Free and Living

Kali

Kali had found herself wandering down this particular area just a few days previous, and she had had a very fortuitous encounter with an ER nurse from the not-so-distant past that had gone well for her.  And it's good that it did, because the girl (who is hardly young enough to be called girl) could use some things going well.  Our favorite Ravnos (unless you have a love for Baja, anyway) has been having a hard time of it, and what's worse she doesn't even know she has.  Dark shadows are aligning against her and at the moment, they're so artfully arranging themselves that she doesn't recognize the darkening of her door.  Yet.

But enough of bad tidings she isn't aware of; Kali has other pieces of business that she is very aware of that are getting on her nerves.  Someone's decided that her Domain is tagging ground.  The Camarilla has decided that she deserves to babysit some wet-nosed Brujah that she needs to meet.  The Sabbat have remained disturbingly quiet, which the Ravnos only assumes to mean that they're planning and plotting.  And what's more...it's been raining.

Kali hates the rain.  It reminds her of earlier times when she would have to crawl her way through the mud and shit--sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally--to get to where she knows salvation is.  The modern nights are no different than that; the mud has simply been replaced by the metaphorical slime of the cities while the shit...well, it's shit.  And the rain tries to wash it away but just makes everything worse.  And to top it all off, it ruins her hairstyle.

They're in luck at this moment, because the rain has relaxed and given them a chance to not get drenched.  Kali's taken this opportunity to go out and walk her way down the streets in her favorite pair of heeled knee-highs, a metallic crimson minidress with laces riding up the sides of the torso and her favorite leather jacket.  Dare we say it, she looks more like an escort than ever, and she loves that.  They never take you seriously when you look like you're about to deliver a Strip-O-Gram, and that's exactly when you've got them right where they want you.  She takes a drag of her cigarette as she rounds the corner, simply out wandering to see what trouble she can get into.

Lux

[Odds, food. Evens, not food.]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (7) ( success x 1 )

Lux

[Odds, ridiculously glammed up, Evens, stylishly dressed down]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (7) ( success x 1 )

Lux

The rain has silvered the dark streets -- has coated the black asphalt and the pewter cement in a hint of radiance. The radiance ripples like honey under the cold attentions of the street's lamps, and instead of shadows the street has untrue-to-life reflections: dark smudges that insinuate shapes, that catch at color, that are a surrealist's hazy dream of Monet's vision. The rain has silvered the dark streets --

and it has chased so many inside. Not everybody. Kali rounds a corner and there are two galleries-cum-performance spaces that are still lit-up from the inside. The light in one of the galleries is orange and the light in the other is white but behind darker glass so it's harder to see and there is a small cluster of people standing outside on the street and smoking, and somebody who has the weathered look of an old guitarist is holding a beer and just beyond that small cluster of people there is a (forever) young woman [a regular belle dame sans merci, O lamia] who is helping a man into his car.

'Helping' is a word that doesn't quite capture the nuance. He is pale and moon-eyed and he doesn't want to show that he's feeling weak, barely even acknowledges it himself, to tell the truth, that he's feeling bloodless, and he's trying to get her to come home with him to continue an argument of some sort, and she is in a good mood, tarnished-up eyes all ardent with laughter and lashes low to keep them enshadowed, and her dress is a ridiculously fine thing of sequins, of Byzantine golds and reds and blues, sending little spangles with headlights catch her out.

Lux holds up a cellphone, and -- gracefully! -- leans in to say goodbye. This doesn't mean a kiss; it means an edged smile, and when she withdraws and shuts the door on the man, she has a jacket, which she folds neatly and precisely over one arm. He tasted good; she watches as he drives away, serene and contemplative, her gaze still-hooded, and then turns back toward the smokers.

And beyond them, Kali. Kali in an outfit. Kali who looks like a working woman of the night.

So instead of joining them, she puts on her coat and says a goodnight (endures a cat-call or two, a tease), and walks toward the Ravnos. 

Kali

Lux, as always, is luminous.  Tonight in her shiny sequins that catch the lights in so many ways almost like a disco ball, she's more than luminous; she's positively radiant.  And so it's no surprise that as Kali grins widely at her own set of cat calls and teases--some of them probably unprintable, after all she's trashy-chic to a T--her eyes catch that sparkling star of an Anarch coming her way.

As Lux approaches, the Ravnos reaches behind her and raises the leather jacket that fits snug at the top and is let out to be looser below the shoulders.  One might think she's doing it to give the onlookers asking for a freebie a better look at what's underneath, and she is.  What's underneath shuts them up quite quickly though.  To quote Denis Leary: I don't have to spank them. I find that waving the gun around pretty much gets the same job done!  And as soon as they see the sizable firearm, shaken just a little bit for effect, they shut up and suddenly decide it's time to get indoors somewhere.

