Knotted String

[hazlogs]

09 September 2014

Harbor Park -- Fountain

Situated in the center of a large, open meadow is a clustering of six 
trees, a flower bed, a few steel-and-wood benches set firmly into concrete, 
and a flagstone courtyard that is dominated by a large fountain.

The fountain is a wide circular pool of water some fifty feet across and 
about five feet deep in most places. The sculpture in the center is a mix 
of old and new, traditional and modern: eight concrete-and-stainless-steel 
slabs about six feet high are set in a rough Stonehenge-like circle around 
the center of the fountain. Water flows from their tops, cascading in 
bright mesmerizing sheets to the pool below. Rising above the steel circle 
is a large marble statue of the Water Bearer, an androgynous figure draped 
in robes of flowing water. It bears a large jug carved with various Greek 
symbols, from which pours a seething torrent of water into the pool at its 
feet.

Cars on the nearby street have an excellent view of the park as do any 
residents of the tall buildings which line the waterfront.

The murky waters of the Columbia River flow swiftly along the east side of 
the park. Bracketing the park to the west is First Street and the city of 
St. Claire. Recent construction work is creating an earthen berm several 
feet high all along the borders of the park in all directions.

Currently in Saint Claire, it is a cloudy day. The temperature is 64 
degrees Fahrenheit (17 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in 
from the variable at 5 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 30.12 and 
rising, and the relative humidity is 60 percent. The dewpoint is 50 degrees 
Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius.)

Currently the moon is in the waning Full (Ahroun) Moon phase (99% full).

It is currently 12:09 Pacific Time on Tue Sep 9 2014.

The weather is cool and cloudy and quite pleasant, but the moon's full, 
too, and Luna, though hidden, tugs and nibbles at Garou nerves the world 
over. Ramos sits on a bench near the fountain, hunched forward and staring 
intently at a tangle of string in his hands. The knot is huge, caked with 
dirt and other gunk, but his thick fingers work restlessly, persistently, 
at it.

Ramos

This is a stocky young man with a broad, plain face and long black hair but 
no beard to speak of. He's a little under six feet tall and has pale, 
soft-looking skin, a smashed-flat nose, a wide mouth, small ears, and very 
little chin. His body is swathed in a shin-length black coat that's a 
couple of sizes too big for him, a coat that's buttoned all the way up the 
front. The frayed cuffs of his brown pants puddle messily around cheap 
canvas shoes that are no longer white. Round black welder's goggles cover 
his eyes. His age is hard to determine, but he's probably not past his 
early twenties.

There's something to be said about the 'people free' radius that a Garou 
can cause, and that's happened near the bench where the young man works the 
tangled string. It seems to be a selling point though, for the young woman 
walking away from one of the vendors. A styrofoam cup in one hand, and a 
butcher paper wrapped food thing in the other. Her gait is somewhat stiff 
and a little slower than her appearance would usually suggest her capable 
of. She doesn't bee-line toward the occupied bench, though her eyes study 
the other intently for a moment as she passes him in route to the fountain 
proper.

A fair skinned young woman with straight black hair and light brown eyes. 
Her face is slender and somewhat elfin in feature; delicate, but with eyes 
brimming with potential for fierce emotion. Her form is slender, her 
movements well-controlled and lithe, though she oftens comes across as 
having to keep her energy levels in check. She has the overall appearance 
and nature of someone you'd expect to be cast in the next LotR movie as 
some elf or fairy creature- and there's just this odd sense of longstanding 
Gaelic regality about her when you catch her in the right light, or mood. 
Her attire is based on function over fashion; jeans, cotton shirts, 
sweatshirts, jackets and a pair of sturdy sneakers seem to be the norm for 
her on most days, though she might clean up quite nicely if given the chance.

Ramos doesn't look up as he picks at the grime-caked knot with dirty, 
untrimmed fingernails, lips moving in soundless mumbles. He smells strongly 
of some kind of cheap body spray.

The glance lingers a bit longer than polite before Mackenzie reaches the 
fountain. First the cup is set aside, then she slowly sits down, stifling a 
wince by pressing her lips hard together. Once settled she gets to work on 
unwrapping her meal, which quickly smells of fresh onion and beer soaked 
sausage.

Ramos sniffs audibly. He stops picking at the tangled string and looks up, 
long hair hanging messily over his face. He sniffs again and stares at 
Mackenzie.

Mackenzie catches the stare just as she sinks her teeth into that first 
bite. Around a mouthful of food that must be delicious given the fragrant 
juice that trails over her chin, the girl barks a somewhat curt, "What?!"

Ramos flinches, shoulders hunching, head dropping. He scoots a little away 
along the bench and goes back to working at the tangle of string, though a 
little more urgently now, his picking a little more twitchy and frantic.

Mackenzie licks her lips as the first bite is managed, and finds herself a 
hypocrit now as she stares back at the man and his tangled string. A look 
of confused curiosity etches across a wrinkled brow as she sips at her drink.

