On Federal there is a Chinese restaurant that doesn't have any English words on the sign, but people who know it know it's Lucky Ming's Dumpling Shop, though that's not in any way a translation of the words that are written in rain-and-time-streaked yellow on the red awning stretched to tan in Denver weather over a metal skeleton. This Chinese restaurant, more of the pedestrian equivalent of a drive through, only has a counter and room to stand and eat at the high tops and the counter (it's really just a ledge) along the two walls that aren't a huge window.
You know this place. There's little surprising about it.
Other than the fact it's where Flood can be found holding the door open for Amber. Him in one of his many suits. Grey wool three piece; white shirt; blue tie ; brown brogues. His hair combed as it always is, the product of repetition and skill combined to form something as predictably uniform as a Big Mac. His styling product? That's the special sauce. None of your fucking business, that's what it is, friend.
And he holds the door open for his companion.
Why they are there?
Well, Flood picked up a newspaper, as he does every evening, and this evening he must have made it all the way to the Arts & Entertainment section, then past that to the recommendations for nights out on the town.
This is part of a preplanned evening. There is a place across the street, a bar, where there is said to be singing. Some new kind of performance, because he isn't familiar with the name. No, Flood has no idea what karaoke is, but he's always enjoyed the performances the Orientals can put on.
Amber, at some point, would have had the chance to inform him of what karaoke is. That is if he weren't keeping that next part a surprise, like tickets to the opera.
Little does he know he should've gotten tickets to the opera.
LuxLux is not at Lucky Ming's Dumpling Shop. Lux is across the street at a bar where there is said to be singing, karaoke, energy, vitality, people making jackasses of themselves, people so stiff with embarrassment and then encouragement that they're practically radiant with life and they're flushed with it and they're drunk and they're just loud and that is where Lux is. That is where Lux was: that bar, there - but Lux does not sing, enjoys singing less now that she can hear it so well, where the pitches jar, are too sharp and then too flat, like they're pieces of scrap-metal for a scrap-metal sculpture but they're not put together right it's not just tha they don't fit but they're also corroded wrong here and too shiny there and it is awful and Lux says no and Lux leaves because she's not seeing in all that radiant liveliness the glow of spirit like light bouncing off've skin that she wants and so.
So: across the street, Flood is opening the door for Amber. Lux is settling her back hard against the bar's façade, off to the side in the shadow, long-limbed creature and perilously lovely. The way she lifts her chin, insouciant, imperious, to give the street a good look over, reaches into an inner pocket of her jacket (we'll get to the clothes), and pauses because she spies a Lasombra and an Artist.
Pausing is not just a moment's cessation of movement- on the verge of doing this, now doing that- it is absolute stillness.
Followed by this: another look, up and down the street. She is already crossing it in order to say hello.
Social sharks are never still, not ever, not really; that absolute stillness was a lie.
Amber[oh Lux hey hello this isn't want it looks like!!: manip+subt]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
AmberAmber does not know what this night has in store for her. Does she ever when Flood informs her - or asks, sometimes he asks - that they are going out?
For once, either by request or by her own design (ask her and she'll tell you it was not her idea) she is not wearing paint splattered jeans and a tattered old shirt. She is not wearing boots that look older than she is. She is dressed nicely. She is dressed very nicely, in fact. Too nicely for a trip to Lucky Ming's Dumpling Shop, that's for certain. Probably too nicely for a bar where people are singing karaoke.
Maybe, though, just maybe. She is dressed nicely enough for the suited man who holds the door for her.
And the clothing? A black slip dress that falls to the middle of her muscular thighs, with sleeves that fall above her wrists, with a black lace overlay with a longer hem, longer sleeves, and a higher neckline. Most of that is hidden currently beneath a black leather bomber jacket, because you can take the girl off Colfax, but you can't take Colfax out of the girl. Her shoes are heels that make her just a hair shorter than her companion, black with a sandal pattern. Her hair is even up, see? Pulled up because she hasn't the tools (or the knowledge currently) to do anything with it and leave it down. It has been tugged up messily and falls around her face messily so that even though she's dressed in finery she has only been transformed into a wilder creature than normal.
She has no idea Flood intends to take her into a bar for karaoke night. She may hate him for it or she may respond positively. Her reactions never seem to be what Flood expects unless he has no expectations at all.
Her face is turned toward him, she knows this place, this area, this street, knows that there's a bar over there with karaoke just as she knows there's a dry cleaner's down the way a bit, a dollar store, and then the street alternates over to Mexican cuisine and shopping plazas. Her face is turned away from the street, away from Lux and that karaoke bar, doesn't shift to look across the street until it looks like...
...
Is that where they're headed? She looks in time to see a familiar figure step out from the bar. Amber's dark-lined green eyes widen and she sucks in a quick breath. Don't look at Flood. This is...she doesn't know what to pass this off as, but the last time she saw the Toreador and the Toreador asked the then-morta-again woman how she knew the man currently walking at her side, Amber shoved herself away from that part of the conversation and into different territory. She keeps his secrets, and she tries to keep them now.
"Lux," she says, sounding surprised to see her there, coming toward them across the street to say hello to them, as well.
