something about the idea of clues perhaps. She knew the odds here, or at least she thought she did. Whatever they were, they wouldn’t be good. Raisa knew that much. When he lifted a key, Raisa breathed a sigh of relief. Nothing bad yet. Well, she stiffened as she considered the implications. People could drop something like a key without anything being wrong. That seemed unlikely. Caroline was too detail-oriented to misplace something like that.
She peered over Emilio’s shoulder as best she could, but when Raisa stepped back, she tried to see the way he did. As he glanced around, she did the same, eyes lighting on a camera. She glanced toward him, pleased with herself to see he’d also considered it important enough to focus on. She hadn’t missed some obvious clue.
His question, though, took her by surprise. “That’s not–” Raisa stopped to take a deep breath through her nose. He hadn’t asked about her. He could make any assumptions he wanted there, but Raisa knew she couldn’t be offended by a question like that. It probably would help solve this if he knew the truth.
“Zombie,” she said. Generally Raisa didn’t like to acknowledge such things out loud. Even Caroline had only ever mentioned it in passing, something to allude to. Raisa did the same. They both had needs that set them apart from their coworkers, even if they blended in quite well. “Do you think this could be related to that? I know such things happen, but I thought there was usually more of a mess left behind.” She was about to make a smart remark about the recklessness of hunters but best not. From everything she had guessed of him so far, Emilio was of that sort, even if she didn’t officially know that for a fact.
As she spoke, Raisa started walking toward the management office on site. Perhaps they could charm or distract their way into a little information.
—
Zombie. He tensed a little at the revelation, though he knew it was unfounded. Raisa’s coworker was the victim here, the person who they were looking to help. There were no signs pointing towards her having disappeared to go on some rampage, no evidence that she’d hurt anyone. If anything, this new information only increased the odds that he was looking for someone like him. The thought made him uncomfortable.
Even now, he disliked going against other hunters. He’d done it more than once, at this point — there was a body buried in the woods of a hunter Andy had killed, and Emilio had dug the grave. He’d sprung Ariadne from Rhett’s van, would do it again a thousand times over. He’d severed Parker’s finger from his hand, regretted only the fact that he hadn’t taken his head off instead. Emilio was more than willing to go up against other hunters when it was necessary, but it always left a sour taste in his mouth. It always made him feel like he was doing something wrong, like maybe his mother had been right to want him out of the picture. But this was who he was now, he supposed. He did what was necessary.
It fucking sucked.
“Could be,” he acknowledged. “I think whoever got her must have at least known. Otherwise, it’d be difficult to take her out.” Whether ‘taking her out’ meant knocking her unconscious or something else remained to be seen. “Someone could have cleaned up their tracks after. Or taken her someplace less public to finish things off. Just because there’s no mess here doesn’t mean nothing messy happened.” It was important to keep Raisa’s expectations in check. Emilio knew that.
He nodded, trailing along behind her to the management office. “You should probably do the talking,” he said as he pulled the door open for her. “People don’t like me much.”
—
Raisa caught his momentary reaction, but she tried to let that roll off without responding. Normally zombies weren’t her favorite companions either. She couldn’t hold it against him.
She swallowed hard as he vaguely described what could have happened. “You’re probably right,” she admitted. “Caroline was always on top of things. She spent too long around humans to let herself get sloppy about something like… cravings.” The last word left a strong distaste in her mouth, but Raisa tried to brush that off too. It was the reality that came with zombies. If they were investigating this, they needed to stay neutral, perhaps even pragmatic.
At his final comment, Raisa snorted. “Can’t imagine why,” she said lightly, careful to toe the line between joke and too-truthful insult.
She shifted her purse on her shoulder as she quickly scanned the office, letting a smile spread across her face as she caught sight of a balding man reading a comic book behind the counter. Almost too easy when he was presenting his interests so readily. “Hi,” Raisa said. “Are you a big Spiderman fan? What did you think of his last movie? Personally I thought it was a little controversial, and–” She pretended to catch Emilio’s eye and let herself flush. “Sorry, I mean…” She sighed and leaned against the counter.
Raisa offered the man another, more apologetic smile. “So my boyfriend here swears someone must have broken into our mailbox, but I’m pretty sure someone managed to leave the key in it because we can’t find that either.” She rolled her eyes and leaned forward a little closer. “Is there any way we could get a look at the security footage for the mailboxes to find out for sure? We’re just trying to figure out if we need to order a new key or if it’s somewhere in the apartment.”
