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Post by Ray on Nov 30, 2017 22:47:40 GMT -7
"I do actually," Adrian replies with a sort of nonchalance, biting back into his apple. Jon shakes his head a little, somehow forgetting just how Kili is in the six years he hadn't had to see him. If he was a reckless, sarcastic bastard before, being bitten only seemed to make it worse. Worst of all, he had no Tristan to temper him. No guiding hand that knew when to get him to shut up. There were very many reasons why Jon liked the golden son of Durin, but his ability to tame Adrian was perhaps the second.
The first was giving Sansa a love worthy of her.
"If you see Edric," Adrian calls down as Maria hands Katherine her umbrella, speaking as he chews and drawing Jon's eye back up towards him. "Tell him he owes me money. I knew you'd come crawling back." He grins a little as he takes one final bite of the apple, a flicker of humor in his gaze.
Jon pulls in a deep deliberating breath before he turns away, reaching out to pull open the door. They step outside in the soft downpour, surrounded once more like the grey bleakness of the city. Jon tugs up the collar of his jacket to keep the rain from soaking his neck, closing an eye as he glances up and down the street before them. "Who's Mr. Richards?" He asks, turning his attention back to Katherine and her umbrella, a wry smile finding its way to his lips. "A fan of yours?" He teases. They begin walking in the direction of the nearest market, Jon sliding his hands into the pockets of his jacket.
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Post by Snowglobe18 on Dec 1, 2017 2:31:41 GMT -7
Katherine looked up at Adrian when he said about Edric, it's not like he pops in to have a chat. Which she was thankful for because after six centuries they still didn't like each other. It was sort of the same relationship that Jon and Adrian had. Although there was always a part of her that worried Adrian would get them discovered. There was no more Tristan so no one to keep him in check. That is until she opened up this brothel and now he lives here with the girls. Katherine was determined to sell him to the highest bidder.
She rolled her eyes when he said about the fact that Edric owed him money for Jon coming back. Of course he did but Katherine wasn't sure if she would be the one to deliver the message. "Just stay out of trouble and stay away from the girls, I mean it Adrian" she said up to him and then followed after Jon.
Katherine walked down the steps, an umbrella in one hand and pulling up her skirts with the other so that she didn't fall down the stairs, although now she was a vampire she had more grace than just about anyone. There was going to be no more falling for her... but just in case she pulled it up anyway. She walks with him towards the market with him. Katherine looping her arm in his once more. "Oh he likes to think so" she admitted with a soft sigh. "He really is a very dull man and one I wish I didn't have to see but sadly I owe him some money" she hated owing things to anyone but this she couldn't get out of.
"There is just something about him I don't like" she was sure that she would figure it out before they moved on.
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Post by Ray on Dec 1, 2017 19:46:14 GMT -7
Jon smiles in amusement, though he still remains a little curious who this Mr. Richards might be, even if it seems like Katherine herself does not know all the details.
It's a strange feeling returning after so long to people he knows so well. Despite feeling every second of the time that passed, he is a little dumbfounded by how much has changed. A part of him expected to come back and find things as they have always been, just as he left them, like no time had gone by at all. But Katherine has her brothel, Adrian his hobbies, and Edric... well with Edric it seems as if no one knows what he has been doing. A thing that both worries him and leaves him feeling unsurprised. The wolf has never had a very open relationship with Katherine, even less so after she was turned. And Adrian he barely acknowledges. Jon was only ever the link that kept the man from appearing every so often, and with Jon gone, it seems Edric has willingly kept his distance from the others.
But he can't help but be a little curious as to what he's been up to. He's never really known what Edric does in the shadows.
They find the marketplace after only a few minutes of walking, a few waterlogged vendors selling their wares from carts and stalls, calling out prices to passing people. One sells spices all the way from India, no doubt bought from a trading ship for half the price he's selling them. Another sells cashews and walnuts out baskets filled to the brim. A last hangs cooked pheasants from the poles of his tent. Jon wanders through, buying two pears and a square pasty, handing over only a sliver of the wages he'd made sailing the seas.
