Squishy [Jackal] [Finished]

[Vriska]

I don't want to set the world on fire

I just want to light a flame in your heart

Kakariko was a pretty great place to be on duty. Mostly because you didn't really have to do much of anything. People generally just kinda got along there. And Vriska wasn't even on duty. In fact she was going to go have a nice soak in the hot springs. Hurrying through town, Vriska ran into someone. It was a serious buzzkill, but she decided to be polite. Picking herself up, Vriska offered the poor victim a hand. "Sorry about that."

[Jackal]

x x

Kyoku de Ajia

Jackal liked it in Kakariko. It was out of the way, and peaceful. The problem was, of course, that a stranger stuck out like a sore thumb in such a small town, and Jackal stuck out like a sore thumb anywhere. For years, she hadn't dared to come here, but lately she'd grown less cautious. She wasn't so afraid of being seen, now, and was ready to deal with whatever came her way.

That said, she wasn't stupid. In public she wore her cloak bound carefully about her, though today she'd let her hood fall down. From the neck up, she just looked like another Minish. No one would freak out over that, or at least, most people wouldn't. Unfortunately, Jackal's ingenious disguise was foiled by the fact that someone barrelled straight into her chest. She was normally more aware, but she'd stopped to sniff the air and enjoy the environment; and that pause had promptly caused her to land flat on her ass, sending her cloak completely askew.

Oh, it's going to be one of those days.

Most of her body was completely exposed. The scales, the claws. Luckily, no one but the offending girl seemed to notice, and Jackal quickly got to her feet and wrapped her cloak back around herself. A quick glance at the girl evinced that she was not exactly what one might call "normal", either.Those eyes, for one. And the robot arm. And the horns, and the fangs.

We're practically twins.

"Don't mention it. I know I'm drop-dead gorgeous, but try to avoid careening into me if anyone's looking, hm? It'd be terribly awkward if one of those 'torches and pitchforks' lot were around," Jackal said nonchalantly, her voice sliding through the air like honey, before she grinned, her lip quirking in the slightest way. "Though if I had an eye loaded with that many pupils, I think I wouldn't have much of a problem watching where I was going."

[Vriska]

The woman in front of her was stunning. Vriska was stunned. Staring rather obviously, she measured the stranger with her eyes before finally reaching a conclusion. Yeah, she decided. She's got me beat.

What was she saying? Her voice slipped under Vriska's skin and grabbed hold of something primal, setting goosebumps dancing on her skin. Was she being mocked or complimented? She couldn't tell. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I'll be sure to take your clothes off in private next time."

WHAT

WHAT

DID THAT JUST HAPPEN

HOLY F8CK THAT JUST HAPPENED

"Ummm, uhh, I mean - yeah, I... uhh... I don't know what I mean anymore." Blushing fiercely, Vriska extended her hand for the woman to shake. "Vriska Seraphine."

[Jackal]

x x

Kyoku de Ajia

Jackal laughed, the sort of easy laugh that bubbled up out of your throat and spilled out of your mouth, gliding around in the air and hanging there seconds after it first appeared. It was light, lighter than air, and it was warm. But it also had the sound of a beautiful instrument that hadn't been played for just a little too long, and had drifted slightly out of tune.

"If you didn't notice last time, I don't wear much in the way of clothes. They don't seem to make them in my size," Jackal said, sounding thoroughly amused. She looked at Vriska's extended hand and raised a hand and clicked her vicious claws against one another. The sound was loud, clear, and distinct. "Unless that metal hand is a great deal less sturdy than it looks, you might want to offer that one. These things hurt."

[Vriska]

A peculiar feeling crossed Vriska's mind as the woman mentioned her lack of clothing. Vriska had, in fact, noticed it quite clearly. "You won't hear me complaining," she said, letting her mouth run on automatic because she might as well see how much deeper she could dig herself. Those claws really were impressive. With a shrug, Vriska offered her left arm, oddly disappointed at not getting to touch her.

[Jackal]

x x

Kyoku de Ajia

Jackal's grin didn't widen, but it did grow almost ... predatory. She opened her mouth once, as though to speak, the long, deadly fangs showing briefly, before a sudden spasm went across her face, the smooth, feline confidence giving way to a sudden shock of surprise.

Vriska. I know that name.

She took Vriska's hand slowly, watching as her own claws scraped at the metallic skin.

"See? Much better than cutting up your other arm," Jackal muttered, her mind still whirling. If this was who she thought it was--and she was fairly certain it was, given her extremely unique appearance--than maybe ... maybe. She didn't let go of Vriska's hand for a long moment, before she realized what she was doing and hastily retracted her hand. There was a shrill noise as her claws scraped along Vriska's metallic limb.