—
As a child, Emilio had been taught that all supernatural beings were just looking for some excuse to hurt someone. His mother had been adamant that any humanity the undead may have had died when their heart stopped beating, insisting that higher vampires and zombies and everything else with an unbeating heart resting in their chest was just as monstrous as the ghouls and spawn that slayers culled in graveyards to keep people safe. For the longest time, he’d accepted this truth. After all, why would his mother lie to him? Back then, he would have seen this case and assumed, without question, that Raisa’s friend was the perpetrator and not the victim.
But things were different now.
He’d seen plenty of undead people who felt more human than he did, seen plenty of ‘monsters’ less monstrous than the people he loved. If Raisa said that her friend had control, Emilio had to believe her. He had to open his mind to the possibility that they were looking for something else here — and that uncovering it might open a decently-sized can of worms. If someone had grabbed a zombie without winding up dead on the concrete, there must have been a reason for it.
Rolling his eyes at Raisa’s comment, he followed her into the office. He let Raisa strike up conversation, tilting his head slightly when, instead of bringing up what they were here for, she started talking about… spiders? His brow furrowed a little, and she seemed to notice his expression and decide to move on.
The man’s eyes flickered over to Emilio as Raisa spoke, and he offered a curt nod. It was easy enough to play the part of the silent, slightly embarrassed boyfriend who was disgruntled to admit that someone had broken into his mailbox, and the man seemed to buy it well enough. He met Raisa’s eye with a smile. “You sure your boyfriend’s not pulling your leg?” There was a teasing lilt to his tone, and Emilio let out a huff, rolling his eyes as he propped his elbows on the desk.
“We’re sure,” he replied flatly, allowing himself to sound as annoyed as anyone might be in this situation. The man glanced to him again, then shrugged.
“I guess I can let you take a look. Just don’t tell anyone, okay? I’m not really supposed to.”
—
Raisa hadn’t given Emilio a terribly difficult part to play, and thankfully he played it well enough. She glanced toward him here or there when it felt appropriate, but her attention stayed primarily focused on the guy at the desk. When he gave them the yes, she smiled at him, wide and full of sunshine. “That’s amazing! Thank you so much. And absolutely! We won’t tell a soul.”
Without asking, Raisa moved around the counter as he clicked in a few keys on the keyboard to pull up the camera they needed. This would be easier too without him there, but she hadn’t figured out a solution for that yet. After a few seconds, she spied his comic book. If the bit wasn’t broken…
“Here you go,” he said at the same time Raisa asked, “So is that the newest issue?”
He looked at her, surprised. “Do you read it?”
“I try to,” she lied, hoping he wouldn’t push her too hard on facts. She needed to move quickly if they were to avoid that. “I missed the last one and need to catch up. You don’t happen to have it, do you?” Raisa glanced at Emilio in an effort to get him to understand what she was doing. “Maybe I could take a look while my boyfriend looks at the footage?”
The man lit up. “I have it in my car! It’s around back, but give me like five minutes and I’ll have it for you.”
“That’s so great!” Raisa gushed as he was already getting up out of his seat. She waited long enough for him to get out the door before whirling around to face Emilio. “I don’t know how much time I actually bought you, but I hope you’re fast at this stuff. I don’t actually want to pretend to care about the comic.”
—
Emilio followed Raisa around the desk, watching as the security guy pulled up the footage. He was just beginning to wonder how they could view this footage without potentially having the security guard insisting they involve the police — if the footage showed the abduction, it would be a hard sell — when Raisa launched into a distraction.
It was kind of impressive, the way she slipped so seamlessly into the role. Emilio was a little impressed. His own undercover work wasn’t exactly stellar, even on his best days. He managed when he had to, but Raisa was a far better actress than he could hope to achieve. Given her profession, that probably made sense. Still, he couldn’t help but offer her an impressed nod when the security guy rushed out to fetch his comic from the car.
“Nice,” he commented, quickly navigating around the footage. “Shouldn’t take too long. Just need to find the right… Here.”
It was early morning in the footage. Not quite light yet, but not dark enough to be night, either. A woman with dark, curly hair opened her mailbox, pulling out a few envelopes and shuffling through them. A figure came onto the monitor. There was no sound, but Emilio could imagine the commotion as the man grabbed her. He watched closely, pausing the footage when the man turned to face the camera. Pulling out his phone, he snapped a photo of the grainy image. “There’s our guy,” he mumbled.
