Kali
The Ravnos smiles and nods to Ted, letting him head off. "I'm sure we'll run into each other later."
She watches him leave, then mutters something quietly under her breath about "fucking shilmulos" before heading back to the floor. Yeah, she's keeping an eye out for sure now.
Nobody
Hudson doesn't return just then, as if at the closing of one scene, the opening of another. His timing isn't that impeccable. He's working, after all, after a fashion; give it some time. Half-an-hour, perhaps a little more, perhaps-a-little-less, and some of his crowd are feeling the pull, the pall of need-to-sleep, exhaustion and alcohol and living too hot, and the group breaks up just a little bit. Not everybody goes home; some do, though; some, only after a brief, fervent conversation on one of the other levels, maybe nearer the bar.
But this is the after. This is when Hudson returns. Or, no, 'returns' -- that's something with more glory to it than Hudson [who is a Jack] deserves right now. He snoops back to the dance-floor, looking specifically for one of two.
Where oh where can they be, that Ravnos-gal, and bonnie Bo? Together, still? Where-oh-where?
Kali
Bo has headed off on her own by this point, and Kali is at least moderately comfortable with that fact. Of course, she couched it in not being worried at all, but the truth is different and she's not particularly in the best of moods. She hides it fairly well but the way that she's watching the people on the dance floor, there's just something a bit more predatory than usual in her gaze. The animal in her soul fought for a bit of cache.
Watching the dance floor like the hunter she is, she notices Hudson show back up and she grins a bit. She doesn't approach, just raises her hand a little to wave to the other. She's back in her spot on the edge of the floor, leaning against that pillar she was at when the bouncer told her to put her cigarette out.
Nobody
[Let's try some old-fashioned empathy.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Kali
Her stance is a lot more tense than she's letting on; Kali knows how to stand so that she can hide such things but she isn't quite pulling it off as well as she usually does. She's rocking lightly back and forth on her feet with a bit too much energy and those movements are a bit out of synch with the way a living, breathing person moves. (She's also not remembering to breath.) She's frustrated and her hands subtly clench and unclench like a series of purposeful motions to force her mind to relax a bit. She also looks just a touch paranoid by the way her eyes float across the crowd regularly.
Nobody
He is, in some respects, far colder than he seems, our Nobody's Jack. But in other respects, he is warm or still remembers the capacity for it, has not yet let it go, and his kindness is usually sincere. So many Nosferatu become more humane as their bodies pare away into monstrousness, as the Curse-on-their-Blood transfigures them more and more, as if Jeanne-Marie le Prince de Beaumont's cabinet des fées tale of beastliness given as a punishment lifted once a lesson was learned had become a gruesome reality, without a hopeful end in sight.
Kali is at that pillar; he'd glimpsed her there, after she'd left him.
Kali is at that pillar, and she lifts her hand.
He takes her in; takes the new tension to her stance, the new paranoid light in her roaming eye; the hands.
And, of course, This Face smiles at her when she lifts a hand in a wave. This Face, a bland and unremarkable face, if not intrinsically forgettable, because nobody's really forgettable, are they? This chorus-face he's wearing, well, the smile is slight, could be a trick of shadow-and-light-and-music. He doesn't cross directly; he skirts one corner of the dance floor, then weaves around a crowd there, and then gets lost in another crowd, and then skulk-by-skulk, lurk-by-lurk, makes his way over to her pillar.
"Hi, again," he says. "You still look hot, but a rather more dangerous hot. What put the edge on it?"
Kali
The Rroma woman looks over when Jack approaches, watching him come up. There's nothing warning or standoffish in her demeanor or expression--or at least nothing more than was already there, and none of that was specifically directed at him. She looks back to the dance floor to watch the people move, sway, twist, grind to the beat. There's something tribal in the relentless, rhythmic pound of club music, even when it's completely electronic and synthetic. That tribal beat hits at people's cores, taking them back to a more primal place on instinct. That's probably not a good thing for Kindred.
"Hey there, Hudson Hawk." The pop culture addition to the name he wears tonight is perhaps a purposeful indicator that, while she's a bit under durress, she's still in control. More maybe it's just her nature. Either way, there it is. "Have a good dance-off with your friends?"