Lux[Yo, Amber. Uh, what are you trying to pull? Perc + Emp, I guess!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
FloodFlood has only seen the Anarch a small handful of times since he again became a notable presence within the city. One of them might've been a fleeting glance through a castle ablaze, windows shattered by a car that had become a chariot of Caine's fire, before he set about hacking and slashing and continued barking orders to the dogs of war that served as his host. The other had certainly been the night she'd found him beside her nearly drained Nathan, whatever Nathan is to her, and other than that?
Ships passing there. A short conversation here. Keeping up with the sectarian gossip and continuing as acquaintances in the midst of a bloody war that only came in spurts after daggers shed their sheaths in the dark. That only came in explosions like the popping and crackling of wood in the fire.
It's all they have to keep them warm.
Except for Flood, holding that door, seems to be ushering in something else that might keep him warm. Someone else. And unlike Amber, when he is finished calculating the moment, he does not try to hide that he is with her and she is with him.
That they are together.
And instead carries the momentum and themselves along with path with a few simple words:
"Won't you join us?"
It's a request. A graciousness in his voice. After being a common criminal and before becoming a monster, Flood was a gentleman, and that is something dangerous in an altogether different way. As dangerous as the smile that comes. As dangerous as the wide open invitation he offers.
[ Manipulation + Leadership: This matters a lot. Specialty (Cult of Personality) and you know I'm dropping a WP. ]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 ) [WP]
Amber[erk! basically strike "Is that where they're headed?" it doesn't belong in my post *handwave*]
LuxLux gives Amber a sluice-of-a-look. Lux, see: her lashes dark, her gaze a pale-thing tonight, just tarnished, smoked crystal catching sea-shade. The look isn't a Look, it's just a marking, a noticing, and isn't it followed by the suggestion of a [c'mon, guys; let's all Fall, there're Pearly Gates right over there-] smile. Mouth, just quirking: you know the smile. How it'll lift up through her expression and into her eyes and settle there dredging up contained vibrance.
"'Sup you two." 'Sup: slang fucking savored. Followed by: "Dress looks good on you," and she says just like she means it. Does not say anything about Amber's sudden panicked attempt to: whatever. Does not say anything about whatever it is she assumes of Daniel Flood and Amber out together. Amber: she doesn't know how reassuring Lux finds Amber's association with Flood.
The suggestion of a smile becomes more than a suggestion: shadow-ling thing, see? Lux: she seems fond, if wary; gives the street another rake-of-a-look, but of course she is accepting Flood's invitation.
"Why, sure. What sort of night are you two fashioning?"
AmberAmber cannot help it. She knows that Lux is an acquaintance of Flood's, she knows that the two vampires are maybe not friends exactly but they're something. They're not enemies, at least. And yet.
Not everyone can keep Flood's secrets as well as Amber can, not that she's doing a very good job of it tonight. It's a pointless gesture, her attempt to pass this...them...off as something when they are clearly something. With Lux this association doesn't need to be treated as a secret, something that could be used against Daniel Flood some day.
But Lux knows, how could she not? Flood certainly isn't hiding it, and so it is with a final slight, uncertain narrowing of her eyes that Amber tries to relax and act like this is all very oridinary, them out together on a nice-ish night like this one, the air cool with the faintest scent of moisture. Maybe there'll be rain somewhere or maybe it is raining somewhere else that isn't here. Amber has her jacket to keep her warm.
And then Lux compliments the dress and Amber can't help but feel a certain sense of pride - Lux, with her great sense of style, thinks this dress looks good on me - and a feeling like she's just been caught raiding her mother's closet.
"Thanks," she says in that rasping voice of hers, stepping inisde the dumpling shop ahead of the others. Even in heels, when standing at rest Amber looks like she's braced for a physical altercation. As for what sort of night they're fashioning? Amber doesn't know.
Flood"Amber can dine on the fare," a look to her, keeping her looped into the continuing dialogue between the three of them, "and our repast can be conversation," waiting for Lux to follow Amber inside, standing there door handle in hand and held open.
"There was something in the paper where this place was mentioned. I try not to judge a book by it's cover," looking up, a final glance at the awning, and speaking even as he joins them within the foyer, which is also the dining area and also the counter and also where you can grab a soda from a standing refrigerator with a window for a front door.
Their are inhabitants other than the waitstaff and the cooks barking back and forth behind the counter. There are the results of a stunning review in the newspaper. People milling about and talking about how delicious the dumplings are, eating them out of Styrofoam containers that are open mouth gaping like oysters and offering up their content. Drunks who came across from the karaoke spot to soak up their liquid courage before it can be converted into bad decisions...
Though eaten might've been a bad decision for that one girl that slipped out after they came in, a friend following to hold her hair back.
"They say they're excellent," and Flood walks up to the counter to order, for some reason, a single serving.
He's ordering for her.
He must be because... Well, both of them know why. And then he glances over. "Did you want anything to drink?"
LuxSpeaking of style. Portrait of an Anarch Toreador in Federal with Lasombra-blooded things.