He pressed play again to watch it play out. Towards the end, the man turned to someone offscreen, saying something impossible to make out. “He had a partner,” Emilio mused. But when the man disappeared off screen and the shadow of the vehicle he’d arrived in sped off, the partner still hadn’t appeared. “First step, find out who this pendejo is,” he said, turning his phone towards Raisa. “Then, we find his partner. Sound good?”
—
Raisa leaned in close as she watched Emilio work through the footage with impressive speed. She couldn’t help her gasp as Caroline appeared at her mailbox, just going about her daily routine. A sense of dread settled low in her stomach as she waited for something horrifying to happen. She almost held back a small squeak as a man appeared. Raisa wanted to look away, but if these were Caroline’s final moments, her friend deserved for it to be seen. They wouldn’t be able to bring her back, but they could find the details and figure out how to get her justice.
Thankfully, though, while Carolien was obviously under duress, she seemed to be very much still alive as the man dragged her off. Raisa felt her hope return. Surely they wouldn’t take her away just to kill her, would they?
“Sounds good,” Raisa replied, almost as an afterthought. She glanced toward the door. “Is it better to fake our way through this interaction or try to get out of here before he’s back?” If she could help it, Raisa really didn’t want to fake flirt more than she had to.
They had someone to identify, someone Raisa didn’t think she’d ever seen before in her life. Hopefully it wouldn’t be as challenging as those parameters felt.
–
It was hard to know what the abduction really was. Emilio had known hunters who preferred to work slowly with their prey, liked to take them somewhere where they could spend days finishing them off. He thought, painfully, of Rhett, of the van, of Ariadne, and he shook the thought away. If Raisa’s friend had been taken by someone who intended to kill her slowly, it just meant they had a more serious time limit on what they were doing here. It didn’t change much.
Raisa spoke, and Emilio turned towards her with a shrug. “Never gonna see him again,” he replied, looking briefly back to the computer. He wasn’t much of a tech guy, but he knew a delete button when he saw one. He quickly deleted the footage of the abduction, knowing that if the security guard got curious and went back to look at it, it could mean trouble.
With that done, he pushed away from the desk and started for the door. It was far easier to slip out before the security guard came back than it was to make up some excuse for leaving. The man would jump to his own conclusions — that the ‘couple’ had realized they’d made a mistake and left, that Emilio had been irritated by Raisa’s flirting, that they’d gotten some important phone call. The best cover, sometimes, was no cover at all. People’s minds would go a long way to rationalize things, he’d learned. You could use it to your advantage if you knew how.
“Come on,” he said, ushering for Raisa to follow him. “We’ve got work to do.”
TIMING: Late January
LOCATION: The Mushroom Circle
PARTIES: Raisa and Wyatt (and a fussy faun)
SUMMARY: Raisa and Wyatt (@loftylockjaw) were both looking for a little entertainment, never mind that Wyatt was already entertained when Raisa arrived.
CONTENT WARNINGS: None
Raisa stepped inside, the warmth of the bar soaking in compared to the cold creeping in behind her. She took a deep breath, letting the room and its inhabitants wash over her. She wasn’t hungry, wasn’t looking for anyone in particular to inspire and feed on, but something pulled her toward this main room. Normally she’d slip behind that employee door and let the dance floor pull her along with whatever another fae wanted for their night.
Instead she wandered over to the bar and slipped onto an empty stool. Raisa ordered herself a drink and sipped on it. The grenadine pool sitting at the top was overly sweet. She focused on it anyway. If she hadn’t wanted something sweet, she’d have ordered gin instead anyway. After allowing herself to bask in that moment, Raisa turned on her stool to observe the room as a whole, taking in faces tucked into corners, trying to hide, clearly letting go, and any number of all too human experiences. Nothing like an evening at a place like this to give a cross section of everything.
Eventually Raisa looked a little closer to home and met the eyes of a man sitting two seats away from her. Raisa tilted her head, observing him back. “Not polite to stare,” she teased, though Raisa herself was staring plenty.
—
He'd seen her walk in, and immediately she'd caught his attention. That wasn't to say that there weren't plenty of beautiful people in this establishment, quite the contrary, but it was something in the way she carried herself that piqued his interest. At any rate, it had Wyatt slipping away from the person he'd only met twenty minutes prior, excusing himself for ‘just a moment’ to instead make his way over to the bar. He sat a couple seats over and ordered himself another Old Fashioned, keeping a quiet eye on her as she received her drink and sipped at it, gaze raking over the room of potential company.