"You're a Hybrid Consul, right? Under the Praetor?" Jackal hissed, her voice suddenly sounding almost serpentine, and desperate.

[Vriska]

The handshake went on for a tad longer than Vriska was comfortable with. Jackal was looking at her like a predator looked at a prey, and then all of a sudden she pulled away. Vriska hoped she hadn't left any bad scratches - buffing those out always felt so damn weird.

At Jackal's desperate hiss, Vriska couldn't help but wonder what she was hiding. "I wasn't aware I had a reputation," Vriska joked. "Yes, I help Praetor Orin lead the Sentinels. Not that he needs it, the man's a machine. Why? Do you need Sentinel help?"

[Jackal]

x x

Kyoku de Ajia

Jackal's face slowly began to morph, its expression less one of controlled calm and more and more one of savage need. Her mouth slowly crept open, once more revealing her teeth, and her eyes started to glow, while her ears fell flat against her head, like an angry dog's. She suddenly reached forward and grabbed Vriska by both shoulders, her claws scraping against the metal arm and digging into the fleshy one. For a long moment she stared at Vriska, her eyes glowing cruelly, her mouth hanging open.

Then she blinked, shook her head, and pulled her hands back quickly.

"Sorry about that ...." Jackal muttered, staring at her claws. One hand was bloodstained. She'd been away from people for far too long. "Look, I'm sorry, but I need to speak to the Praetor. I need to see him. Tell me, have you ever heard that he has a sister? Has he ever mentioned one?"

Jackal was being reckless, of course, and saying too much. If she was more clear-headed, she'd realize that living in the wild had probably made her forget how to properly interact with people for more than a minute at a time. But none of that mattered now. Nothing mattered now.

[Vriska]

Vriska was trapped. She was trapped and someone was hurting her. Five trickles of blue blood were dripping from her shoulder and slowly soaking the shoulder of her jacket and she could feel the pressure of Jackal's hand on her metal shoulder. As the moment stretched and Jackal's face changed, Vriska prepared to open her Vision Eightfold and curse the woman if she had to. Jackal wasn't the only one with special eyes.

Thankfully she came to her senses. Vriska really wasn't in the mood for an arrest today. "It's fine," she muttered as she prodded her wounds. They weren't too bad. Crazy *****. "Yes, actually," Vriska said, slight surprise apparent on her face and in her voice. "He doesn't really bring her up, but he told me about a sister. J-something. Jack, jacket, Jackie, Jackal. That's the name. She vanished years ago. What's it to you?"

[Jackal]

x x

Kyoku de Ajia

For a long time, Jackal just stared at her, her expression wolfish in the most absolutely literal sense of the word. She looked like she wanted to eat the nearest small adorable thing that walked by. She stared at the blood on Vriska's shoulder for a long time before she suddenly bowed her head and cupped her forehead in one palm.

"Oh, Goddess ... I'm so sorry, I'm not used to ... sorry," she muttered, pulling the hand away from her head and looking at it. She'd forgotten how sharp her claws were, or at least, she'd forgotten how to move her hands so that she didn't cut people. It was just instinct when it came to moving her hands around her own body. The truth was, she hadn't encountered anything she could touch without wanting to kill it in months. She looked back at Vriska, and she could tell that her eyes weren't glowing any more. When they did, she could ... see blood, see heat. It was hard to explain.

"I'm Jackal," Jackal said calmly, surprised by the words. She hadn't had to introduce herself ... in a long time.

[Vriska]

For a second Vriska just stood there struck dumb. "Oh. Ohhhhh. Oh wow. I guess you are."

Rwaht had implied that she was a bit unusual for a hybrid but Vriska hadn't been expecting someone who was an even bigger freak than she was. "Do you want to - I don't know, get off the street and talk somewhere? I was about to go to the hot springs, they're pretty private."

This was huge. Really huge. Rwaht was going to freak.

Well, probably not. Rwaht freaking out was the topmost item of Vriska's list of things heralding the apocalypse.

[Jackal]

x x

Kyoku de Ajia

For a long time, Jackal felt strange. Very strange. She'd spent the past few years living in the wild, only entering town long enough to get supplies to heal an injury or food if the hunting was bad. Now ... now she had to remember to be a person again, and she was finding that it wasn't coming back as naturally as she'd hoped. She probably shouldn't have been so forward about who she was. She probably should have done a lot of things differently, actually, but she couldn't exactly change that.

