Mother always told me to never give away a story for free

[tieflingtarot]

"Honestly, all this bare chest and he hits home right in the fabric..."

Did the demonic looking purple stranger look at all put out by the new locale? Not really, they'd been given a pamphlet that was currently tucked into their belt to be reviewed later. Their attention more focused on the bloody hole in their rather ostentatious coat, lips quirking on a frown as they fingered the damaged fabric lightly, tail twitching behind them in a clear hint of their annoyance.

Really, they're looking rather calm for someone that bloody. When they hear someone coming near they glance up with a jingle of jewelry both in skin and decorating their curved horns, red eyes brightening as their mouth spreads to a cheerfully hopeful smile.

"Well then!" They straighten, something of a showmanship in the shift from grumpy contemplation to sunny disposition but at the same time that shift didn't seem dishonest either. "Hello there darling, please tell me there's some manner of tailor to be found here? As you can likely see I'm in dire need of one."

Clearly this was some manner of weird afterlife, but Mollymauk would be dipped in Fuck No if anyone expected them to wander around with their coat in tatters.

Comments

[tieflingtarot]

"A blessing in this case." Molly replied, glad to hear that he was doing better than he had been. Not as quick as a potion was, but he hadn't had to pay for it so he'd take what he could get in that respect.

"Do you now? Well darling, you show me yours and I'll show you mine~" She was a mother with kits and a queen beside, but that wasn't going to stop him being himself, though he made the come on a bit more exaggerated, with a theatrical raise of brows to let it stay in the more joking side of things than anything.

[valiska]

"I'll hold you to that." Valiska laughed softly and lifted the long flowing sleeve of her gown to show him the roses trailing up over her arms--they were marks of her marriages to Stanford and Severin, and they controlled the rose gates around Courinna.

"These for one," she says. "When Stanford and I put the final banishment on Bill, we put the roses on to ensure that we wouldn't be separated--we were not born in the same dimension. And now the roses connect all the family homes across several dimensions, and our other consort wears them too."

She lifts the hem of her skirt to show that there are runes and symbols on her lower legs. Which are not shaped like those of a human--her foot is longer and semi-digitigrade and her lower leg slightly shorter. She wears heeled sandals, because completely flat shoes would be very uncomfortable. "Those are cursebreakers' marks. I was a cursebreaker in my youth, so I'm covered in wards. Breaking curses and voiding unequal bargains and contracts leaves you vulnerable if you don't have wards to keep all of the things you piss off outside of your body. Some of the strongest marks are over my womb, and were put there to make sure that the souls of my kits were their own."

She is not from a culture of modesty; she just doesn't like to be stared at by people who are not used to seeing an illustrated lady. But neither will she disrobe in the street, so that's all he will see.

"Anyhow, I'm curious...why do you have so many eyes that light up when I look at the different energy layers? I'm glad that they are red and not yellow, but my family is cautious of eyes, particularly within triangles."

[tieflingtarot]

Mollymauk was technically from a modest culture. He just didn't care about nonsense like that, whistling lowly though it was more for the ink she was showing off than anything. "You win in utility hands down. None of mine are nearly as useful."

He didn't mind shucking his jacket though, or the shirt he wore to show his own tattoos in kind. "The eyes? No clue! Got the rest to make em less obvious, picked the designs I liked most."

[valiska]

Valiska's appreciative, till she sees the one on his back and makes a strangled noise. "Why are you wearing the mark of Bill Cipher?"

[tieflingtarot]

Molly pauses at that, brows furrowed as he peers over a shoulder at her, utterly blank. "Who the what now?"

[valiska]

"The eye in the centre of the golden triangle. I know that there are multiple cultures that use the symbol of an eye in a triangle. But it's even yellow, and you have all those eyes..." Valiska worries her lower lip under her fangs.

"It's the likeness of a demon that would like to destroy the human side of my family. I met my first consort because he came to me asking for help getting it out of his life."

[tieflingtarot]

"Well if it makes you feel any better the eyes came way first and I'm pretty sure I picked the pyramid color because I couldn't afford the literal gold ink," Gold ink is possible for his world but Expensive, as sad as it made Molly. "I was however incredibly high when I got that one so take that as you will."

"Can't say I've heard of that particular troublemaker though. What kind of self-respecting demon calls themselves Bill anyways?"

