[PRP] Not Another One (Mara + Lawrence )

[Baneful]

The island had quite a few trainees around lately, a number of them had woken up in the wake of the horrible Horseman scenario. This would have been a good thing if he didn't constantly have to be aware of not being in the same place as a trainee alone in private or risk getting his knuckles rapped by the institution.

As it was that day he'd spent a long morning down in the golem lab working on a new golem he'd been trying to teach how to create a good quality cake but which hadn't proven apt to learn the nuances of measuring out water appropriately. He'd taken a break before his temper broke and gone for a walk, finally sitting down in one of the common areas and flicking through his phone's photo gallery.

 

[MoonKitsune]

She hadn't felt good. The entire place was stifling, like a unkempt hostel near the coast that only the locals knew about. It lacked all the charm of the Bahamas and island living. Worst yet, she felt nauseous and her arm still hurt from the boy who helped wake her up.

She was trying to get her old phone to work while she held her new one, and moved to a lounge to get some better lighting, having left her coat back in her room due to the terrible fabric and tailoring.

There was a lounge, and she moved into it, adjusting her purse as she went to take a seat but stopped a few steps in when she saw a blonde man there, breathing in quick as she pressed both phones against her chest.

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

Lawrence glanced up briefly as someone else arrived, spotting them messing around with a much newer phone than the ones they all had as standard issue. At the very least they'd moved up to a touchscreen of late.

"You won't get that to work, it needs to be switched to the prevailing power supply here or it will potentially burn out your screen. Runic energy is the power here. Best to use the one they gave you."

And he looked back to his own phone.

 

[MoonKitsune]

Her eyes moved about the room for anyone else, listening out for anyone coming down the hallway, before she slowly moved to seat herself in a chair across from him, tucking her skirts under her and sitting straight with her legs tightly together.

Setting the phones into her lap, she watched him. "I'll have to ask about that then."

Her grey eyes moved about his face. "What's your name?"  

[Baneful]

Lawr gave the girl a concerned look, always immediately suspicious of anyone asking his name given his innate aversion to handing it over.

He looked her over curiously. She looked familiar but in a way he couldn't at all place and he could only assume she just looked similar to someone he'd known.

"Lawrence." he said levelly.

"Lawrence Michaels. Can I help you Miss....?"

He let the question hang in the air.

 

[MoonKitsune]

She continued to stare, manicured nails tapping on the case of the phones on her lap.

"You look familiar. Do you have a brother?" She asked.

The names didn't match.  

[Baneful]

“Erm. Several. Lars and Leif.” He said uncertainly bisions of everyone he’d ever scammed flashing in his head.  

[MoonKitsune]

She continued to watch him before she turned and popped open her designer bag and set the two oh3ones inside. Popping open a metal pastel case she kept for her credit cards, she pulled out a photo kept in a hard cased sleeve. She took it and stood up, moving to him and showing him a photo.

"Do you know him?"

The picture was of a couple. A young man she knew as Ian Larsson and her mother, a lavish blonde with long, salon- nurtured locks of wavy hair and brilliant pale blue eyes. The man was in a tux while she was in a slim red dress and even redder lipstick, some sort of event glimmering in the dark behind them. They were close together in the image and it wad easy to assume romance was in the air. She knew the contrary.  

[Baneful]

Lawrence froze up as the photo was produced, giving it a wide-eyed look he couldn’t disguise. It had been a long long time but he remembered the night like it was yesterday, another life and another world from where he was now, a freedom that seemed almost impossible on Deus defining his every action. He’d been able to go wherever he wanted, be whoever he wanted and to flit in and out of people’s lives before consequence could touch him.

He gave the woman another look, for a moment comparing her to the woman in the picture, for an instant wondering if maybe she’d just dyed her hair or… no, there were too many dissimilarities.

He felt his blood run cold as he realised who she could be. She looked around the right age, pretty like her mother but with some traits he -

He swallowed and took a slow breath.

“Yes. That is me. Ian was a name I went by once upon a time.” He said. “I never expected to meet you again, if you are who I think you are.” He looked her over again, surprised.

“/Red hair/?” he asked critically.  

[MoonKitsune]

She stared at him a while before she sat down, this time beside him. "I've stared at this picture long enough to pick out your facial features. There were a few men here and there that made me wonder. Hiring a investigator didn't lead me anywhere." Her mother had been against it but it never showed on her credit cards. The value of a bank account at a young age.

She popped the picture into her purse, seemily done with it, and clipped it shut. "The color had more success than blonde." She looked up at him, "- and it drove my mother crazy."

She brought one of the long braids over her shoulder to stroke it. "She asked when you were together arranging my conception to bring up any mental health issues. You never mentioned shadows."

"You also lied about your name. What else?"  

[Baneful]

Lawrence gave her a calm look, even though his mind was racing with all manner of things.

He’d intended to keep some of his decedents out there, some vestige of him to carry on the line, to make sure that the man with many names persisted past his untimely fate on Deus island. But it seemed that his every offspring was destined to wake up here. He hadn’t seen her in the pod room because he’d been so restricted from it via his own actions and now he was quite blindsided by it all. Another potential line of enduring legacy bit the dust now that Mara was here.