Some people like to rule with an iron fist in a velvet glove.  Kali prefers ruling with a heavy pistol in a leather corset.  To each their own.

But enough of that; the jacket is back in place and she's grinning widely as Lux walks over.  Kali spreads her hands magnanimously.  "Man, here's the one chick in all of Denver that can make me look like a plain Jane.  Lux, I don't know how you pull it off but you always seem to outshine me."  She chuckles and looks the other woman over.  "My God and all the other ones just in case I've picked the wrong team, that is one hell of a dress.  How in the hell are you?"

Lux

Lux is a creature of movement. See? This movement leads into that movement which leads into that movement and it's a ballet. Let the word ballet conjure up: balance, precision, an effortless visual translation of music -- let it conjure up a story told with a body. Lux walks past the smokers. Lux strides across the silver-and-black ground and her coat which is a raincoat which is a pale smudge of dirty snow of the palest of grays is open [Swan, you see] trailing behind her and when she is near Kali she'll reach out to touch the other woman's forearm. Her hand'll slide up to the elbow and she'll lean in with the edge of her smile in order to brush her cool lips against Kali's cheek and say, scoffing, "There may have been a Jane who was plain; lie until your tongue turns silver and drops to the ground, you were never Plain Jane. I won't believe it."

And this is a moment of motion, right? So Lux kisses Kali's cheek and speaks and then she cants her head, shifting her weight from her left hip to her right, in order to very precisely direct Kali's attention (see, pressure of her palm) toward a patio partially covered by an awning, twinkle-lights suspended, and three white-painted metal chairs chained in place [poor chain-gang chairs] so nobody'll steal them. Their allure is they're dry.

Let's go sit. Body language is a language, too.

"I'm well," she says, meaning it. "As well as can be expected," and, unsurprisingly, her gaze turns inward at that; she doesn't quite glance over her shoulder. Or does she? Does she become articulated by remembered tension? Lux isn't concerned (though she should be, perhaps) by the Sabbat and Lux isn't concerned (though perhaps she should be) by the Camarilla. Lux is concerned with: other things.

"How in the hell are you? Any shocking upsets in the ivory middle finger?"

Lux

[And for kicks, Subt + Manip, are you totally haunted by Not Knowing Things You Wanna Know, Lux? Or do you hide it like a boss?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 5, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )

Kali

[[Oh god dammit Nightmares I gotta remember that shit]]

Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (2, 4, 4, 6, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Kali

[[Okay.  So Per+Subt!]]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 5, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Kali

Lux is--like many of her clan--a creature of exquisite grace.  While the woman claims membership in the Anarchs, a sect that many (most) within the Camarilla consider to be no more than classless rabble and petulant, artless children, Kali knows different; she knows that creatures like Lux call the Sect-that-is-not-a-Sect home and they are no less artful for their choice of politics.  Kali remained on the Camarilla side of the line for decades, and for very good reasons.  Those reasons involve the idea of better protection from the organization that she hates (and, while she would never admit it, fears) as well as better safety in numbers among places where the Anarch population is not as strong.  And yes, the Camarilla largely leaves her strung out to dry.  But she collects favors, this Ravnos does, like little bits of colored paper drifting through the sky for the taking because no one is willing to do the work to collect them.  And sometimes those favors can be called in.

Much in the same way that Lux is graceful, Kali is--like many of her clan--a very skilled deceiver.  And a bullshitter can always tell the smell of bullshit.  Lux is light and motion and music, and Kali loves that about her.  But Lux is also, this night, haunted by something.  And after Lux is brushing cool lips against Kali's cheek and Kali is doing the same back, her eyes catch that hint of something Lux doesn't want her to know and the Ravnos' mind is flashing through the possibilities: What has gotten to you, my lovely little Toreador friend?

But that's not a discussion for this instant.  For now, she grins and slips her arm around the other's waist, moving to head to those chairs and the dry haven that the awning above them supplies.  They're a couple of peas in a pod, dressed as different as night and day but very similar in their own ways as well.  And--let's be honest--the inspiration for many a guy who might see them to be extra passionate with their ladyfriends tonight.

"Oh, you know the great finger.  Always trying to find some way to dig up in uncomfortable cavities.  Luckily, it's nowhere I haven't been metaphorically fucked by them before, so..."  She shrugs, grinning a bit.  "Fuck 'em.  How goes the revolution?"

Lux

And so: Lux slips her arm around Kali's waist as well until they reach the chairs. They could be sisters. They could be friends. They might be, mightn't they?

