14189/By the burning embers of a dumpster fire...

By the burning embers of a dumpster fire...
Date of Scene:	13 March 2022
Location:	Central Park, Manhattan
Synopsis:	A fleeting meeting in the green of NYC
Cast of Characters:	Askante, Willow Rosenberg

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Askante has posed:
Not everyone that lives in the boundaries of the big apple fell on their feet. In fact, there's many a cat who is on their last life, eking out an existence on the fringes of society. Strangely though, such people see a lot, have little, but share what they have quite readily. Perhaps it's strength in numbers, perhaps it is something else entirely that binds the communities of homeless and fringe groups together.

In a less travelled area of Central park, there are barrel fires, where men and women hunker to keep warm in March weather, where the Hudson is cruel with the ambient temperatures. Here also, is a little ramshackle shanty that could arguably be called the 'night market' -- some in the gutter do a brisk trade in the things nobody else would have to sell, oddnesses and slightly stranger elements that mean precisely nothing and absolutely everything depending on the clientelle. Need some eyelashes harvested from a dead man? You can buy it here. Need a token of hopes and dreams? That can be found too. The weirder aspects of the magical world, or a bunch of junk. It's all a matter of perspective.

Hunkered in the awning of a lean-to made up of a tarp stretched between broken goalposts from street hockey, ASkante crouches on its haunches. Its heavy leather duster from an era long gone by but still dreamed of, hangs around its lean frame like a caul, stetson on its head hiding features that some that can see, just aren't really appreciative of. Mind, for a Sunnydale alumni, its face is probably a breeze and a sneeze compared with others. It appears to be sharing a tin of beans and half a hotdog with another individual, whilst also sharing that vittle with a large wharf rat, perched on its shoulder.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Now..

Willow she should be afraid .. if she was a normal, everyday, average human. She wasn't. After all her ..sorta?.. best friend was The Slayer. Capitals included! So sometimes she forgot to be careful.

Okay. She was a witch besides. Ahem.

This night (it's almost night when she wanders; again The Slayer! Who ever saw a vampire out in the day? No one, that's who!) she wanders in the seedier side of the park. And because she IS who she is, some things aren't the way that they are supposed to seem.

Willow stops and stares with a frown.

Askante has posed:
WHen one walks in the lighter side of things more than the dark, not often seen in the dregs, this must be quite the sight. "Here miss, need a hanged man's hand?" "What about this, a lovely ring o' broken hearts? Cursed it is!" "Get ya salvage here! What can I do ya for miss? Half a chinese take-out? Maybe a day old burrito? Trade fair for fair..." and so on and so on.

As to Askante, the half semi-circle of precisely balanced tail that helps it prop itself is definitely odd. As are the four arms that rest on its elbows and thighs, idly fishing a string out to play cat's cradle with itself, now that the rat is fed. In and out the long digits weave, pulling formation after formation one into another, upon digits that contain one extra knuckle than is normal. It glances up, black eyes in a black scaled face, shadowed as it is. "Nothing to see here. You want over there. There are things over there. Shiny things."

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
That's.. weird.

Willow was so caught up, that she forgot her manner. Which is to say she stared. A lot. Trying to figure out what Askante really was. And even more so, she didn't hide the fact that she saw him. Snakeskin and leather and tail besides. Well, it looked like like snakeskin and leather..

"Huh?" Willow could have sworn he talked with her. "Nothing to see here?"

Askante has posed:
Snakeskin and tail are definitely part of the critter. The leather, seems to be just that. A duster, old and hard worn and likely an antique. If she's seen any wild west photographs of men that stood stiff and posed for a camera that took minutes upon minutes to take the photograph, it has the same ring to it and a degree of authenticity. And the authentic of strange points a single hand at the ground. "Here. This spot. Nothing to see." The string of the cat's cradle is abruptly left to dangle, folding two arms against itself, as if to hide them, the tail whipping back and slithering behind, so it's hidden from the naked eye by the lean-to it hunkers within. "Unless you're looking for me, in which case you found me. But I doubt you are. So it's probably safe to say all the fun things are over there." It points, helpfully.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Willow cocks her head to one side: was she looking for him. Her? It?

Sure he (for she had decided upon he) said that she probably wasn't looking for him. Which made her want to meet him even more!

"No, " she lied. "I was looking for you." And then she smiles.

Askante has posed:
Two eyelids cross black eyes. One from the side, one from above, blink blink! It tilts its head to the side, left, then right, then straight on, with its jaw twisted to protract its perspective. It leans forth, a slow thing that brings that scaley face closer and closer. Then with a flourish and abruptness, it spills its stetson off it's head and pops it on one of the goalposts of its lean-to shelter. Plonk!

Shuffling forward like a skeksis, it stands up once free of the awning, up, up, up a bit more. Aaaaaaaaaaand s'more until seven foot of creature, with that duster a'hanging, is looking down on Willow. "Great!!" It grins. "Did you inherit the knowing? Are you the daughter of a Kaballah, or some other great magician?"

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Siiiighs..

"No. My parents are Jews. I'm more a pagan - unless you mean Jewish the race. I'm that." Willow continues though. "The Kabbalah is actually more useful than people really know. I mean people who follow it have a bastardized sense of what it means. I guess that they can't really follow it without a teacher. And goodness gracious they are hard to find!"

Askante has posed:
"Really? Oh, that's such a shame. They had it almost right," Askante moves out of the awning, then apparently accutely aware of how much it towers over the average human, it hunkers down onto its haunches again. There's a gaze, long and steady at her, in all her jewishness. "So you lied to me. Or you have a funny way of walking around the talk." It plunges two hands in pockets, extracts one and plunges into a different pocket, finding what it wants in the form of haribo gummis. The packet, opened, is proffered. "Kosher. I checked. Always good to check these things, there's an awful lot of bad juju that can follow lapses in judgement. I never really understood why it applied to food though. Yahweh was never big on food laws. That was all the scribes that wrote it down. If you are starving, you eat. Not eating if you can, is a kind of suicide, also bad. So, if you need, do. If you do not need, be devout." It jiggles the gummis in offering.

Askante has posed:
"Yes? Maybe. It has this..." it points at the symbol and the words confirming kosher status. If the gelatin comes from anything, it's not from an animal source. Fish are a totally different kettle of... ah... fish. But it didn't lie, and a sucker is extracted on a long fingernail, popped to the corner of its lips to suck on. That image is something that will be hard to forget in a rush.

Seven foot and small change. Yes. Big.

But then all crouched again. "No. Not human. Never been human. You don't know do you?" It tsks, shaking its head. "See me and all of that, say you are looking for me... Lies, all lies." It snorts a bit, glances up at her and with a reach and flick, knocks off its stetson from the goalpost, catching it and returning it to its head, pinning the backward arching spines in place. "Kaballah calls us dybuk. Not right. That is what is earthbound human spirit. Can go very wrong, when there is no body. Greecians had it better, hindu, also. This one is Daemon."

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
5'5' standing in her shoes! (She needed every quarter of a inch she could get!)

Finally Willow stood up (figuratively). "Thanks. Though I shouldn't accept candy from strangers!" She snaked out her hand and took a few. "Good thing I don't listen to everything I'm told. Maybe we'll meet up again some day."

And with that, she's off.