IC 1 – Day 1 – Sharktooth Bar – Florence

[Mephistophilis]

It is coming up to eleven o’clock on Saturday night and Florence Lavigne is starting to close up the Sharktooth bar. A few flickering lanterns illuminate the empty seating area. Only old Pierre Labas sits at the bar, puffing on his pipe and strumming a beaten up steel-strung guitar. His black and white potcake dog curled around his feet. Aubert, equally venerable owner of the Sharktooth, waves to Pierre and receives a perfunctory nod in return. ‘Au revoir, commère’ he says to Florence but stops beside her for a moment, leaning on the counter, listening to Pierre as he plays some kind of American blues, initially humming and then singing in English, although neither Aubert nor Florence understand the words,

• ‘You better come on in my kitchen
  Well, it's goin' to be rainin' outdoors…’

Florence stares out into the darkness, seeing only occasional weak flashes of light from the waterfront. Too far for the salty, fishy tang of the pier, the air is heavy with the smell of Dame Marie, gutters, and garbage, and donkey shit.

Her husband Fabrice would usually be here by now, on his way home from fishing, waiting as she closed up and walking her back to the house through Dame Marie’s dark streets. Fabrice has taken their fourteen year old son Pierre out for some night fishing as the school holidays have just begun. They’re trying out the new outboard motor the American George Benson has introduced to the fishermen.

She hopes her other children are behaving themselves, her sister Lusette is babysitting the little ones while she works. Of course her eldest, sixteen year old Marise, she could have looked after the younger ones, after all she refused to come and help her mother at the Sharktooth like she used to. Marise stormed off, saying she was going to Pointe Pierre to listen to music at Old Man Samuel’s shop with the other teenagers. She used to be such a lovely girl, so clever, so pretty, helpful and kind, now, well now she seems to have changed in the last few months. She was disdainful, even hostile at times. Florence worried about her, she’d even made an appointment for Marise to see their family doctor, Louis Clermont, anything that might help.

[SunlessNick]

Florence can't shake her despondent thoughts about Marise as she finishes closing, and it leaves her unwilling to return to an empty house - she decides to go to Lusette's first and collect the girls before Lusette would bring them home. She goodnight to Aubert and old Pierre before setting off.

[Mephistophilis]

'Au revoir, commère' grunts Labas and his dog gives a little whine. Aubert shouts after her 'N a we, Florence, say hi to Marise for me, tell her we miss her.'.

Florence takes a lantern and starts out into the dark streets of Dame Marie. Of course she's walked this route hundreds of times but she can't shake a slight feeling of unease that Fabrice and Pierre haven't returned yet. She always worries about them when they go fishing in the dark, even if Fabrice says the catches are better. She walks up and away from the waterfront, past the shops of the main street, dark and shuttered for the night, some with wooden doors fastened shut, others with drop-down iron fronts that look like drawbridges from movies of old England. Here and there are houses with the lamps still burning, the occasional figures silhouetted in the yellow glow, the bigger homes with verandas overlooking the street. The air is warm and sticky, and she can hear the rats scurrying in the gutter.

The deserted open-air marketplace is dark and spooky under its banana thatch roof, but Florence turns away down a side-street before reaching the marketplace and the Hounfor district behind, the poorest part of town where the local Vodou people live. Her sister Lusette is only a few doors down from her own house, the narrow streets of a less well off neighbourhood, but still respectable. The usually bright pink paint of Lusette's house is drab and unremarkable in the lantern light, but Florence still identifies it quickly from years of practice. She knocks on the front door, like her own home it is a narrow fronted wooden house, distinguishable from some of the neighbours mainly by the light streaming around the doorframe and the shuttered windows.

Opening the wooden door, the robust shape of Lusette fills the doorway, blocking the warm yellow glow from inside, she kisses Florence and invites her in. Glancing around the room she can make out Lusette's three children and her own youngest two, thirteen year old Ginny and eight year old Rosalie, the latter curled up asleep on her sister's lap. Lusette's husband Daniel sits in the corner, he looks to be asleep as well. Florence feels that pang of unease again seeing that Marise is not with them.

[SunlessNick]

Wanting to confirm it, and hoping she's wrong, Florence asks, "Is Marise here?"

[Mephistophilis]

Lusette's face shows a pang of concern, 'No sign of Marise, Sè. Maybe she met with Fabrice if she was down in Pointe Pierre?'

[SunlessNick]

"You're right, that is where she said she was going. She'll be the death of me, I swear." Florence takes a few deep breaths. "Fabrice should be home soon. Thankyou, Lusette."

She tries to pick Rosalee up without waking herr - then carry her back home, letting Ginette hold the lantern.

[Mephistophilis]

After travelling the few doors down to her own house, Rosalie sleeping in her arms, Florence unlocks the front door in the flickering light cast by Ginette's lantern. It is pitch black inside.

Like all the houses in this part of town it is a series of rooms one behind another, opening directly into each other with no separate corridor or hallway. In the living room at the front Florence lights another lantern and then carries Rosalie through to the bedroom to put her down to sleep. She then goes to the rear of the house where the kitchen is and fixes a glass of water for her and Ginette.

She takes a seat opposite the door and waits. There is a gentle knocking at the door.

