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The lights along this section of street in Kensington are mostly broken out, but every so often, one light casts a chilly glow down to the trash-strewn street below. Across this blot of cool light on a cold night dashes a warm splash of orange, there in the light and then gone again. A trash can clatters a moment later.
?
The unusual cadence of the movement, the surprisingly bright color- well. It would be surprising if foxes weren't so good at finding places to live around Philly. Still, it wasn't often that Johnnie caught sight of one, and she had to admit, the resemblance- even passing- to June made it all the more appealing to take a look. She'd been keeping to the rooftops, having discovered as of late that being in public proved... exhausting. Troublesome enough restraining her own natural, impossible elegance to avoid drawing attention- paired with the way Autumn and the hunt for the Helldivers had honed her intuition meant pretending not to notice... so much. Don't notice, don't react, definitely don't flinch from things she shouldn't see coming but did.
Too much.
So when she caught sight of that lovely bolt of color wandering down an alley? She melted down the bannisters of a fire escape and stepped down into the alleyway as if she had descended a spiral staircase and not the edges of a metal scapeway.
Vasha teases her about the fact that when he met her, she was living in a dumpster, but the fact is? Foxes like rooting around in things. Urban foxes dig in garbage the same way that foxes in the forest dig under roots.
Coming up with half a burger, Fox tips her vulpine head back and nomf nomf nomf it down. The impossible grace of the thing descending behind her? Her ears swivel and then her head turns. Her spine arches like a startled cat.
She smiles, reaching for a bit of bun cast aside by the nomfing with that unnatural smoothness, not bothering to hide from- well, a fox. A minute expenditure of a renewable resource, and the burger reconstitutes, the missing pieces of the delectable meal replaced rather than retrieved, for that is how this Magick works! To a Changeling, Hours are as mutable as anything else, and she turns them back 'til the sandwich is whole and steaming again, crouching and setting it down in the least filthy patch she can find as an offering for the hungry beastie.
Fun fact: Fox has the ability to tell what kind of Magic she's seeing even when only her peripheral Mage sight is on.
The first clue that this isn't actually a fox but is in fact a Fox is the moment that this Fox doesn't startle or run away when Jackie picks up a bit of bun. Then when the food is reconstituted, those green gold eyes go really really wide. On closer inspection, there's weird dappling in the Fox's fur, something a little odd in the orange of her coat. But that's only there for a moment before something like a reverse full body yawn flexes that tiny vulpine body into a small, dirty woman in a tank top and cutoff jeans, wearing a backpack and no shoes. She snatches the burger off the ground (she was just eating out of the trash, after all, and Life Mastery means having total control over your personal biome), takes a giant bite out of it, and asks, with wide-eyed excitement:
"Are you friends with Lux?"
That should be surprising. It should be startling. It should shock and awe and anything close to a human would have been unsettled at least a LITTLE by someone transmuting themselves out of an adorable rooting fox in the space of a heartbeat and it is perhaps the most telling thing yet that the one thing it does not get from Johnnie is a reaction. She is surprised, mind, she was definitely not expecting there to be such a surprising thing instead of a fox with an borgr, but every scrap of that surprise is trapped behind the wall that is her own stolid refusal to expose herself to the world accidentally and so what comes out is just a chuckle and that is simply poor fare when it comes to pretending at a nearer grasp of normalcy than one has.
"Friends would, I think, be presumptuous. They're quite the lovely person and we're certainly acquainted, but when it comes to me and mine, they're closer to the latter than the former, I'm afraid." She offered one hand in an unguardedly velvet movement that completely fails to require her to visibly rebalance at all. "Vorpal. If you know Lux, then you should have a name they'll know me by. Could I ask yours-" She paused briefly, perhaps catching some hint of amusement starting to brew in the Mage's expression, and leaned into a hunch. "-or should I just keep calling you Fox?"
Chomp. Chomp Chomp Chomp. Fox gets through most of the burger and then waves the last bite toward Vorpal in offering, as if it makes perfect sense to offer someone the last bite of your reconstituted trash burger. Her eyebrows arc up, too, with this gesture.