She must have felt his gaze on her because she eventually turned to him, and the little smirk she wore made his heart flutter in his chest. “Beggin’ your pardon, miss,” he offered, tapping a finger against his glass and returning the knowing smile. “Won't do to forget my manners.” He extended a hand to her hopefully, leaning across the empty space between them. “Wyatt Barlow, at your service. Can I buy your next drink as an apology?”
Before she could answer, the young man he'd abandoned came sidling up beside Wyatt, resting a hand on his shoulder and narrowing his eyes at Raisa. He could tell she was fae, because he himself was a faun, and he'd just warmed the lamia up enough to start making a meal of him. The lamia who, of course, was none the wiser.
“Who's your friend?” the faun asked silkily, to which Wyatt gave a patient but challenging glance.
“I'm sorry, I don't think I caught your name,” he responded, looking up at the man with a raised brow. It was true, which seemed to annoy the faun. He let out a tense laugh, his grip on Wyatt’s shoulder tightening. The tight, polite smile he flashed Raisa's way was more a warning than anything—this was his dinner.
“I'm afraid he's spoken for, love,” the faun insisted, and Wyatt looked puzzled. This was a first.
—
Raisa didn’t consider herself easily swayed, but she did give into charm when it seemed like a prosperous thing to do. And this man had charm oozing from every pore. She flashed him a smile and shifted, starting to put her hand out to shake his. Wyatt. A nice name. In her mind’s eye, Raisa could see the way the rest of the evening would play out, the kind of potential it could have.
Instead a self-righteous fae came crashing into her vision of the night with that possessive little hand on her new friend’s shoulder. Really Raisa couldn’t imagine the gall. He seemed intent on spinning Wyatt back into his web, but if someone escaped once–and so easily–she would have thought he’d had the sense to realize his cause was a lost one.
She flashed the faun a much more cutting smile to mirror the one he offered her, leaning forward, mindful of those listening ears at the center of this accidental tift Raisa had found herself in. That hadn’t been in her plan for the night, but then again, neither had rolling over to someone a little too mighty for his own good. “Spoken for?” she repeated. “My, I didn’t realize his time was so precious that it was a competition.” Because she could, Raisa winked in Wyatt’s direction, partially because she thought he’d find it funny and partially to rile up the fae.
“We’re just having a conversation.” This time Raisa did turn her attention to Wyatt. “You’re welcome to stay and join us, but forgive me for assuming that our friend here can make his own choices on who he’d like to speak with.”
—
Beaming as Raisa winked and then came to his defense, Wyatt decided to lean into the bizarre situation, finding it to be pretty entertaining, if not endlessly flattering. “Well don't I just feel like the Belle of the ball,” he chuckled. His bright blue gaze drifted upward to find the faun’s, half-lidded and just daring the other to make a scene of this. “Look, I told you where I work, didn’t I? If you wanna get uppity about losin’ the bid for my attention tonight, take it up with me at the restaurant, hm?” He gave the fae a smarmy grin, taking his hand and pressing a kiss to his knuckles before giving a lazy, four-fingered wave that sent the other away again with an indignant huff. “Ta-ta!” he called after him, sighing dramatically and shaking his head as he looked back to his newer friend. “So sorry about that, ma cherie, I guess some people just don’t take rejection quite so well as others! Now, I think you were about to tell me your name, and that you’d love to let me buy your next drink…”
—
Raisa watched the faun’s face carefully. As mysterious a reputation as all fae could have, she knew they couldn’t all keep it together. Here was the proof just now as a delicious string of emotions from outrage to hurt to resignation crossed the poor thing’s face. She suspected he wouldn’t have given up the fight so easily, but with the mood soured, he’d have to start his work over anyway. Besides, whether or not he realized it, Wyatt had offered up an opportunity to become a future meal instead. And what a coincidence that he apparently worked at a restaurant when that was his offered up location.
Something about that tugged at Raisa’s memory, and she mentally sorted to figure out what it was. Something about food and Wyatt’s face. As he turned his attention back on her, those pieces slotted together, and she readily offered him a smile.
“I do believe I was,” she agreed. “Raisa. We never had that dinner, but it would seem that drinks are a welcome substitute.” She angled her head to the side, letting her hair drape down toward the bartop. Perhaps some would have been put off by his easy flirting and with the faun in front of her too to get rid of him, but Raisa had never particularly cared about such semantics. She was here to have a little fun. What a pleasure that she’d managed to reconnect with someone else who seemed to want the same.
