Serpent In the Garden

===> COH <===> 12/23/2019, 8:19:40 PM <===
Botanica Luz Divina - Courtyard(#4056RU)

	La Botanica Luz Divina's open air courtyard seems at once both impossibly large for the small footprint it occupies, and incredibly small for the sheer amount of plants, altars, statuary, benches and tables, and flea market atmosphere that it contains! Large tarps secured from poles obscure the various goings-on from overhead surveillance.

	It's clear that the Botanica's courtyard serves as a unique site for the performance of religious culture, creating a highly visible cultural gathering place in the public sphere. A wrought iron fence separates the courtyard from the alley, secured with various locks. In the northeast corner is a structure that resembles a shed, but looks a little more well-put together than might be typical of such a thing.

	*** PLACES AVAILABLE ***


	(This room needs a Wraith desc. @mail building staff if you want to provide one.)

Contents:
Angel

	*** Nightzone ***

Obvious Exits:
  Botanica <Bo>

	Pablo is out back, in the "Sabbat and Friends" portion of his sanctum sanctorum. He's watering and dealing with the plants in advance of the impromptu "garden party" he had invited Angel too.


	...Garden party. Angel wasn't sure what to expect, whether that was a euphemism for something or if Pablo was going to be having tea with a bunch of old women. Honestly he thinks the guy might have a grimy window on reality sometimes. So when he shows up... he brought a bag of tortilla chips and some spicy salsa. Just in case.

	Pablo has finished putting /fresh/ doilies out on an intricately metalworked table. Then he sets out a pot of manzanilla tea, and some cups. The wraiths that omnipresently accompany him nod and murmur approvingly. Then they nudge at him when Angel arrives. Pablo looks over a shoulder and waves Angel over. "I have a sacrifice ready, if you want refreshment."

	"It's not a dog or something, is it?" Angel says, before he holds out the chips. "I made the salsa myself. Maman Brigitte, she likes it." He says, before he looks at the doilies, and then says "I'm... not prepare for a church social," He admits.

	Pabs pulls out a chair for Angel, "Cold iron ok with you? And no. Not a dog. A narco."

	Angel sits, and then says, "Well, I prefer my food while it's still alive," He admits, "But if you've already killed it, a fresh hot heart is a delicacy I enjoy every now and again." He murmurs, "I have nothing against cold iron, no." He seems somewhat mystified by the whole thing. His shadow is scratching its head.

	Pablo shakes his head, then indicates the shed. "Help yourself. Mind the altar and let whatever you don't finish run its course down the channel." He then looks to the chairs, and takes a seat. "Some of the magical types, the cold iron is not good for them."

	Angel lets out a noncommittal grunt about the fear of mystic metals, and he gets up , and opens the shed with one hand. His shadow turns its head, watching curiously.

	Pablo pours out a cup of tea for himself in the meantime. Inside the shed? Its big. Bigger than it OUGHT to be, somehow. simple sacrificial altar, in the old style, pre-columbian, etc, etc etc. Some poor narco has been stripped and strung up, a knife with an obsidian blade set down next to a basalt bowl.

	Angel looks up, and looks down, and then he sighs. "No, no, this is no good at all." He says. He uses the knife and cuts the guy's bonds -- but once he gets to his feet Angel meets his gaze and his pupils contract like a snake's. He keeps his gaze steady, as he picks up the knife in one hand, and then cuts his throat with a practiced slice, all the way to the windpipe. Then he cuts up and under the ribs, through the diaphragm, and pulls out his heart. He drains that dry, as the rest of the guy's blood is offered up to gods that aren't his.

	Pablo sips manzanilla tea at the table from a handleless cup, doing his best Baby Yoda impression while waiting for his guest to come back from refreshments. He's impossibly curious, but gives Angel his privacy. He can always backscry later if he wanted. Or something.

