:.: Abigail's Nine :.: {Accepting/Open}

[Lucky_Tiger]

The tiger that shouldn't be....is....

Miranda jerked in surprise as Cybil took her arm. She wasn't used to much contact as people tried to stay away from her. Well, this wasn't quite the reaction she'd been expecting. "I know it's called scrying. I don't say that though because most people don't know what it means." She said coolly, lifting her gray gaze to the blonde girl's blue one.

Something snapped deep within those gray eyes at Cybil's final statement. "I am not making this up. Believe or not if you want, but I know what I see." She snapped at the girl. Pausing, she took a deep breath and calmed down though there was still traces of the anger in her eyes. "Maybe that's why I kept seeing you." She murmured. "We're both different. We can see what isn't there....." She glanced at the store window but for once, no image appeared before her. She suspected she would have to actually try before she could see Cybil again. Now that she'd found the girl, the blonde had stopped randomly appearing.

The tiger that should be....isn't....

 

[SilentShadowDreamer]

Cybil rolled her eyes. "I didn't say you didn't know what it was called," she said sharply, but there was a pleased undertone to it - as though she'd finally provoked something she'd been looking for. Whether it was spirit or just a fight was difficult to tell. "I said it sounded like that was what it was. If you're going to get miffed because I didn't respond to you dumbing it down for me, we're not going to get along very well."

Not that she really thought they would anyway - they seemed to have been clashing from minute one.

Undeterred, she almost spoke up again, but before she could Miranda had gotten in her next words. She hesitated, wanting to be snarky again, but then the truth crept in. She had been harsh. Maybe the words had been unfair. If there was one thing Cybil prided herself on, it was being just.

So she paused for a second longer, and then slowly sighed. "Look. Maybe that was kind of uncalled for. You just...startled me." She shrugged. "I've never known anyone else like me, and to have you come waltzing up out of the blue with this 'Hi, I'm like you and I can see' routine...it freaked me."

Now she actually did smile. A small one, a little uncertain, but a real one. "Let's try this again, okay? So you've found me. We'll assume it was for a reason. The reason is apparently that we're both freaks. Now what?"  

[Lucky_Tiger]

The tiger that shouldn't be....is....

Miranda's lips quirked in a half smile. "I suppose I'd be freaked out too, if it was the other way around." She admitted with a quiet chuckle. "As to what to do....." She trailed off, closing her eyes for a moment. "Well, I'd been looking for you mostly. But there's one other. A boy." She frowned. "He seems so timid. Every time I see him, he'd looking down or cowering." Her voice was distance, as if she was trying to recall something. "Not like you. You challenged me, every single time I saw you. You seemed to dare me to do something....."

She stopped and sighed. "I think something's coming. I just get a really bad feeling every time I see that boy. As if there's something wrong. I just don't know what!" She burst out, frustrated. "It's been bugging me for more than a year now! Something is wrong and I've no idea WHAT!"

The tiger that should be....isn't....

 

[SilentShadowDreamer]

Cybil frowned, reaching out again. At the last minute, she changed her mind and dropped her hand again. "Okay, okay. Whoa. Hang on a second. So you've been seeing someone else besides me? Who?" She paused, sighed. "Never mind, stupid question. Okay, listen."

Leaning back, she checked the time. Carmen seemed quite content to be lazing at the front desk rather than in the back, where there wasn't much of anything anyway. Just a threadbare old couch and a dying coffeemaker.

She waved, catching the woman's attention, and mouthed, Gotta go. Cover for me? When Carmen nodded, Cybil sighed in relief, hooked her arm through Miranda's, and led her towards the parking lot. Once there, she let her go but kept walking. Her apartment was very close by, and Cybil would rather talk crazy there than here.

"I really don't appreciate that woman enough," she decided aloud. "Now, Miranda, since by a lucky crossing of stars you happened to catch me when I had a friendly assistant willing to finish off my shift for me, we're going to go to my apartment. You're going to tell me everything you know, and I'm going to tell you everything I know. Then between us, we'll try to figure out what's going on. Sound good?"  

[Lucky_Tiger]

The tiger that shouldn't be....is....

Miranda started to resist as Cybil dragged her, then relaxed. This was what she wanted after all - Information. She sighed and followed after the blonde. She listened quietly as the girl spoke, a flash of irritation running through her at the commanding way it was phrased. The raven haired girl didn't like being told what to do. But this was what she wanted, no, needed to know. "Sounds good." She agreed quietly, not letting her minor irritation show. "How far is your apartment?"

