Catrina’s Saturday morning odd encounter(Preston)
Date: 2025-06-21 05:41
(Catrina’s Saturday morning odd encounter(Preston):Preston)
[Sat Jun 21 2025]
On Rosewood Avenue/span
It is dawn/span, about 66F(18C) degrees, and there are clear skies. The mist is heaviest At Birch and Prospect/span
(Your target and their allies are charged with tracking down a supernatural criminal on the run from the factions, what they do with them then is up to the players to decide.
)
Catrina has just stepped out of her house, moving to her bike and in the middle of checking her phone for any reports of interest.
Preston looks to be in a weird state of mind, taking an early morning jog, or a late night one – depending on one’s perspective of the matter. It might explain why he’s shirtless, but it doesn’t explain the fact he’s wearing combat boots, and baggy pants. Stopping just in front of Catrina’s bike, the man nods to her. “Morning, Catrina.”
Phone lowering, Catrina lifts her eyes to Preston’s face, and by the time she’s completed the motion, her ‘morning face’ (something that rather plainly implies ‘This is a time of abject misery as I am no longer in bed’) has been replaced by a beaming smile. “Good morning Preston! How are you? Enjoy the party last night?” Her phone slips away into a pocket with a quick motion, and she folds her hands on the seat of the bike. Which might involve a little reaching due to her height.
It seems like he’s taken a long jog, travesing his way through New Haven, and only just stopping when he sees that friendly face. “I’m alright,” Preston admits to Catrina, pulling to a complete stop now – not even jogging in place. Breathing out just a tad heavily, he’s not a machine, nor does he seem to be dead, he does need to breathe. “Yeah, the Drag Show was fun, and the masquerade party was good.” A sly smile creeps into his lips, “I won the Drag Show.”
Somewhere off in the distance, there’s a sound of feet slamming against the pavement – it sounds like there’s two people with the same idea tonight. Thundering down the sidewalk, a different figure sprints his way towards Catrina and Preston both, face coming into view – he looks rough, unshowered, and slightly beaten up. There’s some dirt on his clothes, and his jeans and sweater are ripped in places. As he sprints, he looks behind him – and unfortunately looses his footing, stumbling forward and landing on his back, right next to Catrina and Preston both – eyes wild and spooked.
“Oh? What did you—” Catrina’s question is cut off by the man thudding into the ground beside them. She jumps, stepping away from the dirty looking stranger, not that most days she looks much better, but nevertheless. Her hand goes immediately to the medallion around her neck, and, for a moment prismatic lights flicker around it before her hand drops.
Looking down at the stranger, Catrina tentatively reaches out a shoe.
Poke.
Right in the side. “Err… sir? Do you… mind explaining why… that’s to say…” She looks to Preston for help before just blurting “Who the hell are you and what were you running from?”
The man reacts to the the poke like he’s just been stabbed. Flinching violently, almost trying to scramble away from Catrina, panting heavily. “No-nobody!” He exclaims, moving to sit up, and turning his head behind himself, fast. It’s a surprise he didn’t get whiplash. “Seriously, nobody! Just.. going for a jog, yeah..”
Preston glances to Catrina as she blurts out her questions. “Yeah,” he says, nodding towards her in confirmation. “That’s not how you jog.” Preston would know, he was just in the middle of one. A hand shifts, moving to a pocket of his pants – in a bit of a threatening manner. “You’re also interrupting a nice conversation between two friends, and I think that’s rather rude.”
Catrina’s head turns to follow the man’s gaze. Her own hand moves right back to her medallion. “Quite frankly, Mister… whats your name again?”
She holds up a finger, shaking her head. “Nevermind. The point is, that looked a lot like fleeing. And, as you’ve interrupted our perfectly pleasant morning conversation…” She smiles sweetly down at the stranger. “I think you owe us a few things. For one. You’ll be answering our questions, won’t you? For two…” And now that smile turns so sickly sweet it might as well be poison. “I think I’ll be taking something for the trouble. But that’s for a later conversation. Now!” She claps her hands together, smiling brightly like they’re all just the best of friends. (And giving a quick glance to the movement of Preston’s hand towards an assumed weapon, along with a slight dip of the chin in a nod.) “I’ll ask again. What were you running from? And this time, please don’t try to lie… Its really rather embarrassing for you, and annoying for us.”
The man scrambles back on his heiny, trying to decide who’s the bigger threat, Catrina or Preston, or whatever he was.. jogging away from! Yup. Caught between a rock and hard place. It’s Catrina though who’s doing most of the talking, and the man settles on her now, still slowly scrambling away. “I um..” he inhales, and then exhales a little bit. “I was running from the Hand.” It might be a lie, it might not be, it’s hard to say unless someone is digging around in his brain. Maybe he’s noticed the symbols and is just lying but got distracted. “You see.. I well, stole something?” Rummaging around in his pocket, he dumps some things out of it. It’s not stone cold cash, and it doesn’t seem to be anything ancient or special. It looks like jewels, and jewelery. Rubies, diamonds, and some rather fancy dancy looking gold jewellery.
Preston bends now, squatting near the man. “You stole from the Hand?” Preston asks, incredulous, like he can’t believe what he’s hearing from him. Eyes dip upwards to Catrina and he gives her a bit of a look that seems to say ‘are you hearing this shit?’. “Why would you do something like that?” It’s a very serious question from Preston, leveling it entirely at the man – eyes darting back to him, practically boring into his soul.
