023: Everyone Learns Faster on Fire [Location: the Ninth Floor Kitchen]

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

The city - so much smaller than it had been a few nights ago - was balanced on the edge of a knife. One mischievous breeze would be enough to push them off and send them tumbling into the fire. The humans were running in circles, unable to focus on what they really needed to be frightened of. The vampires were butting heads and burning bridges and losing themselves in the woods.

Drusilla could already feel the flames licking at the hem of her dress.

With her head in the storm clouds, she wound her way up to the kitchen on the ninth floor to find herself a mug of blood. It was a good job that the silly little man hadn't poured their supper away. The hamsters were wicked things, but at least they'd had the good sense to give the cats something else to eat when they locked them into the cage with the mice.

She climbed up on to the counter once her stomach was full and, when she tired of the heat that came from dangling over the edge and too close to the flames, stretched herself out like a cat in a patch of sunlight.

It had been so many years since she'd seen the sunlight.

The vampire gazed up at the ceiling, both seeing and unseeing. The stars were hidden from her here - there were too many barriers and bars between them - but she could still see things that other people missed. She could still see what mattered.

"We have all the pieces," she murmured, "But they're not ready to use them."

Comments

[location - and let the cat-and-cat game commence?]

[stepintoshadows.livejournal.com]

It was pure serendipity that he found her. His Monster. The one he had warned others of, had been on a search for himself since the day of his Arrival. Without a name, without more than a glimpse of her face (both of them), it had been difficult work, and the irony that it was now, when he was distracted by circumstance and the latest tricks of their captors, that he was able to find her without effort was not lost on him.

It was cruel irony, not that life seemed inclined to ever provide otherwise. Without his face, without armor and with tools no more dangerous than a blunted pencil, vulnerable and exposed. He didn't like it, it wasn't ideal. Foolish to even try; he had seen what her ilk could do, the damage her True Face could cause. He should have reinforcements, send a transmission for Daniel at least to gain his assistance. But it would waste time. The Other Vampire (Angel, the corners of his mind provided, though how something founded in stories designed to terrify could carry the name of something so sacred seemed inherent blasphemy) had said violence and conflict was no longer their way, but this one he knew for certain was not the same. She had promised violence and blood; her removal was necessary. He could not possibly find cause to object.

Rorschach knew he should ready himself. Prepare. The last time he had fought one of these things alone they had been evenly matched, and now he didn't even have an edge, no matter how superstitious the necessary item sounded. But there was no time; she was here, now. There was no alternative. Prepare as best as possible under the circumstances, and hope for the best. He ducked behind the closest table as cover and crept towards a cabinet; there had to be something potentially useful around, it was a kitchen after all.

The game is afoot!

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

Drusilla heard Rorschach before she saw him and, even when he entered the kitchen, she felt no need to turn her head and look at him with her eyes. He was calm but his beating hard betrayed him. People were a lot better at hiding when they were dead.

Her hunter. She liked having an enemy all of her own. It reminded her that, despite the wires in her brain, she truly was the monster that the devil had made her to be.

"I'm not hungry," she said, her eyes still fixed in the general direction of the ceiling, "I didn't ask for dinner."

And, best of all? Dinner thought that he could hurt her.

*cue chase music! or Jaws theme. I'm still undecided*

[stepintoshadows.livejournal.com]

If he hadn't already come across another of her kind in person he might have been startled by the words, the tone that implied he hadn't been as stealthy as he'd hoped, and the cavalier act that toyed with feigned ignorance. But as it was he'd known she would be sharp, far sharper than his usual prey, and while he had certainly hoped he would go unnoticed he had by no means counted it a certainty. The goal was to gain a weapon, a tool, before she made a move, not evade her notice entirely.

Should have come prepared. Should have found something before deciding to sneak around. Stupid. Always helpful, Rorschach reprimanded, mocked, leaving Kovacs to fumble through cabinets with clumsy fingers forced into nimbleness without the protection and certainty of his face. Focus. Pay attention. THINK.

Fingers finally closed around the handle of a pan. Testing it showed it had some heft, but it was awkward. Ungainly. Manageable, but unbalanced. Not ideal, but he would have to make do. He continued to creep around the table, clinging to his illusion of concealment despite the fact that he assumed it to be false, and tried to determine an approach that might work. Unexpected. No warning. Limited possibility for a return attack. "Didn't offer."