Her hair's a gloom-loved thing, per usual: parted on the side, tucked behind her left ear, falling all-reckless in waves like some sort've messy femme fatale on the right side. Her jacket's black and silver, square-shoulders, rakishly unbuttoned, asymmetrical: a band-jacket or a military jacket. Beneath that, more black; jeans that're white-washed, that're ghost-faded, fraying, and down around the calf looks like somebody or somebodies have written or drawn on the jeans because they have. Her boots are ankle-high, zip-up, heels: the heels are thick, layered in silver stars and circles and hard-as-nails metal. She's got a bag, but it's more've a purse: square and hard, easy to open, boringly full of mysterious purse things, hangs low enough to bump the curve of her hip: so sweet.
Lux is not good at low profile. That is not what she was made for or as.
In they go! Lux drifts toward a conveniently bare patch of counter-that-people-are-eating-at for to place her back against and rest her elbows on, 'cause after all Flood and Amber, they've got to take care of the ordering business. It all seems very temporary: this being inside thing.
Before, though, languidly: "But why? Aw, Daniel, don't trot that line out: It's rude as Hell to covers. Books only have them so they can be judged. That's the fun of it! It's like a game. An exciting one. I like this cover."
And she does seem at home, watching some of the pack-crammed so-many-bodies (wasn't it convenient that that guy edged out've the way to let her take over some of the counter? shit happens) Lucky Ming's whatever.
There are, however, a lot of smells: vomit, hairspray, hair product, sweat, salt, seasonings, meat, meat just on the edge of spoiling but not quite, vegetables, perfumes, pheromones, ozone from outside, rain-water damp, everything, everything, and it is interesting indeed to pick them out. Swallow, just like that.
Now she's watching the night through the windows, keeping the Lasombra duet in the corner of her eye.
AmberAmber is out of her element. It's the clothes, really, they feel so strange and foreign on her skin. It feels so strange to not have the comforting fall of loose denim against her shins and calves. It is strange to view the world from nearly five inches elevated.
What is not so foreign to her is the feeling of superiority. Even feeling awkward, she knows that she is better than that person, and that person. She is better than the girl outside throwing up on the sidewalk, or wherever she got herself before her stomach gave up on her. She is better than the wait staff and the press of the crowded together bodies. That feeling makes her seem less out of place than she feels.
Lux chides Flood for his insult to covers while Amber goes to grab herself a bottle of water from the standing refrigerator. She holds it up so the person behind the counter knows what to charge and then moves to join Lux. Amber does not lean, though, she stands with feet apart as she untwists the cap. Even with her tempered temper she looks like she's braced for something, for someone to wander too close (which they do) and try to invade her space (which they don't). Hard to say if it's because of the man at the counter paying for her food or if it's because she looks like she would rip off the arms of anyone else who tried to get close to her and beat them to death with them. Does it matter? Amber is dressed nicely and prettily, her intense, earthen beauty accentuated, and no one is bothering her.
That alone may make up for wandering over into a bar on karaoke night.
"You got the painting okay?" she asks, interrupting Lux's survey of the night outside this place.
FloodFlood pays, a five dollar bill enough to cover the cost of water and dumplings, and the unprised oyster is presented to him for him to present to Amber, chop sticks in their red wrapping ready and crossed across the top. Flood places it down on the patch of counter Amber and Lux's presence has claimed for them, between the two, unopened.
And then Amber starts talking about a painting and whether he'd had an answer before to what Lux had said about covers and the old cliche he'd taken for a trot around this race track, he does now.
"Authors don't often have much say in what their book is bound in. Maybe they just feel lucky to be published at all. I judge a book on it's first and last page, and the ones between it takes to get there, not the advertisement it's wrapped up in. It's a little different from a painting, isn't it?"
Looking to Amber. "You see a painting; it's all right there, and it ends up being whatever it stirs inside you. And then you work on it. Instead of working your way through a book," finishing, it's time for his own glance out that window.
"Did you take in the show? Was it worth the trip?" A question and its follow-up all in one, for Lux.
LuxLux's eyelashes are very dark: darker than her hair - long, even without mascara, but she has on mascara tonight and there's smoke on her lids, something that lends itself to tarnished-up starriness. They're also very lovely: the way they shadow her. Amber asks about the painting, and Lux does stop gazing out the window. The ghoul is warm and Lux is not tonight: has not bothered for whatever reason she doesn't bother with those things (a desire to be less hungry, perhaps, to feel less of an edge, to just be herself as herself), and it's rather nice to be near all these warm things, although it's also rather nice to be near another cool thing.
So, first, "I did." Get the painting okay. And Lux, well- isn't she a Lucifer-thing, a Morning-star creature, especially when there's that compass-tug sudden smile ardent like she can't help it and she is pleased like it is pleasing to be pleased. A pleasure. Because it is. Enchanted, see? But then rue: "Sorry about the Byzantine drop-off, but," go away rue, back to something a touch more musing, "it gave me ideas."
It: the painting, huh?
Flood. Authors. Paintings. Lux listens; curious, considering. Answers the last questions thus: "What show?"
Karaoke is not a show.
" -- is that how you paint, Amber? You see it first. Feel a thing. Work it out in paint?" That might not be what Flood meant, but Lux: she's curious.
AmberAmber is also curious about what show. In this area? What sorts of shows are in this part of town that you would ask Lux if she'd been to see?
