You catch your breath and winter starts again, and everyone else is springbound...

[w_for_wizard]

In the alley behind the Empress Theatre, there's the loud crack of a pistol, easily mistaken for a car backfiring or something else entirely unnotable. There's no reason to be alarmed about it, either - if anyone happens to poke their head into the alley, they'll just see Harry, tucking his pistol away and moving forward to inspect a small leather

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[enoughtocut]

Cara's walking down the street, a bit happier than she's been since she first arrived. It's not exactly obvious to the outside world, as she's not the type to smile, but she's feeling less pessimistic than usual. Because her eyes are back to their normal color. After a week of black eyes, of looking into the mirror and seeing Analiese, she's herself again. She's Cara.

Okay, so being Cara means having the ability to stop time apparently, something she's completely ignoring for the moment. Part of her wants to keep reminding herself that it only happened once. Maybe it's a fluke thing. But she knows better. It's a feeling, a feeling of energy and power inside of her. That energy woke up, and it's not going anywhere. And she doesn't know how to control it, doesn't know if it's going to keep zapping the life out of her every time it happens. So, ignoring.

Cara tugs on the zipper of her jacket as a gust of wind slams into her. At that moment, she hears a gunshot. Some might be fooled, might think it's simply a car backfiring. But she knows guns. They're a big part of her job, after all. So, without thinking, she pulls the knife from her boot and turns the corner into the alley.

Things can never stay quiet, can they.

[w_for_wizard]

Harry still has the gun in his hand when he hears footsteps at the mouth of the alley, and he turns around, putting on the best innocent expression anyone could possibly manage while holding an illegal firearm.

He makes very certain he's not pointing the gun anywhere near the woman who just came around the corner.

"I guess you never listened to all the people saying you shouldn't bring a knife to a gunfight." He pauses a beat, and then adds, "Not that there's a gunfight here."

Just Harry, and a woman's trenchcoat on a trashcan. Nothing to worry about.

[enoughtocut]

"What can I say. I'm quicker than most with a knife." That, and Cara's guns had been left behind in the real world. A fact she would have to rectify soon, considering she kept getting into trouble.

She scanned the alley. No signs of a fight, of blood. No body. Just a coat on a trashcan. Still, she kept her knife raised, her senses on alert. She'd been through enough to know that not everything is what it seems. "If you're here for target practice, you might want to try somewhere less conspicuous. Or at least stand further away from the can."

[w_for_wizard]

Harry smirks a little as he tucks his pistol into its holster, moving slowly so he won't alarm her. Sure, she's still got a knife in her hand, but he's not too concerned about that - if she is going to attack him, which he doubts, he'll get a shield up before she reaches him.

And... there is no way he can explain what he was actually doing in this alley. Testing a magically shielded coat is not an explanation most people will accept, so he's just going to grin sheepishly.

"Yeah, well, the other option was target practice inside, and I have a friend who'd probably kill me if I started firing guns in her building."

[enoughtocut]

With the pistol in its holster, Cara brings her knife down at her side. She nods at his words, "Yeah, probably. Then again, an alley probably isn't the best place to be firing off a gun in this city." Especially if you are a wanderer, something she's started to learn the hard way. Luckily, her ability is a bit hard to document.

Never one to beat around the bush, she simply asks, "So what are you really doing out here with it?"

[w_for_wizard]

Harry's expression doesn't flicker for a second; he just watches her, eyebrows slightly raised, looking a little amused and entirely innocent - and not even the usual patently false innocence he'll put on for Murphy sometimes.

"Target practice," he says, like that was the most obvious thing in the world. It's also a lie, but he pulls it off pretty well, if you assume he's a total moron. He's generally okay with people thinking that about him - in the long run, that usually works out in his favor.

[enoughtocut]

Cara doesn't think the man's a total moron. Quite the opposite, actually. Which is why she doesn't say anything to what they both know is a complete lie. She just surveys the scene again. It's so odd. What is he doing with a gun that requires a woman's coat and a trashcan? And why does he feel like he has to hide it?

She walks further into the alley. "Nice coat. Doesn't quite look your size, though," she deadpans. And there's weight behind the words. A weight that says 'I know there's more to this than you're letting on', but in the simplest of ways.

[w_for_wizard]

Harry smirks a little and shrugs. "I borrowed it from a friend. Figured she wouldn't miss it."

He gets the feeling, though, that she's not exactly going to drop this - he recognizes that tone, and if she's going to push it... Someone who advertises himself as a wizard in the phonebook isn't terribly invested in keeping secrets.

