Participants:
| Scene Title | Daphne |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | A convergence of familiar and unfamiliar faces in the Rivage. |
| Date | June 27, 2010 |
Le Rivage is a building constructed very much in the Art Deco style. Its lobby walls are quilts of slim wooden paneling, primarily a light tan but with several pieces of darker hue mixed in. The floor is similar in scheme, if with geometric designs in taupe and chocolate on the golden background rather than random bits of color. The wooden receptionist's desk almost blends into its surroundings, despite a glossy black top and the painting centered behind it. This complex offers a variety of apartments for people of moderate income, from studios to three-bedroom suites.
There is an upside to coming into the Rivage at an ungodly hour, when there's no discernible security and therefore, no one to stare at the pink haired woman in jeans, black hoodie, boots, shotgun poking out of a carrying bag and smelling much like the grave-site that she and Mel had been walking through and digging around in. Caliban should have told her to borrow a clunker from the Ferry because she knew what she was doing after work later tonight. Taking the thing to be cleaned and smell nicer.
But it is an ungodly hour indeed, the moon up and already heading down, curfew has been in effect for quite a while and most sane people are sleeping, dreaming about puppies, lovers, making love, or having nightmares. Not Abigail. Abigail is tired, dirty, smelly, has to be up in three hours to save lives and trudging through the lobby of her buildings. Thank god for living on the bottom floor.
The lobby door opens, but rather than the obvious silhouette of a person, a blur of cream and red and gray goes streaking by, leaving the door open for a moment, caught in the rush of wind before it slowly squeaks shut. The tri-colored streak makes it across the lobby and disappears up the stairs, the thrum of footfalls too close together to be heard as individual steps. And then the thrum begins anew, descending this time before the steak of colors coalesce into a form — the form of Daphne Millbrook, who tilts her head in a comically quizzical expression. "Abby? Uh. What the hell are you carrying?" the speedster asks the owner of the bar she's frequented in the past.
Most sane people are asleep. Then again, that assumes that Nadira was either sane or most people. While the lobby of the Le Rivage was not her original destination, the sneaking feeling that someone was following her wasn't something she could shake. After all, a woman walking alone late at night, a pretty one at that, could get into all sorts of trouble if the wrong person snuck up on her. Most people would be in a lot of trouble.
Then again, Nadira wasn't most people. Ducking into the lobby and stepping out of the way of the doorway, if she had been followed and her assailant proceeded into the lobby after her, she now had the element of surprise. Unfortunately for her, she wasn't the only one in the lobby, and the quick entrance and duck out of the way probably looked a little more than odd.
Look again; the lobby's background is now occupied by a tall, scruffy white male in a rumpled grey suit eating mints out of a tray on the receptionist's desk. He's been here for a good five or ten minutes, but he looks like he's been out. Smells like he's been out too — cigarette smoke saturated in thick and deep enough to pollute any air about him that happens to not smell like booze. It's coarse in the grizzled bristle of his hair and in the open flare of his collar and cuffs. Blue. Presumably chosen to match his eyes by a person who gets paid to care about color coordination.
He looks (relatively) sober for all that, though — tired lines sketched in long around his mouth while molars behind them grind through peppermint pink and white. Seven empty wrappers lie desolated around the tray. Another's already fluttered to the floor while he works on a ninth, bony fingers pausing in their work when the air at his back flutters one way and then back the other.
He starts to turn. Pauses partway there. Resumes his chewing and angles his attention down after the region of Nadira's ass instead.
"Lordy you're fast" Abigail's brought up short by the blurred then clear arrival of Daphne in front of her, blinking. So tired, things take a moment to process, pull the olive green bag closer under her arm. "Shotgun" One that Flint from his minty perch is familiar with. Her head down, she hadn't seen him and doesn't quite yet as she turns to see who came in after her. Unlike Flint, her gaze doesn't drift to the other woman's ass. "I live just down the hall, was hoping to get a few hours in before work. How are you?" Spoken to daphne, but her gaze is questioningly on Nadira.
"You… usually tote that around with you?" Daphne says, dark eyes round in her pale face, glancing down to see dirt on Abby's shoes and looking questioningly at the girl, also not noticing Flint as he masticates by the desk, dark as that area of the lobby is since no one is actually working. Her eyes flicker to Nadira and then back at Abby. "You wanna talk about that? We can go down to your room," she offers, wondering if the former bar owner is in trouble of some sort — and if she really wants to help her.
The nervous look of the darker girl by the door is noted, and Daphne tilts her head. "You okay? Someone chasing you? You want to call the cops or something?" she says a little louder, a glance to Abby suggesting Abby should get out of dodge if the cops are coming — shotgun and all.