But still, that meant she was here at all. He’d been sure her mother would see to it that she never found him, after all their arrangement had been no strings, her getting what she wanted in the form of a baby and him promising to vanish without a trace soon after leaving her to her own devices. She’d been an exceedingly capable and forceful woman and he’d liked that about her.

“I think.” He said slowly, measure and precise. “I think it would be simpler to list the things I didn’t lie about. I’m a man, that’s a simple fact.” Most of the time at least. “I am your father.” Also a truth. “And I had an arrangement with your mother.”

He raised his hand (and non-hand) in a placatory sort of gesture. “I didn’t say anything about mental illness because then she wouldn’t have slept with me, but let’s be honest, Armina was hardly high on the empathy scale herself. The shadows didn’t matter to me, I always assumed that everyone could see them more or less, that it was just part of poise and self-control.”

He sighed. “I suppose you should know that you aren’t my only child either. There are four of you that I know about. One deceased, two on the island at present and yourself.You’ll meet Malkam and Mikael in due course I should expect.” He grudgingly fished out a wallet, somewhat thick with cards and money and opened it up. He had a lot of credit cards and quite a bit of cash but he was looking for the folded interior, unfolding it to show four photos neatly stowed within. One was him and a small blonde haired baby, very young and dressed in the sort of outfit that could only be a mark of the nineties, in a house with a reddish blonde haired lady who was giving him a fond look. The next was a much younger woman but somewhere outdoors, carrying another blonde-haired boy in his arms. Lawrence himself looked the same age and appeared to be wearing the same jacket in both of these photos. Then there was an unmistakable image of him and Mara’s own mother, a photo taken before parting ways, Lawrence dressed differently with different hair and all the subtle elements of disguise. The last was him in a hospital smiling at the camera and standing over a tiny premature pink baby in an incubator looking proud as could be.

It was almost uncanny how different he looked in three of the scenes and even more different was the man sitting in front of her now. He was thinner than any of the pictures, looking like he’s seen more than his share of unpleasantries and with any of the smiling warmth stripped back to something cold and calculating, sizing her up even as he presented her with the photos.

“Of course you have no obligation to befriend any of them or me, though as family a room at my house would of course be extended to you, should you wish it. I won’t have my blood living in the filthy dungeons.”  

[MoonKitsune]

He was a man, a point her mother always used. A man was many things. A man had his uses. A man could cause great harm if not careful. Weak women fell to men. He was a man, and that was why she didn't have a father. A man had his use, and her mother got what she was after.

"So you are no different then a picture." Not even a thousand words.

Thr names of the boys had her bristling, and she stared at him for his mistakes. "I've already met them. Your son nearly broke my arm."

Her attention went to the pictures, and she studied them not as a slideshow of happier times or other women he seduced and lied to, but looking at how age had worked on him, and what features the children had compared to her own. Ian or Lawr had not been there for her birth but had only been allowed relucantly to give her a name.

Thr offer of a room had her snapping her slate grey eyes up at him. "You have a house?" She had seen her hole in the ground and the assesment of dungeon was correct. "I'll live with you then."

She wondered. "Do you remember my name?  

[Baneful]

He gave her a smirk for her comment. "Pretty as a picture certainly." he said slightly sarcastically.

It was impossible to guess which of the two boys had almost broken her arm, but if he had to hazard a guess, his money would be on Mikael, the boy tended to be surprisingly volatile without warning. "Excellent then that you have already met."

"The boys also live in the house, so they will be present for the duration of your stay, they have priority more or less at the moment, tenure if you will. So don't start any more trouble if you please."

Her name he remembered because he'd chosen it himself. "Mara." he said sweetly. "Did you know it means bitterness? Elements of strength but bitterness too, inherent and built in. I chose it for your mother, but it seems you grew to fit it a little."

 

[MoonKitsune]

She smiled, pleased by his answer. "She said the bitterness stood out among the sweet little nothings. She always wanted me to never be satisfied." Satisfsction lead to stagnation, fat, and blending out.

"I never started anything with them. " She pouted, taking offense. "I was as sweet as rain. The other boy. Malkam. At least he has manners. Mik could have killed me. I didn't have any way to stop a bullet." Aside from Malkam. "Unless you know of a magic trick for that?"

She turned to him, setting a hand on his.

"Should I be mute to any abuse, or can I rely on dear Daddy to listen?" She smiled at him, using the name for once on someone who actually was her father. It made it feel stranger.

 

[Baneful]

Lawrence gave her a smile that was more than a little bit devious. "Well I will certainly be sympathetic if kept updated on any abuse which might occur. I wouldn't tolerate rudeness in any of my children." If Mikael needed to be placed in line he was more than happy to do it.

"You needn't worry about bullets either." he added, tolerating the contact in a way he wouldn't have for anything less than blood. "Your weapon, the voice you should have gained will see to that. It will take a good few to so much as graze your skin."