The chains scrape like a spectre's against the dry concrete and written on the slope of patio [like the earth wanted to buckle there once] is somebody's name. Anasta and the rest is too faint. There's an impression of a leaf: a deliberate fossil. The twinkle-lights fake-stars create candle-soft shadows of shadows and when Lux sits down it's after one-handedly re-positioning the chair so she can watch the street and her back is to the café.

Once Kali sits as well, Lux crosses her legs. The light catches the hem of her dress and makes it into a glimmering, and the glimmering throws little spark-echoes dancing across the table and the floor -- flakes of light. 

Lux turns her eyes up toward the sky -- or rather, the patio's awning, which is clotted with spidersilk -- and says, "I miss Bernard." 

Kali

Like Lux, the Ravnos crosses her legs as she sits.  Perhaps it belies a point at which she was once a lady, or played at being one long enough to pick up the habit.  Perhaps it is just a trait that she picked up from all that time in Elysiums, playing the game that she was never truly welcome to take a turn in.  Or perhaps it was just more comfortable to her.  There are few who would know the truth of the matter, and less who would speak of it under the threat of anything less than the Final Death.

Whichever the case, her legs do indeed cross and the Ravnos leans back in the chair to relax.  Her dark eyes, lightly lined with kohl and almost always containing that twinkle of permanent amusement, scan over the streets a moment and then shift to Lux.  The Toreador turns her gaze upward but Kali keeps hers on the other woman under the awning with her.  That's where the real interest is for our favorite Rroma drug lord.

Bernard.  Kali sighs a little, nodding.  She understands the idea; the loss hit them hard.  She's been there, albeit on her own in the cold.  "The movement just isn't the same without him, isn't it?"  She means in terms of its strength in the city, but she also means much more than that.  Ezra tries to be Bernard but he just...isn't, from what she's gathered.  And that affects all, especially in a group like the Anarchs for whom a strong leader is both anathema and deeply important all at once.

Kindred, they were always creatures of inherent contradiction.  "Lot of losses these days.  It's like a god damned Agatha Christie novel, only with a shit ton less dignity and a crapload more sticks up the ass."

Lux

The movement just isn't the same without him, isn't it? And Lux's gaze drops from the awning, from the secret hideyholes of bugs, of dessicated fly remains, from that lone moth-wing dangling from an invisible thread, and it drops back to Kali. The color of Lux's gaze stays this dark tarnished-up thing, but her wry smile adds a certain lustre. "He had a way with words like a sharp edge has a way with blood. He was a sword made of beauty, that one." And like that, Lux is leaning forward, resting her elbows on her knees, in order to speak to Kali with her voice pitched smoke-low and intimate, "He could carve a path to let the heart speak to the head, and vice versa. Men like him -- people like that -- are part of the reason I don't really regret losing," slender pause, in order to hit on the right phrase, "so many days. It's remarkable, isn't it? How many different shades of excellence there are? And what excellence does with itself when it has time?" Lux's expression is curious, now; fixed and inviting: what do you think, Ravnos?

But she adds, also, this: "It's different without him. Ezra's fine, but," and here, the kissing curl of a grin, a one-shouldered shrug. "I've wondered why him. Gosh, doesn't everybody wonder after they make friends? 'Who in the world wanted to keep you around?' Have you ever thought about propagating?"

Kali

The Ravnos listens to Lux as she speaks of Bernard.  It's not often you don't see the Ravnos with a big grin or a twinkle of biting wit in her eyes, a quip on the edge of her tongue just ready to unleash it at a moment's notice (and maybe even less notice than that).  But the way that the Toreador, wondrous even when she's dark and somber (the shine is more of a glitter to Kali, but there is beauty in glimmering too), speaks about the former Anarch boss takes the snark and the sarcasm and the jokes away briefly.

Most people in Denver know very little about Kali.  There is one who knows a lot about her, but even that one doesn't know everything.  There are, quite literally, no one breathing or unbreathing within the city who knows the important people from Kali's life before here...at the very least their names, or exactly what they meant (mean) to her.  And the truth to the matter is this: that is exactly how Kali wants it.  And it isn't just because it's safer for her.  The other reasons are mysteries that, if Kali has her way, she'll never have to disclose.

But the way that Lux speaks about Bernard...this is something that makes the Ravnos smile, but only faintly.  It's a somber sort of smile...like the warmth of a summer day (or in the case of these two a summer night) encapsulated in a snow globe where a chill is always threatening to burst in and ultimately colors the warmth blue.

"I'm gonna be honest with you, hon.  People like those are really one in a million.  And not everyone gets to be lucky enough to ever meet one of those rare birds.  That said...I've seen excellence given time.  It's one hell of something to believe in.  While you're still able to."

