Participants:
| Scene Title | Hey Lady |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Two women with more in common than they think are acquainted. |
| Date | December 11, 2019 |
Cat's Cradle
A loud thumping bass pounds from the upper level flat of Cat's Cradle. Where Eve Mas is known to reside. 90's Hip-Hop, Biggie. She wasn't afraid to say she was a Tu-PAC fan as well but that wasn't up for debate at the moment.
The music continues as the door to the living space bangs open and the woman in question comes flying down the stairs. The skirts of her green dress billowing in the wind that she makes with her flight. Her hands grab onto the railing as she falls, Eve has been practicing. Like a snap, she blinks away and turns into the churning, blood red mist form she adopts when phasing. The female form twists and lands at the bottom of the steps, Eve's pale flesh snapping back on as she cracks her neck, doing some jumping jacks.
She's been getting ready for something.
"Hey Lady!" Calling one of the recent temps, people were always trailing through and Eve always had work. Another worker, one of the more permanent members by the name of Poppy is manning the bar. Her closely cropped blonde curls are slicked back with gel. She pours out of a fifth of tequila. For a patron who is slurring already. It's only noon so he might be on his last one. Eve had few rules.
Don't puke on the floor is one of them.
The infamous Sassy is somewhere in the back, 'running the numbers' he says. You can always hear old reruns of RuPaul's Drag Race blaring from his office. The worker, or woman that has Eve calling out to her though is stationed near the make shift kitchen, now with a half wall built around it separating from the rest of the bar.
"Is that cheeseburger done? There should be two!" Poppy glares at Eve but ends up laughing and answers for the other blonde over there, who clearly isn't cooking food. She's on dish duty, at the moment. It's not too many people yet, barely ten to warrant her skills as a bouncer. "Eve, I made it. Why are you asking her?" Holding up her hand and rolling her eyes to which the older, pale woman fakes outrage, "That's fifty cents out of your tips young lady!"
"Lady! Yes you! Can you bring those two over here? Oh oh take your apron off, no need!"
Kara Prince has worked a number of odd jobs in her life, but this is the first time she's ever been a dishwasher and a bouncer at the same time. Or a dishwasher, for that matter. This should be an easy set of tasks to attend to with minimal excitement. But she's learning quickly that nothing is ever that easy around Cat's Cradle.
She looks up from mopping the back when she finally realizes Eve is shouting for her, only a glance out of the corner of her eye as she pauses. Her?
Lady. Yes, you!
Kara had told Eve her name at least three times now, but it never seemed to stick. Maybe it was payback for Kara not having known who Eve really was on arriving; no knowledge of horse memes or legendary wild behavior. She had vague familiarity with tales of a nameless Murderimp out West, though, and had lifted her brow at that one when having had a stream of titles and achievements thrown out rapidfire to see if any of them rang a bell.
The mop lands with a splash back in the bucket as she's beckoned and Kara considers the single set of plates waiting to be washed. Without a full house, there certainly wasn't that active of a kitchen, either, the amount of things to do at this time of day down to a trickle. So, sure. She'll play ball.
She lifts the wet apron off the top of her head, hanging the neck of it off the side of the drying rack. Her hands smear against the denim of her blue jeans, eyes half-lidded in a calm as she heads across the kitchen. It's been decades since Kara had worked part-time as a waitress, but a lifetime of work requiring steady hands sees the plates are held with a stoic posture as she hipchecks the kitchen door open to the bar floor.
"Where do you want them, ma'am?" Kara asks, short but not brusque about it.
"Sit. Eat." Gesturing for Kara to place the plates down, one in front of Eve and another at the empty places around her at the table. The dark haired woman snakes into a seat and drums her fingertips along the table. Pulling a joint out of the ashtray, on a day like this. The complimentary ones weren't being smoked as fast enough and Eve always hid a few premium joints among the "Reggie" ones.
Once the plates are down, Eve wolfs down a few fries and takes a gigantic bite out of her burger. "So!" Shouting around the food in her mouth before she swallows, "Tell me a story!"
Eve's fingertips flicker around the joint and it begins to smoke, "I haven't gotten to know you Lady! I'm a curious cat." Wink wink, crazy grin.
The sparks from her fingertips burn a hole in the middle of the joint though and she swears, "Fuck!"
Throwing it back into the ashtray and going for another one right after.
Kara had a feeling she'd end up with the burger. She's not hungry, but she slides into a seat anyway, watching Eve tuck in. She glances over at Poppy a bit meaningfully, something like an apology in it before she resumes the moment with the bar owner, as eccentric as it is.
Tell her a story?
