RP:A Token of Good Will

Part of the A Few Fox Tales Arc

Summary: In the midst of Quintessa's woes, she receives a visit from a friend- pertaining to both business and a bit of meddling between friends.

The Goth Garden

In an effort to bring a little bit of Vailkrin to Cenril, a gothic-themed garden has been created next to the Ginger Snapped Bakery. Three-fourths of the garden is surrounded by a wrought iron fence, that includes a gate, with a dark stone foundation and fence posts. Pieces of charcoal grey slate is used for pathing, that of which has been laid in a square around the outskirts of the garden, next to the fence, as well as creating an odd looking cross in the middle, so that one might observe all sides of the half circle-shaped flower beds and make their way to the small fountain and seating area in the middle. Each flower bed is lined and raised by the same stone that makes up the fence and the flowers within them are in varying shades of dark red and purple hues, the majority of them so dark in color that they look black. In the northwest corner flower box, belladonna, hellebore, lobelia, calla lilies, and violas are all planted together; northeast holds hollyhock, pansies, petunias, tulips, roses and bat flowers; and the southwest is occupied by hyacinth, irises, lilies, orchids, peonies, and geraniums. The last corner, in the southeast, is dedicated to flowers whose colors don’t quite fit the theme, but the fact that they bloom only at night does. Black jasmine, moonflowers, phlox, daturas, and wisteria all reside together, the wisteria hanging from a stand-alone trellis so that its vines can climb as high as possible. Finally, in the middle of the entire garden lies not only a fountain made of obsidian, but several wrought iron table and chair sets for anyone to sit in and take in the garden. The fountain itself is rather large for one situated on a pedestal, though the base has been made wide enough to accommodate for its size. Two seemingly human figures--lovers most likely--are embraced in a dance position, one set of hands intertwined, while the man’s other rests against the woman’s back, pulling her forward as she wraps her right leg around his left and balances herself with an arm around his neck. Each curve of her body is expertly sculpted, from everything to her long wavy hair to the long dress she wears, the slit on both sides of the dress allowing for it to look as if it’s flowing in the air as they dance. The man’s own appearance is no different than his partner’s, the creases in his shirt carved to resemble real fabric and his slicked back hair chiseled just so. Both dancers are adorned with skull masks and the sculpture itself is aptly named ‘The Dance Macabre’.

Quintessa stares listfully above at the moons that dance in the night sky, the scent of clove and sage circling around her as she smokes a tobacco cigarette in the gardens. It was the first time since being free she had gotten a chance to- and while she was visiting Cenril she wasn’t going to miss the opportunity. After the excitement and pageantry of the Titans of Winter ceremony, Quintessa was glad to finally get a chance to relax in privacy and mentally digest what she had witnessed today. Lots of new faces, and that strange avian… Quintessa takes another long drag from her cigarette before letting her curiosity regarding Cresente fade into the back of her mind. She had much bigger issues to worry about than some Aramoth zealot with a racial superiority complex. There were so many loose ends she could be focusing on instead. As her gaze sinks back down to the empty Goth Gardens, she exhales a huge cloud of smoke in front of her, one that catches the night breeze and drifts down the dark streets of Cenril, the familiar scent of clove cigarettes that her friends recognized her by.

Ina was a lot of things, much of which wasn't fit to say in mixed company. But in that moment, above all else, she was a selfish shade of mad. A sort of roiling indignation that startled to settle in her sometime that evening, and which only got worse by the moment. The fact that she was even able to focus at all was a marvel, but somehow, in the midst of her grumblings- she'd finally put the finishing touches on a work project she'd started so long ago. Which is how she came to be tromping down the cenril streets in the twilight hours, now sporting a jagged looking pendant with a particularily uncanny looking blood red gem. It's a nice piece, really- a white gold crescent moon which the gem seethes at the center of- wreathed in a finely etched script ( what is, in effect, an Ipsem Lorum).

But here's the thing. This nice piece had initially been made when there was a necessity for it to be smuggled, and yet, as Ina drew ever closer- she could now smell a combination of cloves, and those earthier scents of decay that still clung to the witch. It's enough that she actually pauses for a second, to take a second sniff at the air, just to make sure she's detecting it correctly- before her pace doubles. While Ina had dressed in all black leathers and cloth, in an effort to play at being clandestine- that scent was familiar enough that the pretense of stealth seemed moot, and it wasn't long before she was moving quick enough that the parcel slung over her shoulder began to noisily clatter- a rickety herald to her arrival. By this juncture, any pretense of stealth is gone- not just because of the constant patter of her feet, but also due to the faint clatter of wood.