—
Realization manifested itself as a widening grin and raising brows, and Wyatt seemed delighted by this development. “Never say never, my dear. This is just a preview. And without a fish burger in sight!” He chose that moment to move from his barstool to the one next to hers, settling in beside her with an air of self-assuredness. “Raisa. Raisa, I’ve never heard that name before. Where’s it from?”
Her body language was promising, at least. She’d not gotten irritated at the arrival of the young man now staring daggers at them from across the club, nor had Wyatt’s dismissal of him sent her away from the bar. She was interested, and she didn’t mind a little competition. That was good. Many things in Wyatt’s life boiled down to competition, and vying for his attention was certainly not the least of them.
—
“None indeed,” Raisa agreed and took another sip of her drink. She considered him for a moment, taking in his features. They suited him well, and he carried himself like he agreed. A charming man if ever there was one.
“It’s Russian,” she said. “Of which I’m not especially, but through my mother’s side. She picked it more because she liked it than a strong national connection.” The longer she lived, the more she understood her mother’s instincts to pick something that wouldn’t rise and fall with baby name trends. She tried to imagine spending eternity as an Elizabeth. Far too many of them to share a name with these days or any others.
“How about you?” she asked. “Any story behind the moniker?”
—
“I like it, it’s fun to say.” Wyatt could think of a few scenarios where he’d like to be doing something more than just saying it, but mentioning that this early in the game would be in poor taste. Anyway, she was asking him a question, and he was obliged to answer.
“Ah, well, my mother had a love for the old westerns, you see, and Wyatt Earp was a common fixture among ‘em. He was a tough guy, but a fair one. Used his gunslingin’ to keep law n’ order in Dodge City and Tombstone. Guess she thought it sounded like a strong name belongin’ to someone who’d always do the right thing.” And for that, she’d been wrong. “And Barlow, hell, that’s a name you’ll hear in damn near every town south of the Kentucky border. And most of us are related!” It was an exaggeration, sure… to an extent. While he’d been the only one of his siblings to survive, he had what seemed to be hundreds of cousins, aunts, uncles, grandmamans and grandpappies, all in varied degrees of removal. The family tree didn’t make much sense to him anyway. Besides that, if he was honest with himself, there was a good chance his mother had had another child after he’d left as a teen. Maybe more than one, maybe a dozen, if they lacked the killer instinct he seemed to have from the moment he’d hatched.
His glass was empty so he waved down the bartender to get a replacement, and one for Raisa as well. “Hey, after I make good on my word,” Wyatt nodded at her glass, “we could find someplace with fewer angry rejects around to… get to know one another.” He wasn’t fully suggesting that they bail on public spaces fully, because he knew how that might appear, but he wouldn’t mind a change of scenery, even if it was just for a different bar. “What d’you think?”
—
Raisa’s fond smile was genuine. “Thank you,” she said, biting her tongue before letting out any innuendos. They were just having a polite conversation so far. It wouldn’t do to be too forward. Instead she listened to the story of his name, chuckling slightly as she imagined him as some kind of gunslinging cowboy himself. She could see it. “Sounds like your mother wanted you to have a name worth remembering.”
Nodding graciously, Raisa took a sip of the new drink as it landed in front of her. She raised a brow at his suggestion and considered it carefully. She could take care of herself just fine if his vibe changed when they weren’t in such a crowded place, but perhaps that was good. As long as they remained in a fae bar, the odds of someone else trying to snoop in probably weren’t small. Plus, his attention had wandered once in her favor. Even if she had the sensibilities to believe she could keep him from doing so, Raisa would hate to give him the opportunity to wander again.
“I could be persuaded,” she said rather than an outright yes, but Raisa still slipped off her stool to stand. She took a longer drink, not quite finishing it but making good progress. “Take me where you want to go, cowboy.”
Considerate, but no need. Let's go all in on the decomposition.
I think so too. Very fitting for Maine. The text in the center should read "ARE YOU A BEAR?". I think a bear's liver should be on the side, and perhaps a detached paw on the other side. I will let you choose the arrangement. I have set up an email address for the bears. So it should say "If you are a bear, email [email protected] with the subject line 'I am a bear' ". Then I will contact the bears and assist them in meeting other bears. I know a bear looking for bears.
Great. Sounds like quite a specific vision. I'll get something to the directors.
Liver and paw? Why would you need... OKAY. Never mind, I understand. Gross. That's quite the image. But wait, now this sounds like the other kind again. I'm so confused.
Could you send me a few images like what you have in mind? I'm not sure I know what a bear liver looks like, and paws can look so different, after all.