"Not from 'round here, then?" The vendor asks, pocketing the money as he hands over a small rolled bag.
Jon shakes his head. "No, I'm...from the North." He replies, oversimplifying it. But his accent gives him away, an accent that has long died out in this country.
"Piss poor time to come to London," the man snorts, crossing his arms over his chest. "What with what's been happenin'."
Jon furrows his brows, glancing momentarily towards Katherine before back to the man, "What do you mean?" He hadn't heard anything besides the usual. But news from London often got swallowed in news of war and swindled trade when you're only sources are the loud-mouthed drunks in each port.
"I mean the murders." The man replies, brows darting up like his answer were obvious. "Ghastly ones. Some fucker's tearin' up women all over Whitechapel."
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Post by Snowglobe18 on Dec 1, 2017 20:06:07 GMT -7
Katherine sometimes came out to the marketplace just to look at what was on offer, sometimes she would buy things and other times she would just look with a soft smile on her face as she wondered just how everything could be so different from Westeros. She looked around while Jon was buying food. Sometimes she forgot that people had to eat. In fact she hasn't quite taught herself to keep the food down just yet. She was over six hundred years old but it seemed like Kili had the food part down before her.
She looked at some jewellery but her hearing was on the conversation that Jon was having with the man he was getting the food from. Katherine slowly drifted away and over to where Jon was and caught the last bit of what was being said. There were women being murdered? This was actually the first she's heard of it but she couldn't help and let her eyes drift back towards the brothel. She really didn't want to think that something supernatural could be involved or at least she didn't want to think that Adrian could be involved but that was always the first suspicion when it came to things like this.
Vampires or even anything else that liked to eat people.
Katherine felt her throat tighten and she had to clear it before she could even speak. "How many murders so far?" she asked the man before putting her umbrella down. She really didn't care if she got her hair wet, she wasn't much of a perfectionist when it came to anything like that but if she wanted to pass as human then she would have to do human things. She glanced over at Jon and raised an eyebrow at him as if to say that this wasn't anything to do with her but that didn't mean someone else wasn't involved.
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Post by Ray on Dec 1, 2017 20:31:13 GMT -7
The man makes a noncommittal sound at Katherine's question, gaze drifting away slightly and then suddenly settling on something beyond them. "'ey! Boy!" he calls out sharply, snapping his fingers. Jon follows his gaze, spotting a kid just a little ways away, dark skinned and big-eyed with a cap flattened over thick, curly black hair. The child jumps a little at the sudden call, nearly dropping the stack of newspapers in their hands before abruptly clutching them to their chest.
At first glance, the child has all the appearances of a boy -- dusty overalls, and worn button-up rolled to the elbows, and scuffed brown shoes. Their hair is a little wild, the hat clipped on to hold it in place, and dirt almost artfully smeared across their cheeks to hide the fact that they have a pretty face. But Jon spent far too many years with Arya to be fooled. He knows a girl pretending to be a boy when he sees one.
"Give this couple a paper." The vendor orders gruffly, snapping his fingers now towards Jon and Katherine. Swallowing visibly, the girl hurries over, pulling a paper from her stack to hand towards Jon.
"Five pen-" she starts, her voice quiet and shy, but the vendor interrupts her.
"Oi, get off with you, boy." He says with a sneer.
Jon looks towards the man with choleric look, before pressing ten pence into the girl's palm. "Here's ten. Keep the rest for yourself." He tells her, taking the paper with his other hand.
"Thank you, sir." She replies, eyeing the vendor warily as she tucks the money into the pocket of her overalls. She hurries off before the man can say anything else, and Jon glances after her for a moment before unfolding the paper and looking down to it. Sure enough, as the vendor said, the headlines speak of two gruesome murders in Whitechapel -- women found with their bodies sliced open, organs missing, left to bleed in alleyways. Prostitutes, it seems.