Before she can even add her own voice to the question, though, Lux is asking Amber if that's how she paints and Amber? She never understands why it is that Lux makes her feel the way she does. Awed. In awe. Full of awe. Always. That she would notice Amber or talk to Amber or want to know how Amber makes her impressive artistic creations.
Her cheeks, fair without being porcelain white, turn rosy at the question and Amber looks a little surprised.
But she thinks. Her mouth presses into a line with thought and a line forms between her delicately sweeping brows.
She shakes her head before she speaks, "No. Not really. Sometimes, but not in general. Sometimes I just...paint. You know?" Because if anyone else in this place will know it might be Lux, wouldn't it?
Kragen KingsmithA man such as Kragen needed many things in his life, for all his claims of independence, of freedom and power the man required many things, had many crutches some might call it. In this particular instance the wily manic warrior required one thing in particular.
Food. The venerable mercenary was hungry and it was perhaps the most mundane of his hungers. So here, on the federal drag in the early evening of the night he swaggers through the door of Lucky Mings with the backward toss of a cigarette from parted lips. The kingsmith was dressed in his finery, a worn and potentially second hand suit made of old and well worn red silk. Beneath lay a shirt of off white, rumpled and un-ironed, just as his dress shoes were tarnished and un cared for.
It was a curious look, a mixture of uncaring panache and professional habit. The unkempt hair, the stubble, the suit. All rounded off by those dangerous grey eyes which swept the place like a set of targetting lasers.
But then he's grinning, manic and wide as he spots Lux and Flood...and yes even Amber, and he saunters forward with a swing in his step before saying in that slow, smooth, awful voice.
"Well, well, well...what a curious little court we've called." He said looking briefly at Flood before letting his gaze sweep to the two women. "Curious indeed." That smile growing as he rubbed a finger through that stubble, as if waiting.
FloodFlood does look to Amber to hear her answer to Lux's question and it's only when she's finished looking for common ground between artists that he goes to answer her earlier one.
What show?
"The karaoke. Did you see it?" And it's round about then that Kragen is coming over with that metered and confident strut, a back alley peacock if ever there was one, and Flood does not see whatever reaction Lux or Amber will have to his statement he'd brought Amber here for dumplings and karaoke.
His gaze had shifted, along with the entire weight of his focus, onto Kragen. A rogue ghoul, bought temporarily or not, is a dangerous thing. A known unknown with unknown intent and ties. That is why, if one were to wonder, he turns to Kragen's well, well, well...
And doesn't turn away even after he has continued.
"Watering holes attract all sorts," he finally answers. "Has it ever been any other way?"
Lux
[But what is this for? Manipulation + Subterfuge.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )
Flood[ Perception + Subterfuge ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Amber[what is that look? empathy because why not (on Kragen)]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
Lux"Mm." Yeah.
You know? Because if anyone else in this place. Lux: isn't she a study of a thing? Shouldn't somebody make a study of her, listening as she is, head canted as it is - just so? Truly: she can be intent. Truly: her eyes can be clear, the edge of her smile a lick of radiance on a knife's blade - no. The shadow suggested by the lick of radiance. Does she know? Let's talk about art and what it means. Let's talk about what it feels like. Let's talk about -
The karaoke. Did Lux see it? Lux's attention shifts entirely onto Flood. The corner of her smile deepens: irrepressible. Her eyebrows go up a touch. "As a matter of fact," she says,
and then Kragen. Well, well, well.
Lux, insouciant, slouching, gets more slouchy, more insouciant against the counter, more carelessly enthroned, more suspended-by-a-hair-graceful, and gives Kragen a sluice of a look.
"I've lost my lighter," she tells him. "May I have yours?"
LuxThe sluice of a look would happily be the sluice of a knife through a fish's belly, gutting that fucking independent ghoul; dislike made lovely, huh? Dislike and contempt and will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest. Flick of interest, because why is he still alive? He's so unsubtle. General fondness for the company before Kragen, coupled with amusement and a will to mischief that she was trying to keep from Flood re: Karaoke. Anarchs gotta have fun, yo.
AmberFirst: Flood asks Lux if she's seen...The karaoke. Amber turns her head toward him, lips pressed together to suppress an incredulous laugh that threatens to slip past her teeth anyway. And fond, so fond, of this undead monster of the shadows.
Second:
Well well well...
If Amber were a cat - and she seems like a cat turned human, with a burning intensity in her green eyes which are large and angled a bit like a cat's - this is what would happen when she looked up and saw Kragen step through the door into Lucky Ming's. Her ears would flatten to her skull and her back would arch as her fur rose all along her spine. She wouldn't growl, though, wouldn't hiss, but perhaps her tail would be lashing.
Even as a human-shaped creature, that is pretty much what happens, anyway. She sees him there and her eyes narrow to angry slits and her jaw clenches. Furious beauty, ancient pagan goddess loveliness. She draws the eye when she's as she ordinarily is, but tonight she isn't as she ordinarily is. Her hair is up and beneath her leather jacket is a black dress with what looks like a black lace overlay which falls just past the middle of her thighs. And is she still standing? Near the counter so that she can eat from a Styrofoam container with a pair of chopsticks, the wooden sticks held expertly poised between her fingers. A dumpling caught between the ends, the motion paused as she watches that one come closer. He looks at her with recognition but she knows there's more to it than that.