	Angel politely shuts the shed behind him, after cleaning himself up, and walks back out. He always has a flushed and vibrant complexion, it's just that now he seems a little less lean and hungry. He says, simply, "Thank you." Then he returns to his seat, and shakes his hair back behind his shoulders.

	A nod from Pablo. "Mi casa es su casa. Or garden, at any rate. Thank you for whatever was left for the gods. Good mojo, I'll make sure to share some with you when it arrives."

"I left most of it for them." Angel says, "You shouldn't make a pig of yourself at the Saints' table." Then he studies Pablo, and his eyes narrow. "Why am I here?"
"Is there some greater scheme afoot here?" He adds, "Is this a date? If so, it's one of the more awkward dates I've been on... but not the most awkward."

	"Well, not to talk out of school, but the troops say you make the /best/ salsa." Pabs opens the chips and then has at it, tasting it on his tongue, seeking out the balance between flavor and heat.

	"And there's always a greater scheme afoot, but I'm not always aware of it. The gods, they are fickle that way, and I am merely their humble servant here on the Earth," he adds.

	It's pretty good. Though it's not really salsa per say, it's more of a picalilly, pickled vegetables, carrots, onions, tomatoes. More salty than sweet, with lots of herbs, and very, very spicy. "In Haiti we'd call it 'Piklis'," He says, "Pickled vegetables." It's not bad, considering it was prepared by someone not capable of the physical act of eating.
	"So you invited me here to eat my pickled vegetables."

	Pabs offers a slow, broad smile, and nods. "Mostly, yes. Also, to look after you. See how your morale was progressing. That sort of thing."

	Angel shrugs. "I want to be adored. I want people to lust after me, to crave my affection, my approval, and the benefits that both of those things bring. I had it, it was taken from me, and I can't even get my revenge. I suppose, upon reflection, I'm as upset about that as I am about anything else. If I am robbed, restitution is my right. I'm owed a pound of flesh." But he shrugs, once. "To look after me. I'm not that important."

	"Every one of the members of the parish is important. More to the point? I find you interesting, so therefore de facto, you are /especially/ important. And the pickles, you make them sing." He heaps more of the spicy relish concoction onto chips and eats with gusto.

	Angel says, "I used to steal it when I was a child. I never forgot the taste, although I don't miss food, per say. That sort of regret is meaningless when so much more is at my fingertips." Then Angel rests his chin in his hand and his eyebrows shoot up. "I desperately wanted to kill you." He says. "I was eaten alive by jealousy. Still am."

	Pablo nods. "Death is an inevitability. Unfortunately, I am not alive, at least not in any traditional sense of the word, so I'm sure you'd end up unsatisfied and disappointed. But if going through the motions would make you feel better? You may have at it, so long as the proper offering is made to my gods."

	Angel considers that, and then he looks up at Pablo, and his eyes contract again, becoming those slitted, serpentine pupils. He meets Pablo's gaze. It really is very, very hard to look away, they're fathomless. What secrets do they hold, those blue snake's eyes--?

	"Serpents are cool, but feathered serpents? They're the bee's knees, man. The bee's. Knees." Pablo knocks back the last of the tea in his dainty teacup. The set, it belonged to his grandmother.

	Pablo stares back intently. His own eyes? They're not snake-like. Not. At. All. No, instead? They favor a /cat's/ eyes. The mark of the jaguar god to which Pabs serves as priest.

Angel remains sitting where he is, for a time, his gaze affixed on Pablo's. Finally, he gets up, and puts his hands on his shoulders. "I don't want to kill you anymore, nonm ti kras." Then he leans in, and bites his bottom lip, just enough to get a taste of his blood, before he kisses him. It's not sensual, just... hard. Something taken. He pulls back, sharply, and his pupils expand back to normal, the spell broken. He wipes his mouth with the back of one hand. "I just want to come out on top now and again. ¿Sabes lo que quiero decir?"

