2025-12-01: Tartarus Report
- Log: Tartarus Report
- Cast: Isabeau Fontaine, Eveline Deschamps
- Where: Fleur de Lis
- OOC Date: 2025-12-01
- IC Date: Sun Aug 19 2012
- Summary: Isabeau reports into Eve with her findings on Tartarus, which, of course, she's been climbing up alone. Eve gets a little more insight into Isabeau's life before she found Laurent... and Isabeau leaves before she can be caught laughing at Eve's mom jokes.
<Pose Tracker> Eveline Deschamps has posed.
It is Sunday morning, and Fleur de Lis has just opened for business. Unfortunately, people haven't actually *filtered in* this early, so business is very very slow and most of the employees are off doing whatever employees do when they dont have customers.
For her part, Eve is *not* behind the bar, because it's empty in this rare moment. She's at the far corner of the room, glancing over the whole of the space, focusing intently, like she's placing things in her mind. Perhaps she's interior decorating?
She has a notebook in her hands, and occasionally takes some notes on it with a fine pen, worn and loved.
"...no, that won't do at all."
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
Just then... the door opens!
"It's me, Eve," Isabeau calls out, helpfully, so she doesn't feel the need to teleport behind the bar, which she just kind of assumes she's capable of doing.
She's wearing a lovely baby-blue blouse with puffy sleeves, and a pair of jean shorts which are just a little bit flagrantly short, like, she's gotta push boundaries somewhere. (There is no place where Isabeau is not pushing a boundary.) She's got a bag over one shoulder, and tennis shoes which are going to get a workout at some point today when she gets in her eight hours of tennis practice which she is still insisting she does over Summer unlike SOME LAZY KANAES SHE COULD MENTION!
She makes her way over to her, digging a notebook of her own out of her bag. "You wanted that report on Tartarus, right?" She asks, as she hands it over. "Here's what I got."
Inside is a pretty detailed account of the first eleven floors of Tartarus, featuring Isabeau's sassy comments, with such gems as: 'why is the school full of cubes', 'glowy statues are full of treats and you can convince them to share through VIOLENCE', 'this tanky beetle can eat a dick', 'for some reason the glove is full of prizes???', 'some of these teleporters are one way and i'm not making that mistake twice', 'I HATE BIRDS', and 'evil wheel guy weak to tornados gg no re'.
Of course, she went out there alone.
Again.
<Pose Tracker> Eveline Deschamps has posed.
Eve luckily does not have to reveal her super secret, super real, super not-a-joke powers of teleportation, because Isabeau calls out to her!
"Isabeau," Eve greets, dressed in her own usual bar clothes of a white dress shirt and dark vest, very nice and proper, and fairly androgynous as well.
As the girl approaches with her notebook, Eve turns to take a look, scanning through it with rapid intake of information.
The intel's good, if... clearly teenage-written. Eve consider sit silently, before nodding, even as she has no idea what 'gg no re' means.
"Good work. Eleven floors is impressive, especially without other Hunters." A pause. "You mentioned 'treats' and 'prizes'. What did you gather?"
If Eve is going to warn her for going off alone, it's certainly not going to be immediate. Especially when it *is* praise-worthy to have pulled it off, even if it's incredibly reckless.
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
"Yeah, it is!" Isabeau smiles, brightly. "I could've gone further, buuuut I didn't really wanna find out what happens if the Dark Hour ends while you're in that tower..."
Which, implicitly, means it took her a lot longer to climb those eleven floors than a group might have taken.
"And I got this stuff!" She pulls out a series of objects, narrating them as she goes, "this crystal, this lantern, this top bit of a fence, this gemstone," it's malachite, she just doesn't know the name off-hand, "and I think this is an amethyst?" Which means she's at least identified that gemstone correctly, "... this I-Don't-Know-What," it's a Patra Gem, "and the weird gold hand dropped this coin, so I think it's valuable, even though it's super rusty?" It's a Worldy Coin, and it is.
<Pose Tracker> Eveline Deschamps has posed.
"Good thought. I've heard rumors about it. You may be able to cover more ground with one of us there as well," Eve notes, lightly broaching it.
As the STUFF is pulled out, however, Eve scans (and recognizes) each of it. "Malachite, a Patra Gem... I can see Vivienne using some of these to good effect." The coin, however, catches her eye.
"Very nice find, Isabeau. That's called a Worldly Coin. I know a supernatural appraiser who could buy this off you, though it could also make a good statement piece."
After all, Isabeau's already rich. She doesn't NEED fancy coin money.
"Why don't you sit down and drink something?" she asks, gesturing towards the bar with her notebook. "I assume you have training today, and we both know hydration is important."
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
"I guess so... but you all have important things to do, and I don't want to ask Ruzica," Isabeau's brow crinkles. "So it's better if I take care of it on my own! Right? Besides, I told you I'd pull my weight!!" She's always been very insistent that she's not a burden.
"I'll get it to Vivienne, then," Isabeau nods, before she examines the coin, tilting her head. "A Worldly Coin, huh? It certainly looks like it's been around the world..." Maybe it could be a statement piece, but she will probably end up selling it. Just because Laurent is rich doesn't mean she doesn't like earning her own money, too.
But then -- hydration! "I do," she nods. "Everyone else in the club is lazy, but I'm willing to put the work in. What are they all so busy with, anyway? It's Summer! Homework doesn't take that long!"
And so, she heads to the bar, to acquire -- drink!! Just water, she doesn't know when someone might walk in that door...
<Pose Tracker> Eveline Deschamps has posed.
Eve considers Isabeau's response. Unfortunately, she's correct - they ARE busy people, and... the Ruzica-Isabeau rivalry is something she can't untangle herself. So the only option is in fact to acquiesce, which feels bad but she's not a therapist, she's not her mother, and she doesn't have the time to fix this.