Lux asks if she's ever thought about Siring, and Kali raises an eyebrow.  "Seriously?"  She shakes her head.  "Lux, baby doll...I've never even thought of...taking on an apprentice, shall we say, till this year."  She chuckles, a wry sound, and shakes her head.  "Between you, me and Charlotte's family up there above us?  I'm still not sure why I did.  I don't regret it--far from it.  But if you'd asked me why I was doing it, I couldn't have told you.  So no, it's safe to say I haven't thought of extending the family tree at all."

Lux

I'm gonna be honest with you, hon. "Oh no," Lux says, laughing. Laughter as a contained darkness [restrained shadow] in her tarnished-up pale eyes, as a tug on the corner of her mouth and a lengthening of her throat when she tips her head back allowing gravity to comb its fingers through her hair. Not honesty! The laughter says, Whatever will we do? But that lightness [the shadowed glance] is reflex and does nothing to dispel the invitation to converse and think and express.

Kali's smile is faint and Kali's eyes are snow-globe summer and Kali's being honest and the Toreador is as attentive as one could wish a Toreador to be. It's one hell of something to believe in. While you're still able to. "Oh, Kali. But what do you mean by that? Don't you believe in the visionaries anymore?"

Lux looks surprised (but pleased? Yes, perhaps that's something pleased, tucked away in the neat snick of her smile, in the precise splay of her fingers against water-air kissed table, against the wavering glow dredged-up by the twinkle-lights) when Kali says she'd never thought of taking 'an apprentice' until this year. She doesn't bother to hide her surprise, either; it straightens her.

And then: "You know, I bet you a prize that I can tell you why you're doing it now instead of another time. With that one. It's not really a fair bet, since I'm at a terrible disadvantage, but..."

Kali

Lux is not the only person who would laugh at the idea of Kali (or any Ravnos, really, but Kali particularly) starting off a sentence with I'm gonna be honest with you.  Let's face it, boys and girls...they don't call her clan Deceivers for nothing.  But there is sincerity in her expression, in her tone when she says it and Lux listens and she takes in what Kali says, letting the words filter into her ears and percolate in her brain like honeyed coffee.  And then Lux asks if the drug lord believes in visionaries, and...

Is that a moment of...what is that in the other vampire's expression.  Kali never seems to look back, but there's a moment where briefly she is distant and Lux can almost imagine her looking over her shoulder, glancing back at the road behind her.  Of course, she does not actually look back; the road behind her (well, once you get past the wall and building) is just a road.  Rocks and tar and whatever else they put in asphalt.

"I believe visionaries exist, Lux."  It's said with a sigh, one that seems light but carries a heavier weight underneath.  "I've seen them.  Walked along side them, like the kid in that movie with the Lord of the Rings homie about the end of the world and they're just trying to find food to live.  I've faced them down, stood above them, looked up from below.  I've seen visionaries from just about every angle, and to be honest?"

She flicks the ash of her cigarette.  "It's not that I don't believe in them.  It's just that their visions scare the shit out of me most of the time."  That last sentence comes out a bit flat, tinged with dull ache and bitterness.  "The Sabbat are fucking visionaries.  Pol Pot was a visionary.  Fucking Hitler was a visionary."  She makes a spitting motion off to the side.  "Visionaries are for cult leaders who have something to sell.  And there's not time enough in the whole world for me to buy into that shit anymore.  My people and I have been on the wrong side of someone's vision about ten times too often for me to put much stock in visionaries, I'm afraid."

She looks back at Lux, and a flicker of amusement comes back when she says she's willing to bet she knows why she's taken a ghoul.  Her head cocks to the side, and she smiles a bit.  "A'ight.  I'll take that bet.  Shoot."

Lux

Lux doesn't appear to think Kali's lying to her now (but perhaps she is. Perhaps the Ravnos is never going to tell the whole truth. Perhaps every true thing she says will be serpent-forked and slippery. Perhaps Lux was born in a time when gypsies were just liars and thieves when they served to swell a dramatic interlude and they were threats. Don't be a gypsy! You little gypsy! Put on your shoes! The gypsies'll steal you and eat you!). Lux listens without interrupting, her eyes intent and her expression musing. A delicate line etches between her eyebrows when Kali sketches out her experience, her mouth firming, no flicker of lash, only a considerate rounding of her shoulders, a languid wave-away of smoke.

"Given all that, what do you think of 'The Revolution' and its revolutionaries? Don't be afraid of giving offense; can't be done. My skin's like a rhinos. I was told it was unicorn skin in the shop, but you get what you pay for..." 

Lux is sincere, too-

Why shouldn't she be? Unlife's too short to play games behind screens.

"I may not be a pragmatist in the colloquial usage of the word, but I enjoy hearing about that pragmatism."