	Pablo blinks, once, twice, thrice - then offers up a small shrug. "What is on top, ends up back on the bottom. Its cyclical, that whole thing. Mostly, it's how you ride the wheel that matters."

	"Does nothing touch you?" Angel asks, impressed. "There's riding the wheel, and then there's being ground into the mud under the wheel. Or at least feeling like it." He drops back into his seat.

	Pablo takes a breath, and then holds it, in contemplation of Angel's line of inquiry. After a moment? An exhalation, slow and steady. "The short answer is yes. The longer one is why I have taken up with Ms. Socorro and the rest of the parish. If anyone must be the mud beneath the wheel, I'm ready to hold place."

	Angel says, "A little bit of history - I forget if I told you - the followers of Set, the originators of our lineage, came to our dominions and demanded we abandon everything - culture, religion, history - and return to the orthodox worship of their dead god. It wasn't a request, it was a demand... and the alternative was extermination. But death is preferable to slavery. The hypocrisy of a clan of self-proclaimed rebels calling a rebellion against them heresy was lost on them. We turned to the Sabbat to survive. It needed us, and we needed it, and our commitment to it is total, if it can be steered back to its proper course of preventing the end of the world." He folds his arms across his chest. "So what do you WANT. We're all about want. It's our weapon. We find it, use it, exploit it. But you seem... untouchable, and that bothers me all the way down into my blood. If we're going to be on an even footing, I need to know what you *want*."

	Eyebrows arch high in ... surprise? Delight? Its difficult to tell how Pabs is reacting to Angel's candor. "I want my father back, you son of a bitch," he spits out, jaguar claws growing on his inky Oblivion stained fingertips even as an obsidian knife drops down from beneath the table into one waiting hand. Then he pauses, shaking his head. "I mean, well, yes, but it's not quite as it seems." The knife is brought forth onto the table, which he uses to cut an orange for a snack.
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	Angel says, "Well, unfortunately, that's not in my power to provide. I've killed a few fathers in my day, though probably not yours. And spree-killing makes a hunter lazy. I kill when I need to, and only occasionally for pleasure, lest I dull my wits." He studies that knife, and says, "It seems like you're certifiable. But that's not a crime in and of itself. Elaborate."

	"The sun, he is gone. For now, at least." But then Pablo jerks his head towards the shed from which ANgel took his earlier snack. "But thanks to the sacrifice, shared as it may have been, He will be back tomorrow morning." A shrug, "It might seem like it'd get pedestrian after the umpeenth time, but. It doesn't. Hasn't. Not yet. Not for me."

	Angel muses. "You really think your human sacrifices make the sun rise." He says. "Have you ever missed the sacrifice? What happened?" He asks, before he muses, "Magic's as much a science as an act of spirituality, after all. You want the sun to rise. That's an inconvenience to me, but you can't have everything. All right. What else? Money? Power? Food? Sex? Revenge? You seem like you want revenge."

	Pablo narrows his eyes as he considers Angel. "Actually, I've been In the revenge business for so long, now that it's over I don't know what to do with the rest of my life." A pause, "And since I'm effectively undying," he shrugs. "Like I said, Ms Socorro and the parish fill the gap in the meantime. You too."

	Angel muses, "What people fail to understand is that the core of my religion is service. As a Serviteur, I fulfill the needs of my community, whatever they be, be it a doctor, sorcerer, lawkeeper. In a society where the traditional purveyors of those things could never be relied upon if they were there at all, we fill the gap." He says. "So I can see you have a need. That helps me somewhat." He taps his finger against the table, and then says, "What precisely is it you WANT from me. It's a little bit like being played with by a cat."

	Pabs makes to pour out more tea, but the teapot, it is empty. A sigh as he rises from his chair. "I need to run some errands. But it was delightful having you over. Thank you for the relish. I'll use the last of it on a sandwich. By which I mean, a hot dog."

===> Log ended by user <===> 12/23/2019, 10:45:20 PM <===