EXT - Seiiki koi pond to INT - Seiiki murder/ghost shack
Dorian had been up all night, having gotten himself into a spot of trouble. Drinking with some sailors he'd met at a spot near the docks in Victoriana had turned into carousing, which had turned into sullenness once his company departed back to their bunks. He had a bee in his bonnet that kept buzzing about which didn't lead him home, but instead to more drinking that fueled darkling thoughts. All because, while he'd been carousing, by chance, he'd spotted a stranger with a physique and colouring that reminded him of a certain man, fawning over his blond companion. So he stayed on, drinking on his own, observing the pair.
Some hours later, when it was quite wee, he'd found Hunter and asked him to get a message to Sato for him, to meet him in the Seiiki. Dorian had made it home eventually but while he was there, he hadn't changed, but was a bit scruffy with his tie loose and jacket over his shoulder, as if he'd put his clothes back on in a hurry after hours of wear. Bedraggled as he was, and tired looking, it hadn't stopped him from carrying with him a wooden milk crate which held two parcels under his arm. A long one and a smaller flatter one, both wrapped in thick layers of newspaper. These were in turn bundled inside a blanket. He didn't know how much leakage to expect. So he'd be standing by the koi pond, watching the fishes, with his thoughts a thousand miles away.
Naoki Sato was a sneaky sort. His footsteps were quiet and even when he reached Dorian's side he took some time to look the man over before speaking up. "Do you need those taken care of?" he asked rather bluntly. The yokai took little effort to hide his words and spoke loudly enough for Dorian to hear him over the general hubbub, as if he had little to no care for if they were overheard. He was right not to, it seemed; people that glanced their way hurried along on their own business once they saw him, accustomed as they were to seeing the Professor's protege in the Seiiki district and the general air of unease that seemed to settle about him, at least for standard humans. He was a corpse-eater, after all. He tended to be found at unsavory scenes either assisting the constabulary on Dashrix's behalf or simply existing in questionably fortuitous time and place for a disappearance.
Brazenly Sato took a step forward to put his hand on the bundle of cloth. He was close to Dorian, the scents of Dashrix's old weathered books and lab chemicals clinging to his hair and clothes but there was purpose to it - it hid the slither of blood into the cloth, confirming the parcel contents and halting the drip of blood and trailing viscera from the meat inside. Sato asked no questions about the meat or their source and exhibited no surprise at the fact that Dorian, of all people, was in possession of it.
Dorian quickly turned toward Naoki when the voice materialized with wide eyes. The opposite of the one he was there to meet, his bootheels dug into the paving stones as he reset his feet. That instant of being startled unto his readiness to fight being activated subsided into the shaking of his blonde head and a few low riffles of fairly mirthless laughter. Once he'd let off the tension that way, he'd offer the box over to Naoki wholesale, explaining as he did, "Yes, I would like that very much, since they are a gift for you. I didn't really know ah-- so I thought about what I liked, and... well. Thank you for your efforts on behalf of my family." An awkward little smile punctuated as he hoped he'd managed to pull something worthwhile out of his evening's blunders. He surely smelled like brandy, smoke, and some of the tunnels where he'd done his naked dirty work, and one of the pools where he'd cleaned himself up after.
Naoki Sato stared at Dorian for a long and silent moment. His eyes flicked from parcel to person a few times until finally settling on the box. When he finally decided to speak it seemed he'd concluded that the path the conversation would take was no longer meant for public ears so when his hand reached out it wasn't for the parcel but for Dorian's elbow. "Come this way," he insisted, already starting to move as if expecting the taller man to follow. Sato was a slight figure and not nearly as strong as Dorian; it would be fairly easy to deter the yokai if Dorian were so inclined but the grip on his arm wasn't terribly forceful, only firm as if to convey his intent to relocate.
Dorian's brow kinked in concern as Sato stared at him mutely for a few moments, and when urged to move, he'd be pulled along easily. As he went to locations unknown, he didn't seem to mind the relocation, as they had been in a fairly public thoroughfare. It was the inability to read the unsettling smaller fellow's reaction that worried him moreso. Carrying the crate as he went, he didn't even question the change of locale, but immediately responded somewhat apologetically, "I know this was rather sudden of me, but I presumed fresher would be better."