But at the least... Isabeau *is* supported. "You do pull your weight. For a young Hunter, you have talent."
Though, then comes in the remark about the club again. "They're likely hanging out with their friends or family," Eve muses, as she steps behind the bar. She pours them both a glass of water, handing it over.
"How are you handling this so far?" Eve asks, and takes a second before piercing the layer to explain. "Things have changed quite steadily for you in such a short time. This life is far from an easy one."
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
There are things Isabeau could say, about her fear of a girl who hasn't aged a day in eleven years; they are certainly not things she's liable to say unprompted.
Or even prompted, in most cases.
She is not afraid; she is aggressive.
And she'll crush anything until that's true.
But Isabeau requires neither therapy nor mothering; from Eve, she requests neither. Indeed, she is quite proud, as she insists: "Of course I have talent! I'm a Fontaine, you know!" As if it runs in bloodlines.
"Hmph," Isabeau sniffs, turning up her nose as Eve points out that her clubmates have loved ones. "They eat dinner together, don't they? If they're demanding so much of their family's time like that, they're just being selfish." Siiiip.
"But I'm doing just fine," she smiles, to Eve. "I always knew there was more to life than what I could see! You know I met a ghost who was fully manifested a little while back? She was even talking! Like a normal teenager! It was magnificent!"
Isabeau puffs out her cheeks, though, with a scowl. "Though one of those ungrateful miscreants stole my night vision goggles," she fumes. "When I find her next, she's gonna be sorry!!"
<Pose Tracker> Eveline Deschamps has posed.
"Is that so?" Eve asks about the 'they're just being selfish' rhetorically, not having quite an answer for that. She didn't have a good relationship with her own parents, so being accessible for Yuri has always been her first priority.
But the description of a manifested ghost has her eyebrows rising just slightly. "In Sumaru, correct?" Yes, she paid attention to the INTERNET POST, Isabeau, you are not escaping adult supervision!!! Though she doesn't point out her first theory... it's not that Eve necessarily doesn't believe in ghosts.
She's been chasing one for a long time.
"Do you know what she looked like? Build, hair color, eye color? Her name, even?" Eve *is* a private investigator on the side, so she immediately hones in on trying to see if she can find this person for Isabeau.
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
"Of course! Parents have their own lives too, you know? You know, lives, dreams, hobbies, passions. And work, I guess." It's quite telling that Isabeau would list one type of other obligation before another. "If you make someone attend to you all the time, you'll just make them resentful... you should be able to stand on your own two feet."
Well. Okay, maybe she needs a therapist. She still actively doesn't want a mother, though.
She had a perfectly good mother who only sometimes forgot important things like tennis matches because she was too busy learning to hang-glide.
"Oh? Yeah!" Isabeau, who can't remember if she mentioned it or not, defaults to being delighted that Eve remembered rather than unnerved that she knows. "It was over at the Eifuji Haunted Manor!"
She taps a finger to her chin, thinking, for a moment. "She was ripped," she recalls, first off. "Like, totally gorgeous -- uh, if you're into that kind of thing." Isabeau is not particularly ashamed of liking girls and refuses to match her speed to Japan on the issue, but, like, Eve is also like forty years old or something, she doesn't wanna be weird. "She was pretty casual, like... button-down shirt, skirt, she had her hair up in a ponytail -- oh yeah, and it was pink..."
Which is a pretty good level of recall for a girl she saw once over a week ago. Let's give her a 'B' for effort and-slash-or appreciation for a dedicated gym rat.
<Pose Tracker> Eveline Deschamps has posed.
"I see," Eve replies with a nod to mask the fact she thinks this is very sad. Very... familiar, in some ways, though her mother was a much different kind of what she'd consider in some ways 'abusive'.
"Eifuji Haunted Manor..." Eve responds as part of her investigation, and then grabs her notebook again to take notes. "A young, attractive woman with a ripped physique, pink hair in a ponytail, casual look..."
Eve nods. "I'll tell you if I see her. This is the type of thing I do on the side, so it should be easy to get a name in such a case, at least."
Isabeau got her that Tartarus report after all. This is the kind of thing the Wild Hunt does for each other.
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
Isabeau doesn't think of her mother that way, anyway. But Eve's mask is very good, so she doesn't think to ask!
"Great," Isabeau smiles, to Eve. "I just wish she'd show up in the Dark Hour... then I could really make her pay!!" One thing which might(???) seem strange about Isabeau, for how mean she can be to her peers, is that she doesn't really seem to get into physical fights with them beyond the kind of wrestling one expects from kids who aren't really trying.
But if she meets someone in a Supernatural space, well, that's another thing entirely, apparently.
Isabeau is so ready to fight people with her cool spear which is also a knife you don't even know.
<Pose Tracker> Eveline Deschamps has posed.
"If she does-" Eve starts, refusing to rule it out. "-then be careful."
A pause.
"She'll be better at seeing you in the dark now."
wait was that a MOM JOKE
Eve's face doesn't even crack slightly, so it's hard to tell, but. It was probably a mom joke, which becomes clear when she continues.
"Of course, they won't work in the Dark Hour, so perhaps that's moot."
Eve then proceeds to sip at her water.
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
Isabeau beholds the mom joke.
Isabeau gulps down the rest of her water.
Isabeau stands from the bar.
"Excuse me," she says, her face a touch scrunched up, "I must be going. Thank you for the water."
Isabeau turns on her heel, opens the door to the Fleur de Lis, and closes it behind her.
And Eveline can DEFINITELY still hear the sound of Isabeau cackling behind the glass before her footsteps fade it away.