But then she shifts her burger to her off hand so she can take that offered hand. There's a shimmer of street light on the silvery ring on their left ring finger. "That's a bummer because Lux is, honestly, like, the best. They're my best friend, actually, outside of my immediate family. You should know them better, really. Make a point of it."
She laughs, then. "Everyone calls me Fox. So that's fine."
It's slight, but it's there, perhaps all the more notable for the fact that it exists at all. That offer of food? The faint tightness around the edge of Johnnie's expression would have to be a scowl on a more expressive face to match the magnitude of the shift from perfect congeniality to I don't think so.
"No, I'm fine. I made that for you. And I'm not entirely sure they'd be up for getting to know me better. I'm not the easiest person to spend time around, you see." A casual explanation for a deep-rooted problem. Fox could likely see the edges of it rising up around them- less so for him, as they were used to magically exceeding human limits and watching others do the same, but she could probably guess at how unsettling the Changeling would be to those less accustomed.
"But I can try. If you think they'd not mind." A small smirk. "No promises, though." See? A joke! Ha! "Fox it is. Well met. Are you out for a purpose tonight? Or just enjoying a night on the town on another's dime?"
She plops down on the ground in the alley, looking up as if to check whether lights are coming on in the rooms on either side of said alley. People live here, of course. When Vorpal's expression changes, she shrugs as if to say your loss, and shoves the last bite of burger into her toothy maw. Chomp!
"Aren't you?" Fox asks thoughtfully, and then shrugs. "Well, your name goes snicker snack, that's clever, I approve." She licks her fingers and then burps. "I can't speak for Lux, but I like when my friends are friends!"
Blink blink.
"Honestly? I like that, too. I haven't got many. I keep busy. I have- other things, but not- friends, exactly. I tend to polarize." Vorpal offered idly. While Fox watched for lights, it was second nature for Johnnie to track footsteps, snores, hinges, fridge doors, comforters. It was easier to notice than not, after all. A background program running to collate and process all that information while she spoke to Fox. A conversation ruled neither by relationships, politics, nor a need to be normal.
It was refreshing, really.
The approval earned Fox a grin. "I like my name too," she said, her shadows nodding in agreement. "Yours is fitting, too. Do you have any other friends that might already be my acquaintances, do you think? Likely ones a little less- colorful?"
Wasn't everyone less colorful than Lux?
She thinks about that for a moment, while continuing to lick her fingers. "I want more food," she declares. "We can walk to the late night schwarma truck. Let's go!" Pushing herself up to her bare feet (Life Mastery also means you don't really feel cold), she pap pap pap to the mouth of the alleyway.
"Oh... I know, ummmm. Lux, and... Jack... and... Mearcstapa... and Anneliese..." She recounts casually. "Probably lots more actually but that's who I hang out with most or run into most."
There was a- reluctance to the idea of striding into public, but Johnnie braced herself and rolled to her feet, taking a moment to remember how to move something closer to natural before she followed. It... wasn't easy. She had to rely on a sort of tangled combination of her own hyperawareness with her ability to move just so to manufacture the sort of minute flaws a normal person might experience while walking. The one thing she couldn't much manufacture was surprise- with so much attention focused on seeming less graceful, less hypertuned into the world, there wasn't much focus left to forge reactions. "Schwarma is lovely! And I know those folx. All of them are lovely. Among other things," Johnnie thought to herself, mildly amused. "Or- well. With one exception, I suppose. It's just a three of a kind. Ah, well. I'm glad you've got good taste in company. Though," she remarked, "You'd be hard pressed to find otherwise round these parts when it comes to my sorts."
Fox waits for Vorpal to sort herself out and come accompany them, hands hanging on to the straps of their backpack. "Oh, they're all very good. I'm not very close to Anneliese but she's nice. I only know Jack okay but you know, he's Lux's so I'd kill for him," so casually said, "and Mearcstapa is like me in a lot of ways and he helps me with my pigeon lofts." Her feet pap pap pap on the sidewalk.