Flood responds first. Amber relaxes by the barest fraction. And then she relaxes altogether, keeps her muscles loose, her body fluid. Dressed in heels she towers, does Amber, is just a hair shy of matching the Lasombra in height.
Kragen waits, and so too does Amber wait. Poised now. Surprisingly tempered.
Kragen KingsmithEyes turn, not just those of the undead or the half in half out. No with that posture and that stride he drew the attention of most in the tiny restuarant, attentions which quickly turned back as they regarded that manic almost unhinged grin as Kragen stepped up to the three famiilar faces.
He watched them carefully, noting Lux's casual stance, Floods wary gaze, and Amber's narrowed gaze. All of it makes that manic grin grow into something showing teeth as the man spread his arms before clapping the hands together shaking them before him as he spoke.
"It has been far to long my dear, dear friends." He said as he looked to Flood and tilted his head smoothly. "Indeed it has not, predators and prey, kings, queen's fools and beggars all must bow before the trough of their own needs." Kragen's words were almost humble, though his look was roguish and dangerous as ever.
He pulls that old lighter from his coat pocket, tarnished and bruised as it was and tossed it in the air, spinning like a windmill before he caught it deftly with his other hand. "You may borrow my lady, but never own. Its a rule of mine I do intend to follow." He said before looking at Amber, meeting the goddess's eyes with his own as he bowed slightly, his arm still holding out that lighter awkwardly.
"And good evening to you, my dear...red queen."
FloodWhether Flood things it has been too long or not long enough, he doesn't let his face find out, and that look? It's not exactly wary. That word has a different connotation that doesn't take Flood's unflappable confidence into account, and speaking of accounting: he's calculating. Working his way through a ledger and adding notes where necessary as Kragen speaks.
Until he turns toward Amber and addresses her as a red queen. That raises one of his eyebrows and that interested face finally breaks into a similar smile. Pearly whites are revealed with alacrity, fuller each passing fraction of a second, until he nods a few times and moves to Kragen's side.
Throws his arm, cold and heavy as it is, around Kragen's neck. Over the collar of that rumpled suit in a near-universal sign of comraderie. Except for he does it just as he comes up from his bow, his show of reverence for the goddess, and the weight of it?
The weight of his arm is meant to hold Kragen down just a hair, just a few inches, and into a perpetual state of bowing when he straightens, as the yoke on the shoulders of a beast of burden.
All the while?
Flood chuckles, fully and loudly, and when he stops the grin remains along with the weight of his arm.
"Far too long," he says.
[ Strength + Potence ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 5, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )
Kragen Kingsmith[str]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (5, 7) ( success x 1 )
LuxKragen doesn't have to hold the lighter out for very long at all. Lux takes it promptly and tucks it into her the pocket of her jacket just as promptly; there it goes, vanished, gone, lent out, borrowed. Lux is a self-contained creature - isn't she? So composed, no need to come out've that slouch against the counter. "Why, that's rather an asshole remark to make, especially if you really believe it," Lux says, careless, careless. He's already gone into that bow; do you see? Lux has already given Amber a look to share; to meet; and it is also a sluice-of-a-thing, a rake-of-a-thing, coupled with an eyebrow quirk. It's the look any woman gives another when some guy is trying too hard.
There's Flood, peeling off and wrapping an arm around Kragen's shoulders. Lux, though: she's finishing her godamned thought. "Why shouldn't other people get to own as well; why just you? And here I thought you didn't fucking believe in mastery."
"Too mean."
AmberRed queen, he calls her, and Amber's lip curls in a beautiful, angry sneer. Perhaps he expects her to leap for his throat? Why would he, though? All that he's ever done in her presence is make her uncomfortable, and made her walk away.
He addresses her now, this queen, this goddess creature, a woman made more than human but not to the level of the two that stand near her. And Flood moves forward, throws his arm around the ghoul and Amber's heart gives a fluttering hammer against her breast bone.
Lux swipes the offered lighter and tucks it away, careless. But she gives Amber a look that Amber meets, briefly, her eyes a sea whipped up in a storm.
She draws herself up straight, tall.
Goddess. Queen. Yes, these are words that people can call Ms. Amber Blumenthal. Born of a harlot, cast into the gutter, and lifted up and up and up.
So that she can look down and down and down again. Chin lifted, eyes lowered so that she stares down her nose at the ghoul.
"Don't you ever call me dear." She looks past him at Flood, whose hold did not, ah, hold. "We were going for a walk, weren't we?" A look to Lux, including her.
[charisma (intense) + intimidation]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
Kragen Kingsmith[WP]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 6 )
Kragen KingsmithSeveral things happen at once. Kragen feels that token, that totem of his disappear from his calloused hand and disappear into the pocket of the beatific Lux. She speaks of asshole's and belief, and Kragen opened his lips to speak. To offer a snappy or witty retort as he rose. But instead he feels the weight of Floods dead arm rest about his neck like a yoke and leash.
He of course resists this, he draws himself up to equal height with Flood and grins wide and toothy as he looked the man dead in the eye and clapped him on the back as well. "Indeed it has." He said giving the man a firm squeeze of his shoulder before letting him go.