"Not much to say, ma'am." Kara insists with that same gruff politeness. "I'll be moving on soon enough anyway. Just getting enough money to keep heading West as far as the road will take me."
She doesn't flinch when Eve's form shifts before her eyes, if only because shes seen her do it before from afar. The accidental spark does elicit a blink, though. Kara thought, with all Eve's demonstrations, she had more control of her ability.
As Eve tosses aside one joint for another, the spark incident seems to have shifted Kara enough to speak just a little more. "It's time for me to go back somewhere I can do some actual good." Her weight shifts while she sits, legs coming to a cross as she considers some distant point briefly. Kara doesn't blink so much as come back to the moment, looking back to what's happening at the table, still not touching the plate.
"Eve, call me that."
No ifs, ands or buts!
Smoking more of the joint while Kara speaks and then zones out. It's something Eve does offer and it piques her interest.
West?
Eve is uncomfortable, thinking about out West. She buries the anger and guilt. It feels like she was just there.
Blowing smoke up into the air, she offers the joint to Kara with a meaningful look, "And were you doing no good, where… were you?" A tilt of Eve's head as she nabs a fry to pop into her mouth. The lightning that buzzes around her is calm for the moment, a welcome reprieve from the constant buzzing and crackles.
Without having taken so much as a bite of the food, Kara leans forward to accept the offered joint. She takes it between her index and middle finger, apparently unbothered by it. She wafts it under her nose to get the scent of it, but ultimately has more focus for the delicate topic at hand.
She looks back up to Eve. "In the end, I don't think so. Didn't do anything wrong so much as…" Her head tilts as she shrugs with a loose gesture of her wrist. "Well, we didn't do much right, either." A corner of her mouth pulls back in a small smile, none of her frankness fading. It's direct, even if it's vague.
"I was with a group of people. We walked into a trap." Her smile flattens, a moment of consideration given to the memory. "Did everything I could and it still… wasn't enough."
Kara looks back to Eve, offers the joint back to her with a nod for her to take it. "I couldn't save them," she believes enough to say aloud.
"Mmmmm, I know that look." Eve leans forward through the smoke to look down at Kara's hands. Studying them for a moment, she had done this upon their first meeting but this time it's different. She sees herself in them, she sees defeat in Kara's eyes. The way her face moves. All telltale signs that Eve had learned to read. She didn't need her foresight to gain insight on a person. Not anymore.
"I was with a group of people. We were like family, us against the world. Righteous in our cause." Eve sounds regretful, painfully so. "Blinded, we walked into a trap. I think we had gotten cocky. Lots of mistakes, foolish really." Taking the joint to hold in her fingers briefly before smoking. "I couldn't save everyone either and then… well. Then we let a monster out." Foolish.
"Have you ever heard of PARIAH?"
Kara shakes her head at Eve's story. It's a shame she shares the experience of letting those around her down, failing to keep them safe. "I'm not new to this," is something else she shares quietly. "But it's worse when it's people you know. People you care about." The Horsemen weren't like family, exactly, but they were kin.
It dawns on her suddenly to wonder who was looking after Odette if Lang was gone. It's a thought that weighs on her, makes her shift her weight. For want of a drink, she swipes a few fries off her plate instead, shaking her head to Eve's question.
"No," Kara answers frankly. Not the PARIAH from here, anyway. "One of the Resistance groups?" She tilts her hand again in that shruglike gesture, posture opened. She explains, "If they weren't on or near the West Coast, I've likely never heard of them." That being said, she lifts her chin in a gesture to Eve, trying to get back to the point. "They were your people?"
"Yep! That's the look you've got. You've been here before." Not here here but, ya know.
"We were violent. Blew up buildings. A lot were kids or young at heart even. We messed up big time, freed a bunch of Evolved prisoners of the Company, a blonde dick immortal being one of them. It was our biggest mission and our biggest failure. Adam wasn't worth it, if we had done nothing. Not followed my vision?" Eve shrugs, "Who's to say but the fact remains, we did. A name change was in order, we weren't the same. Lost our leader very soon after," a moment of silence for Cameron.
"Everyone wanted to wash the blood from their hands. So Phoenix we became," A snort and sheepish grin. "I didn't last long there though, lemme tell ya." Nabbing another fry for herself.
"Do you think your people are dead, have you looked at the scene of the crime?" Kara seems competent. She's must have.
Some things don't change between realities, and PARIAH's proclivity for violence and bombing seemed to be one of them. Kara looks vaguely concerned to hear what she does, brow starting to needle together. Her look hardens even more at the mention of the prison break.
A blonde immortal. Named Adam.
Surely too many of those couldn't be running around.
