#TBD | Tolaas x Jay

[morgansmornings]

Secrets and Spirits

Closed thread with @nytehavyn-circle. Continued from This.

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“Bold of you to assume that it worked in the first place. But I will give you a bonus point for creativity.” She leaned back in her seat, putting her back to the wall as was her forcefully trained habit. It didn’t matter what kind of bar one went to, old habits die hard when it was less known but more common for the creatures and monsters to be lurking in human skin.

She kept the tension rising in her from her shoulders, but unspoken wards started going up as she traced sigils on the glass with her nail. Someone only studied a person that hard for a very short list of reasons. She didn’t know him from the next Tom, Dick, or Harold that was bound to start strolling in off the street. She was going to be on her guard until she reached her home.

She studied his words. Picked them apart down to the individual meaning of each. They were odd, but considering this establishment also catered to the supernatural, it was understandable. But it did narrow down how many options she had to guess from. There was still a variety that could fill in for unspoken blatant truths. The only real question was, what he was after.

“Do you always ask something so intimate with someone you have never met or are you just trying to get a reaction?” Her hand settled over the top of her glass as she gave him her full attention. It was only polite after all.

[morgansmornings]

She hated when that happened. But she could understand that he had pulled his conclusions from her reactions. She asked for coffee, trading out the glass she had been drinking. This was standard for her. A couple of drinks, then coffee until she was legally sober enough to leave and go about her business. She did return his salute though. It was the polite thing to do. 

Vampires, the few she had the unfortunate pleasure of dealing with, were often far more egotistical and slimy in personality. Or lost in a frenzy by the time she had to deal with them. This one seemed different on the outside though. But that left other questions brewing in her mind that she worked over. And each one was another pulse of annoyance. 

What was it that caught his attention? Why would he be confident enough to think that it would be that easy for him to pry into her personal life? The very one she kept far more guarded and hidden than she kept herself. Was he looking for a doner? Was he looking for a stable source? Both options on those questions would end poorly for him. What was it that he wanted from her? If it was something simple, she could understand. If not, then how did he think their interaction was supposed to go if she did yield to his game. 

Yet someone as old as he was should have known better than approaching a witch that was still alive with over 20 years of experience herself. While not a feat that was so impressive on its own, her being on her own made it a valued achievement. She didn’t have a cabal to fall back on with how often she had to move. Given the specific tasks that she took on, that meant she earned every day that she survived to crawl into bed and wake to see the next morning. 

She knew she was going to come off hostile and tried her best to keep her temper down. The second round of coffee came with her as she stood and encroached on his table. She lingered with the crowd for a few minutes to make sure that he hadn’t moved on to another weaker willed target. When she determined that he had not, she moved in and invited herself into the open seat.

“Alright. Here is what I am going to propose.” She started, setting the cup down, though still keeping her palm over the opening. She knew the pattern of how thralls and the likes were made. She wasn’t going to fall for it. “We play civil. You keep the incredibly intimate questions to yourself. I will be nice until you give me a reason not to be. And don’t lie to me. I will know and I have won many arguments with Divine and Hellish entities alike. If what you said is true you know how they can be over contracts.”

She waited for that to sink in before she cocked her head to the side.

“Do we have a deal?”

"That's fair," he said when she talked about not opening up. "An' I can't fault ya fer it, neither." He shook his head. He took a drink of the Jack in his glass and made careful note that she'd stopped drinking from her glass.

His eyes flicked up to a small point just above her head. He was just confirming what he already felt coming from her. He had made her even more wary than she was before with his openness and honesty about what he was.

At her question, he gave a shrug. "'Cause I'm over nine hundred years old an' I wouldn't'a survived fer so long if'n I didn't know what I was doin'," he answered.

His eyes met hers and he gave her a small, soft, understanding smile. "However, I can see that my presence is... not necessarily unwelcome, but not greatly accepted at the moment. An' the last thing I wanna do is make someone uncomfortable." He stood, and touched the brim of his Stetson. "It was a pleasure ta meet ya. An' fer what it's worth, I did look forward ta gettin' ta know ya. I hope we can cross paths 'gain someday."

Tolaas took his drink and bottle with him as he moved to an empty table. He refilled his glass with the Jack from the bottle, looked back over to her, raised his glass, and took a drink. Then he started to scan about the room once more, however he did shoot a glance back to her every so often, wondering if she was going to hang around or take off.

@morgansmornings

[morgansmornings]

“You’ll understand then when I say this, but I don’t open up to someone I don’t know. And if I do that is extremely rare.” She kept her options of escape open, not wanting to get cornered. She liked this bar, she wasn’t ready to establish a new routine just yet. She was going to keep a pause on her drinking for now. Wanting a clear level head for the course of this interaction.

Cocking her head to the side, she listened. Careful to keep her facial expression relaxed and just this side of neutral. There was no reason to be rude just yet. Though she was surprised by how open he was about things. If what he said was true, which she detected no lie from him yet, then that would explain the ease he felt in his abilities. However it did raise the bar of her nerves just that much higher.

“Alright, I’ll play along.” She adjusted in her seat so that she had one leg braced flat on the floor in case she needed to cut and run. She knew she could lose him in a crowd or on the streets. She hadn’t made it this far in life, being what she was, without learning a variety of tricks to survive. The realm of the supernatural was one more grimdark,violent, and bloody than most fantasy writers could even pretend to imagine. “Say that I believe you. That is very ambitious of you to leave on a table with someone that you’ve never met before.”

“What makes you think you can trust me with that kind of knowledge?”

Tolaas felt the magic going up all around, and it made him shiver. He was no stranger to it - neither using it nor being around it. NyteHavyn was full of witches, wizards, warlocks, and every type of magic-user in between. He felt the protection spells being put into place.

It caused him to grin at her, but nod in understanding. "I get it," he said. "But I ain't gonna hurt ya. Got no reason ta. I ain't the type ta hurt people, 'less'n I gotta. The reason I came over here was 'cause I thought ya were beautiful, an' I wanted ta get ta know ya."

He took a drink of his Jack. "Yeah, it was a intimate question... but I get tired 'a the whole 'how er ya doin'?' an' 'how 'bout that weather, huh??'," he said in a slightly mocking tone. "When I wanna get ta know someone, when someone catches my 'ttention... I actually wanna get ta know the person. Not just how they are on the surface er the face they show people."

He leaned back. "My name is Tolaas Bluue," he said, touching the brim of his hat in greeting. "An' I don't hide what I am. Most people don't believe it anyway. I'm what's known as a Livin' Vampire," he said. "I'm a ShadowHunter, part-time bounty hunter, sometimes merc. I'm polyamorous, an' I'm over nine hundred years old." He gave a shrug. "Now ya know a bit more 'bout me."

He took another drink from the clear brown liquid in his glass, the whiskey hitting his throat with a soft burn that traveled down and settled in his stomach. He let his deep brown eyes travel over her visage once more, settling upon her lips again. He closed his eyes to shake away the thoughts, and then met her eyes when he opened his own.

"Anythin' ya ask me, I'll answer as honestly as I can, if'n I can," he said.

@morgansmornings