Naoki Sato followed the koi pond to one of its ends and took a turn, leading Dorian through a lane of closely-packed houses. The temple stood at the end of the street and across from it Sato stopped, taking a moment to slide the rickety wooden gate aside so they could cross into the yard beyond. While the corners were overgrown the ground in the center seemed devoid of life, freshly churned and oddly colored, a ruddier red than the soil one found elsewhere. The air was colder here, the smell of blood lingering if faint. In the windows of the second story shadows seemed to pass, sometimes stopping and seeming to stare down at the pair before moving on.
"No one listens here," Sato explained as he continued on to the sliding paper door leading inside. He let go of Dorian once inside the building, trading arm for gift box and made his way into what might have been a living area once. It was an open room with old dolls set here and there against the walls, scrape-marks as if from long-gone furniture and a large dark st
Naoki Sato on the wood. Despite the appearance the place wasn't dusty - it was clearly cleaned of most things but the marks that were purposefully left.
Sato set the parcel down in the middle of the big dark blotch and knelt to one side of it, sitting on his heels with his knees together as if he were preparing for tea. He opened the box carefully and took another moment of silence to stare down at its contents.
Dorian followed along, looking around the place. It was a corner of the Seiiki he'd never visited before, to be sure. The old smell of blood gave the eeriness of the space it's perfect compliment and Dorian found himself considering putting on his jacket again. But he was too distracted to do so, really, by the little place they'd come to. When Sato sat himself down he shuffled his feet a moment and opted to do the same so it wouldn't seem like he was lording over the gift. It seemed like he owed some explanation, so he reassured, "I think it should be wholesome. He looked young and healthy. He didn't die due to illness, I mean. Nor poison, nor anything like that. And forgive my saying so, but you aren't the largest man I have ever seen so I thought you probably wouldn't care for the entirety."
Rather than sitting in the Japanese style, he stretched his legs out in front of himself.
The thigh was severed above the knee and below the hip with what looked to be a long sharp blade, while the liver was unmarred save where one of Dorian's thumbs had punctured it upon pulling it out.
Naoki Sato nodded, his eyes shutting briefly. He uttered a simple "Thank you," before taking the thigh into his hands. The glamour around his face broke then, his mouth splitting sideways into a garishly wide grin full of razor sharp, shark-like teeth. Pale blue eyes melted into deep black pools, the veins already bold in his skin darkening and seeming to throb. Because of the clothing he wore the pit that was his abdomen was mostly obscured but something moved behind that fabric, unnatural and alive. Sato efficiently tore flesh from bone, large bites ripping through cartilage and sinew without issue. When only the bone was left this too was consumed, snapped in his jaws until it disappeared down his throat. The liver he saved for last and he took this up with one hand and slipped it whole into the gaping toothy chasm of his mouth. One swallow and it bulged its way down his throat to disappear with the rest.
Any mess quickly cleaned itself. Blood lifted from the ground, slid from his face to also be consumed until only the box was left, near-pristine. Sato dipped his head in a small bow before looking up at Dorian again. "Did you kill him yourself?" he asked, the pale gaze returning as his glamour swept over him again. "Specifically for this gift?" He seemed perplexed. There was hesitation between his words, uncertainty daubed in them without any accusation.
Dorian watched as the face he was accustomed to became another, gritting his jaw. Rather than staring outright the entire time, he'd look away for long moments in a row, so as to try to be more polite. His surprise never gave way to terror, nor to much more than him growing a bit wide-eyed when he did set his gaze on the meal in progress, and remaining silent for its duration.