A sour taste fills at the back of his mouth.
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Post by Snowglobe18 on Dec 1, 2017 20:44:54 GMT -7
Katherine looks over at the vendor when he calls the child over, clearly nothing has changed. Back in Westeros children were put to work too. It seems to echo the past but at the moment she wasn't sure what kind of future this place would even have.
The child -a girl- speaks the price and she smiles softly. Her heart went out to the children here but sadly not everyone could save them, Katherine couldn't attempt to save everyone. Sometimes people didn't want to be saved. But right when she handed the paper over to Jon Katherine bit on her lip. Something told her this wasn't going to be good at all and then Jon held the paper up and she read the headlines "oh god" she said holding a hand to her mouth.
The last thing a vampire wanted to read about was missing organs and blood. But at the same time she didn't want to read that it was prostitues that was being murdered. The police would be after this killer and she didn't want to think that it was anything supernatural but there was always that thought in the back of her head that screamed the 'what if' question at her.
Katherine dropped her hand and looked over at Jon before looking back in the direction of the brothel.
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Post by Ray on Dec 1, 2017 20:55:25 GMT -7
Jon has lived long enough to know that men can be just as violent as the so-called monsters that lurk in the dark. He's seen it, known it, endured it. His own heart was carved into pieces, and a wolf's head sewn onto his brother's body. All done by men with cruel intentions. But the hairs prickle at the back of his neck as he skims the headlines and reads the details, very little spared for the faint of heart. And while he trusts Katherine, trusts Edric, knows Adrian enough to know that he is, deep down, a good man, a part of him thinks what if.
The first time he met Edric, the wolf had torn two wildlings to shreds.
He looks to Katherine, his mouth pressing flat.
"Thank you," he says to the vendor in a murmur after a moment, folding up the paper and shoving it beneath his arm. With a gentle guiding hand at her elbow, Jon leads Katherine away from the marketplace in the direction of her brothel. "None of your girls have gone missing, have they?" He asks, keeping his voice low. They are on the other side of the city from Whitechapel, but that's not a very lengthy journey from here to there. And if the victims are prostitutes...
He needs to find Edric.
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Post by Snowglobe18 on Dec 1, 2017 21:13:16 GMT -7
Katherine walks with him when he puts his hand on her elbow. Even with them in such a rush he always had a gentle touch with her. She rubbed at her forehead when he asked her a question and she tried thinking but her mind was full of worry. Not only for her girls but for them too. "No, uh not that I know of" she admitted "But I'll have to ask Maria" she said and then stopped him gently. Her dark eyes on him and then waited for a man to walk passed them before she asked him. "What if this is one of us" and by us she means supernatural.
"Oh god they're going to find out about us Jon" she said in a slight panic and she put her hand to her mouth to keep the rest of the words coming out. Katherine didn't want any of them to be found out but she knew that once something bad happened a couple times then it was likely to happen again and again. She couldn't think or even panic that someone was going to come after them every time something bad happened but this, this was really bad.
She also needed to calm down because she didn't want attention put on them cause once that started then it was hard to shake. Time told her that. Time told her that sometimes humans can be so cruel that they destroy the very things they don't understand. Katherine was always levelheaded, she always had control but this this really scared her especially if it was something supernatural or it could just be man. Sometimes human beings were just as bad as those that lived in the shadows or worse than the things that were in the shadows.
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Post by Ray on Dec 1, 2017 21:27:38 GMT -7
She stops him, her worries spilling forth in a panic that makes her cover her own mouth to keep from drawing any nearby attention. Jon glances briefly around before settling his dark eyes back upon her, stepping in close to keep wandering ears from overhearing. His hand rests upon her upper arm, giving her a comforting squeeze. "They won't find out about us, Kat," he tells her reassuringly, shaking his head a little. Though he does not know that for certain. How can he?
