taxonomites | 4 | [ location: the taxon zoo / visual ]

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4 | [ location: the taxon zoo / visual ]

While Taxon is a city of decent size, it is also rather sleepy and quiet outside of any glitches. When Katherine set out and about earlier, she hadn't specifically intended to visit the zoo. As it is, it's as good a place as any for the vampire to roam about (despite the distinctive smells the place is ripe with) in effort to ease the boredom creeping in again. Angelus had been a delightful change of pace, but that is over and done with. And now Rose has been sticking her nose where it doesn't belong, telling Stefan about being her sire. Katherine would definitely have to do something about that soon.

She passes the wolf paddock with distasteful sniff, heading towards the big cat enclosures instead. While Katherine has never really seen the appeal in gawking at trapped wild animals, she has to admit that there is something vaguely calming about watching the small pride of lions basking in the sun as if they hadn't a care in the world. It's almost enviable, really.

The trouble with calm is that it inevitably leads to idleness and boredom, at least it does with Katherine - and that's exactly what she's trying to avoid. Hence, she turns her attention towards her tablet.

"Going to the zoo just isn't much fun alone. Anyone want to join me?" she smiles winsomely at the screen. "Doesn't matter whether I know you or not. One can never have too many friends."

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Can we visit the unicorn?

Oh, absolutely. The unicorn and every other creature you'd like to visit.

I'll bring a picnic.

Excellent. I shall see you shortly.

When Drusilla arrived at the gates of the zoo, she was dressed in a long white dress and carrying a neat little wicker basket. There was a neat red and white cloth tucked around it to hide the blood and the bones. Human and animal and something in between. She'd promised a picnic and she knew how to treat someone like Katherine.

She could hear lions and tigers and bears through the bars.

They were hungry.

Katherine didn't have trouble spotting Drusilla, for her dress had caught her eye from a good distance away. Pushing herself off the fence she'd been leaning against, she smiled and sauntered up to meet her friend, high heels clicking softly against the pavement. Even dressed down, Katherine favored form-fitting clothing and pretty, expensive shoes. One would never catch her in converses and comfy jerseys like her doppelgänger Elena.

Truth be told, Katherine hadn't been one hundred percent certain if Drusilla had actually been serious about the picnic. Seeing the basket Drusilla has with her, Katherine was pleasantly surprised (albeit also a little amused) that she had indeed.

"Hello again," she greeted with a smile, scrutinizing the other woman for a moment. "How have you been?"

Darla had always made sure that she was dressed in the most fashionable of outfits, wherever or whenever they were. Katherine was just as elegant as her grandmother had been. She even had the same dangerous shadows in her eyes and the same deliciously wicked smile.

"I had my Daddy back for a little while," she answered, perfectly honestly, "But then they snatched him away again. The hamsters are too clever to let us settle. We won't squirm if we don't find out feet."

Katherine made a sympathetic noise at Drusilla's response, nodding her head sagely.

"Yes, I know. It's unfortunate that he was taken away. He was quite interesting," she said with a slight upturn to the corner of her mouth. Angelus had indeed been very interesting. The terror he'd managed to stir up had been delightful to follow. But he'd also been very impatient and impulsive, and now Angel had his soul back and Angelus was gone. It was time to move on and find other amusements.

"If it happens once, it can always happen again. Console yourself with that thought. He might come back later."

"Did you enjoy your conversations?" she asked, though Drusilla already knew the answer. Of course she'd enjoyed them. She must have. Daddy was the cleverest and most creative person that she had ever met. (She was an example of just how deliciously twisted he could be, wasn't she?) Katherine, if she had any sense, would have been drawn towards that like a moth towards a flickering candle flame.

"Oh, he always comes back to me," she added, tossing her head dismissively. Not just because of the hamsters, but because the soul that trapped him was a fragile sort of cage. There were plenty of gaps in the mechanism, just waiting to be exploited.