The tiger that should be....isn't....

 

[SilentShadowDreamer]

Cybil caught the second of resistance, glanced back, and laughed. "Sorry," she said easily, letting go of the flash of resentment on her own behalf - the girl was intruding in her life, wanting and needing answers, and then was resistant to getting them? What was this? "Sometimes I forget that I'm not yelling at the waitresses in the restaurant. Half of them wander around like bewildered chickens if you don't instruct them constantly."

She paused by the door of a run-down, seedy-looking building. "It's in here. You coming?" That said, she disappeared into the building, walked across the lobby, and hit the buttons for the top floor. If Miranda wanted to come, she'd come.

In the meantime, however, Cybil casually fished for her key in her uniform pocket. Her frown appeared slowly and then began to deepen as she hunted. At last, with a little cry of triumph, she hauled it out. "There we go."  

[Lucky_Tiger]

The tiger that shouldn't be....is....

Miranda chuckled easily, relaxing now that she wasn't being commanded. "I've seen some of them. But unlike them, I have a brain and know how to use it." She said easily, following Cybil into the building. She raised an eyebrow at the run-down look of it, but refrained from commenting. Instead, she tapped a toe impatiently as they waited for the elevator. It seemed to take forever but she knew it was just because she was anxious to try and solve this puzzle - A puzzle in which she only held some of the pieces, not all of them.

The tiger that should be....isn't....

 

[SilentShadowDreamer]

Cybil, her back to Miranda, lifted a brow slightly. Although Miranda couldn't know it, Cybil was smiling a bit. Heard that one before. I think I'll just see for myself.

The elevator arrived with a creak and a few disturbing cracking sounds. Not seeming in the least perturbed, Cybil stepped onto the worn, ragged, slightly smelly carpeting - perhaps it had once been red, but too much use had faded it to a truly hideous pinky colour. Figuring Miranda would follow, she tapped the required buttons (some of which had gum on them and some of which seemed to stick as Cybil pressed them) and they shot upwards.

"It's not much," she said apologetically as they stepped out of the elevator and onto more once-red carpeting. Then she shushed herself. Why should she apologize? Just because she didn't have any rich folks paying her way and actually paid for herself...

Stopping at a dingy once-white door, she unlocked her apartment and stepped inside.  

[Lucky_Tiger]

The tiger that shouldn't be....is....

Miranda's dark eyes roamed over everything as she followed Cybil into the elevator, taking in everything. She shoved her hands in her jacket pockets, whistling under her breath as the elevator moved. She wasn't too sure about how well it would hold up, but it got them to the required floor without any real issue.

Hearing the apology, Miranda glanced at the blonde and raised an eyebrow. She was apologizing? She didn't need any special powers to know Cybil was an independent girl. She shrugged lightly. "Hey. It's a place to call your own. No need to apologize." She said, smiling easily.

The tiger that should be....isn't....

 

[SilentShadowDreamer]

Cybil's smile flashed quickly. "We'll see if you say the same once you've seen it," was her only reply. She gestured Miranda through the door.

The girl wasn't lying - it really wasn't much. A single room with the basics of a bed-sitting room, a tiny door that presumably led to a tiny bathroom, and a stingy little corner demarcated as the kitchen by a couple of counters, stove/oven, sink and a little fridge. The walls were the same dingy white as the door, and the carpet was a depressing off-beige. It smelled faintly of old marijuana.

But someone had clearly tried to make it comfortable, if not homelike, and since there was no indication that anyone else lived here, that someone had to be Cybil. There were curtains made of some silvery material on the single window (which was open), the bed was made, and the room was clean.

"You can have the chair," said Cybil, nodding at the old armchair upholstered in a faded green velvet - probably a flea-market special. She herself plopped on the sagging bed, which let out a little groan under her weight. "I don't know what I have in the fridge, but you're welcome to raid it if you want."

Those preliminaries over, she leaned forward, elbows on her knees. "So. Let's talk."  

[Lucky_Tiger]

The tiger that shouldn't be....is....

Miranda sat in the chair, leaning back in it. "I'm not hungry." She murmured, politely declining. For being in such a run down and, well, crappy place, the apartment actually wasn't bad. It was probably better than it's neighbors.

Cybil's last words drew the raven haired girl out of her musing thoughts. She sighed and pulled her feet up onto the chair, watching Cybil for any signs that she shouldn't. Sitting crosslegged, she tapped on hand on her knee. "Alright. I'm a scryer." She said bluntly. "I can see various events that are happening right now. I think I'm starting to get a hold of the way to see the past but that's shaky and unreliable." She frowned to herself, displeased with her lack of real progress there. "Usually I can only see people I know distinctly. Otherwise, they're just faceless blurs."