Quintessa was dressed in dark, silk robes and she had not yet cleaned off her makeup for the night. Her eyes probably appear sunken in the moonlight and her slender frame gaunt and ghoulish as the loose silks hang from her shoulders. Slowly Quintessa rises to confront the approaching noise, more confused than anything as she peeks around the corner. What on Hollow was that noise? She doesn’t know, but as Ina comes closer to investigate the scent of death and cloves, the changeling squints her eyes to get a better look. “Trish??” Quintessa accidentally uses the name the foxkin had introduced herself as years ago to her, “Why are you- What are you c- What’s going… ?” Quintessa’s voice is hushed, like she’s scared someone is going to wake up. A glance over her shoulder back at the apartment above the bakery might have confirmed this assumption. Quintessa takes one last drag from her cigarette before flicking it away, her focus narrowing in on Ina as she finally gets her thoughts together. “Is everything alright? You seem… Troubled. How did you even find me here?” So many questions but so little time to ask all of them. Turning back to her seat in the garden, Quintessa motions for Ina to follow away from the street.

Ina isn't quite sure how to address -any- of what's sent her way, especially once her suspicions have been confirmed in the form of an incredibly jumpy changeling. It actually takes the fox a few tail-flickingly prolonged moments to properly take in the sight before she can be properly coaxed into following after Tessa- her steps notably quieter than the moments leading up to her arrival. "Ja.. Are Ja really askin' that one?" She waits a moment, for some sort of awareness to dawn on her, but in the instance that stress or exhaustion has left her too frazzled, the foxkin appends, "Girl, they announced ya at tha' ceremony, ja goon. Thas' not subtle, especially with all tha' rumours abound." She taps her foot impatiently, before finally realizing she hadn't answered her own part in all of this, "I -live- here." Pause. "Not. Like, here, here. But like. Near here. Obviously, I'm keepin' an eye out. Gosh." This pause isn't quite as long, but there's still a moment where she vacantly stares, before she finally remembers the whole 'Why' thing. "Oh, I said I was runnin' an errand, right? Might be a bit -moot- now, but uh. I finished it. Tha' thing that-" The foxkin actually stops, that unusually bright gaze of her looking a little bit more vivid for a moment as she squints at the changeling. Where was all the confidence?

Quintessa nods her head slowly at what Ina was telling her. “Oh right, you have to fight Lita,” the changeling suddenly feels like teasing the foxkin about it. “Why did you even sign up? You had to know something like that would happen… Unless… “ Quintessa lets that thought drift into the void as she moves on. “Oh, you actually live in this city? Now that Valrae is mayor, maybe she’ll deal with the crime and the urine smell…” Quintessa reaches for her cigarettes but she resists the urge to fire up another one. “That errand? I think you mentioned it a couple of times, which reminds me,” Quintessa reaches for her satchel on the bench she was seated on and swaps her cigarette case for a small notebook, which she starts flipping through casually. “Did I ever give you that potion formula? For the frog thing? I actually revised it and made it into a cooking recipe- I figured that would suit your skillset better.” Now that Quintessa knows Ina isn’t some assassin here to kill her, she relaxes, returning to her casually aloofness she always tried to put on for people. “Unless that’s moot too. I can never keep up with all my bloody… side quests…”

Ina waggles her fingers at Quintessa, "If I can stay conscious fer long enough ta show off some alchemy, and hawk my wares wit' a magically amplified voice- it's basically a victory fer me." Also, she's entirely betting against herself, given the odds of her beating the vamp champ is ludicrously low. "I mean, maybe? But I think I'd have ta' stab her myself if she messed with my crime. She -can- deal with that urine smell. S'awful." Says the woman who lives in a castle along the cities outskirts. "Anyways. Uh- no, no ya didn't. S'why I brought said parcel with me, since I figured I could jus' have you imbue it into this here lovely ormanental, and likely slightly magical sword here." The box is tapped, albeit somewhat quietly given the surreptitious glances Quintessa had made towards the building with presumably sleeping people. "And nah- definitely not moot. Still a bone ta' pick with certain individuals, n' all. ...Won't say no to that recipe, though." She pauses in the midst of her murmurings, if only to clap her hands together sharply, "Oh, right- So!" And then the amulet's shed and launched straight at Tessa's face. "I made ja somethin'. Ta fix yer problem. Which...is apparently already fixed since you're here. BUT I STILL MADE IT." It's at this juncture that the box is slipped from her shoulder, and shoved end first into one of the flower beds, so she can dramatically swoon and sprawl over it. "At such a high cost, too- but I put all my art inta' this. N' also all a' Blaires arts inta...well, the prep work, mostly. This is still all me." Despite the abundant vanity in her words, there's something a bit offkilter about the foxkins words, and the longer she lingers beyond the shadows, almost ghoulish given the sheer pallour she now sported, akin to her appearance at the cooking contest, albeit all the more pronounced.