I vote for the Jaws theme. Chase music makes me think Benny Hill.

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

Drusilla liked this pale and desperate face of his. It was vulnerable. He was vulnerable.

She realised, now, that he didn't wear any sort of mask. They were both real, but the one that he wore when he killed - when he tried to kill - was the most real of all. If she peeled if off, there would be nothing more than bones and flesh underneath.

"My dinner never does," she said. That was how she liked it. They begged for life, not to be eaten.

I was thinking more along the lines of "Just Scarecrows to War", actually, buuuut Jaws it is!

[stepintoshadows.livejournal.com]

It was now or never. He couldn't sit silent, couldn't back down now that he was here and one of the city's few sources of true darkness was so close. Others might not have the steadiness of hand to do what was necessary, but he did. It was his Purpose. Nevermind that one of Them had claimed they were not all monsters, that they did not feed, that they were only predatory at the whims of their abductors; it did not justify her words, nor the fact that there had been Incidents.

There was no war cry, no shout of warning, only stillness and then movement as he sprang from his hiding place towards her, pan raised and ready. It was too much to assume the attack would be met with complete success, but he counted on the fact that she would not expect something so direct.



[Mood music (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtigTkBJbLs), in case you're not familiar with Doctor Who soundtracks. Or, you know. This (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWLO4acMTCM). To cover all the bases.]

Oooh, I definitely approve of that choice!

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

She didn't move until he did, but, when Drusilla slid from the counter and moved out of reach, it was with prenatural speed and eerie grace. Vampires were fast, but she was faster than most. She expected everything. She'd seen the movement in her mind's eyes before Rorschach had realised that he'd chosen the path.

"Naughty," she purred, "That's no way to treat a princess. Didn't your mummy read you fairy tales when you were small?"

OOC: I am addicted to the Doctor Who soundtracks. It sounds excellent.

Awesome, right?

[stepintoshadows.livejournal.com]

"You're not a princess," he growled, slipping into Rorschach's gritty monotone without his notice as he braced himself against the counter to check his momentum before whirling to face her again, the movement more fluid than most of his own kind were capable of but still only human. "You've killed. Eaten human flesh. Probably drank blood. Don't get courtesy."

He barely waited long enough to formulate a new plan of attack before rushing towards her again, sweeping in low this time in an attempt to catch her off-balance.


OOC: guhhh me too. I go through periods where that's mostly all I listen to. It's just so goooood. And on a consistent basis too! Which is always awesome.

YYYYY

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

"I am," she argued, though her tone was musical and light. She wasn't remotely afraid, but she was thoroughly amused. "I was born in a palace. My mother wove my hair into rope, but the prince didn't come in time. It was the devil that climbed up to slit our throats."

She skipped away from him again, like a dancer. Her balance was perfect and her eyes were bright.

"Not flesh," she said, pulling a face, "Just blood. I don't want the flesh. All the stories worth hearing run in the veins. Do you have any stories?"

[stepintoshadows.livejournal.com]

The more neatly she avoided him, the more frustrated Rorschach seemed to become. He'd never gone up against someone without being able to get in a single strike, not since he'd been a naive child and blind to the true face of the world, and even that hadn't lasted long. He would have reached for her, tried to hold her in place before she retreated too far away, but he was loath to touch her, as if afraid her corruption would spread to him if he did.

"Stay still!" Lips twisted into a feral snarl as he again tried to follow her movements, crooked yellow teeth bared as he spat the words. "Talk big, but coward at heart. Starting to doubt sincerity of threats."

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

"I don't need to fight you," she said with a laugh, raising her arms above her head as she danced around the kitchen. She swayed her hips and hummed along to a song that nobody else could hear. "My words have already made you wriggle."

Wriggle like a fish caught on a line. But he was right. She could talk, but she couldn't hunt. Not any more. She felt the wires in her brain tighten at the idea.

"One day," she murmured, talking to herself rather than him, "One day he'll be ours. We'll show them that our bite is just as nasty as our bark."

[stepintoshadows.livejournal.com]

In the battle between Patience and Restraint, something finally gave way. He felt it shatter and slip away at the clear defiance, the childlike laugh that mocked and teased, and while normally he has layers to protect from this, certitudes given in leather and black and white, without them it's harder to reign them in, to stop and think and plan more than a step in advance, especially when every move seemed calculated to tempt, to gain a reaction, to goad. Husk and pathetic form can be controlled but only when there's iron will behind it, tempering instinct and action with vision and forethought.

