[Open] Pearl Steps Through the Rift (Grant Park)
Thirty seconds ago, Pearl had been walking through an antique shop, trying to find a pair of rings that looked old enough that she might have owned them before the United States had its little unpleasantness. Suits made of fine fabrics paired with classic jewelry spoke of old money. Everything depended on giving the right impression. Then she
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This means attending meetings at any hour of the night, because not all the business that he's involved with is entirely... legal.
Damon sees her ahead on the cement path, and he recognizes her immediately. Pearl. It could be her or it could be someone that looks exactly like her, but she has the same style, the same expressions on her face that he would expect from Pearl.
He has a list of people that he would hate to fall through the Rift, and she is not on it. It doesn't mean he's happy to see her either, but he wasn't happy to hear she'd died so...
Damon stops a small distance from her. The surprise is evident on his face. "Of all the people I expected to fall into Chicago, can't say you were on that list..."
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"I can't say I was expecting it either," says Pearl. She acts like it's nothing to take one step in an exclusive shop in New York and then end up with her shoes covered in mud in Chicago. "I suppose I'll have to find the nearest airport. Or perhaps I'll learn to drive."
She has no idea that the park is dangerous this time of night. It's Chicago. It's hardly, so she thinks, any more a hotbed of supernatural activity than any other place.
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Damon smirks at her at her reply, maintaining his distance for the moment. He is not surprised at how unflappable she seems. She always did appear to be put together in nearly any situation. Sometimes that annoyed him, because he's the complete opposite.
"It's... really not that simple. You walked through an invisible door from wherever you were to Chicago. Do you really think a plane ticket's going to clear that all up for you?" He pauses, folding his arms across his chest. "...you're not in the same universe anymore, Pearl. Everything's changed."
That's putting it lightly.
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"A different universe?" She gives him a skeptical look. Nothing is outside the realm of possibility; she's all too aware of that from things Emily Bennett has said. "How did that come to be?"
There's a certain tightness in Pearl's expression, a set to her mouth that says exactly how much it's costing her not to turn and search for Anna, to find her right now and make sure she's okay. Her daughter is a grown woman, hundreds of years old. She'll be all right until she and Pearl can find each other again.
The first thing Pearl needs is information. She just hates having to get it from Damon. She's going to owe him a favor, and, knowing him, he'll call it in at exactly the wrong time.
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"I have no idea. Apparently, there are endless amounts of other universes, and you fall through yours and wind up here. Completely by accident," he says, rolling his eyes because it's still something that annoys him.
Thankfully, he landed right on top of one of the only few people that matter to him so he didn't have to worry about what was left behind.
"Before I start delving into all the information about this place, I'm going to need your word that... we're going to play nice. I know you're stronger than me, and I'm not looking to get my eyes removed again." He's a little more in control than he was before when she met him. Damon has to be. He cares about Elena, and his brother isn't around so it all falls on him to keep her safe. "That includes the Gilberts."
Well, that's one way to introduce the fact that they're here too, but he has no doubts she'll run into them at some point and she is stronger than him so. Last he heard, she had no desire to ruin anyone else's lives. She wanted to make a home for herself in Mystic Falls before John, but considering her history with that particular family...
Damon's not taking any chances.
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If Damon is here, then Stefan Salvatore can't be far behind. They were inseparable a hundred years ago; they don't seem to have changed much in that respect. That means the Gilbert girl is here, the one that looks like Katherine. Having the Salvatore brothers on each arm is just one more thing the girl has in common with Katherine. If the Gilbert girl is here, then Jeremy Gilbert may well be here too. They were close enough.
It seems the Gilbert blood is doomed to love monsters, no matter what the cost. It stings that this generation is so much more-- Pearl would say accepting, but maybe fascinated is a better word.
Either way, she's willing to leave those two particular Gilberts in peace. She's not willing to trust that either of them will leave her in peace; her history with the Gilbert family is contentious at best.
Pearl believes in leaving her neighbors in peace, but John Gilbert is the exception to that rule. Not even her feelings for Jonathan would stay her hand if that particular descendant crossed her path again.
"Which Gilberts," she repeats, after a short pause, "and if they're willing to 'play nice' as well. I'm not going to try to be neighborly if it's going to involve another Gilbert showing up at my door with a wooden stake."
Fine. There are endless universes. She and Anna will find each other again; they always do. She has to trust that her daughter will meet her halfway. Harper can take care of himself, though she regrets his loss. The first things that Pearl need are information, allies and a home. She can always gouge Damon's eyes out again - or worse - if she catches him double-crossing her.
Trust, but be wary. It's served her well in her friendship wtih Katherine, and it will serve her well now.
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He understands her reason for not trusting them, but he also knows that Elena and Jeremy are the last people in the world who would go up to a vampire. As long as the vampire doesn't pose a threat to them, they... are sickeningly understanding and empathetic to others.
Damon doesn't understand it himself, but he knows them both well enough to know that. There's no John here to ruin anything, no Johnathan either. However, Pearl doesn't know them like he knows them so he doesn't expect her to trust them based on his word alone. Pearl has always seemed like a much, much smarter woman than that.