Turning towards the others in the lobby, Nadira shakes her head as she looks towards the door for a moment. Seeing as no one's come through, she looks a touch embarrassed. "Sorry. Thought someone was following me so I came in here. I didn't mean to disturb any of you. My apologies." The three are noted, briefly, before Nadira gives a quick glance back to the door. "Though, if someone has a map somewhere, I'd be grateful. I had one of the transit system but I seem to have lost it and I'm not terribly familiar to the city of New York."
With other remnant wrappers still turning all feathery light and awkward over themselves on their way to the floor in Daphne's wake, Deckard hears Nadira out, stares at her a moment longer…and eventually resumes unwrapping his current mark at a slower pace. In silence. Evidently he does not have a map. Unless he is keeping it in her ass.
Which seems unlikely. At least in the sense that she'd probably know it was there, pragmatically speaking.
Daphne's slightly louder voice along with mention of the fuzz is enough to complete his turn once he's pushed mint into mouth. He's still chewing at a mellow distance when the buzzy warmth on the fringes of his vision resolves enough for him to put a face to pink hair and familiar voice opposite Daphne across the lobby.
At which point he draws up out of his slouch like he's just seen a 747 about to crash in through the doors.
"You're not going to find a bus running this time of the… morning. Curfew, everything pretty much shuts down. You can keep heading out and skipping patrols or you can probably hang out here in the lobby till six rolls around" Abigail offers to the woman. If this had been the bar, she would have given her the couch in the back room, but it's not, and she has a roommate who won't take to strangers. "I have a permit Daphne. For the shotgun. Cops won't do anything other than ask to see it and I have that on me too. Hunting license tooooo"
It's a ghost. In the lobby. "Daphne… there's… a guy by the mint bowl… right? I'm not going crazy right?"
Daphne arcs a brow at the talk of permits and hunting licenses — not really things that cops care about in the city, but she supposes Abby could just be coming in from a hunting trip out in the country. "Nope, no map on me. You might be able to call a cab," Daphne tells Nadira — if she were feeling charitable she'd run the girl to wherever she needed to go, but that would mean outing her ability to a stranger. Unlikely.
The petite blonde's eyes slide to the man that Abby is staring at, and she scowls — he was there the whole time and she didn't see him? She's really getting lax in her ways. "Shit," she swears, angry at herself for not noticing someone who just witnessed her using her power. "Uh, yeah, he's here. What are you looking at? Take a picture, it'll last longer." No one ever said she was mature.
"See something you like?" Nadira mutters, an eyebrow raised, having noted Deckard's gaze, though she pauses as she notes the sudden interaction between Abby and Deckard. Oh, now this was something interesting. "Curfew? Ah, I didn't really realize there was something like that here. I'm glad I found out about it sooner rather than later." Curfews, a registry of Evolved.. there were quite a few unpleasant things Nadira was finding out about. And they say the U.S. was a country of freedom. "I'll figure it out, thanks." While she says that, though, her eyes are really on the situation at hand. "Is.. everything quite alright?" Well, Deckard /did/ have the look of some creeper.
If Deckard is a ghost, he's one with hyper-realistic reticence. He says nothing to identify himself as himself or to otherwise mitigate tension winching in slow through the triangle comprised of jaw, shoulder and shoulder and instead hesitates into an awkwardly muzzy blink. Kind of like he's trying to wake himself up only to give Nadira a look that's two parts abrasive disinterest and one part equally abrasive distraction as he leans into an uneven step away from present parties one, two and three.
The aforementioned doors are near enough that it shouldn't take much at all for him to finalize Abby's initial impression by vanishing through them.
A hand goes out to Daphne's shoulder, a silent attempt to shush the woman, meeting eye to eye with Deckard even as she registers Nadira's words of not knowing there was a curfew. Face follows the speed and pace which the ghost from her not so distant past takes to go to the doors and out into the night. She snaps out of it a few seconds later, digging into her pocket to produce keys.
"Hey um, Daphne, can you.. take my keys, it's 106, can you.. I don't even know your name. listen curfews up soon, in a few hours, I got a couch, and my partner best I know isn't home. Just uhh… make yourself comfortable and… I'll be back, I need to talk to someone" A gesture to the door that Flint is exiting out of.
"You know him?" Daphne says, glancing at Abby, hands coming up for the keys. Well, it's at least less worrisome than some stranger having seen her use her power — Abby's not likely to be chasing after someone who would force her to Register, after all — Right? She wrinkles her nose as she's given babysitting duty to the foreigner. "I… but… If you're not back in an hour, I'm outa there, and if she steals your plasma TV, it's on you," she tells Abby's back as the woman makes after Deckard.
"Come on," she tells Nadira, beginning to make for the apartment in question, not watching to see if Nadira is following her or not.