He needed his face, he was too vulnerable like this. Too reckless even by his own standards, too desperate. He forced himself to stop, to still, to wait and watch and refuse to be moved to action prematurely. He all but thrummed with tension, ratcheted up to the point of breaking but held back now that he saw what the game was. His eyes followed her, predatory and careful, tightening his jaw and resolve against her movements and words. He'd been correct, she couldn't harm him. Not now. "Will refrain from judging until there's proof. Will be waiting."

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

Drusilla had always known patience - Daddy, the most patient and methodical of hunters, had taught her - but there had been a time when restraint had been nothing more than an alien concept. Before the chip. Back when she'd been free to kill and to play in the mess she made.

The vulnerability made her stomach growl and her poor head ache. She doubled over, laughing in uproarious delight even as the pain coursed through her. She wanted to eat him. She wanted to rip his throat out and see the look of surprise on his not-quite-face.

"The judge and the jury," she cooed in a singsong voice, "They'll find you before you find me."

[stepintoshadows.livejournal.com]

The laughter judged and chided, set his teeth on edge and nearly ruined his control a second time, cruel claws reaching back to Earlier Days when it was not so unusual. When the world didn't know to fear him. He took steps closer before he had even thought to check himself, then suddenly ground to a halt, glowering up at her, hands at his sides, determined to gain the upper hand somehow.

"Found you once already," he offered coolly. "Without intervention. Can do it again." A pause. "Who are judge and jury?" As far as he was concerned he was the only one needed, but nevertheless it had been an odd statement. Especially coming from her.

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

"But not when I was hiding," she reminded him. Out in the city, with the wind in her hair and the stars on her skin, she was as swift and insubstantial as a wraith. Unseen.

She tilted her head to one side, apparently deciding whether or not to share the truth - or a scrap of it, at least - with her latest toy. He amused her. She needed someone to keep her amused in a city like this.

"The ones who brought us here."

[location: kitchen]

[patternal.livejournal.com]

There was no place to wander anymore. No place that he could go, no escape from that caged feeling, a rare bird on display to the world. The collectors had provided the best cage they could, certainly, but, in the end, it was still just another set of hard, cold bars to view the outside through.

Without even a city to sate the lust for leaving--the lust for living--he was beginning to lose his mind.

He'd been over and through every inch of the building--if he'd been allowed, he's have gone under it. This was ridiculous. And his mood only got darker the more times he wandered through the building.

Conversation, at least, was some kind of a distraction. Never mind that just his expression was enough to drive people away. But he could, occasionally, stumble across something interesting. Like a woman laying across a counter, speaking to herself.

"The pieces of what, Lady?"

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

He wasn't thinking clearly. He was trying to wander with his feet rather than his mind. Nothing - not hamsters, not wires in her head, not cages of conscience - could keep her caged when she could watch the stars.

"The pieces of the puzzle," she murmured, turning her head to scrutinise the new arrival but not sitting up. Not yet. She was too comfortable.

[patternal.livejournal.com]

"Which puzzle might that be, Lady? It hardly helps to have the pieces if I don't know what image I'm to be assembling." So maybe he was only playing, but it felt good to at least try and get back into his old game. Doubtless, he'd want for skilled players so long as he was here, but he could still play. At the very least, it was some kind of enertainment and better than doing a hell of a lot of wandering that got him precisely nowhere.

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

"This city," she said, in a conspiratorial tone. It wasn't a secret - it was obviously, if you cared to open your eyes - but it was something that a lot of people seemed to have missed. How did the humans, who kept their heads buried down in the sand, ever get anything done? "And the people in it."

The biggest puzzle of all and they were part of it.

[patternal.livejournal.com]

"Quite the ambition, Lady. I'm not even certain that it's possible to have all of the pieces in the first place, let alone the image to assemble them against. How can you tell where they all fit together? If you've forced a piece in?" Who even knew how many times he'd tried to solve the place and gotten nowhere? It was already too many times to count, and still nothing had come of the effort.

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

"Because they fit," she said, as if the answer should have been obvious. As far as Drusilla concerned, it was. Her mind looked at things in a very different way. "That's how a jigsaw works."