"This could be nothing," he says, shoving the paper inside his jacket instead, getting it out of sight and out of mind for the time being. "Men are far worse than any of us." He mutters, and they begin walking once more, keeping an even pace as they leave the marketplace.
But the thought does not leave his own mind. How could it not? He's seen what monsters can do too.
As they're nearing the brothel once more, his mind a whirlwind of possibilities and worries, he rolls his jaw a little. Speaking quietly and nonchalantly, trying not to worry her anymore than she is, he asks, "Do you know where Edric spends most his time?" It's a long shot. Katherine and Edric can barely stand to be in the same room let alone are friendly enough to swap addresses and invite each other for dinner here and there. But if anyone would know, it'd be her. "He might get a little annoyed if he knows I'm back and didn't think to say hi," he says with a faint smile.
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Post by Snowglobe18 on Dec 1, 2017 21:44:24 GMT -7
Katherine wasn't sure whether or not she believed it but she had to put her own worries to sleep. She needed to keep her head straight but at the same time the worry was still there. He squeezed her upper arm and she gave him a slight smile before giving a nod. It could very well be nothing but when is something ever nothing when it comes to them? They were all supernatural, they weren't meant to even been on earth let alone exist but here they were. The werewolf, two vampires and... Jon. Even she wasn't sure what he was. He just... is.
They carried on walking and she made sure that she kept close to him because the last thing she wanted to do was walking into her mind for too long, it was always thinking.. always going over bad things and now they were being faced with this. Even though she knew deep down it wasn't Adrian.. Katherine had to ask anyway just to put her mind at rest. She couldn't believe that someone was doing this. Hadn't there been enough death happening? So they had to throw on some more just to make the world go around?
They neared the brothel and neither of them having spoke as they walked back to Katherine's place, she looked over at Jon when he spoke about Edric. Jon had been gone six years so that meant the two hadn't come face to face since he decided to board the Cutty Sark and go around the world, she guessed. It wasn't unusual for Jon to ask about Edric especially when he had asked earlier in her room. "The last thing we need is Edric's temper because you didn't go in and tell him that you were home" she said with a slight smile before then rubbing at her forehead once more. "I did hear about a pub in East London, oh god what was it called?" she asked herself and then finally said "Hellsing's Parlour, that's the one you could see if he's there" she said with a nod once before her brown eyes looked away from him and in the direction of the brothel.
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Post by Ray on Dec 1, 2017 21:56:42 GMT -7
"Hellsing's Parlour?" Jon repeats, his brows furrowing a little. It doesn't seem like Edric to hang around a pub, particularly one in a city such as this. In all the years Jon has known him, Edric has always been solitary, reclusive. He only endured being at the Wall or in Winterfell out of some sort of loyalty to Jon. A loyalty that Jon sometimes still does not fully understand. But even there he kept to the shadows and corners, never putting himself in the center of any gathering unless he absolutely had to. It was a shyness, not a fear. Instead, it seemed to be because of annoyance and disinterest.
Imagining him in a pub, one that he apparently frequents, is like imagining him with a second head.
"Right," he murmurs though, glancing down the street passed Katherine. "Maybe Adrian knows how to get there." The younger vampire has surely wandered his way around this city, a fact that makes him feel just as uneasy about his proximity to this. For the past six centuries, Kili has been good about controlling his hunger. At first it had been difficult, and every once in a while he drinks a little too much. But he also knows that sometimes vampires can only endure a restricted diet for so long.
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Post by Snowglobe18 on Dec 1, 2017 22:17:23 GMT -7
Jon says about maybe Adrian knowing how to get there and if she was honest it wouldn't surprise her if he did know where it was but at the same time he mostly liked to live at her brothel. She didn't want to think that it was him she didn't want to think that Adrian had gone down a dark path but she knew vampires who had. Katherine might've wanted to stay away from the very things that had turned her after the war of Westeros but that didn't mean she had the luxury of doing so. She couldn't deny what she was and what she liked to do even if there had been times when she wanted to rip a human's throat open and drink their blood.