"Uh, yeah. Sure. Let's go," Jackal said, before she started stalking off in the direction of the hot springs, assuming Vriska would follow. She didn't say anything else. Her mind was too busy running around in circles to bother itself with getting words out of her weird-as-hell throat.

[Vriska]

The journey was undertaken in silence. The implications of this were slowly unfolding in Vriska's head. If this was indeed Jackal - and there was no evidence to the contrary as of yet - then Vriska would have to get her to Rwaht. This was complicated by the fact that Jackal was still technically wanted for arson and lots murder.

It was time to have a good, long soak with an outrageously attractive woman and talk about how Vriska could best betray her oath of knighthood, aid a wanted fugitive and maybe staunch the bleeding in her shoulder because it was really starting to hurt like a motherf8cker.

There were facilities where you could stow your clothes and grab a robe that Vriska took advantage of gratefully. From there, Vriska took the lead, pulling the soft robe tightly to herself despite the persistent heat until they reached her favorite pool. Deep, dark, secluded and screened by the persistent vapor and scaldingly, beautifully hot. Only then did Vriska shuck her garment and ease herself slowly into the water. In contrast to the pool the air became bitingly cold, and she sighed in relief when she was covered from the neck down. Her wings crippled useless worthless stop it twitched involuntarily as tension washed out of every muscle.

Vriska took a deep breath and dipped her head under the water for a long moment. As she surfaced she sat on a shelf by the edge of the pool where the water reached up to her shoulders, slicked back her mass of ebony hair and smiled. She loved coming here.

[Jackal]

x x

Kyoku de Ajia

Jackal didn't bother removing her own cloak in lieu of one of the comfortable robes provided, and instead walked straight to the edge of the pool before she pulled off her cloak, leaving herself with nothing on but the thing she called a skirt rather than old overcleaned rag. Luckily, nature had provided her with some natural censorship, which had always bothered her a little but had stopped seeming to matter after long enough. She even kind of liked it, now. She didn't have to wear shirts, which was a definite advantage, since her claws would've ripped one to shreds the second she tried to pull it over her head. Her cloak was marked by more than a few tears, thanks to natural abuse and the deadly edge of her fingers.

She looked at the water briefly and dipped her hand in, smiling faintly. It barely even felt hot to her. Jackal had long suspected that there was something in her body like a natural furnace; her skin was hot to the touch, she knew, and she was never cold. That was one of the reasons she didn't bother trying to get much clothing; the heat wouldn't have been very pleasant. Her body did, however, seem to self-regulate, her body temperature dropping whenever she went somewhere too hot, such as a desert. She realized she'd been staring at a little puddle of water that she'd formed in her hands for a long time. She chuckled and let it fall back into the spring.

She sat down at the edge, dipping her legs in. She could barely even feel the water. She didn't bother to get in.

"Do you believe me? I can give you proof easily enough," Jackal said, pulling a nearby shadow under her control. If need be, she'd just give Vriska a demonstration, and pray that the girl didn't decide she belonged in chains.

[Vriska]

As Jackal took off her cloak, Vriska looked at her appreciatively, still smiling contentedly. Normally the idea of sharing her pool with anyone else wouldn't even have crossed Vriska's mind, but from the rare times Rwaht actually talked about Jackal, Vriska knew that she could trust this woman.

Or that Rwaht was completely delusional, but she figured she owed him the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Besides, there was no harm in looking.

"No, I believe you." As far as Vriska knew, Rwaht had no enemies that would have the patience to try a ruse this complicated. Yet. "You should really talk to Rwaht. I know what it's like to be separated from your brother for so long. He misses you so much I think it's hurting him."

[Jackal]

x x

Kyoku de Ajia

Jackal stared down at her hands after she let the water drip into the pool. The problem with her hands were covered in those scales, and they linked up in unusual ways. They all sort of pointed towards her wrists, up her elbows, towards her shoulders. If you brushed your hands up her arm, her skin would feel as smooth as glass. If you brushed them down the other way, the scales would feel like razors, though they wouldn't budge. She'd only ever had a scale fall off once, and that had been when a lion's mouth had closed on her arm. That had not been a very pleasant day.

As it was, some water was still trapped in her scales, until she tilted her hand and watched the water drip back into the pool. She wondered what it was like to have smooth skin all over your body. She couldn't pretend she didn't envy anyone who did. She looked at Vriska to see that the girl had strange, shrivelled wings, but that, Jackal thought, was better than having cheap imitations of wings that instead only worked to slice people to ribbons. She also realized that Vriska was looking at her, but that was expected. Jackal offered a lot to look at. Shaking her head, she splashed a hand in the water again and smiled, and let go of the shadow that she'd called under her control earlier.