"I certainly did," Katherine agreed with another, slightly feline smile. Conversations as well as little something else (after all, he was attractive as well as interesting and Katherine was hardly coy or a prude) but she wasn't about to go into detail about that with Drusilla.

Drusilla's conviction brought on an unexpected twinge of... envy? Wistfulness? in Katherine. There seemed to be an indelible bond between Drusilla and Angelus/Angel that Katherine's kind of vampires lacked. No such connection existed between herself and Stefan and Damon - unfortunately. That might make things easier for her.

"In that case, patience is all that's needed. In the meantime, we'll come up with other amusements."

Those sort of details would have shrivelled their friendship before it had truly blossomed. Drusilla liked Katherine, but she wasn't Darla and she wasn't Spike and, consequently, she didn't want to share. Angelus was theirs.

"Shall we go and see the animals?" she asked. As always Drusilla balanced somewhere between childhood and adulthood (Angelus had taken her childhood away from her, so she lived everything she could now.)

Katherine was selfish down to the marrow of her bones. Treacherous, too; she didn't have friends. She had acquaintances, or pawns. Everyone was disposable as far as she was concerned, Stefan being the only exception. As much as she enjoyed Drusilla's company and liked the other woman, if the situation ever came down to it, Katherine wouldn't hesitate to place her own advantage and well-being above hers.

But there was absolutely no need to consider such dour technicalities now.

"Of course," Katherine smiled at Drusilla's enthusiasm, turning around to start their walk towards the heart of the zoo. "What would you like to see first? The unicorn?"

Drusilla had no soul to keep her in check, only her own ideas about loyalty and love. The knowledge of her childhood had been twisted and shattered and rebuilt, leaving her with an ideology that was all her own. She was loyal when she wanted to be, but she'd betray those she loved if the stars whispered the right words or they needed to be pushed down their path. (Sometimes, she knew what they needed even if they would hate her for it.)

"The unicorn," she confirmed with a nod, "I've always wondered what they'd taste like."

Sweet, probably. Like sunlight and rainbows and spring time.

Speaking of Stefan, he'd been bound for Tamper and Trick too seek out Tara with some questions he had about the magic from her world, thus had already been in the Wilde area. Upon seeing Katherine's transmission on the network, he'd turned around and headed over to the zoo. He'll be popping seemingly out of nowhere now in favor of leaning on the railing to her right, peering out at the lions as well.

"Think they know?"

Unshaken by Stefan's sudden appearance by her side, Katherine props her elbows against the railing and laces her fingers together.

"That they're in the presence of far superior predators? Hmm." Katherine watches as one of the lionesses turns lazily from her side to her back like a giant house cat, belly exposed to the sunlight. She gives Stefan a sideways glance and a wry smile. "Doesn't really look like it, does it?"

Stefan hadn't been expecting her to catch on to what he meant by that, but he holds back the surprise and follows the flow of conversation with ease.

"They say animals are supposed to know when a predator is nearby, but they don't seem to sense it. They're not alarmed at all by our presence, even if we could kill their entire pride in a matter of seconds. Especially with them lounging so carelessly like that." Conspiratorially in a way that would have both Damon and Elena scolding him if they could see it, he flashes her a grin. "I'll take the three on the three on the left, you take the ones on the right?"

Of course, logically, Stefan knows that caged animals are less aware of that which they would be more sensitive to in the wild, due to not having been exposed to it. Such is especially worse for those who have spent their entire lives in captivity. He's not sure just where the aliens grabbed these animals from, but they seem to be as used to humans (or those who appear to be human) as any other zoo animal is.

Katherine shrugs her shoulders slightly; there are several possibilities. Perhaps the lions haven't yet picked up their scent, perhaps it's simply desensitization due to long captivity. Maybe they were born in a zoo and accustomed to the fact that humans provided their meals. One didn't usually bite the hand that fed you.

"For all we know, these kitties could have been hand-raised and bottle-fed by humans and have no reason to be alarmed by them. They seem a little too complacent to be actual feral lions. I doubt they know any better. It's almost sad, actually."