He asks where the knife edge of her attitude came from. She grins when he says she looks 'dangerous hot.' "Oh Homie G...you are so good at getting on my good side." The tone is far from ungrateful. She falls silent a moment, thinking about her answer. She looks like she's trying to come up with a way that doesn't make it sound silly...because let's be honest, The other vampire was talking to the human I've already picked out sounds like the undead version of dating drama on a high school-set TV show. It means she's quiet for a moment as she mulls over the question, then just shrugs non-chalantly.
"You ever lost it all before? I mean like, everything you had and knew."
Nobody
He rubs his hands together when she tosses-off that specific pop culture reference. There are a couple of dark scars, knicks, on This Face's hands, as if This Face worked in trade, did something dangerous, maybe welded. The fingers are short, too, and the hands almost feminine, the nails just a little too low. Appreciative, perhaps, because it's very possible (in fact, probable) that Kali just hit upon the name's origin, or at least an influence. He usually just goes by Jack, whatever the face. Because Jack's a common name. Every grinning pumpkin come October's named Jack.
Oh, Homie G. You are so good at getting on my good side. This Face does a Bill Crosby flick of one eyebrow, and says -- and he's a honey-tongued devil, Jack, right? A courteous gallant who will provide: "This is where I say that I can't imagine you having a bad side, isn't it." He smiles; it touches his face, though This Face's eyes seem almost sleepy. "But I'd just be a darned fool. Then 'gain, I'd never claim to be anything but a fool." Tiny, tiny sliver of a pause, and then, reflective: "So any 'bad' side you've got, I bet it's just as good as," and a gesture, and a very humanly suggestive lift of the other eyebrow.See, he filled her silence, all milk-and-honey and ease. But he saw that it was there, so he treats her question like the kind of question it is. The chosen words.
"Yes," says he, quite simply. And then: "Three times. Though it's felt like it more times than that. Have you?"
Kali
The Ravnos chuckles, shaking her head when Jack suggests her bad side is just as good as. Again it's flattery and she recognizes it as such, but she still warms to it. It eases her, just a touch at least, and she takes a breath. Relaxes her hands. She's not fine and dandy again, but it helped a little. And she's grateful for it, though she doesn't overtly express such.
"You're a good guy, Hud. Gonna hate it if we ever end up on the opposite side of anything." It's not that she necessarily expects to, and it's certainly not a threat. She's just reflecting while in a dark mood.
He says three times, and she smiles a bit. Most people wouldn't admit to such, in her experience... especially in their world. It's weakness to admit you've lost before, and weakness is death when you're swimming with the metaphorical sharks of the vampire world. Those that do are usually doing so to project a false weakness. She doesn't know which it is, and she doesn't give any indications that she's suspect on his accounting. She doesn't trust other Kindred--largely because she's not an idiot--but sometimes she's willing to take things on faith because, as much as they would fight and struggle against each other for decades and longer, Kindred were social creatures by nature. And distrusting everything all the time just set you up for being very unsuccessful in social ventures.
"Yeah. Four times, myself. One before my metaphysical upgrade, so to speak, and then three after." She leaves it at that...for now anyway. "You know what it's like, then. I had someone tell me once, after number three, that I could either not value anything, or choose what to value and not let them go. I chose the latter. And..." She shrugs. "I don't deal well when I have to compete for things I've already begun to stake a claim on."
A pause, as she realizes that there's a missing detail that might make this all clear. "Oh. Yeah. Mr. Casanova's part of the club. In an overall sense, at least. Don't know what specific club though."
Nobody
You're a good guy, Hud. Gonna hate if we ever end up on the opposite side of anything:
That startles a soft laugh from him.
And then our Jack-of-the-Underground just listens. Kali says four times; he doesn't seem to doubt her, any more than she seemed to doubt him. In fact, he nods, a certain understanding in his eyes, an incline of his head when she says once before the metaphysical upgrade. Kali speaks of losing everything, everything you knew, everything you had, as a Before-and-After thing, but maybe later she'll think that Jack -- Jack counts that metaphysical upgrade as one of three. The Nosferatu don't have the luxury of blending in; of a slow bow-out of their own life (though really, how many Kindred really get that option? Though really: how many couldn't try to take it?).