Jackal winced when Vriska spoke. Her brother ... she loved him, but he was too noble, too sacrificing, too bloody stupid and stubborn.

"Before I can do that," Jackal said slowly, watching the water drip out of her scales again. "I need to track down the man who framed me and capture him. Then I bring him back to Castle Town and Rwaht can pardon me in good conscience. Otherwise it'll just sound like sibling favour to anyone who sees me back in the city. There can't be a shadow of a doubt that I'm innocent, or Rwaht will burn for me. I can't let that happen. I know that man is still out there. I just don't know where, or ... or how to get to him," Jackal muttered, pulling a hand through her long, blue hair. Of all the mismatched parts of her body, she loved her hair alone. It was smooth, and sleek, and soft, but strong. You couldn't tear it out if you tried. Hell, cutting it wasn't exactly easy. When no one was looking, sometimes she'd smooth down her hair with her hands, enjoying the feel of it on her skin, taking solace in that one private comfort. But this was obviously not one of those times. She looked at Vriska.

"I know, you just met me, and this is a real stretch ... but could you help me track him down? You're one of Rwaht's Lieutenants, there has to be some sort of infrastructure you can use to find out what happened to him. If I can just find him, then I can see Rwaht again. Then I can keep the noble bastard from killing himself with guilt," Jackal said dryly.

[Vriska]

Vriska nodded slowly as Jackal presented her case. She was absolutely right, of course. The more militant purebloods would be on Jackal and the Sentinels like sharks the moment they smelled blood. Gingerly, Vriska started examining her shoulder, flexing it this way and that. It wasn't too bad, really. "Of course I'll help you," Vriska told her. "I owe Rwaht my life many times over. It's the least I could do, for you and for him."

Washing the wound out with some water from the pool, Vriska decided it could wait. "What can you tell me that might help us catch him?"

[Jackal]

x x

Kyoku de Ajia

Jackal let out a sigh of relief when Vriska said she'd help. All along she'd been tensing her claws, getting ready to fight if need be. She didn't want to, but she was never one to ignore a possibility. The wild taught you how to survive, and Jackal wasn't about to let herself die. Not when she had so much of her life left to live.

"About him? Not much. He's a small man. Short, sickly, but also fast as a slick Zora. Human. Black hair, black eyes, and that's about all I know. He vanished the day he burned down that orphanage. I nearly had him," Jackal muttered, clenching her hand into a fist. "But if I smelled him, I'd know him. I'll never forget that bastard. Unfortunately, he's very good at hiding himself. And I'll admit, the past few years I was just content to sort of live like an animal. Not anymore."

[Vriska]

"We'll catch him," Vriska told her. There was no question about it in her voice, no knightly I'll-see-what-I-can-do. Vriska found herself enjoying Jackal's company, and that alone was worth a definitive answer. Besides, it wouldn't exactly be impossible to find this man. You didn't burn down an orphanage and kill a bunch of kids and not leave a trail, even in the underworld. "How can I reach you when I've found him?"

[Jackal]

x x

Kyoku de Ajia

Jackal shrugged.

"You're not exactly about to blend in with a crowd. When push comes to shove just leave the City for a while and I'll find you. Visit Kakariko again, for at least a couple days. I'll get word and show up. Actually ... I've had a thought. A reckless, stupid thought, but a thought," Jackal said, grinning in spite of herself. Of course her grins tended to look terrifying what with the teeth, but Vriska's were at least as friendly-looking. She got up and stretched lazily, her long limbs stretching and and uncoiling. Her tail sort of went a little stiff and shook for a bit, and she let out a yawn. She hadn't realized how tired she'd been.

"There's a new Inn opening near the Castle, but far away enough that I should be able to show up there without anyone getting too suspicious. Rent a room there sometime and be loud about it. I'll give you a visit." She walked over to where Vriska was and bent down on her knees, examining the cuts she'd left on Vriska's shoulder. "I'm so sorry about that. I just ... forgot. I wasn't born like this, y'know. I had to learn how to move without hurting anyone else, or myself. The claws, the tail ... all that sort of just showed up after I'd gotten real used to being a normal little girl," Jackal said, sounding oddly conversational. "Were you born the way you are, or did you get all the neat extra features later, too? Sorry," Jackal said, laughing, "Stupid question. You probably don't want to talk about that sort of thing."