"It's shielded," he admits finally, nodding to the coat. "I was just... testing it."

[enoughtocut]

Cara isn't going to drop it. Not because she's normally the pushy type, but because she doesn't feel right just walking away after a gun's gone off in an alley for an unknown reason. She is already responsible for the deaths of so many people. So many innocent people that she had to watch Analiese slaughter while she was trapped in her own body, in her own mind, silently screaming...

In short, she prefers not to add to the body count.

She raises her eyebrows at his statement, "Shielded." She's more open to the idea than most. After all, the world she's come to accept her place in isn't exactly normal, with its shapeshifters, witches, demons, vampires, etc. Still, she's not from the set of Harry Potter, so she's going to need a bit more than that. "From bullets? ....How?"

[w_for_wizard]

"Magic," Harry replies glibly. Not immediately calling bullshit gives her a few points in her favor, from Harry's perspective. He steps past her to pick up the coat, inspecting it carefully for a hole - or any damage at all, for that matter. The trash can's a little dented underneath the coat, but the garment itself looks fine.

He glances up at her after a moment, and smirks a little. "Is there some other kind of shielding you were expecting?"

[enoughtocut]

Cara shakes her head, "Not really. Expecting can only get you so far." Because you can't expect that which you don't know, which you don't understand. She's learned that the hard way. Better to move forward with what knowledge you do have, and to be open to the fact that something completely new can come along at any minute and smack you upside the head.

"So your friend who owns the coat, does she get shot at a lot?" She pauses before adding, "...And you have the ability to do magic...what does that make you?"

[w_for_wizard]

"It happens," Harry answers, without much explanation. He'll share about his own life, sure, but he's not bringing Murphy into it too much if he can help it - she's got enemies here, after all.

And to be fair, while Murphy comes into the line of fire more often than most, anyone who's a friend of his tends to end up shot at or otherwise attacked sooner or later. He tries not to think too hard about that.

"And that would make me a wizard. Harry Dresden. Nice to meet you."

[enoughtocut]

Cara nods, "So I've heard. Chicago's gotten a lot more violent since I was last there." Her old world. She had been working in Chicago before everything happened with Analiese. It all seems so simple now. Like a fairytale. Yeah, she had been living in a shitty apartment with shitty neighbors and the shitty CTA trains that never ran the way they were supposed to. But she had a great job. And she was surrounded by her family. Makes this place even more of a sick joke than it already is. Like it's mocking her, constantly reminding her that she's never going to have anything like that ever again.

A smaller nod now, more of a greeting, "Cara." She thinks about what he said for a moment before echoing, "A wizard." Apparently her inner Harry Potter jokes weren't that far off. "Is that one of the 'gifts' that the city gave you, or were you born one?"

[w_for_wizard]

"Then I'd like to know what Chicago you're from, because I think you must've won the Chicago lottery before you ended up here." Yeah, Harry's Chicago was about on the same level as this one when it came to violence, insanity, and weird supernatural shit. And for all of that... he still misses it.

Harry grins a little at the question. He'd been thinking she was probably a wanderer, and while that question doesn't confirm it, it makes it seem a whole lot likelier. "That's an old thing. If I got anything new and shiny on the way in, I haven't found it yet."

[enoughtocut]

The smallest of smiles comes over Cara's face---more of a smirk, really, "...No, you're right. Chicago's Chicago. It's always had its levels of violence. It was just a...different time in my life. I didn't really notice it then." She hadn't known about the supernatural world, hadn't known about all of the creatures that really do exist outside of people's nightmares.

Cara had also been thinking that Harry was a wanderer, and he has just confirmed it, "New and shiny. One way to put it." She pauses, "So..as a wizard...what sort of abilities do you have? ...The ability to stop time?"

[w_for_wizard]

Harry's smile might gain just a little sympathetic edge at that. He knows all too well how people can remain oblivious to the sorts of things that go on in a city like this, even when it's right in front of their face. Sometimes he wishes he could share in that obliviousness, and whatever snapped this girl out of her ignorance... Well, it's never pleasant, is it?

He quirks an eyebrow at her next question, looking a little bemused. "Not so much. Tracking down lost things, protection charms, some evocation..." He pauses a moment, and then asks carefully, "Is that what you've been doing, then?"

Harry really doesn't approve of this thing with the Rift giving people superpowers. With several hundred people with untrained magical abilities running around this city, many of them dangerous in one way or another, it's a wonder they haven't all killed each other, or burned the city down around them all accidentally.