Smiling slowly at Stefan's suggestion, Katherine raises a brow. "And then what? Set up shop for lion pelts?" With a matching grin, she nudges Stefan with her elbow playfully. "Ever tasted lion blood?"

( ooc | ...why did i write "the three on" twice? sob five am tagging. >.o; )

Had they not found a common ground a few weeks ago, Stefan might've replied to that with something a bit more venomous and less lighthearted. The comparison to a bottle-fed lion to a vampire not being properly taught by one's maker is on the tip of his tongue, but he forces it back. This balance is new, and he's not yet sure if it's entirely wanted, but spitting out such a remark would only result in disturbing it and he's not willing to do that yet. The lack of fighting and trying to see Katherine in a light that's not quite so dark is actually kind of nice.

"I hear they go for a pretty penny on the black market," he responds. As for lion blood... "You want an honest answer to that?"

Stefan lets the false implication hang in the air for a moment, then laughs. "No, never lion's blood. I have, admittedly, eaten animals outside the standard forest variety, but not lion."

Edited 2011-03-31 11:50 (UTC)

Katherine, on her part, is content to just go with the flow and take what she can. She isn't stupid enough to delude herself into thinking this newfound state of ceasefire between them is indelible. Too much has happened back in Mystic Falls that Stefan doesn't yet know about, nor do Damon and Elena. Any of them somehow finding out about the trouble Katherine had stirred up, the threats she had made, is a constant worry niggling in the back of her mind. But most of the time she ignores it, for the time being. Possibly this attitude may turn out to blow up in her face, but frankly she's too selfishly content with the way of things at the moment to think about that possibility too much.

"I don't know, Stefan; a black market in Taxon? Something tells me that might be a doomed attempt," she replies with a crooked smile, curiously gratified to hear him laugh. "No safari trips, then? Well, now you've piqued my curiosity. What's the strangest animal you've eaten? Do I even want to know?"

"Sugar glider," was his answer, and he made a face at the memory. It had been someone's pet while he'd been at Harvard. "It's a long story."

She certainly wasn't expecting that. Katherine wrinkles her nose, not quite certain whether to be more amused or bemused.

"Why would you--" she cuts herself off, shaking her head and laughing a little. "You know what, never mind. I think I can do without knowing."

"It was the seventies," he says anyway, pulling at leaves of a bush whose branches wrap themselves around the bars of the barrier that's supposed to prevent them from entering the lion's habitat. "I may or may not have been on an acid trip at the time."

Sorry, Stefan. Katherine can't quite suppress a snicker at that.

"I hope there were no witnesses to this snack of yours," she smirks. "Or if there were, they were as tripped out as you."

Edited 2011-04-04 21:56 (UTC)

"No, no witnesses," he confirms, busying himself with stripping the leaves off the branch closest to him. It's an old, bad habit of his. When he feels the need to fidget, he usually finds something to do with his hands and focuses on what's in them instead of the urge to move around and tug at the edges of his clothing and pick at the chips of paint that were starting to crack and peel from the railing.

He drops the handful of leaves he's collected into the lion's pen, but they don't seem to care, if they even noticed. "You never drank animal blood?"

Katherine watches the leaves flutter noiselessly onto the ground, turning her head to look at Stefan's profile at his question. In her head, she's taken back to the time right after the transformation when she was so ravenous she'd eaten almost anything that crossed her path, wondering if the hunger would ever abate.

"I did occasionally. Sometimes you have to manage however you can. If that meant eating a horse here or a wolf there, then so be it," Katherine murmurs, "But I never made a habit out of it. I decided early on to prefer human blood. Not only for the superior taste, but because I needed to be as strong as I possibly could while on the run. To be able to use every ability I had to its fullest."

The deciding factor had been survival for Katherine, especially during the first few decades. When she'd had no money to pay for a train ticket or a ship voyage to whatever destination she needed to reach, she couldn't take the risk of her compulsion wearing off and revealing her fraud.

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[ location ] the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;