"I would ask if you know others like me but... there's no one else in this city that's just like me. There's one person close but I'm pretty sure you don't know them." Pap pap pap. "I haven't met anybody of your sort that I haven't liked. Well, except one but I never met her, I only heard about her, and she tried to hurt my Lux and the ONLY reason I didn't EAT HER FACE is because Lux told me to let them handle it."
She briefly bares her sharp little teeth, snaps them. "Anyway, you are like water, it's really wild."
"She -is- nice. I'm not always sure what to make of her, but that's a pretty common refrain, I'm afraid. It's better than it used to be, but." But People Are Hard. It's unsaid, but hangs in the air. "Jack's quality people, and that's even before you count his skill set. I suppose- if you extend the chain far enough, that actually makes us-" Teagan to Jack. Jack to Lux. Lux to- well. Fox never said they were more than friends. "Ah, then again. That assumption requires information I haven't got and aren't entitled to. Perhaps not, for now." She strode along.
"Like you? No, nobody like you, that's for sure. Perhaps similarly skilled?" She chances, "but I don't- ah, no, there's one, perhaps. Diamond? I believe? Ran across her on a little field trip. She seemed most surprised to run across somebody else from home." As one does when encountering the living on the borders of the lands of the dead. "And yes. An unfortunate matter, that." And thankfully ended, her tone implies.
"Oh, quite. That's what Bruce Lee suggests, isn't it? Flow, Crash and all that. It is a bit wild, isn't it?" She smiles, a grin too broad, too sharp. "You should see me fight."
"Sometimes it's easier to be a fox, or a tree, or an eel, and not have to deal with human feelings for a while," Fox opines thoughtfully, still hanging on tight to the straps of her backpack. "But I do like people. They have so many thoughts and feelings, so many experiences, and the way that people fit together with other people is a little like playing brain Tetris."
Pap pap pap. She turns left at an intersection. There's a confused look up at the idea of a chain, so either she didn't understand what she was saying, or, well, Vorpal is off-base with certain assumptions.
"Oh, yep!" Another turn at another intersection. "Diamond is great."
Pap pap pap. Foxes love food. She's on a Mission. "I bet that's a sight to see! I would like that, for sure."
"Ah, but you're likely right. I've never much thought about trying that out. Perhaps I should. I usually Go Someplace when I feel like there's a bit too much Feelings or Thoughts to work through. Head someplace where it doesn't so much matter until they quiet down. And- hm. Do you find it more challenging to play brain tetris or heart tetris, Fox?" A simple question with deeply complicated connotations.
"She seemed to be. I did enjoy surprising her. She didn't seem much used to being surprised, Diamond."
The food is a non-entity as far as Vorpal is concerned, but the company is nice. "Oh, I'm told it's downright exquisite. Perhaps I could arrange an exhibition? That'd have to do, I'm afraid, it's awfully difficult to find something actually in need of more than a simple demonstration of basic skill," she laments quietly.
And yet, she answers immediately, without even thinking. "Oh, brain Tetris is harder. Feelings are just feelings, they don't have to justify themselves or anything. They just exist. It's what you do with your feelings that matters. But brains, and how people justify to themselves what they do with those feelings, that's harder!" She gives Jackie a sympathetic glance aside and smiles a little. "Yeah, if feelings get too much you just... go away for a bit. Not too long, because then people worry. But sometimes you have to go be a fox and dig through the trash."
"I imagine they aren't," Fox agrees. "They're very... capable. I respect their skills quite a lot!"
The line of food trucks appears up ahead, not far from where the bars empty onto the streets, and Fox speeds up a little. The bars haven't closed yet so there aren't tons of people out yet.
"That makes you sound cocky," she laughs over her shoulder, turning back to face Jackie. "But sure, that would be neat!"
"Hm. I suppose there's truth to that. It's- mm. I'd always assumed it was the feelings themselves making everything complicated. I suppose you're very much right about that." There's some food for thought. "And yes. Precisely. Just- take a bit of time for oneself."
"Oh! Should I have called them they? I may owe them an apology. I didn't intend to assume. It's been a while."