[valiska]

"The kind of demon who tore holes in the walls between at least twenty universes," Valiska says quietly. "Bill Cipher has a funny name, and a funny voice. But people died and went blind because the Alternian sunlight spilled into Gravity Falls. Displaced people died on the streets of La Cyr because our atmosphere was poisonous to them. And even after we closed the rips in the sky there were plagues, because animals and people who move between worlds without meaning to are sometimes carrying sicknesses, and there are plants that take over whole forests and farmlands because nothing in their new world will eat them or kill them. We were fortunate that my second-consort came from a world where they already knew what to do about thorny-crown virus, and I'll be happy if I never see another kireseth flower for the rest of my life."

She shrugs. "I'd feel better if I knew where the eyes actually came from."

[tieflingtarot]

"Ah. The shitty kind of demon." Molly mumbled with a sympathetic grimace. Not bothering with the soft apologies and expected empathetic responses he knew she'd likely heard a million times before, that had likely become more annoying than anything else. He was sorry to hear what had happened, but there was no point in dwelling on old pains in this case as far as he saw it.

"Well I'd love to be able to reassure you, but unfortunately that seems too big a deal to come up with some comforting lie about to make you feel better," He admitted with a faint shrug as he slid his shirt back on, shaking it past his horns. "No clue where they came from. All I know is that they don't take ink and they're magic."

[valiska]

"Which is not reassuring in the least," Valiska said, with a weirdly cheerful smile, "but I'll take comfort in knowing that you've never heard of Bill, and also that I ...probably would have seen something when I looked at you with the lenses. But if you see me with my dear husband--either of them, though there's only one of them with me now in the Nexus--kindly do keep your shirt on, it won't be good for his sanity otherwise."

[tieflingtarot]

"For you and the comfort of your beloved husbands, I will endeavor to keep my shirt on around you all." Molly assured her, his smile soft and genuine. "And am comforted myself that the eyes seem if ominous looking, not especially alarming with your lenses there. Some manner of detect magic enchantment I'm assuming?"

[valiska]

"Oh dear, if Ford hears you say that he's going to ask if you know Probabilitor the Annoying, and if you say no, he's going to launch into how much he hates the use of the word 'magic' as a catch-all for everything but sleight-of-hand, to 'I know that happened but I don't understand how', to demonic influence, to any of a thousand different disciplines with different rules." Valiska chuckles.

"If you know about magical disciplines, you know that people make use of many kinds of energy to produce the effects. Each of the lenses blocks out different forms of energy so that when I look at you, I can determine which kinds of energy are active and what patterns they form. And I'm not seeing the patterns I'm familiar with when Bill is involved."

[At least I'm assuming she isn't. Feel free to correct me, but since your character is not from Gravity Falls or a related universe, I'm assuming there's a very good chance he has not encountered Bill Cipher or any of the other second-dimension triangular demiurges. If I'm wrong PM me and we'll work out what this post should say instead!]

[tieflingtarot]

"Magic is magic, no matter the school where I'm from," Molly responds with a casual shrug and a sparkling smile. "But I was talking more about it being specifically enchanted with detect magic which doesn't seem to be the case near as your explanation tells me."

No second dimensional energies here with this tiefling though. Odd energies, lingering magics smeared over the scars dotting his arms, chest, and throat, along the scimitar he wore sheathed, all different from the strange red eyes that dotted his body. But nothing like what she was worrying about. "If Caleb were here he'd be able to give you the very intelligent theories behind all that magical academia, but I've simply got no head for that sort of thing myself. Too many books involved."

[valiska]

"My entire family are nerds," Valiska says with a grin. "Ford will be so enchanted when he meets you, as long as I make sure to assure him first that you' are, in fact, Bill-free."

[tieflingtarot]

"Oh what a coincidence, my family are a conglomeration of nerds as well. Is your darling Ford wont to look with his hands?" He smiled in a brightly amused way. "One of my collection of nerds, Fjord has a tendency towards that which tends to get him into all manner of mischief and I was curious to know if perhaps the similarly named shared that amusing trait."

He wondered if he'd get to see the others again. If this place was as he'd vaguely sussed out then they didn't have to die to get here. It wasn't impossible, which comforted him somewhat.

[valiska]

Valiska laughed out loud. "Ford looks with his eyes, ears, hands and everything else when it comes to actual science, and he hasn't got a fucking whit of sense about it either. But he will ask before using his hands with a sapient, and despite the fact that he wrote a book about the dos and don'ts of interspecies sex, he has to be encouraged to ask. We're polyfidelitous now, but even though he led a very interesting life before he met me, it took me months to get him to look at me with his hands, even after I dropped my dress on the floor to 'show him the wards' on my back."

She grins. "It's possible they're alternate universe versions of one another, which would be very funny, wouldn't it?"

[F**k DW notifications and their habit of NOT SHOWING UP. My apologies!]