When the yokai was done and bowed to him, Dorian bowed in turn, and twisted his lips to one side while he considered what he'd bee asked. He started haltingly, with narrowed eyes that were trying to put the blur of the events into focus and then words, but once he began speaking they took on impetus of their own, "I killed him, yes. I wanted to, terribly at the time. But I would be lying if I said I set out to do it purely with you in mind. It was more that when I put the potential of bringing you this gift into the equation, there was no turning back. Then snicker snack, his neck was broken." He shrugged in punctuation, before brushing off his hands in a gesture to show how quick and done it was. It wouldn't be mannerly, he thought to talk about the rest of the unpleasant process of his haphazard butchery with his dead shambles of a father nearby and Chuckles making an unsettling soundtrack. Having to go to some trouble was what made it a gift, and the killing had been the easy part.
Naoki Sato pondered the other man, finally shifting his legs to a more comfortable sitting position, both bent and one to one side. "Snicker snack?" he repeated and hummed as he filed the term away in the various bits of his mind. "The cuts were well made. Be careful with internal organs - puncturing them can spoil the surrounding meat, for most people. Not for me. I can digest things just fine either way." He took a finger and poked it at his abdomen. "The liver. It had a hole in it," he explained.
Tilting his head to one side he looked Dorian over, taking in the ramshackle appearance. "Did you drink because you were upset about the murder?" he asked. Sato was taking a note from Thirteen, attempting to read the clues and come to a conclusion even if there was no evident concern in his voice. His tone was flat as ever.
Dorian hadn't expected a review, but he couldn't help cracking a sidewise smile at how Sato responded. He rubbed his brow with a ring-bedecked hand, while huffing a few more chuffles of laughter at how odd, but comfortable it was to discuss something like this. Normally he'd keep the details to himself, and forget as many as he could as time went on to varying levels of success, at least so it had gone when murder was his habit in the past. Not battle, nor the time he'd awakened in the aftermath of a conflagration to find two burned out bodies and an armillary.
At length, he found words and looked into the pale eyes set into the jikininki's face as he spoke them, his voice cast just a quiet hair above a whisper, "The hole was me, my thumb, sorry. It was a bit... squishy. I rarely get to use my sword anymore, so I pulled her off of the wall for this. As to the drinking... ah... no..... I drank before. Most of the time I don't just get angry, I have a jolly good time. I... just... sometimes it doesn't dull things. It lights those things aflame, so I got a bit carried away. Blimey, sounds rather tawdry, doesn't it?" The island was only so big afterall, and he couldn't go murdering people who reminded him of Roesler without attracting notice for long. As if he was self-conscious, or starting to self-examine, he'd reach up a hand in one of the tells he had of scruffling his hair in the back of his head.
Naoki Sato waited and listened patiently. He didn't seem bothered by any periods of silence between speech and nodded when Dorian finally did respond, signaling his own understanding. "It's messier under the influence of something," he remarked with a little sideways glance. Sato didn't bother following that statement up with anything, reluctant to delve into his own experiences. "I don't know what tawdry means," he admitted instead.
He leaned back a bit, resting on his hands and looking up to consider trains of thought winding their way across the ceiling. "You were upset when I brought your father. Even if it helps the cause, if something I did upset you there was no need to give me a present."
Dorian wasn't precisely in a hurry to get back home as he hadn't decided yet if he would go to sleep or carry on with his day as if he'd slept. He wasn't the best sleeper in the world, which was a large part of why he drank as much as he did, and why he tried to wear himself out with physical activity. Thus, he stayed sat where he was, every moment here meant not facing the rest yet. In reply to Naoki's words, he'd explain himself, "It wasn't just bringing father, which, as you said was needful. This was not the first time you helped us. There are no strings attached, it's just... a token of goodwill." And as he hadn't bothered to explain the onomatopoetic origins of 'snicker snack,' until it dawned on him some moments later, he'd tell Sato his unrelated note, "It was a poem, the poet said 'the vorpal blade went snicker snack,' and I guess the words just came to me. Poetry does that sometimes. So, may I ask and forgive me if I have asked before, but now that we're getting to know one another a little better, were you born as you are now, or... did you... ...become?"
Naoki Sato gave Dorian another lengthy silent stare. He hummed and looked downward at the stain they sat around in contemplation. "Can you describe it? The vorpal blade," he asked and nodded out the paper doors. "There is a swordsmith here in Seiiki. It could be commissioned." A pause and he added, "He would test you. The outcome would affect the blade. As for me..." he lifted a hand and patted it to his chest. "I was born. The story I am told is that my mother was attacked by a Jikininki, a corpse eater. She survived, but the process resulting in an affected offspring." The hand dropped again to settle in his lap. "Other things have affected what I am but those came later in age."
