Note: Well Vesper's game didn't really get too far off the ground, and Eol and Meri both ended up taking some personal leave from this place but are back now. (Hold the applause) These characters have begun a new thread in the Horror selection. However I wanted to do some work on the history of my character (Ellgawen/Smoke) and figured I would post it up here instead of on the the 'Stare' thread so as not to interupt the flow of things. Feel free to read and if you have any comments PM or post on the 'Stare' Q&A for me.
Thanks,
M.

How convienent this started page 2

St. Louis – May 1912
1643 A Locust Street
Tap Tap Tap

Ding

Brrrrhhhhhpppt

Tap Tap Tap Tap

The familiar sound filtered through the morning light. Ellgawen opened one eye and peeked over at the small desk across the room. To do so her eyes had to first flit over the figure sprawled out on the bed between the chair where Elle was curled up and where Chet was at the table. The girl who dropped all her r’s in an awkward Jersey accent lay on the bed, seemingly naked save for the sheet draped over her.

Chet sat at the desk, hunched over the shiny new typewriter plucking away at the keys. Tumbler beside him full of liquid, cigarette dropping out of the corner of his mouth, his grey wrinkled fedora pushed back on his head and a pair of white cotton boxers - journalist extraordinaire.

Two leaps and Elle was across the room, a hungover groan coming form the girl when a pair of paws paused on her back on the way, and sitting next to the typewriter. Peering over the type guide at the lines of letters:

Tuesday - Missouri State Senator Thomas Kinney died in his home. Senator Kinney had been diagnosed with tuberculosis a year ago and finally succumbed to the illness. His efforts to help enforce
Today was Sunday. Elle did not need to turn around and look at Chet to know that his eyes would be slightly glazed over, not reading what his fingers typed onto the page. This is the way it was with Chet Rowls.

Most of the articles he wrote for the St. Louis Post Dispatch were real nose to the grindstone pieces. But now and then he got lucky and caught the scoop early. Early then the scoop even happened.

Elle looked back at the girl sleeping on the bed. Her short dark hair had been pulled off her forehead with a sparkling headband, which was now askew. She must be involved somehow with Kinney, perhaps through Egan and his boys. Those golden eyes (the one feature that always remained the same) narrowed and pulled away from the type guide and up to Chet’s face. Examining his blank expression she wondered if he knew about the connection before he brought her home, or if that had been pure coincidence. For his sake she hoped that it was coincidence.

She had warned him about continuing associations with the Egan boys, but Chet did not always listen to reason. Reason was often flooded out by scotch. Perhaps he hadn’t known though. Perhaps she was just a girl he had picked up at one of the lounges he liked to frequent on Saturday nights (Friday nights, Wednesday nights, any night he wasn’t working on a big story really). Perhaps he would only realize her connection to it all when he finally snapped out of his zone and found himself reading the article he just wrote.

His Gift was unique. Not in that he could see the future. Elle had met many over her lives that could do that, a few had even been her humans. No it was his ability to take the information he received and turn it into a piece of journalistic prose with no conscious thought. The years of writing, from the high school paper, up through his current job were so ingrained that it was more natural to write out the future in news style then to do it in any of the more conventional methods.

Ding

Tap Tap Tap

Brrrrhhhhhpppt

Whiskers twitching Elle watched his fingers type out the letters of his name at the bottom of the page before the paper stopped its dance and the typewriter fell silent. Chet lounged back in his chair, taking a long puff off his cigarette before stubbing it out in a blue glass dish. Rolling his head forward until the brim of the hat hid his face he seemed to sleep for a moment. A tilt of her head and Elle viewed him askew while she waited for him to pull out of his trance.

His body shivered before his hand pulled the hat off his head and the grayish eyes blinked. Glancing around at where he now sat he sighed slightly and with one hand he pulled the paper off the roller while the other seesawed Elle’s ears on her head.

“Well… what have I been up to this morning huh Elle baby?”

She said nothing until he was done reading the article.

So… who is the brunette? her tone knowing.

“Elle baby… you jealous?” He grinned at the cat easily. “You know none of these ladies comes before you. You will always be my number one lady, promise” He leaned over and kisses her nose.

Her nose wrinkles at the feel of his lips and her whiskers twitch before she pulls back and sneezes lightly. Ehhh… don’t do that. Human spit. Ehhh… And no I’m not jealous. I’m concerned Chet baby. Concerned one of these days your going to wake up and find you’ve written your own obituary instead of one of these slim balls. ‘The body dragged from the Mississippi last week has finally been identified as that of Chet Rowls, reporter for the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Rowls had been missing for over a month. Local authorities have been suspecting mob involvement in his disappearance. The identification of his body is intensifying the investigation. He is survived by his ‘best lady’ his cat Ellgawen.’
Chet laughs at that and seesaws her ears again before dragging his hand down her back. “You’re too dramatic for your own good.”

And you’re not answering my question. Who is the brunette?
He just shakes his head and stands up, folding the precognitive article in half and slipping it under the typewriter’s base. “You are jealous…” He grins and heads back to the bed where the brunette lays and crawls back under the covers with her with a light laugh.

* * *

The apartment balcony faced east, not that he could see the river from it, but it was off in that direction. He thought of the river now, that wide muddy snake that coursed down from the north, passing by this place like so many others on its way to the ocean. While he leaned against the railing of his balcony and thought of the little foamy ripples the wind stirred up in the river his cigarette burned down to his fingers.

A pang from the flame brought him back and he looked down at what was left of the cigarette and then flicked it toward the street below. His hand fished in his pocket then and pulled out a thin silver cigarette holder, flipped it open and pulled out another cigarette. He tapped the end of it on the front of the holder then stuck it in his mouth while the holder disappeared and he fished for a lighter before lighting it up and taking a long drag.

Exhaling a thin line of smoke he considered what the kitty had said Who was the brunette?
It was a good question. She had said her name was Madge, and this morning it still seemed to be Madge, or at least she had answered to it. But ‘Madge’ did not seem to have a last name. ‘Madge’ could just as easily been Colleen, or Estelle, or Phyllis, or Mary for all he knew.

But, why did it matter? He didn’t have plans to met the girl again, although if he ran into her again he wouldn’t complain. That’s the way it had been with Clara, and that hadn’t turned out so badly in the end now had it?

A smile curled around his cigarette as he remembered Clara.