Here she paused and took a deep breath before continuing. "But I can see two strangers with perfect clarity. You, daring, stubborn, and proud. And one other. A boy. He seems upset, sad, alone, frustrated. I'm not sure. But something's bothering him. And every time I think about it, I get a bad feeling about it."

The tiger that should be....isn't....

 

[SilentShadowDreamer]

Cybil frowned, and reached over to the tiny little square table that seemed to double as a nightstand. From the single drawer, she pulled out a notebook and a sharp-edged pencil. Within the drawer, if Miranda's eye was sharp enough, she might catch the gleam of metal. It belonged to a gun.

Cybil kept a revolver in the drawer of her nightstand.

"So you see the present and a little bit of the past," she murmured, jotting notes while she spoke. "Mostly you see people you know. And you've been seeing me and some boy a lot. Okay. That's cool." She kept writing while she continued. "So I guess we can assume there's some reason that you're seeing a lot of me. Maybe we're supposed to work together or something. Or...you say you get feelings when you see people? What kind of feelings do you get when you see me?"

She chuckled. "Maybe we're actually supposed to be bitter enemies or something. Who knows, could happen."

Sitting up, her tone became more serious. "Okay. As far as that goes, it's great. That means we're pretty well covered - I see the future. I suppose it's technically called clairvoyancy, but I think that only applies if it's any good to you. My visions come on me totally without warning, they're usually pretty horrific, and more than once I've come away bruised and bleeding from a vision - it's so violent mentally that it affects me physically. They're not at all reliable - they tend to be fragments, things that could happen, but not necessarily that will. Mostly they're a pain in the arse."

With a tired little smile, she asked, "Anything else you can think of?"  

[Lucky_Tiger]

The tiger that shouldn't be....is....

Miranda didn't notice the gun, her eyes focused on something that wasn't there. She was trying to remember all the images of Cybil she'd seen over the past year. "There's sometimes feelings. Feelings of the general crowd, or the person that the vision is focused on." She said distantly. "With you...." She trailed off, searching the visions.

She was silent for several long moments, then spoke again. "You're difficult to understand." She said with a frown. "It's like you want me to find you but at the same time you don't. You want to handle this on your own but you know you need help." She fell silent again, then shook her head. "I don't know. Maybe I'm crazy. I can't get a clear reading on you. Maybe it's your own powers that block me because I've never had this much trouble with anyone else."

She let her gaze roam around the room, thinking. "I don't really know. I can't exactly compare you to anyone else I know." She said with a chuckle. Her laughter died off suddenly and she tensed up as she caught sight of the window. The sunlight reflecting off the glass made it crystal clear - a perfect scrying tool she found as an unbidden image rose to cover the glass.

The tiger that should be....isn't....

 

[SilentShadowDreamer]

Cybil didn't seem too perturbed by this description of her, actually chuckling at one point. "You're not the first one who's said that, so I doubt you're crazy, if that helps," she offered, tucking back her long hair. She wasn't sure if that would really be at all comforting, but hey. It was something to say, and Cybil loathed being left speechless.

When she saw Miranda tensing up, she cursed and reached into the drawer again. She clicked the safety off the gun as she demanded, "What is it? If it's that bloody Peeping Tom of a neighbour again..."

She spun around, taking aim at the window.

But there was nothing there.

Perplexed, she lowered the gun a little and glanced back at Miranda. Then it clicked. A scryer who couldn't always control what she saw.

Setting the gun aside, she went to get some water. If Miranda was anything like her, she'd come back to herself very thirsty - and most likely with a killer headache.  

[Lucky_Tiger]

The tiger that shouldn't be....is....

Miranda didn't even notice Cybil and the gun. All she could see was the vision that covered the glass. She remained tensed for several long moments, eyes wide and staring at the window.

When the vision released her, she suddenly collapsed back against the chair, shaking. She closed her eyes, rubbing her head. "Oh man.....I hate those ones......." She muttered. For her, there were two kinds of visions - Ones she called and ones that just popped up. It was the second kind that cause trouble for her because they could and did come any time, anywhere.

Remembering that she wasn't at her own place, she opened her eyes and sat up properly. "Cybil?" She called, looking around. The girl wasn't where she'd been when Miranda last saw her. 'I hope I didn't scare her. Stupid things strike whenever they want to.'

The tiger that should be....isn't....