Dorian seemed to have gotten himself relaxed where he sat, despite having seen what he'd seen. He usually went around the world fairly certain he'd make a good accounting for himself before he left reality. Having just committed a murder and subsequent dismemberment, some people would be more shaken up than he was. But even the visceral memories of a few hours past were only so distasteful. Perhaps having done what he did it was easier to sit here and watch there be some fruit of the labour. He'd listened to Sato with interest about the swordsmith and pinned that information to speak about after answering about the vorpal blade, "The poem was full of nonsense words, vorpal being one of them, I think. But I've always thought it something honed to a terrible keenness. It is used to slay the monster of the piece, the jabberwock. I always envisioned a sort of cinquedea but longer. Do you know what I mean? The Italian dagger that starts broad and narrows toward the tip.... perhaps I will visit this swordsmith and see what this testing is about."
He had nodded understanding about how Sato came into the world and on that front he added, "I became, though I was born in the usual fashion. Are you much older than you look? I am." While he wasn't usually so forthcoming, he was strangely enjoying the comfort of company that didn't mind his murdering ways, who didn't judge him, who was altogether separate from his tangled emotions. It was almost something like therapeutic, despite the unlikely locale.
Naoki Sato leaned forward, drawing his knees up to rest his elbows on them. There were no bloodstains on his clothing despite his grisly meal, a testament to the thorough ability of his bloodwork to draw the liquid from wherever it lay. "I can take you," Sato said as if it were less a suggestion and more a thing that would be done. "We may need references for an Italian blade but it will be well made regardless."
His eyes focused on Dorian as he explained his own becoming and again he nodded as he digested the information. "Your family and its rituals. I've... met people like you." He didn't offer much else, a slight tension coming about his shoulders at the topic. "My body has been described as living and dead. Halfway between. I did develop, age normally up to a point. This age, the age I appear to be - my association with the person you call the shard keeps me frozen this way. Frozen in time."
Dorian had simply nodded his agreement to being taken to the swordsmith, some things were done that way, by personal reference, and it usually only presaged extraordinary quality from his experience. The number of nods left no doubt that something in Dorian was piqued at the thought of a vorpal blade of his own. He hadn't even told Sato how he'd damaged his own in his morning's exploits, but it seemed to Dorian that there was intuition there, behind the haunted face's flat affect. Relieved to hear that the other had known people enough like him, he was able to unfurl a little of his own curiosity and did in thinking about his current companion. He'd reply, "Well, after what we went through lately, with Wolfe and his supporters... it would be insane not to be grateful to our friends. That sounds so formal, I just mean... whoever you are, I'd like to think we can be friends someday. From where I sit, we seem to be on our way. And I hope you will take me to this smith, but after I've bathed and slept. I know I look like I spent the night at the bar and smell worse. One more question, if you'll indulge me... I thought you'd be cold, but your hand was rather warm... am I wrong to think that is more on the living side of things?"
Naoki Sato himself held no blades. There were no arms of any kind but his very own limbs and those were more lithe than muscular. Still he seemed versed enough in close quarters combat to make his judgments about Dorian's ability to fight - and kill. "I've smelled worse," he said with a casual lift of his shoulders. "And consumed worse. You are drunk, not diseased." Dorian's words, once they finally processed in Sato's mind, were met with another of those lengthy stares. The yokai looked down at the parcel then up at Dorian, gears turning almost visibly in his head. It was easier to respond to the question first so he began with that, saying, "A body's temperature rises when it fights off disease. Mine does this constantly - fighting decay, fighting what things would normally sicken a person from the bodies I consume. You're not wrong. That's something the living experience more than the dead." When the yokai finally brought himself to address the bit about friendship he hesitantly asked, "Do you mean to say you would like to be - friends? Good friends?"