"Mastery dear Lux, is a concept left to fools and madmen. But when something is just as much apart of you as your own hand...it is not ownership, but kinship, I would no sooner graft my arm to another, then I would that lighter."
His gaze turned to Amber then as she looked down her nose at him, chin held high like the queen he had supposed her to be. She draws on her intense, terrifying beauty and brings it to bare upon the mercenary and Kragen simply looks at her like like a madman might stare itno a raging inferno that threatened to swallow him whole. Happily.
Then he laughed. "Of course." He said with another quick bow. "My apologies for such presumption,"
FloodKragen straightens and as he does so Flood extricates his arm from around his shoulders. Lux ferrets away the ghoul's lighter and Amber steps forward to tell him in no uncertain terms what is what. And throughout it seems that it is instead Kragen, despite appearances, who is unflappable and unwavering.
"It would seem it won't be for much longer," to Kragen and clearly harkening back to that too long, and then his attention is back on the fierce woman next to the swashbuckling and pilfering one.
"We were," and like that Kragen is forgotten. It's two long strides that takes Flood to the door and with another he's out and holding it open for the ladies to begin that aforementioned walk.
LuxKragen talks about his lighter like it's an integral part of him. Amber; she includes Lux in the we're meant to be elsewhere, aren't we supposed to walk, and Lux, she un-slouches a little, or at least is poised between that moment of rebellious carelessness and straightening: precise and fine. Taps her fingers against her pocket. Tap once. Tap twice.
"Gosh, yes. I'll catch up to you," she tells Amber and Flood. Her tone is musing, shadows-on-silk soft.
Lux does have a heart. Lux has a conscience, too. Not much of the latter: it works intermittently, because after all, the Toreador are cruel.
Look; it seems as if she wants to linger to talk to Kragen. A star just fell; it turned into a hunk of cheese on the way down.
AmberAmber tells him not to call her 'dear,' which is not an unreasonable request. It's no secret that she dislikes him, or that her dislike seems to have intensified in the months since they last saw each other. That night when he knelt before her in the middle of a goddamned street. Then, and the time before, she only thought that he was weird, annoying, best left alone because really Amber has better things she could be doing than dealing with this madman.
Like going for a walk with those she thinks of as friends after a fashion. Flood goes to hold the door open and Amber, she hesitates. Her eyes on the carton of untouched dumplings a moment before she lifts her chin. Decisive.
It's while Kragen offers her another bow that the woman, the ghoul, the storm whisks past him, heels tapping smartly on the tiled floor in a line straight for the exit. For the night and fresh air that doesn't smell like dumplings and too many bodies closed in together and so on.
Kragen KingsmithFlood and Amber take their leave. In truth Kragen expects all three of them to depart, not because of him of course but simply because they most likely have somewhere else to be. He calls after Flood and says. "We really must discuss our terms....soon." He says with a chuckle as the vampire and the ghoul depart, leaving the Mercenary and the Rebel to their own devices.
Kragen turns then, those hard grey eyes towards Lux expectantly. Perhaps he expects her to give up his lighter, or maybe it is something deeper then that. But he stands there for a brief moment contemplating her decision to stay behind. But then he leans against that same counter and thins his lips into that knife like grin before saying.
"Will you be keeping my arm oh Lux'urious one? Or will you deem to return it, whole and healthy?"
LuxKragen expects all three of them to depart. His expectations aren't going to be disappointed. Still: Lux does linger after the Sabbat have left the building. Lux meant it when she said she'd catch up to them. Kragen's parting shot to Flood means she looks curiously after the Lasombra -- like she's following a trail of fishing line gossamer or a strand of spider's silk. There are all sorts of connections in this world.
"Sure," she says. To both. "Where the Hell do you hang out, Mister Kingsmith? Where's your favourite Denver watering hole? I hear you met a friend of mine, you know. She thinks you're a real professional."
Kragen KingsmithLux was asking after his location, where she could find him on a regular basis, and the man tilts his head to the side as if to consider the options, for they truly were myriad. But then he seems to settle on one in particular, and the man grins wide and manic as he gestured in a particular direction.
"The Red Queen's Club downtown." He says with a nod of his head. "I have found its eclectic nature to my tastes, and I can be found there often enough." He said as he watched the woman carefully, inquisitively as he wondered on the nature of her 'friend'.
"I am many things great and small Lux, but when it comes right down to it...I am a professional, through and through." His voice lowers at the end, becoming deadly serious as he meets her gaze, the manic man disappearing ever so briefly before he chuckled.
"I'm glad to have made such an impression. I am growing bored, and I would simply love a chance to prove myself, or at the very least stretch my muscles."
Lux"Realllly? Bored? Tch. What are your thoughts on 'pro bono' work?" Lux says, with the kissing curl of a conspiratorial grin; it does not quite meet her eyes, which are a cool crystalline shade of shadow-flux, all green and tarnish.
Kragen Kingsmith"I have few thoughts for it." He says with a wry smile. "But there are ways to pay besides the monetary, Of which i am certain we can work something out." He muses as he tapped a finger against his stubbly cheek before going on, gesturing to the doorway.
"You had better follow, lest they leave you behind, that would be a right shame."