Ramos abruptly brings the string to his face and bites at it, curling his 
lips to bring to bear human canine teeth. No comparison to wolf canines, of 
course, but still pointy and good for cutting. Which he does, breaking 
through a few strands of the knot before working at it again with his 
fingers. It starts to come apart.

Mackenzie continues to watch the other at his odd task, pausing only to 
bring up that sandwich to take another bite. After a few minutes go by, and 
she reaches the halfway point on her meal, she lets out an annoyed sigh and 
wraps up the remains. Her beverage is grabbed as well, and she starts her 
way toward the goggle-wearing stringster. "Hey. You hungry?" she offers in 
a tone much like a child having been yelled at for not playing nice.

Ramos freezes when Mackenzie approaches. When she speaks to him he tilts 
his head up a bit from its lowered position. It's hard to see where he's 
looking, exactly, with those goggles, but his expression is pensive and 
wary. "Huh. Hungry." His speech is slow, as though he's picking his words 
carefully. "Food. Yes."

Mackenzie gives a faint nod and hands over the wrapped sausage sandwich. 
"Here." She says as she holds it out toward him. "I'd get you one of your 
own, but I just spent the last of my money so." A shrug follows. "What's 
with the string?" she asks with a nod in its direction.

Ramos shoves the string down into the neck of his coat, shifting around a 
little as he does so. The coat's buttoned up pretty high, so it's not as 
though she can see much of anything below the base of his thick neck, but 
there's no sign of a shirt collar. Then he starts unwrapping the sandwich, 
talking as he does and not looking up. "Story, old story, a knot. Cannot 
unmake. A man comes. He ignores rules for unmaking a knot. Cuts it. Then, 
no knot. Also no string."

Mackenzie lifts one brow at the explanation, "Yeah." She hangs silent on 
that for a moment. "If you're trying to do it without ruining the string, 
I'd not recommend biting at it. Will ruin your teeth too. And that thing is 
nasty as hell with dirt." This seems to trigger another thought for her and 
she offers out the soda with her other hand. "Might as well. Or else that 
food's gonna taste like mud."

Ramos takes a truly huge bite out of the sandwich and chews messily. The 
whole offering vanishes pretty quickly, in fact, and the weird young man 
wipes his face with his hands and licks them clean before reaching out to 
take the soda cup. "It is bad," he says. "Cannot unmake knot. Cannot. Can 
cut knot, but then no string. Broken string. Bad." He grimaces, takes off 
the top of the soda-cup, sniffs, takes a big gulp, and keeps grimacing. 
"Sharp bubbles." He attempts to hand the soda back to her.

Mackenzie just blinks at the other as the sandwich disappears. "Yeah, sure 
buddy." The cup is taken, but it looks pretty solid that she's not going to 
be drinking from it again. A glance goes to the balled up string, "So why 
bother with it then? Just get some new string."

Ramos drops his gaze and shakes his head. "No new string. Not... old story 
is about string and is not about string. Problems. Thing that is... not the 
way it should. Follow rules, cannot fix. Is bad, will always be bad. Break 
rules, remove bad but also break thing. No. Need different, eh... 
different... different..." He crumbles up the paper wrapping, struggling 
for the right word. "Different solution."

Mackenzie lets out a bit of a grunt at that. "Most rules are bullshit truth 
be told." A tilt of her head studies him again. "Where you from anyway? 
Take it English isn't your first language?"

Ramos answers immediately, like it's a question he's been asked a lot and 
he's learned a rote answer. "France. I come from France." That's nothing 
like a French accent, though. At least not the French accents one hears in 
popular media. Maybe he's from a lesser-known region?

There's the brief moment that it seems she might ask for something in 
French, but she clamps her mouth shut and then just studies him a bit more. 
"Hey. You're not looking to start any trouble around here, are you?" A half 
beat, "Because I've been here like a week and I've run into some of the 
worst this city has to offer already."

Ramos hunches his shoulders and looks at his hands, which now work at the 
wrinkled, greasy piece of butcher paper much like they did the grimed, 
knotted string, balling it up tightly and then pulling out a bit here, a 
bit there. "No trouble," he says humbly. "I am good."

"Alright. I'll take you for your word on that. Be careful around the 
industrial areas here though. They're dark and full of assholes. You look 
like you get enough of the regular kind of assholes as is, so with luck you 
can be spared the mega-assholes. If you end up hanging around here I might 
run into you again. Well, so long as I get the proper busking permit," she 
offers with annoyed sarcasm and a roll of her eyes. "Anyway. See ya around."

"Goodbye," Ramos mumbles, still looking down at his hands.

Mackenzie doesn't linger after the farewell, just takes her lid-free soda 
out with her and, once out of immediate view, dumps it into the nearest 
trash before returning toward a large, old truck parked in the lot.