Quintessa gives Ina a cheeky smirk at her plan for ‘overcoming’ Lita, and the changeling gives her a nod of approval. “Well, if you use that alchemy the right way you can make short work of a vampire even as wily as our barefooted Lita. Maybe luck will be on your side, eh?” She gives the foxkin a wink before she moves on. “Actually, yeah, her recent restrictions on weapons are kind of backwards in my opinion. Everyone knows a good guy with a sword normally takes care of the bad guys before the guards do. But think about it this way,” she taps her temple. “The more things Valbae puts on her contraband list the more smuggling opportunities open up for us. She’s literally creating demand for crime and doesn’t even realize it.” Quintessa eyes the parcel, trying to remember what exactly she had agreed to- she’s certain she agreed to enchant this thing for her. It doesn’t matter, Quintessa will do it anyway for a friend like Ina. Swiftly, Quintessa rips the page from her notebook and offers it to the foxkin, providing a simplified version of the ingredients necessary to create the curse they had discussed prior. At least Quintessa could remember that bit. As she looks up with the paper in hand the changeling is met with the amulet right in her face, which clocks her right between the eyes before it bounces off and she reflexively snatches it from the air with her free hand. “Thanks…” she grumbles, rubbing the point of impact with the back of her hand as she watches Ina’s display in the flowerbed. “You’re lost your godsdamn mind, Ina…” She lets the recipe note drop to the ground next to the foxkin. “So the Nasar girl is useless, big surprise there- what did you make, anyway? This a commission or something? Oh no, wait, is this a *secret* project? That would be exciting. I can’t imagine this is your Magnum Opus or anything.” If Quintessa has noticed how ghoulish Ina looks, she hasn’t mentioned it.

Ina actually shrugs at the question of weaponry. "I mean, as long as it doesn't hurt the import of ingredients- I honestly don't care. Especially since it'd make the tailorin' of 'show pieces' a bit more valuable, ja know?" Frankly, given Ina's likelihood of being on the wrong end of a 'good guy with a sword' - she's fine with things as they are. "Anyways, I don't got many qualms- until she starts sticking her nose in my bidness." Or messing with Lan. Or just somehow making Lanlan upset. Again. She's actually working herself up enough that she almost misses the opportunity to snag the page that Quintessa offered- but, Ina's pretty good at nabbing things, even when running on autopilot. Which- the changeling clearly isn't- given she has a very light half moon imprint on her face. "Yeah, well- ignore tha' craftmanship, 'n stick it on, huh?" The comment on the Nasar girl earned little more than a shrug from the fox, and a "Worked in a pinch, at least." That said, Ina's not really committed to speculating on the relative value of her fellow apprentice, especially when faced with the opportunity to actually figure out her trinket on someone -other- than herself. Because it's one thing to try things out when it's essentially where it ought to be- it's another when introducing it to a ...foreign recipient. And it's with that thought that Ina reaches a hand over- and then promptly pulls it back to check her arm, quickly patting it down to make sure the bangle Langley had granted her was firmly in place. And that was a big check- which meant, "Alright, so- uh, I dunno, Just focus on that thing, and I guess- what ja think ya'd look like if ja were my cousin, or sommat." After all, that 'trinket' happens to be built around a crystallized chunk of what was essentially Ina- some key elements of her own being pilfered at the moment of her not quite death. A little bit of necromantic shenanigans pieced together with the Nasar's help- and which now harboured the key elements of what had led others to define her as a trickster- that mercurial freedom of form. Elements which were likely going to make Quintessa a bit more malleable, with Ina there to help shape the process into a suitably vixen-ish alter-ego.