Lux"How thoughtful you are," Lux says. Lux's tone is offhand; is cool. There is a shadow of malevolence, but she's so lovely - of course there is. "Looking out for a potential whatever the Hell's interests even - " deliberate. Love words. Love 'em. " - in - " Because words are fun to say. " - this. It's just dandy is what it is. I guess I'll be seeing you around, Mister Kingsmith," and Lux, she straightens neatly, slides the unopened carton of dumplings Amber left behind to the independent ghoul. A compression of her lips; it's not quite a smile. Too sharp.
And then Lux sashays after the wake of the Sabbat, because that is an excellent wake to follow, waving a farewell oer her shoulder, so long, be seeing you, salut.
Luxooc: (waves wand)
slides the unopened carton of dumplings belonging to some poor schmuck who happens to be nearby to the independent ghoul, because Lux doesn't care.
FloodFlood and Amber alongside one another is a thing to see. She is his shadow and he is hers, the way his precise and metered steps move in tandem with her own to take them away from that dumpling shop. His gait is slow, there's no reason to rush, once they join outside the restaurant, and it won't be difficult for Lux to catch up with the two of them.
"You don't like the gentleman very much." It's not a question. It doesn't have to be, but it is said in the way that might still stir up some conversation on the topic. Unless she doesn't want to discuss it? Then it's just as easy to leave right there.
"Lux? You like very much," he continues, a smile on his face, as if he finds this to be very amusing. "I do as well," and the smile lightens a bit. He looks across the street to the karaoke bar, and then back to Amber, "another night? We might've missed the beginning of the show," looking to the elegantly simple gold watch on his wrist for a moment.
AmberAs much as Amber would like to move swiftly - not to flee, but to storm, go off somewhere that she can rage - she keeps herself to the pace that Flood sets. After a few steps she slides her arm through his, hooking them together at the elbow.
"No," she says. She doesn't like that "gentleman" back there. He already knows why, or most of why, and that is back there and their night is on the brink of being ruined. Where do they go, these two with Lux - Amber glances back once, back over the space where her shoulder and Flood's shoulder brush - from that?
It's when she's looking back that he mentions Lux and she looks at him, the last flames of her anger dissipating in a blush. "Yeah." That single word cannot encapsulate just how much Amber likes Lux, how she enjoys moving through the shadows between buildings and marking up the walls, raging quietly but colorfully against systems Amber barely understands. She hasn't told Flood about the book. She's not sure if it's a secret, but she's kept it anyway.
Then he's looking across the street at the karaoke bar and Amber follows his gaze before looking back at him, her mouth curving into a grin. "Danny," she starts, and pauses, thoughtful for a second. "We can be late," she finishes, tugging his arm to guide him back the other way.
LuxWon't be difficult for Lux to catch up. Here's Lux, rain-soaked street, looking up and down the dark noir stretch of it, the luminous slip of water and asphalt and cold. Lux is poised, scoping out the street; one doesn't force onself into a sharper weapon-of-a-thing by staying still. Internal forces have to be in motion, don't they? Babel. Babble.
Anyway. The point. Lux reaches into one of her pockets for a pack of cigarettes, but she doesn't have a pack. Just a single cigarette, which she puts between her lips, and then
there is Amber and there is Flood. Lux strides to catch up, pulling a lighter out've her pocket (well, we all know what lighter) and flipping it on in order to light the damn cigarette, then slipping it back and away so when she actually does catch up she's got a halo of smoke dissipating like ethereal brambles or monsters light-lanced shadow-stroked around her head.
And when she rejoins she says: "So this walk we're taking. Pretty please hot fudge sundae cherry on top and a dollop of ambrosia scraped out've the beehives of Olympus, tell me it's to the karaoke show. Oh, Daniel, it's like one of Jack's rambling essays decided to try and be one of Ginsberg's poems except trying even harder."
Yes. It's totally like that.
"Amber, have you noticed we know an inordinate number of the same people?"
FloodAmber leads him back and they become a threesome again heading toward that singing lounge. Lux asks nicely and, "It is," he tells her, and looks to her like he is expecting iced cream, except it will come in the form of her company and he already has that.
"It sounded more charming than all that," he returns again, and then she's asking Amber that question, whether she has noticed, and so he continues along walking in silence now. The bright neon and the loud music coming from within don't put Flood off one bit and they cut through the crowd lingering outside and to the front door of the bar.
There are lines of people doing shots of liquid courage at the bar, others with beer bottles or pint glasses in their hand, others watching and dancing and still others talking at the tables that dot the floor in front of a small stage with a karaoke DJ on it.
Flood wanted a show and he's certainly going to be getting it.
Someone, of course, has decided to take a shot at It's The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) and that someone's cracking and exasperated voice is what is currently booming through the speakers over R.E.M.'s instrumentals is piping loudly in the background.
AmberFlood answers with words, Amber answers with a nod and an unexpected light in her eyes, clouds parting over calmer waters. Flood had intended this to be a surprise for her, but he will be the one who receives the surprise. Amber will be amused and entertained regardless.
Of course Lux is describing the karaoke show to Flood and then she's asking Amber a question and Amber looks at her, contemplative. Do they know an inordinate number of the same people? How many people does Amber know now? What's surprising to Amber is how few people she interacts with on a daily basis for work. The people she knows she shares meals with, goes out for drinks with, paints the town with, or stays in with. Does Amber B. have something like a social life again? Huh. When the hell did that happen?