Then comes the mention of Phoenix, and Kara looks off entirely, swiping a few more fries for herself. "I can't relate, exactly," she shares, almost offhanded. "I ran with the Ferry. I spent most of my time leaving as little a footprint as possible, running people across the border. I went up and down the coast mostly, as far south as California, then brought people back across the Canadian border. So it went until we got our teeth kicked in and were forced to fight more than run. So that went until the nuke."
"Long couple of years," is how Kara chooses to summarize it. "And when it was done, the survivors were left to fend for themselves. I helped them rebuild. They helped me feel like I was doing something worthwhile."
It's stalling, maybe, oversharing like this. Eve's question about confirmation of the dead is hard to face. It was a bold assumption on her part, based solely on how badly things were reported to have been out there. The zone it took place in was under quarantine for a month.
"The scene was examined." Kara confirms. Not by her, but it was. "I don't even know how I survived— who or what pulled me out. I woke up states away, almost a month displaced in time, miraculously alive." She pauses for a moment, hesitating in how to explain it. Her eyes meet Eve's. "What I remember before going down doesn't paint a promising picture for everyone else." It's the first time she's said it out loud like that.
"And there we have it, I must toot my own horn dearie because I can always smell a good story on someone." Eve seems delighted at the prospect, leaning in even closer if that was possible.
"Time displaced? I know something about that, my cousin and I hopped on over to Ancient Japan, lost my head! Literally!" Eve cackles and slams a hand on the table with a hoot. "You were saved Lady, someone took you under their wing. Mmmm you're of interest then. Yes?" Eve tilts her head, "To someone." It's an obvious conclusion, for Eve anyway. "If you're having trouble with memory I know a deliciously good Telepath that could set you right, it's no good stumbling around in the dark."
There's an offer but Eve is interested in this site of tragedy. "So tell me Lady," Puff puff pass, "What do you remember?" Head cocked to the side, her hair falls into her eyes.
Kara's brow lifts at hearing yet another shade of hijinx that Eve got into. Losing her head? Ancient Japan?? She'd judge, save for her own story is just as strange. Maybe the eccentric cloud woman wasn't crazy, or leaning too hard into a euphemism. Maybe. Eve's offering of a telepath to help her sort her memories is met with a small frown, a shake of her head.
The noise in her head was hard enough to handle without someone tuning the static to clear up an image she wasn't sure she wanted to see. For this, or for her lost years.
When the joint is passed back, Kara does draw in from it this time. The cough afterward is quiet, her hand waving through the air to clear the smoke while her eyes sting.
"Bullets did nothing. They just… turned to ash and powder. I think we were betrayed. There was an old man who I never cared for. He— turned on us." Her brow twitches, as she tries to wade through the waking dream of that situation aloud. "But then… he vanished?" Her gaze wanders, another French fry sacrificed to fuel her thoughts. "None of the memories make any sense." is a mutter meant more for herself as she tries to analyze.
Then with a sudden refocus of her gaze on Eve, Kara smiles. "It's like a dream. Blurred. Not sure if I'll ever be able to make heads or tails of what's real, and what the concussion gave me." Her smile hollows as the memory continues to play out behind her eyes.
A flicker of eyelids happen as she relives being splattered with someone else's gore.
"I wonder what would have happened, had your immortal been there," Kara voices abruptly. She takes another small puff from the joint before offering it back, her eyes on the burning paper rather than Eve. "Would he have survived being disintegrated into bits so small none of them were identifiably human?"
"Because that's what happened. That's what I saw. That's one of the last things I remember being brought down on us."
Kara exhales from her nose, smoke carrying and burning with it. "Even the octobot left chunks." she grumbles in an aside to no one but herself.
It's in this moment that Eve realizes she's entered a game.
Her lashes flutter downward and she takes the chance to wolf down a large chunk of that burger. Chewing through Kara's explanation and question, "You shot at something that turned bullets to ash? Mmm you got Boomered and not by my friend." Honk.
"Well, if he was and he didn't survive. He wouldn't be a good immortal now would he!" Grinning widely and throwing the burger back down on the plate with a wet splat. "He's got more than one body now, very hard to kill now. A little upgrade from your standard regeneration. Did you know his blood can bring someone back from the brink of death?"
"Sounds like you've met him."
It's said simply and Eve takes another fry to pop into her mouth, she could be entirely mistaken. But what an odd question to pose. In any event, someone learning about Adam's treachery is better than whoever it is being unaware. That's he got you. "He's a social type, gets around. Kind of like a transferable bump on your ass! Just annoying, no scratch will remedy the irritation." Shaking her head, her eyes find Kara's and an eyebrow quirks upwards. "Am I warm?"