It's no trouble keeping up with the hurrying Fox, and it eases the need to control herself a little. Or- more precisely, shifts the focus from controlling speed to managing fluidity. "Oh, I'm not cocky. I'm an arrogant fucking cunt. I'd like to think I've rather earned that distinction, but it doesn't make it less accurate!"
"Feelings are just like... air and water. They just exist. You only get to control your reaction to them." Fox walks backwards toward the food carts, and spreads her hands out. "Pick your poison. My partners are rich as shit, so I can pay for whatever you pick."
She heads up the line, right for a place called Pure Pita. "Oh, they're genderfluid, and they just came out, so don't worry too much about it!"
Laughter peals out from Fox - her teeth are so sharp, and she laughs recklessly, joyfully. "At least you own it!"
"I suppose my question was like asking "is it easier to fill a cup from a stream or put together a model", then, wasn't it?" Johnnie muses to herself, watching Fox amble backwards. "And I appreciate the offer, but I'm not much for accepting handouts. If, however, you were to order too much food, I might steal a bite or two, though."
"Ah! Fancy that, I'm rather the same myself. Feel a bit different day to day, but on the plus side, as far as I'm concerned, it's also impossible to use the "wrong" pronouns. Maybe an early one or a late one but not "wrong!" I like to be accomodating~" She does not, notably, imply that Diamond is at all off base having a preference for neutral pronouns. Apparently she's just discussing herself!
As Fox's teeth are sharp, Johnnie's smile is, as well, and too broad. "I try to be. If I wasn't, my significants would rather quickly set me to rights, as they always have." She had other things to say, but with the stall attendant right there- she could wait a minute.
"That's a good analogy!" Fox trots out ahead of Johnnie, and asks, "if I did share or let you steal, do you have any food restrictions or allergies?" Not that allergies are a problem for Life Masters, but that's not something they've discussed yet!
"Yeah, you can actually use any pronouns for me. I used 'it' primarily for a long time, when I was coming to terms with my own self, but it does tend to hurt other trans people's feelings, so because I don't actually have a preference... " She shrugs lazily and comes to a stop.
"I mean, there's things my mother would have told me I'm not supposed to eat, but I haven't worried about that in ages. Don't see much reason to start now," Johnnie admitted. "So no, I should be able to eat anything they're selling."
"It- interesting choice. I can see how it might feel dehumanizing to other folx, but you're not identifying them, you're identifying yourself. And heck, if I'm honest, there's times "it" feels most accurate. Rare, but they exist." And they involve being piles of leaves, which she isn't going to start discussing just now.
They smile lopsidedly at Johnnie. "Ain't that the truth," she laughs, and then turns to order.
Fox gets a LOT of food: falafel, spanakopita, dolmas, and then three schwarma bowls - chicken, lamb, and goat. She holds out a metal credit card to pay for it. Sharp eyes might even see that the name on it is a man's name!
"Well, what it comes down to for me is that it doesn't bother me to not primarily use it anymore, and I think about the tribe as much as I do about myself. So it's ... just... " A shrug. And then there's food done, and she picks up the stack of containers and squints. "I got a building I hang out at near here, unless you've got a preference."
Johnnie's eyes are VERY sharp, and she's VERY bad at NOT noticing things! Whatever name could THAT be? Probably a fake one because Vasily is a very, very careful person, but perhaps less so on fancy credit cards for beloveds! Whatever that name is, it's noted, and will not result in a Soviet kill squad hunting him down because Johnnie does not research such things on the grid.
"Building is fine. And I suppose from my perspective, it's rather selfish of another tribe member to take issue with what you call yourself. You're not advocating another use the term, and at worst, I feel- just me, and I don't pretend to be an expert, just a person- I feel that at worst it could be called reclaiming a harmful term. But I do also see the benefit in accommodating them, especially at low cost to yourself. So I suppose in the end it's a bit immature of those you're accommodating to need accommodation in how you identify yourself- but quite mature of you to take care of them anyway." She glances discretely at Fox, ready to follow their lead. "Does that about scan?"
Oh it's definitely a fake name, but it's a man's name, and Russian. One of his many alternate identities, to be sure. Fox tucks the card away before picking up the food and carries away!