The Toreador glances up and down the street. She is paying attention to it, too, a deliberate attention, like the street is owed that sort of study, and she puts her fingers together, fingertip to fingertip like a prayer, touches them to the side of her lovely mouth and says,

"Here I go, taking aim. You like her and you want to keep liking her. It's not hard to like someone you can't trust, but it's trickier," and she - precise, delicate-thing - arches a suggestive eyebrow, hint of a smile, "and you want to like her for a long time. I think you want whatever it is you see in her to stay as it is and that's why you've decided to take her as an apprentice. I'm sure she's very useful, but I'm also sure she's very much a piece of trouble."

Kali

Kali's smile ratchets up at all of that.  It starts with her asking about the Anarchs, and what she thinks of them, and in fact it grows when the graceful and vibrant Toreador says that she shouldn't be afraid of potentially offending.  And it becomes thoughtful, though no less warm, when she explains why she thinks Kali has taken Bo on as a ghoul.  Even when it turns a bit sardonic following mention of Bo being...well, a handful.

"Oh Jesus fucking a dolphin, you have no idea."  She says it fondly, though no less exasperated for it.  "You can't even begin to guess at how many times I've had to tell her not to go sneaking into the Emergency Room to see what's going on there, now that the fucker who ran it before is so much mulch."  She sighs, shaking her head in that way that suggests a bemused weariness.  "She wants to help and...well, she's very headstrong.  I'm sure you've noticed.  It's to the point that the P.I. I have watching the place actually has orders to keep an eye out for her."

That smile drops just a little when she thinks about the rest though.  It's not less pleased, just...more thoughtful.  That bag of cats underneath Kali's deep red dyejob is working, reflecting.  She nods a little bit, shrugging.  "You're probably not wrong.  You're right, I do like her...a lot.  She reminds me of me, at least after a fashion.  She was already getting dragged into all of our bullshit.  Maybe I just wanted to give her a fighting chance." 

A little shrug lifts her shoulders for a moment, through along with it comes a furrowing of her own delicate brow.  "I can't stand the bond though.  Not with her specifically...that's gone as well as I could possibly hope for.  I hate it in general.  There are so many ways to ensure loyalty, gain people's trust, make them susceptible to whatever we walking corpses want.  The bond just seems...wrong."

Kali frowns, shakes her head.  She's conflicted about it, that's obvious.  Because the one can't come without the other, and better her (for her sake and Bo's) than someone else.  Still...it's the kind of thing that sits at the base of her spine, makes her uncomfortable and shifting and itchy and antsy.

"As for the Revolution..."  She pauses there, and it's not to pick her words.  She heard Lux, she knows that the Toreador wants honesty.  It's just...how to express the feelings she has.  (So I guess it is to pick her words, but not in as manipulative a manner as it might seem.)  "I think that there are some very good and just ideas there.  And the second it becomes viable, I might consider coming on board.  But really, to me it's like Occupy Wall Street.  Great ideals, not enough power."

She sighs again.  She does that along for a vampire approaching 100.  "If our Mexican friends are that "God Hates Fags" church only more fucked up and L.A. is Occupy Wall Street, then the Tower is the government.  Old, stodgy, set in its ways and corrupt all the way down to it's ivory fucking core.  And--being a realist--I can't stand with Los Angeles against both Dusk Till Dawn and Game of Thrones because there's just not enough bricks in that Pink Floydian wall.  I think that the Revolution is noble but that nobility won't keep me alive when a fucking szlachta bursts down my door on attack orders from some Cardinal or some shit, you know?  It's idealism, and idealism never works.  Look at communism or any other non-pragmatic government.  It fails because it there are so few idealists left you could fire a nuke into the middle of New York City and not hit one."

Lux

Here are some nuances. An oh, don't I? Wouldn't I come close? cock of the other eyebrow, touched with some cynicism about the lively young ghoul. A crinkle of her nose at 'headstrong,' and did you know, as flawless as her wintry pallor is, even when blushed with rose, when Lux was alive she had the suggestion of a freckle or two?  And just occasionally they almost remember that they existed and insinuate? Especially during a nose-crinkle. A light interest that isn't quite interest but approaches it when Kali mentions the Emergency Room again and an even lighter [angel-cake] humour, though that's surface.

Behind it, there's something much weightier brewing, being born from all that consideration. A question. A cautionary tale. Put aside when:

You're probably not wrong. Lux smiles a moonlight and cream smile: the kind of smile that is an unknowing invitation. Slap her or pet her head or kiss her or just look and remember. Touches her eyes, certainly, rills them with more dark that puts the gleaming edge into sharper relief, and she hooks her elbows on the back of her metal chair, and there's a little cascade of embers-as-poetry on the sequins of her Holy Book dress.

"Oh, good. I do like winning. What's my prize?"