He seems very interested in this glimpse into how Kali thinks. "I'm not," he begins to say, but then: Mr. Cassanova's part of the club. This earns her a blank stare for a second, until she elucidates: Don't know what specific club. Because they're in a club. They're in a club talking about a man who was inside the club. Understanding clicks into place.
He says, "Ah. Interesting. Did you get any sense of which family line?" Beat. Then: "But hmm. I might ask you whether anything's worth competing for, but what you've begun to stake a claim on; but then I'm afraid I'd sound like your advisor, and I'm not certain what I think about that advice. Every time I've lost everything, I've found something new afterward, because there always is something, isn't there; and I would not give away my memories of having without good cause. They are important to me."
He shifts in place, weight from one leg to the next. Says, with a quick grin, "I agree, by the way. Let's not end up on opposite sides."
Kali
"Well, as long as we're in agreement on that." She says it wryly, but with good humor. They aren't always in control of what sides they end up on and she's sure they both know it. The point is to try to stay on the same side. A noble, if tricky, task.
Nobility isn't normally Kali's thing, but she's always up for new experiences.
"No idea the lineage. I didn't actually talk to him for long enough to guess; he excused himself pretty quickly. I'm moderately sure he caught onto me too. He made it very clear that he wasn't backing off though, in the usual polite terms."
She scowls, though it's brief before it melts away. "That may force me to change my timetable. But it'll be fine. Worst comes to worst, I can always find out where he lives and get creative." She says the last part in that 'might be joking, might not' way.
"And you have a point as to what's worth competing for. I could care less about transient things. If I had included every time I shut down an operation and moved cities, I'd be in the dozens at least. Some things are personal though." A pause, as she hesitates whether to admit this. "I don't like things getting personal."
And just like that she's latched onto the latter part of that statement. "I would agree with you in some respects on the memories thing. Maybe once, anyway. Generally though, I didn't start over with something new. It was nothing, or worse than nothing. Those memories, I'm perfectly willing to consign to the scrap heap."
Nobody
Kali's wry good-humor reflects in what that quick grin left behind.
But then! But then: This Face looks less than pleased at the idea of another vampire gunning for Bo. He'd been invested enough to tell Kali -- or imply, at least -- that he did not want her eaten. Even if he wasn't invested enough in trying to claim her, squabbling over that blood-rich Mayfly-thing as if she were a particularly delectable dessert. Or maybe it's the mention of a 'timetable' that catches his imagination, and makes it lift its head. There's certainly an inquiring cant to his head, but almost all of Jack's attitudes are inquiring one way or another, aren't they? They are.
The bulk of his attention is on the more philosophical conversation they've started having.
She admits she doesn't like things getting personal. "It can make trouble more difficult to navigate," he says, quietly; "those rocky patches trickier to ford, though never impossible."
He is an optimist is our Jack. And then this next is said with genuine interest. All his interest has been genuine, but there's something star-in-the-dark about this particular interest, something more musing or wondering:
"Fair enough. But didn't you take anything from those nothing or worse than nothing times? Even if the anything you took was nothing more than surer knowledge of what you're capable of."
"That you can," and he nods to her, gracious, see, "become somebody with something again."
He pauses. Then, "You wanna get outta here?"
Kali
She looks like she's about to respond in automatic fashion to his question, the inquiry about whether she took anything at all from those times. But she stops herself, and actually considers. It's a long moment and she goes preternaturally still, internalizing her thought process fully. There's only her eyes, pupils flicking left to right as she thinks back and reflects. The pause hits a point where it might become uncomfortable for mortals, and then it's gone with a light shrug.
"Maybe one of those times. I'll conceivably grant you that. The others..."
She shakes her head, then looks over at him suddenly and smiles. She's managed to banish the frustration completely; the predator is subsumed, and she's more or less the Kali that she usually is. Confident, a little snarky, wearing that smile of amusement like a favorite old T-Shirt from the time you saw your favorite band in concert and remember nothing but the good times.
"My dear Hudson, that sounds like a line." She gives a wide grin, eyes sparkling with amusement at the joke. But she also nods. "Yeah. I think I've had enough of the masses for one night."
No comments:
Post a Comment