"Elena and Jeremy Gilbert... assuming you even know who they are yet. You see, people have a tendency to land in Chicago from different times too if you can believe that," he says, and e knows he struggled with his own belief of it, of so much of what was said to him when he fell through.
He had to see it for himself, learn it for himself.
"If any other Gilbert falls through, feel free to do with them what you want. I couldn't care less, and I'd be... deliriously happy to never see John Gilbert again."
Jeremy may have mentioned his saving Elena's life, but that doesn't mean he's a class act guy in Damon's eyes or someone that he can trust for a second to not try to get him killed.
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"I think we can agree on Elena and Jeremy," says Pearl, mustering her expression back under control. Anna would never let her hear the end of it if she did anything to hurt Jeremy. "As well as John Gilbert. Now, tell me about landing in Chicago from different times."
She's not sure she believes any of this, though she believes it's possible. She's not sure Damon believes any of this, though he acts like he does. But she's not going to let potentially useful information go. There are many things Pearl is good at. Learning the lay of the land is one of them.
Right at the moment, Pearl has a mental checklist of things that she has to do. Getting more information, and from more sources, is at the top of that list. She may even have to find the Gilbert siblings and ask them. She might even do it politely.
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"Then we have an agreement," he says, keeping his arms across his chest as he examines her. He knows better to keep her waiting, and she is much, much stronger than him.
It's not like he'll ever forget how she shoved her fingers into his eyes. It has to rank up there in the top physical pains he's received. Maybe. Damon gets hurt frequently.
"There's not much to say except apparently we can land in Chicago from different times. Last I heard of you, you'd been staked... by John Gilbert himself. Last time that we spoke, you handed me that device."
Not that he didn't end up losing it in the end regardless. She could have given it to Stefan instead, but she gave it to him.
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Hearing that, in another time, she's been staked by John Gilbert, though, that's a bit of a surprise.
"I remember handing you that device, but Anna and I left Mystic Falls with Harper." There's no way that John Gilbert should be able to kill her. Not even with a hundred Founders Council tricks up his sleeve. "John Gilbert tried to stake me. It didn't take."
She wonders if she should tell him she gave him the device because she wanted to build a home that would last more than a decade, until people noticed she wasn't aging and they had to move on. That she gave Damon the device because she thought, after Anna filled her in on what she'd missed, that he was the Salvatore to make deals with. She thinks he still might be.
Pearl hopes, above all, that she isn't misjudging him. It's not that she trusts Damon. But she has to know she can determine whom to bargain with in something resembling good faith.
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Damon has a habit of making enemies, because he's a jerk.
"...yeah, not how it happened where I'm from. Sadly," Damon says, and while there may be that slight hint of smarmy sarcasm in his voice, he mean it. He would have preferred a universe where John Gilbert didn't get to get away with half of what he did. "People can land in the windy city from alternate versions of their own universe so if everything wasn't complicated enough, Pearl. Our universes don't exactly match up."
Thankfully, he doesn't really think they need to get into all the discrepancies. He has no desire to mention that Anna also died in their universe via John Gilbert too.
It seems like unnecessary pain, and she can't get back to her daughter anyway. She can only hope that one day she might fall through into Chicago herself.
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It seems she has one person, and they've come to enough of a truce not to try to kill each other.
"I find that I'm relieved by that," says Pearl. She hears the sarcasm in Damon's voice and dismisses it. It's too obvious; it's in almost everything he says. She's more interested in what's underneath it, what she doesn't hear.
She's curious about what happened in that other universe, the one Damon is from. She's surprised to hear about other universes, especially one where she's dead, but hides it by folding her arms across her chest. "I take it from what you say that your universe's John Gilbert is still among the living?"
She's going to have to make sure that this universe doesn't have a John Gilbert, or, if it does, that he's not going to be in it much longer. If that's even possible. She's going to have to establish herself here first and find the best places to hide the bodies.
Pearl is ruthlessly practical, when it comes down to it.
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Damon cannot say the same about himself. He has a tendency to make enemies everywhere by sheer nature of being who he is. However, he has been better at it. There are people that he's been careful around, and he's aware that in this universe, he's out of his element.
There are more than werewolves to worry about when it comes to what might hurt him.
"Relieved it doesn't happen that way? Even if you end up dead?" Damon raises an eyebrow at her. Yes, the sarcasm is everywhere in his voice, in his demeanor. It's much easier that way, for him at least.
"Unfortunately," he says in answer. "He was living last I heard, but he's not here and Jeremy comes from further down the line. He said John died. ...do you want a drink?"
It seems strange to talk to her out in the open about all of this, and Damon never knows who could be listening in. He knows she doesn't trust him as he doesn't trust her, but he means to keep his word when it means an alliance between them.
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"I think I could use one," says Pearl, with a wry smile. She'll take any kind of drink: Alcohol to blunt her hunger, caffeine to warm her skin, or blood to sustain her. She's going to have to be careful with the last one until she finds out where it's safe to drink, and what blood banks she can withdraw from without consequences. "I presume you know all the good places in town?"
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Because he's a gentleman like that... except not. He does want to appeal to her being his ally as opposed to the alternative. he doesn't trust her, but he could use allies.
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OOC: Look at me, posting again! Sorry for the delay!
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