The smile dissolves at mention of the bond, transfigures into a sharp incline of her head. This neat twist of her mouth -

" - it is the most terrible and the most wonderful thing." Here it is: that hesitation -- edge of saying one thing, pause. But it'll keep.

"So," she says, when Kali has explained her view on 'the Revolution.' "Too small too noble. Let's make the question smaller, shall we?" A beat. "What do you think of Johnny?" She grins. "What do you think of me?"

While Kali is chewing on that one, or being street Ravnos-witty, Lux says seriously: "About the bond. I hope that you don't trust too much to it?"

Kali

"You and John?"  Oh dear, we're getting into specifics now.  The Ravnos smiles a little, takes a drag off her cigarette as the skin at the top of her brow, just above the nose, bunches slightly together.  She gives the Toreador a curious look, but she doesn't ask the all-encompassing question Why.  That leads into motivations, and that's a dangerous road to walk, frought with bandits and detours and other dark, nasty things.  Kindred motivations are the most dangerous thing in existance, beyond a fanatic with a crowd.

"Oh geez.  Well..."  She exhales the drag of smoke, which stayed a little too long in her body to be considered normal for a living person.  "Start with John.  He seems a solid guy.  Frankly, I probably wouldn't have saved his ass from fucking House Hufflepuff if not.  Of course, it also doesn't hurt than I can trust him a little more because he sort of but not-really-sort-of owes me big-time."  The key word there, it is clear, is little.  Having a boon does not make one more trustworthy.  "We might butt heads from time to time but overall he's a decent sort, for one of us anyway."

She grins.  "And as for you..."  She shrugs.  "You're my second-favorite Anarch on the planet, babe.  I admire a lot about you.  You're free and you're living your life on your terms, almost more than I am.  I have a lot of appreciation for someone who lives their life on their own terms and doesn't let things hold them back.  I wish that you guys had more backing and I wish I was in a position where I could do it.  But if you guys ever need anything I can offer, I'm totally there to help."

And that last bit, when the light grows heavier with seriousness, draws her attention, and the smile quirks.  It becomes something...not sad, but rueful, perhaps.  And there's a line of bitterness too.  But still amused.

"Sweetie-pie, I'm very well aware of how the bond doesn't ensure trust.  That is a tidbit of knowledge I'll carry with me to my dying day."

Lux

"Oooh, second favourite on the whole planet. Who's my rival? Not someone in Denver?" Lux touches one hand just behind her ear- all ears. The rest of her is still. She is breathing, measuring out each breath. The rain is beginning to fall again. The leading edge of it down the street troubles the asphalt and touches it into a deeper black. Silk-black. Slippery-black. They're protected under their little awning, fat drops heard rather than seen atop it. "It's really too bad you didn't pop into Denver earlier; I could have introduced you to Val. I think you two would've amused each other." 

Kali says that she's aware the bond doesn't ensure- 

Lux's gaze becomes a side-long knife-slip thing, and after a second, she says, "Good. Because even if they want to be true, it isn't always up to them, you know?" 

There are reasons Lux doesn't tell Gary everything.

There are reasons Lux doesn't tell anybody everything, and those reasons only have half to do with some innate sense of drama which kindles in her blood and informs her nights. Toreador: can take the Toreador out of the Society but can't take the Society out of the Toreador, eh?

Measured this: "Have you run across 'Kragen' yet?"

Kali

"Kragan?"  The name draws a raised brow and more than a hint of recognition.  "Yeah, I've met him.  Briefly, while he was talking with some chick that Flood's taken an interest in."  Her mind is racing, curious synapses throwing possible connections toegether and filing away possibilities that could both be deeply good and catastrophically bad.  Unfortunately, neither stands out as the more likely.  "He seemed to be friendly with her, but I don't know how much.  It's a small fucking world, and I hate even thinking the words to that song, much less thinking saying them aloud."

"As to your rival..."  She smiles a little bit, shrugs.  It's one of those non-committal things, though there is a bit of warming in the Rroma woman's eyes.  Some regret there too, perhaps, but almost entirely warmth.  "Yeah, no one in Denver.  One of my peeps, hangs out in Hell-Ay.  We're old friends, so don't feel too bad."  When she says old friends, it certainly seems more than just the casual saying of it.  Old friends in the very definitive version of the term.

"And I know.  But that's also how I'd prefer it with her."  Her lips press together, then she shrugs.  "If it were up to me she'd be free of anyone's influence, frankly.  But she got her head in things, so..."  A little chuckle.  "What're you gonna do, you know?"

"So back Kragen." The shift is sudden but smooth.  "Who and what is he, exactly?"