Dorian showed muscle tone under his clothes, enough to be called athletic, as he had been for most of his life. But he wasn't bulky, and he didn't cut the most intimidating figure either, given his cherubic curls and unimposing height. Even less so when sitting on the floor of a dilapidated building. When Sato just looked at him he'd stare right back with one brow slowly lifting in question. He wouldn't rush the guy as he often took some time to gather his own thoughts. He'd made a sound of understanding when Naoki explained that his body was in a constant feverish fight. When the friendship bit was reiterated, or seemed to sink in and be addressed, Dorian's smile ventured back upon his face in a little crescent from where his expression had gone serious in prior moments. After smiling, he nodded agreement, before answering, "Yes, I mean to say I think we could be good friends. Today was the first time I've had the pleasure of doing anything for you in return for all the goodwill you've shown. And we're both
connected in some way to the shard, I've gone to terrible parties for people I've had less firm ground than that to build on. What do you think?"
Naoki Sato drew in a breath and seemed to hold it for a long while. His eyes moved about Dorian in less of a tick and more of a slide, taking in details in curious study rather than with the purpose of sizing the man up. They landed in his lap before moving to each wrist, then his neck. Sato stood silently and walked over to crouch at Dorian's side. He peered closely at the skin of his neck and down the neckline of his shirt before lifting his own hand and turning the wrist upwards. The skin there moved, seeming to house things that wriggled beneath it. "How are you connected?" he asked, quiet but clear. "How well do you know him?"
Dorian didn't know what to expect from being studied before the judgment on friendship could be levied, but he certainly was surprised, though not shaken, to find Naoki suddenly beside him studying him more. As he didn't know precisely what was going on, he'd only slowly turn to look at the now very nearby yokai, with questions in his face that didn't quite make it from his lips. Instead Dorian spoke to the misconception he'd not meant to sow, having seen the wriggling beneath the skin, "Oh, I am not connected like that. But my twin, she ah... that happens to her sometimes. She is the one who knows about all of that business. Though my brother does too, she showed me the right pool to make offerings connected to the shard. Today was my first one, really. I perhaps overstated my involvement, which is only through Dinah and Drystan's magic." He held up his own wrist to show that it was indeed different, just flat fair skin over sinew and bone, albeit woven through with aether from the magic that had given him long life and prodigious strength.
He'd already asked too many personal questions, he sort of figured the yokai was answering some of his own with the up close and personal examination. Up close it'd be even more apparent that he'd not shaved in a couple of days, and that his attire had lost its fresh-pressed quality some hours past.
Naoki Sato showed no disappointment. His brows rose at the mention of the two other siblings and their deeper connections but he said nothing on the topic besides, "I see." When Dorian held up his wrist Sato put two fingers to it as if to test what connection there might have been but when whatever he was looking for didn't happen he pulled back, that hand instead moving to grasp at the tie dangling undone from Dorian's neck. He gripped and pulled, trying to draw the man close to his face. "Be careful then. If we do become good friends, you may find yourself more connected," he cautioned. Releasing the tie he stood and stepped toward the garden again. "You can use this place, if you find yourself killing again. The spirits keep people away. I can take care of the bodies when you're finished."
Dorian held up his hands as if to show he wasn't a danger in response to having himself tugged bodily toward Sato. He was desperately considering how he'd misrepresented himself to elicit such a reaction until Sato gave his ominous warning. His eyes were saucer wide and sought answer in his would-be friend's face. Once he'd been cautioned and offered a haven for unsavoury behaviour, he was sat confounded for a moment. As the yokai began to walk away, he'd start laughing quietly, shaking his head. After a moment of sobering up, further than he was, (by now it was nearly time to be able to consider starting to drink again), he'd call after his departing friend? in a tired rasp, "Thanks, I will ah... keep that in mind." He was getting up to his feet as well then, and pulling on his jacket against the chill of the morning that hung outside before the sun could really spread its warmth, and finished, "Have a good day Mr. Sato, I appreciate your meeting me on such short notice."
As he began to tiptoe his way out of the place where even he could feel his hairs stand on end because of otherworldly activity, he couldn't help marveling that had meant yes, they could be friends.