[patternal.livejournal.com]

"Do you have some knowledge the rest of us don't, Lady? It would be nice if I could convince you to share it." However he had to, really. Entirely shameless.

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

"I don't know."

Though she did, of course. The answer was yes. She knew a great deal more than other people because other people rarely made the effort to listen.

Her smile widened as she canted her head to regard him with an unfathomable expression. She looked at him without looking at him, her eyes reaching to distant horizon.

"I can keep secrets."

[patternal.livejournal.com]

"That, Lady, is a skill I've noticed most women possess." He almost couldn't help but smile--there was something almost perversely enjoyable about this conversation. At the very least, he hadn't had one like it in a while, and he was enjoying himself.

"And, much as I'd like to know what they are, it is beyond the purview of gentlemen to ask. A Lady is entitled to her secrets, after all. In a way, they may even make her more desirable, knowing there's a mystery to be solved."

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

It was hard to be yourself when part of you - the teeth and claws that backed up her lyrical threats - was kept under lock and key. But she could pretend. She could pretend and she could play along with a demure smile and bright eyes.

"I didn't know they had proper gentlemen here," she said, sitting up at last. "Have you been hiding away?"

[patternal.livejournal.com]

"Hiding, no." He hadn't been trying to, anyway. But when they could actually leave the building, the city was somewhat bigger--big enough to get lost in, anyway, as much as he hated to admit it. Proximity bred a lot of things, though.

"I'd prefer to call it 'busy.'"

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

"Waiting?" she offered. She liked that word. They were waiting - all of them were waiting - but they were not defeated. They were hunters in the shadows and the whispers on the edge of the mind. "We're all waiting here."

[patternal.livejournal.com]

"Waiting is, perhaps, the best way to put it, Lady." It made it sound less like they weren't leaving, anyway, less like they were stuck here forever. They were just...waiting for the reight moment to spring the cage and fly away.

"Waiting, yes. But how many ever wait for the same thing?"

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

There was no such thing as forever. Even immortals - like her great grandfather, like Angelus, like Drusilla herself - faded away eventually. Only their legends were left. Taxon was large and loud, but it wasn't eternal.

"We're all waiting to soar away," she pointed out. "We want to be free again."

Whatever that meant.

[ location: ninth floor kitchen ]

[deniedthesight.livejournal.com]

Angela is getting more than a little stir crazy, and that anxiety has her exploring a lot. Hunger and the need for coffee has her finding herself on the ninth floor, and she's a little surprised to find someone already there, laying across the counter. She's even more surprised to see evidence of blood recently being consumed, and her body tenses ever so slightly as she moves towards the refrigerator.

"Hello," she nods to the woman, for lack of anything else to say (and feeling extremely awkward).

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

"Hello."

The new arrival - human, or something close to it - had been polite and neutral. Drusilla returned the favour in kind, turning her head to regard the woman with bright eyes. She licked her lips, savouring the last few drops of blood that waited for there. She felt much better now. She was ready to play.

[deniedthesight.livejournal.com]

The way Drusilla's looking at her makes Angela a tad wary, but she hasn't made any move to attack her, and so she goes about making coffee. While she waits for it to finish, she begins looking for something quick to prepare to eat. Eggs, maybe. Or a sandwich.

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

Drusilla watched her without blinking. It was difficult to tell if the woman was frightened or not, given that they were all on edge - on the edge of the brightest of knives - while they were trapped in here. She decided to push. To wobble her a little.

She didn't have her dolls, after all. She had to make her own fun.

"Aren't you going to offer me tea?"

[deniedthesight.livejournal.com]

Angela tenses a bit, turning to look at the woman. Her inner sense of danger, the one that always protected her from being hurt, always told her where the bad guys were, wasn't flaring up, so she wasn't worried about whether or not she was going to attack - not yet. But the way she moved and talked made her nervous, reminded her of the times she visited her sister in the mental wing of Ravenscar. She's not so quick to buy into the prejudice against vampires, but she's not terribly eager to trust them, either.

"Sure," she said with a nod after a few beats, and then went to the cupboard to search for tea and a pot. "How do you take yours?"

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

"Warm and red," she replied, stretching out on the counter like a cat reclining in a patch of sunlight. Her eyes were half closed, but she could still see the woman as clearly as she could see the stars that shined about them. "And fresh."