[SunlessNick]

Florence gets up and opens the door, hoping against hope that it's Fabrice and Pierre, with Marise in tow.

[Mephistophilis]

Opening the front door Florence sees her husband Fabrice and their fourteen year old son Pierre. Beside them is Pierre's schoolfriend Laurent Toussaint. In the weak lamplight the three of them are bright faced and cheerful, they seem to have been having a good laugh and a joke on the way here

-----

After knocking, the front door to Fabrice's house is wrenched open surprisingly quickly. Silhouetted in the lamplight stands Florence Lavigne, she seems agitated and upset. Lying asleep on a chair behind her can be seen the thirteen year old Ginette Lavigne.

OOC,Maybe a chance to describe Florence and Laurent, or even Fabrice and Pierre if you like

[Mr. Handy]

Laurent Toussaint is a tall, gangly youth. He wears blue jeans, a white T-shirt with a leather jacket over it, and a red beret. "What is wrong, Madame Lavigne?" he asks, seeing the look on her face.

[SunlessNick]

Florence is a broad-framed woman, quite muscular, with long curled hair tied back into a rough mass - she's wearing a sleeveless green dress.

Fabrice is also broad and muscular, tall, and very handsome - he cuts his hair short. Pierre takes after his father in facial looks, but is more slightly built. While Marise is two years older, she looks enough like Pierre that they could be mistaken for twins.

"Marise isn't with you?" Florence exclaims, trying to keep her voice low enough not to wake Rosalie. "But she said she was going to Point Pierre!"

[Mr. Handy]

"Non, I thought she would be here," says Laurent. "We didn't see her there. If she had gone there directly from here, we would have passed her on the way. What time did she leave?"

[SunlessNick]

"Before I went to work... I asked her to help, and... We have to find her."

[Mr. Handy]

"Of course," says Laurent. "Where else do you think she might have gone?"

[SunlessNick]

"Old Man Samuel's, that's what she said. Where else would you go, if you weren't being there? Pierre, stay and watch the girls, we'll be back as soon as we can."

Florence bundles a shawl around herself and prepares to head out again.

[Mr. Handy]

Laurent heads out with Florence.

[Mephistophilis]

'We will be back soon Pierre' says Fabrice and he turns to walk back out into the darkness, taking the lantern with him. 'We will drop you back home on the way Laurent' he says impassively, all the previous lightness and mirth drained from his face.

The three of them, Fabrice, Florence, and Laurent head back down into the village, walking in near silence, the weight of the missing Marise hanging heavily between them. Somewhere in the night they can hear a slow beating, rhythmic but chaotic, a crazed drummer in the dark.

The moon is now out, bathing the streets with an stark silver glow that contrasts with the soft orange light of the lantern. Past the village proper they arrive back at Pointe Pierre, a natural spit of land that divides the shoreline of Dame Marie in two. To the west is the cove of Anse Douce and to the east the long stretch of sandy beach that leads, eventually, to the Azagon Hotel.

From Pointe Pierre the wooden pier juts out into the sea. Pale and knotted wooden planks with wide gaps between them mounted on pilings driven into the seabed. It glistens, wet and sharp in the moonlight. A few handmade boats are tied to the pier itself and bob on the water. Most of the traditional ceiba-tree dugouts are pulled high up on the sand, shadowy humps like the bodies of unidentifiable sea creatures beached at high tide.

There are many of the fishermen's shacks down by the shore, only a few, like Fabrice, are able to make enough to live up in the village. But the shacks are now dark and silent. The short row of wooden huts that overlook the pier, a few businesses that make their trade from the fishermen, they are all closed up now, wooden doors fastened and shutters down. Old Man Samuel’s shop is the largest of the huts. With his battery powered radio playing the latest music from the US and Cuba there are usually crowds of the local youths, desperate for something different to the traditional méringue of St Joseph. But it is shut up now like the rest.

Fabrice, Florence, and Laurent stand by the pier, looking up and down the beach. There is no one visible, even with the large bright moon. The sea is black, almost oily under the pale light.

In the background the night air is undercut by the incessant swishing of the sea against the sand, the inescapable tang of fish, ingrained in the wooden boards of the pier, the taste of salt in the air blown in from the sea.

OOC,Do you want to roll me a perception check. I'd say that is 1d6 each as it is within human capability, not a career specialism, and I'm guessing you don't want to gamble Insight on it yet this early.

[SunlessNick]

Florence knows she can't just bang on doors on the offchance the people inside know something. She casts her gaze about, trying to pick up some sign of Marise's presence.

OOC,I'm tempted to roll insight because it's my daughter and I'm desperate,but I won't. I got a 3.

[Mr. Handy]

Laurent takes a look around, but it's too dark to see much.

OOC,Perception roll (human die): 0

[Mephistophilis]

Even in the moonlight it is difficult to see much further than the sea lapping against the sand and timber pilings of Pointe Pierre.

However, both Florence and Laurent do notice something in the direction of Anse Douce cove, a faint light bobbing up and down along the shore.

Turning in the opposite direction, Florence also thinks she might see something way out down the coastline towards the Azagon. It is very hard to make out and she is not sure if there is anything there at all, but it seems like the moonlight is reflecting off something pale or white.