Lux

Lux raises her eyebrows politely. Flood? Not that she is pretending she doesn't know him: oh no. But her intimacy is no more than the simplicity of raised eyebrows. Should he mention Kali to her, she'd likely begin with the same expression: not un-knowing, but just distancing arch of eyebrows. Neutrality is difficult. But it's an art, get it? "The same as at the shop, or some other?" idle curiosity. Truly, it is idle: because there's this flutter of delicate eyelids and an unladylike snort at that whole 'song' jive.

"Really!" As to her rival, and here: just a grin. "There, see? Perhaps your friend knew Val, because that's where Val made his home. Tower, though, and certainly my favourite."

Kali says if it were up to her, and Lux is shaking her head - 

"I don't think she wants to be free of influence, you know. She's a girl who likes bathing in cross-tides, perhaps."

Speaking of ghouls-

Lux doesn't say that aloud, but the flow is easy in her head: "He is a monster and somebody should shoot him in the back of the head." There's a swell of humour, but it's backed by malevolence: "Have you heard of Dogwood?"

Kali

"Always possible," the Ravnos says with a shrug.  "He gets around pretty well...he gets along with the Tower almost as well as me, which is an accomplishment considering he is solidly on your side of the three-way fence."  She smiles again, and this time it's simply fond.  The woman has a lot of emotions regarding this mysterious friend, but unlike with many people there's one overriding positive one.  "If we could stand being close to each other for more than a few months at a time these days, I wouldn't be too shocked if I was Occupying some city of choice myself."

Lux makes a comment about Bo, about how she seeks the influence, likes the cross-tides.  That diminishes her smile, and she bunches her mouth to the side.  "She's...passionate.  She has a taste of the greater world that most humans," not kine, but humans, "shouldn't know about.  I knew the first time that I saw her she'd be trouble."  Even that's said with a grin.  She doesn't mind the trouble; she likes keeping her hand close to the flame.  "Remember all that shit with the lake of blood and such?  She was there.  I made sure that gunshots started scared the humans off.  And she fucking...this girl, confronted with a lake that looked like the fifty foot woman dropped a tampon in it, a group of psychotic flying monster geese and the sound of massive gunfire, took the time to dip her hand in to see if it was real blood."

It's a dumb move.  It could have been suicidal.  And yet, Kali can't help but widen her grin.  She was deeply impressed by Bo's need to know.  And she knew that no matter what, the girl took her first steps into their world.  "Lux, babe...that right there takes Godzilla-sized balls."

Dogwood.  She frowns, shakes her head.  Maybe she should know.  To be fair, the Rroma's experience is on the street and in the underworld, not in hiring military contractors.  "I think there's a movie called that.  But I don't think that's what you mean."

Lux

"Do you know, every remark you make about your friend who is part of my club just makes me more and more curious about the story." Kali's smile fades and then widens into a grin: a trouble-loving, trouble-hungry grin, and Lux regards it for a cool moment before drawing a circle on the metal tabletop, sending her gaze heavenward, and chuckling. The hint-of-a-chuckle. The smoke-scrape of one.  "I'd never call her a coward." Though: Lux pauses after she says this, as if considering whether or not it's actually true or just something that seems true now. She shrugs it off, adds lightly, "Only you can't give 'em the world and keep 'em safe from it."

The forever-young woman shifts her weight from one arm of the chair to the other, wilting against it with a consummate artistry you'd think was practiced, though it isn't; it's just wilting, just a languid edge all disciples of Celerity earn once they're far enough along in their studies coupled with a more natural fluidity--and she touches one finger to her cheekbone, the other fingers curled half-over her mouth, not to stifle what she's saying but support.

"They were, are I should say, a gang of ghoulish ghouls without any master but the buck or whatever their going rate is, and in exchange for who-knows who-cares they'd blow safe-havens sky-high."

Lux

"I remember hearing about them in, what, the 70s I do believe, but I'm sure if you meet him again he'd be willing to tell you all its history while offering his services, as one of its founding members, unless he's already found a job."

Kali

"Hmm."  That one sound, it can mean so very many things.  It's disapproving to a degree, sure.  But it's also opportunistic as well.  They're Kindred, and as Kali has already pointed out, she's a pragmatist.  If she refused to work with anyone that she disapproved of, she would have a very short list of allies.  And if there's one thing that Kali likes having, it's allies.  She mulls it over thoughtfully, although to her credit there's a wrinkling of her nose.

"I can't stand independent ghouls," she says, finally.  "I mean, don't get me wrong, more power to them."  She smirks a bit there.  She loves seeing someone stand up and take charge, gain their freedom from the forces oppressing them.  "But a ghoul without a regular source is about as trustworthy as a fucking tweaker who can't look beyond their next hit.  And you don't stay independent for long if you have a regular source."

She sighs, shakes her head.  She hates new, unknown and uncontrollable elements. "That's...highly unfortunate.  I don't suppose they have a history of not working with Los Diablos de México, do they?"