Quintessa shrugs as well, it seemed appropriate. “Nah, all the ingredients I listed are legal. If you buy them all together you might raise a few eyebrows but most people won’t know what you are doing. They’re idiots.” Quintessa doesn’t mind that her petty jab at a Nasar didn’t earn more than a shrug from Ina, satisfied with twirling the amulet she made a few inches in front of her face. Now that Quintessa is looking at it- *really* looking at it, she can sense the intimate energies held within, and the thought that Ina had trapped a bit of herself does pop up in her head along with a thousand other different possibilities. “I.. I want to thank you again for this. Right now I’m free to wander around but if my trail goes south I’m not going to prison. This is my insurance- my escape rope. I’ll lose all the wealth I’ve accumulated but at least I won’t lose my freedom. That’s much more important to me.” She stares at the amulet for a moment before she puts it around her neck, clutching it in her hand as she focuses on the crystal. “So I just… imagine myself as…” Quintessa’s imagination was quite vivid, and it wasn’t difficult for her to imagine herself as a cute foxkin. First her hair would have to change, fiery red, with strands of black instead of blue like Ina’s, large vulpine ears adorned on her head much like when she disguised herself as a feline. One thing she was limited to before was only changing her height a couple of inches, so for her foxkin form she imagines herself very short, 5’2’’, well beyond the capabilities of her alter-self potions. And lastly, since Quintessa doesn’t know how foxkin tails work, imagines herself with two, just like Ina had. And her eyes? Quintessa imagines them bright and lime green, the same color of her flames when she manifests a magical fire. Will this intention be enough to transform her? For now the transition is slow and crude- Quintessa is not quite attuned to the item yet, but she has managed to make herself look Ina-ish, even if it's not perfect. Once she thinks the amulet has worked she extends her arms to the side and does a little spin for her. “Whaddya you think, huh?” She says, trying to mimic Ina’s accent, “If I had dis bad boy at the cookin' contest we’d have a better theme goin` in.”

Ina can still feel that mote of herself- that essential spark that's locked within the amulet- and so, as Quintessa shifts, the foxkin guides it along, relying on Langleys bangle to suppress the hex that would normally accompany her touch, to absorb that excess of misfortune for wherever it was bound- all so could simply smooth out the shifting fae's features, brush out her tail to an adequate (read: excessive) degree of floof, and overall help to give her a bit more life as an alter-ego. A living breathing facade that didn't even exist until a moment ago. "Psh, dere's still time. We can attend whenever the next cookin' throwdown crops up, except this time I put that judge outta his friggin' misery. Tha' uncultured pile a' potatos." Taking a step back to admire her handiwork, the foxkin lifts her hands up to frame the changelings features between her fingers, before offering an approving nod, "Arrighty. So! Sooo. Jus' gotta gif ya a name. And not of a sort tied to what I jotted- so. Uh? Amorie? Alyze? ...Something like that, or both. Ch'yeah. Fake identity acquired." Heavens help them. "Anyways- yeah, that should do inna pinch. Just, uh- " There's a brief flicker, a part where the humour and the smile ebbs, but she's all grins a moment later, "y'know- when things lighten up, lemme know. Since I'll be needing that amulet back some day, Savvy?" That said, given that her delivery has finally occured, she begins to gather herself up in order to depart- albeit without the parcel. Which she pokes so it promptly tips over and crushed a much vaster swathe of the flower bed. -Now- she could leave.

Quintessa appreciates the tail floof- the floofier the better, and she seems to get a strange pleasure out of her form being ‘smoothed out’, like it felt natural. When the time came to return this amulet she would have to figure out her own way shapeshift, she couldn’t turn back now. She had so many forms she wanted to take. “Oh yeah-yeah,” she says, dropping the accent, “I can tell this is important to you… perhaps you should not be giving it to me, even, but we might as well see how the experiment runs its course at this point.” Surely nothing terrible could happen if she tried to abuse this item, right? “For the time being I just have to avoid being assassinated or set upon by an angry mob or something- anyway, I’ll take good care of it until I give it back, I promise.” So was that it? Was she just going to come and go like that? Stranger coincidences have happened in the past, Quintessa supposes as her mismatched eyes flicker over to examine the ruined flowers and the parcel that was left behind to crush them. “Later.” Quintessa calls after Ina before rising to retrieve the package. Now she had another task to complete on her list, but at least this one would be simple enough.