"Oh but see no one ever openly took issue. I was upsetting people and I could see and understand that, so I made the choice to look after my tribe rather than to hang on to something that I didn't really have strong feelings about. If someone wanted to tell me that pigeons are bad and useless, for example, then I'd argue about it."
"It does scan, but I think you misunderstand the situation, and anyway it's okay to disagree." And Fox leads the way up one street and down another.
"Hrm." Johnnie ponders that quietly as they walk, traipsing after Fox. "You're certainly right that I seemed to misunderstand. I do like that second description- in that one, there's still hurt feelings, but the decisions to react to them are internalized, certainly more responsible, and your opting to take care of them is even more- augh, there's a word, but I can't remember it. It just means well meaning anyhow. That makes sense and I don't really see anyone at fault and you did a good thing. Though now I'm curious what pigeons are good for- not because I disagree but because I don't know."
As they move, Johnnie's sifting a constant stream of information. Footsteps, devices, loud appliances, cranky children, noisy animals, all of it flowing through her, cataloged, dismissed. Part of the ease of that distanced attitude- she's well and truly distracted, always.
"Pigeons were pets," Fox wails, truly saddened. "They were like... like cats and dogs! We bred them to be fancy and pretty, to do tasks for us, to ... entertain us, and when the fad for them as pets faded, people just... abandoned them!" Her voice goes higher and thinner and cracks a little as she crouches by a fence and shimmies her way through a section where it's not fastened to the pole.
"And now we treat them like garbage while they starve and struggle in the city. They're no different from abandoned cats forming feral colonies." Past the fence is an abandoned apartment building, 3 stories tall.
Vorpal and melts through the hole in the fence like it's an open barn door, nodding along. "Really? Thats sad. Maybe I should adopt some pigeons. I see what you mean. Its not their fault they got transplanted and abandoned. They're doing the best they can, huh?"
She leads the way through the small area around the building, through an unlocked door, and up some concrete stairs with steel caps. "I have been setting up pigeon lofts all over the city and making sure they get good food. Poor babies can't survive on what we think they can. They're birds!"
Sorry, Vorpal. You've gotten a Fox started on the plight of urban animals.
"I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with what most think they need, or what being a bird means for nutrition. Can you explain a touch more? I wouldn't mind keeping an eye on the pigeon lofts- I'm usually moving across the rooftops anyhow, so it wouldn't be particularly inconvenient." Johnnie decided she didn't mind following Fox around. There were benefits. Useful information, for one.
The view wasn't half bad, either.
She clambers up to the rooftop and sits down. Fox hasn't been up here with someone since the last time she hung out here with Lux, and she sits down and starts setting out the containers of food and opening them.
While she got a lot of food, the amount of activity Fox gets up to? It burns a lot of calories, so she digs right in to the dolmas and spanakopita. Chomp.
"Pigeons and doves -- that's the same word in Hebrew, did you know that? -- eat a variety of grains, seeds, greens, berries, fruits, and will occasionally eat insects, snails and earthworms in the wild."
Beat. "Why do you move across rooftops?"
Johnnie's keyed in to the lesson, nodding along and absorbing what she can. " I didn't know they were predators. Or- well, omnivores?" She tries to correct. "Yeah, they're not much made to scavenge through trash or munch bread crumbs. That's empty calories for sure." Johnnie beelines to move the falafels onto a napkin, then helps herself using the container to sample the shawarma bowls. "I did, actually. Every time I heard about Noah as a kid, someone joked about pigeons." She takes a bite and offers, "I'm from New York, so they were everywhere."
"Oh. I don't really blend in well. Same reason you don't go trading shapes in the middle of the street, I imagine," she explains, taking a bite of lamb and making a positive noise before taking a second. "-but it's harder for me to avoid being noticed. I could focus- and sometimes do- on keeping my movements less perfect, or on emoting properly, or on pretending not to notice everything going on around me, but it's asking a lot to do all three at once, and wherever I slip up, I start to draw attention fast. It's... doable, if I'm not talking or interacting with anyone, since I can focus on making mistakes when I move instead, but if there's a conversation..." She shrugs. It's pretty damn evident right now. She's not just alert, not just reserved. There's Something Off. Fox knows, she's seen- and had- her capabilities accelerated, but this isn't a magical effect... it's just Johnnie's natural state.