Catrina’s brow has started a slow tick upward, and the fact that she’s holding in laughter is evident as she crouches to scoop up some of the loot. “I’d ask you why you’d stolen from The Hand, but honestly, if your enough of a fool to run past ‘my’ house in particular trying to escape, then…” She shakes her head. “I expect if I were to contact some of our operatives they’d tell me they were chasing you, and about to arrive, yes?” Her head cocks to one side, the motion a bit too avian for comfort. Lifting the handful of jewelry into the air, she lets it catch in the light. “Any of this look familiar to you…” A pause, and a grin tugs at her lips. “Keeper Blackwell?” Now she’s just really trying to make the stranger squirm, on the chance he ‘did’ steal from The Hand. And if he didn’t? Well, that’s still enough of a threat to be very, very clear.
Preston stands from his little squat, keeping half an eye on the man to inspect the loot that Catrina has.. well looted off the fear-stricken man. “You know, Cat,” he begins, “I can’t say, with one hundred percent certainty, that I recognize it.” Lifting a finger though, he turns now back to the man. “But then again, I’m not much in the way of a jeweler.” Walking straight over to the man, Preston presses a boot down, right onto his ankle, slipping a knife from his pocket at the same time – pointing it tip directly at him. “You sure you stole this from the Hand?” Preston asks, pressing that boot right onto his ankle.
As that boot comes down, the man squirms just a bit – gritting his teeth in pain, and the knife has eyes staring directly right at it. “I.. maybe! I don’t know! Please!” he begs, trying to pull back and slip away. “I was with my guys.. we had a whole thing planned. I.. I don’t know where it was from! I promise!” Eyes are wild, darting back and forth between Catrina, Preston and the knife. “They just handed me that and told me to take off. I was waiting outside, I was the lookout! The alarm got triggered. It-it wasn’t supposed to get trigged!”
Catrina clasps her hands in front of her, smile still firmly in place. “And the address of this heist was…?” Catrina asks, surveying the man, and stepping a little closer now that Preston has him well and truly subdued, not that he wasn’t already, but chances and all that. “Do tell, my new friend…” Catrina says, walking a slow circle around Preston and the stranger, eyes always on the latter. “How much will I have to do to get out of you all about this plan yourself and your friends had? How much to get their names? Their information? How long would it take for me to call in our people to retrieve this…” She lifts some more of the loot. “And you along with it?” Her fingernails click together lightly, and its apparent that she’s taking great pleasure in his discomfort and fear. “But I’m sure we can forget this ever happened. As soon as whoever was chasing you arrives. We can confirm your story… Or we can take you to the headquarters, and give you to some of the interrogators. Its surprising what people remember when under pressure.” And that last bit actually does seem like a genuine admiration for the improved memory of people under torture.
There’s a panic in the man now. There was before but this is worse, he’s trying to squirm out from under Preston’s boot, but unable. “Look, Miss, please,” the words are almost sobbed. “I don’t know.. I don’t know! Please, seriously.” There’s visible tears now, if anyone was to look closely at him. “I don’t know where they were! I was on the corner, just…” he waves a hand northwards. “Just… let me go, please, take all of this.” Shifting a bit, he begins to scoop the loot his way. “Please…. Please… I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I just… I just wanted money.”
Preston watches all of this with a rather unreadable expression, not saying much throughout the entire duration of the man’s pleading and begging.
It seems that whoever the man was running away from has figured it out, because a little off in the distance it looks like two Peacekeepers are making their way this way, dressed in all black, they walk down the road.
“Looks like they’re coming,” Preston points out, lifting his hand to point that direction towards the Peacekeepers.
“So. He was telling the truth about that…” Catrina muses, then, she bends down, beginning to gather up the loot. “Well done.” She says to Preston, giving him an approving nod. “Your excellent for interrogations, you know? We should turn our little thief here over to someone who is actually on duty.” She shakes her head again, looking down at the thieving stranger. “You really got unlucky today. But I’m probably to blame for that, aren’t I. I’ll be seeing you soon…” And again that sickeningly sweet smile.
Preston keeps his boot still on the man’s ankle, holding him in place the entire duration it takes for the Peacekeepers to find their way over. The two Keepers stop in front of Catrina and Preston both. “Appreciate it,” says one, voice muffled by a black face mask. “We’ll be happy to take him off your hands.” Despite the face mask, it might be easy to tell that he Keeper is smiling underneath that face mask. “We’ve got a lot to talk to you about.” A rough hand reaches down, hefting the man up. At the same time, Preston releases his ankle with his foot, letting it go. The second Keeper, who’s a lot leaner than the first, fishes into a pocket of his belt, and manhandles the little thief – forcing cuffs on him. “Come on.”
And off they march, keeping the peace as it were, but not without roughing up the thief. Shoving him violently forward.
Preston steps back, and watches them depart, turning back to Catrina with an amused smile. “I think that was mostly you,” he offers in turn, throwing the compliment right back at her. “I just held him in place, you did most of the talking.”
Laughing, Catrina steps back to her bike, lifting her phone to check the unread messages there, and adding back “Well, its easier to get answers when there’s a shirtless guy with muscles for days standing on the person’s ankle with a knife. Don’t you think? Enjoy your jog!” And the last bit is accompanied by a little wave, as she braces herself there, content to remain on the street for now.
And off Preston jogs again, waving to Catrina before making his way off into the morning. The shirtless, knife-wielding freak he is.