"An Octobot! Go figure, death and metal. Destruction glued together. Also very hard to kill." Kara's being alive meant she was indeed saved or she had no ability. "Those are supposed to be dead and gone."
"Well so is Adam so!"
Kara was never particularly good at these games. Cleverness lasted up until a certain point, though lies were better. In either case, there's a reason she's never stuck long around people who asked too many questions like this.
A game she's better at is keeping a poker face in the moment. She takes in what Eve says with a look of absent interest, the lot of it. Only at a single part do her eyes pause in their casual tracking, shoulders stiffening before she remembers to breathe again. While Eve shares one interesting thing after the next, Kara's heart has begun to race.
Did you know his blood can bring someone back from the brink of death?
A shudder of a breath leaves her, hope fighting its way into her chest. Minni.
"More than one of him?" Kara asks after a pause, looking back to Eve with a tempered expression. "One of him wasn't enough?" Her voice betrays what her expression holds secret; a familiarity, and a lack of fondness. "Great." she pronounces, eyes narrowing a tick before she considers the fries that are left. The poor burger sits untouched. It did nothing wrong, but it's harder to hold a conversation eating something like that.
Not that it was stopping Eve, though.
Shaking her head, Kara lets out a hollow laugh as she turns back to Eve. "If you don't want to find any, avoid sticking around for very long in Jersey. One attacked on Staten … and then it swam the next state over. And it hunts people who can do what you can do." She looks over knowingly at the paler woman, rubbing her fingers together like she's crumpling a string of paper between them. She lacks the ability to make sparks dance between her digits like Eve can, but she imagines her point gets across. "To add insult to injury, there's at least two roaming out there."
She leans back in her seat, her gruff mood souring. "But one of them's missing a leg, and an eye. So there's that." Kara comes to her feet, snagging another fry while she goes, arching her brow at Eve.
"I don't know, ma'am," Kara remarks dismissively. "The point is— I don't think they made it."
Bingo!
"I know right? Real fucked up stuff Lady. You're lucky to be alive." Not that Kara didn't know that already. "Hmm robots, Humanis, all the same. Simple minded. Rooted in the past. They shall not win." Of that Eve is certain.
"Bigger fish to fry Lady, godlike fish to fucking fry." Eve stabs her finger into a fry and chews it up.
"When you go back, to the place you were supposed to do good. I'll help you. Put my fist through a robot. Think of it as a bonus to your paycheck." Eve isn't deterred by the fact that the robots hunt them.
As for her "dead friends", "Ah I wouldn't worry too much Lady, I've died three times. It's hard to stay dead nowadays. Too much… woooha around in the air." Waving her hands, "An imbalance maybe, most likely! But still, death can be temporary." Eve shrugs her shoulders, "Are you afraid to face them? If you were to see them again?"
The notion that Kara failed is all but implied, not in a nasty way. Eve has failed as well.
"Hey! Maybe you can help me out, I'm on the lookout for an old nasty. Hiding in the body of a young girl, yay high," Eve gestures to open air beside her, "Gold eyes? Real gold ones. Creepy ones. Mm?"
"I've asked some friends to keep a look out. You seem to be a knower of the unknown Lady."
Kara arches an eyebrow at Eve's offer to help. "You're going to follow me all the way to Washington?" she asks skeptically. Because that's where she's going, no doubt about it. So Eve was either following her to the other coast, or she was dropping off at the first still-active robot they came across. Either way, that's considerably far. Her skepticism persists with that brow arched.
She doesn't have an answer for Eve's questions. Not the first. Not the second. Not the rhetorical. Not the implied. Not the explicit.
She just fixes Eve with that same skeptical stare, the one about following her West, and shakes her head. Her expression is largely unchanging. The wave of Eve's hand to indicate the child-height of the eldritch being is regarded for just a moment. "Sorry, ma'am," Kara appears to apologize, swiping one last fry. The description doesn't seem to ring any bells for her. "I should get back to work."
"You didn't say they were in Washington! Plus, Eh I'm going West anyway." A lot of them would be going. Eve doesn't break eye contact with Kara for a long time, the silence weighing heavily on both women.
There's another tug of the rug over the mood and Eve tilts her head and smiles a devilish smile. The tension broken with a thick cube of ice. Standing to her feet and leaving her plate she looks down. "That's an excellent idea! Lots to do myself, notes to make." Snort. Eve's interest in Kara has only grown by this point.
"See you around Kara."
The use of the blonde's real name a signal of something, something that Eve doesn't outright convey. The owner grins deeply the whole time, turning her head slowly to stare at Kara once more before descending down the stairs towards the Oracle Room.
"How interesting!" She whispers to herself.