She shakes her head, "I didn't." Notice, that is.
Before they go inside she unwinds her arm from Flood's, the better to pluck a dumpling from her container and take a bite. Her brows lift and she makes a sound of unexpected pleasure. Apparently Lucky Ming's wasn't praised for their dumplings for nothing. She finishes what she can before they cut through the door, dropping the rest into the closest trash bin and dusting off her hands.
And then they're in. The place is busy because of course it is, everyone wants to get drunk and push their friends up on stage to embarrass themselves in front of a room full of strangers. It's a rite of passage. Into what? Adulthood probably.
Amber slides her hand into Flood's, warm, living skin against the cool and the dead. Looking, she tries to find a table for three. Points one out somewhere closer to the front than to the back.
LuxSocial shark, remember?
The cigarette is ashed out on the heel of her shoes before they go into the karaoke joint. Then it finds a home tucked behind her ear, just there against her temple. Lux had espied the Sabbat when she left the bar earlier and now she looks for the kine she was passing time with. There's a lot of passing time when one is conditionally immortal: when night's all there is. Didja know there are at least three hours when almost everything really is closed? Those're the loneliest hours. Lux enjoys being alone as much as she enjoys being esconsed in a clamor of noise.
So she finds the people she'd originally been passing time with, but doesn't go over there. They're engaged in an argument.
"It's so strange; my heart nearly leapt into my teeth when I found out you knew Nathan. That man, the one just now, I'm afraid it sank into my heels. Good eye," at Amber espying the table near the front.
Lux's gaze fixes on the current singer; her eyes are wide, thoughtful. "What'cha think, Daniel? More or less charming than all that?" The last three words are an offhand approximation of his own vocal cadence; just a tie-in to his previous comment.
FloodFlood doesn't answer at first. He is too busy watching as the song ends and the next people on the disc jockey's list is called on stage. A mix of cheering and jeering from friends and two woman are making their way up to sing Britney Spears. One of the classics. Flood wouldn't know it.
"Are they..." The question remains unasked, because it's then he seems to notice the lyrics on the screen behind them, after the song's name and artist has scrolled by. There are pictures of far off vistas, beaches and forest and other places, behind the words.
"Karaoke," saying the name again, differently though, he'd heard the correct pronunciation during the DJ's quick spiel about coming back next week for another big night.
"They didn't write these songs. And they're not playing any instruments. And they're..." He pauses. The women begins to sing. "They're very obviously not trained singers," as the women and their voices prove it.
"Much less charming. I would've preferred to read about it," a softer chuckle than the one he'd given with Kragen, a much more genuine one. "The company is great, though," turning back to pay attention to the two women, one living and one dead, there with him.
Flood has continued to hold her hand, loosely, and it's an even gentler grip the closer to the tips of his fingers she feels. They lay together, finger entwined, on the table between them
Amber
Amber glances at Flood, then back to Lux. She met the Toreador first, but Nathan was background noise in her life from time to time. She wasn't even fully aware of who he was when Flood first told her that Lux had claimed a mortal by that name. It wasn't until they were fostering a fledgling friendship that it occurred to her who he might be to the man sitting at her side.
It's not Nate that makes her expression shift, storm clouds darkening a previously clear sky. "That guy's a creep. He told a friend of mine he was gonna...poke at me." She scowls, shudders like she's suddenly found herself draped in invisible spider webs. "If that's the worst he's got, though," she lets the thought trail off.
She's paying attention to Flood, experiencing karaoke for the first time. A dry laugh escapes her at his description of what he sees, what he's figuring out about the meaning of the thing.
"They're just here to sing." She looks up at the women singing to Oops! I Did It Again and she leans back, pulling a face. Her fingers still held lightly by his, his by hers. She doesn't mind that she's overdressed for this now. It feels weird of course, being dressed up, wearing fucking high heels, but eh. She is with Flood and Lux. That's not too bad.
She looks at Lux suddenly, green eyes sharp on the other immortal beauty at the table.
"Did you give him back his lighter?"
LuxFlood would've preferred to read about it. Lux grins: another kissing curl of a thing, a compass-needle impulse, sharp flash of teeth that could be sharp. Look at how it touches her eyes this time; darks them right up. The grin disappears when Amber talks about Kragen, though it leaves its echoes (smudges [stains]) in her expression. Lux rests her elbow on the table. Her sharp chin on her thumb and curled index finger. Delicate-thing, isn't she? fine as a beewing.
They're just here to sing, Amber says. And: Did you give him back his lighter?
"Lighter?" Lux says, place-holder, slang; she knows. It's the same sort've languid verbal drawl as an 'oh' or a 'why.' "Oh, no. I'm keeping it for now. Perhaps he'll murder less."
And then Lux, thoughtfully, "It occurs to me that perhaps you'd understand the charm better if you participated, Daniel; I'm sure your voice would shake the seraphim out of their rafters, they'd make a godawful mess of things just to hear you try."
Lux[AND THEN: Hilarity ensued.]
Lux[Roll credits, cut away.]
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