"So. Rooftops."
"Omnivores!" Chomp chomp. Fox stuffs another dolmas into her toothy maw. "I suppose to the bugs they're predators, though." She wiggles her bare toes and looks off thoughtfully across the city. "But people, yeah, feed them bread crumbs and pizza crusts. Imagine trying to live on that! No protein, or not enough, not enough roughage... it ruins their brains, their muscles... " A heavy sigh. As if proving a point, she picks up a container with schwarma and grabs a fork to dig into the lamb.
Her eyes glitter, and Fox's attention shifts, a curious expression slipping across her face when Vorpal replies that she does know that bit about Hebrew. The hey wait are you Jewish? is writ large across her face: Fox isn't subtle.
She listens solemnly, as Vorpal explains, and then slowly nods as she continues to fork food into her mouth. "Same reason I try not to smile in public, I guess," she answers with a mild frown. "Makes sense."
Vorpal nods, pleased to have kenned that correctly. "No, I'd rather not imagine, but point taken," she allows, taking another bite and pausing at that glittering, implicit question.
Another minute quirk to her lips. "Drexel. Johnnie Drexel. Like I said- lots of things my mother- and rabbi, I suppose- would have told me not to eat. Not that you picked any, I don't think, though considering the region of origin?" Not exactly surprising!
"It's a shame. You've a lovely smile. It's not the predators that show their teeth you need to worry about anyway. It's the ones that don't, in my opinion."
"Oh I try to stick to what's least objectionable when I'm eating with new friends. These options work well for lots of people. Some options are vegan, all of these are halal and kosher..." A vague shrug. She continues to eat her way through her schwarma bowl.
Her green-gold eyes glitter sharply, delighted. "There's a near-minyan of us in town. You should join us for lighting candles tomorrow at sundown." Chomp. And then Johnnie is complimenting her smile, which brings it back out again, a broad, bright thing that wrinkles up Fox's nose and sends a brief blush across her cheeks. "My primary partner is really focused on security for our people so... I have to be careful. But I do like to smile."
"Hmm. So you share more with the fox than just the taste in dental hardward. That's quite considerate of you," Johnnie asserted, confirming what Fox already knew- she was quite the clever girl!
"Ah, the elusive double digits. I could, if you like. Are the rest all as interesting as you?" Translation- you do remember I don't play well with normies, yes? "If so, I could do. It's important to us as well, and with that faction about to take their turn in charge- I'd rather not be On Their List. Best not to be the problem child. Where would I be meeting you, if I come?"
She looks puzzled, then. "What else are you saying that I share with my siblings?" A slow blink, there, and she sets her food aside for a second.
"There are more Jews in Philadelphia than ten!" Fox laughs there, throwing back her head and letting out one of those truly unrestrained laughs if hers. "I meant that there are ten of us who are Jews. A few like me, a few like you, I think there's even a vampire in there. I think we're meeting at Shir Tikvah in one of the side rooms, I can text you once I'm sure? Rabbi Aaron Cohen - he was on Ninja Warrior? - is the one keeping us all moving forward."
"Cleverness, sweetling," Johnnie offers gently. Then she's left to roll her eyes, a deliberate expression of "well of course". "I didn't want to assume, that's how mistakes get made," she pleaded, though she couldn't argue that it did make sense as presented- what else would Fox have meant? She pauses at the mention of the vampire, weighing the idea for a moment before shrugging faintly. "I suppose that's not such a problem. One of my significants is- ill disposed towards their sort, but if they haven't been pissing you off, I suppose it's unlikely they'll make a nuisance of themselves. It should be fine." She took a few more bites, thinking to herself. "Yeah, a text is fine. And I know him- or. Of? I was at the protest where he... ah. Made his more percussive opinions on police brutality known."
AKA beat the shit out of cops, which doesn't at all seem to bother Johnnie!
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