But she couldn't imagine the look that Jon would give her if that ever happened. She drank blood of course she did to stay alive but even she had been worried about turning Adrian. It had been the last thing Katherine had wanted to do but Tristan begged her, she never really found out how he knew but he begged her to save his brother and she did. It had taken a long time to get used to it and she promised to keep an eye on him.
That's why she really hoped that he wasn't the one killing the women but there was always that voice in the back of her head that tried to get her attention and for her to listen to it. "Can't you sniff him out? He almost smells as bad as you northern lot" she said and tried to have it come out as a tease but if she was honest she really didn't feel it.
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Post by Ray on Dec 2, 2017 11:48:03 GMT -7
Jon huffs out a small laugh at her tease, even though neither one of them feels all that amused right now. In all six hundred years, he's never known any other two people to keep such an intense animosity between them. They are like fire and ice, ever eager to make each other's faults laid bare, ever eager to avoid one another. The fact that Katherine knows where he might be at all -- though she'd probably only say she did because of his apparent dog smell -- is a first.
But Adrian, despite Edric's disinterest in the man entirely, has his wild habits. Only spurred on by his inability to walk in the sun for very long. If any of them knows where this pub might be, it would be him.
"I don't have your sense of smell." He replies to Katherine with a faint smile. They walk up the steps to the door of her brothel, stepping in out of the rain and permanent grey chill. It's warm here, colorful and bright. As strange as it might seem to admit, even just being here makes the worry riding his shoulders lessen so. Like this place is untouched by the dreariness of the city. By the murders happening outside their door.
"What do you bet he's in bed with another of your girl's." Jon murmurs to Katherine, glancing towards the stairway where he saw the man earlier.
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Post by Snowglobe18 on Dec 2, 2017 12:37:35 GMT -7
Sometimes Katherine wishes that she didn't have her sense of smell. Everything was heightened to a point it nearly drove her mad. Hearing, blood lust, sex drive; all of it was dialled up so that they could be a better hunter when it came to humans. So they could smell blood from feet away. Sometimes it even got overwhelming for Katherine and she has been the dangerous hunter for six centuries.
They walk into the brothel and she couldn't help a smile after he says about maybe Adrian was with one of her girls and she could just about guess who it was. Maria would meet her everytime she came in and this was the first time she hadn't so she guessed that Kili had worn her down again. Maria would often say behind his back that he was one of the best she has ever had. But she knew that he would hear her and end up teasing her later on about it.
"Yeah and I know who" she said and walked up the stairs to the room that Maria used and walked in. "Sorry Maria but I'm going to have to cut this short, Adrian get dressed" she said.
Maria squeaked and looked down at Adrian before getting off him, grabbing her dress and then fleeing the room.
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Post by Ray on Dec 2, 2017 12:58:05 GMT -7
This isn't entirely how Jon planned talking to Adrian, not really wanting to walk in on him in the throes of sex before he's even had a chance to have to his lunch. But Katherine seems eager to disrupt the man's past time, throwing the door open with little care or hesitation.
Adrian seems relatively unsurprised when Katherine walks into the room and breaks up his second rendezvous that day. Instead, he just drops back against the pillows with a sigh, propping his head up with an arm and looking at the two of them with an unimpressed twitch of his dark brow upwards. Jon doesn't even look as Maria covers herself with her dress and escapes quickly, clearly embarrassed at having been caught in bed with Adrian after expressing her annoyance with him less than an hour ago.
Kili works fast apparently, though that doesn't seem like much of a good thing.
"Yes?" Adrian asks, irritated but not embarrassed in the slightest.
Jon clears his throat a little, lifting a hand to knead a little at his brow. "Hellsing's Parlour. Have you heard of it?" He asks, doing his best not to look at Adrian either.
The vampire sits up, brows lifting in intrigue, a hand tugging the sheets over his naked lower half. "Why in Mahal's name are you asking about Hellsing's Parlour?" He huffs out.
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