Yeah, it's probably too much to ask.  But she can hope.

Lux

Another of those silk-whisper chuckles, brighter than before. "Mmno, I'm afraid they seem to be a rather egalitarian outfit."

Lux's gaze brightens too; more radiance under the sweep of her eyelashes, more diamond-sharpness, because she gets brighter the more she loathes something: "I do not like them either, for just such reasons as you might imagine. Like I said: somebody should shoot him in the back of the head."

Brief pause, and then, more generously: "But barring that, now you and your people know and you didn't hear it from me. Make use of him yourself or selves, watch him to see who wants to make use of him, but do keep an eye out."

Kali

"Ahh, son of a abagiu cocksucker."  Good old Ravnos, she slips to Romani and back just like that.  When Lux hates something, she gets brighter and shines all the stronger for her hatred; when Kali hates something, she curses.  Often creatively.  There's nothing all that creative about this one though, even if she is fairly irritated.  "So either someone in the Tower hires a bunch of stupid fuckin' ghoul Call of Duty crotch-droppings or we deal with them when the Sabbat do.  That's just fuckin' epic."

Underneath it all though her mind is whirring, spinning, twisting around alike a clockwork monstrosity invented by Cenobytes to capture humans and drag them to Hell; a trap that should never be opened or examined too closely.  There are dangerous thoughts that spin around in the Ravnos' brain, and Lux can practically hear the sound of plotting.

"Well, thanks," she says to the Toreador with a little smile.  It's geniue from the Ravnos.  "It's good to know either way.  I'd rather know that Psycho Bloodslut Team Six is possibly on our asses than have to guess at it.  You're good peeps, doll."

Lux

"Or," she says, brightly, helpfully, "the third option. Somebody shoots them. In the head."

Then, lifting her head and dropping her hand to her lap, the rain falling loud enough to drum up god and then going silent, silence, off to flood another street: "I like Rasmussen; I don't want him to become ash," Lux says, mouth curving. The radiance dims, or gets all enmeshed with shadow again; a suggestion in the dark.

"On that note, I'm afraid I still have a couple of errands to run before I turn in for the day, and it looks like now or never. Come, before we part ways, tell me something man-made you've recently enjoyed."

Kali

She grins at that, even laughs.  Lux's unwavering bright and cheeriness about shooting the mercenary ghouls in the head is endearing.  Deep down, she might be wondering and imagining that Lux might say the same about Bo one day, and the devil help her if she does because Kali will put the fear of an angry, vengeful Ravnos without mercy into God to make sure there's no help there.  But that's something deep in the back of Kali's mind that snarls and snaps and says MINE and not the darkly amused creature at the forefront, who recognizes the same possibility somewhere down the line but isn't worried now.  Because she has enough enemies and she likes Lux, and wants her to stay a friend and ally.

"Honestly?  I don't like Princes as a rule.  Like, ever.  But Rasumussen...well, I've seen a lot worse."

She gets a thoughtful look when Lux asks for something man-made she's recently enjoyed.  She pauses, considers, grins.  "All right, I'll give you one.  But it's a deep, dark secret.  I mean like, seriously.  You can't tell anyone about this, ever."

She looks left, looks right, leans in and murmers conspiratorily.  "There's this '80s-esque pop-rock group, Fitz and the Tantrums.  Seriously, it sounds like something that came out of England along with New Order and A Flock of Seagulls, only a little bit happier.  Everyone thinks I'm listening to some kind of fuckin' block party rhymes on the ol' i-Thingy, but when I've got the door shut and the windows drawn I'm bopping around almost like I've got legwarmers on and enough hair spray to light up a football field."

Lux

"I will never tell," Lux says, one hand over her heart. "My word on that," and at 'that,' the right-hand corner of her mouth snicks into a surprisingly sharp smirk. "Though you shouldn't hide your taste! 80s music is fun; music that wants to be 80s music just wants to have fun too. Don't be one of those grave people who should be in the grave who look at fun like it's a shame reserved for the canaille."

As she speaks, the Toreador rises. The star-spangles thrown by her mosaic-dress dance and skip, whisking around until they re-settle, and her smirk disappears. "Have a good night, Kali."

Kali

She grins and rises when Lux does; the Ravnos has no reason to stay here without the Toreador to talk to.  "I know, I know.  I love my '80s shit.  But the peeps on the steets...if I'm not down with my gangsta rap, they start to wonder about my cred.  And I hate waving the gun around to prove my point."

They're both standing, and Kali steps over to press warm lips (always looking human, this Ravnos) against Lux's blood-flushed cheek, then steps back, making to head off in the other direction with a grin.  "Keep blinding 'em with brilliance, babe.  Catch you later."