Six Degrees of Separation (Kenlie)

[Pi dArtois]

--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--

Pi dArtois:

It was a little after midnight and the bar wasn’t so busy for a Tuesday night. They kept the doors open even if it had very few people inside because their special license said they could run late hours and because, they were vampires and it made more sense to be open now, even if their license creatively described their late night mid-week hours as catering to the swing shift workers in a niche laid back bar atmosphere. It was all errant rubbish in order to justify a business whose hours were outside of normal and it worked.

Tonight Pi left Lancaster’s and walked towards the biker bar next door. She should have been worried but she wasn’t even if she looked out of place. The clothes she wore weren’t the sort a woman wore who traversed the streets outside biker bars wore. In fact she probably looked like the victim she wasn’t. The thought made her smile and duck her head in amusement.

Kenlie:

Christ, the past four days had been an absolute rollercoaster for Kenlie. Between being near-death (or, well, actually dead) and finding out that Charles was a vampire this whole time, everything in her personal life felt like it'd been fed through a meat grinder. In some ways, at least.

Sure, she absolutely saw the positives of being turned. It was that, or her presence simply being wiped out of existence. No more working at the bar. No more VIta Bella. No more Dominique. Thinking about the mere possibility, though it had passed, made her heart clench.

In the same vein, however, going from the head sorcerer and ritualist of The Order, to being a baby fanger was quite the adjustment. She had left the faction of her own accord,

but that didn't make the circumstances any less bizarre.

Now, she'd found two distractions. Or one, really. The Handle Bar. Second to Vita Bella, this place was her safe haven; her go-to when **** got too muddled for her to think. It was relaxing to stock the empty shelves, wipe down the bar and set up place in general, as it was desperately bare save for the booths along one wall.

She was standing beside the booth towards the very back of the bar, picking up empty and half-empty beer bottles by their necks and dropping them into a tub she had under one arm. It wasn't until she let the last bottle clink against the rest that she let her gaze drift to one of the seats and allowed her mind to wander.

Marisa. She'd occupied that space the first night that they, The Order, found this place. Her, Marisa, Verne, and Dom. And now, as far as she knew, Marisa was dead. Marisa was dead because Kenlie had killed her.

"How did **** get so fucked up", she murmured to herself. With a sharp shake of her head, she situated the tub in both hands and strode to the bar with a purpose in her step. She needed a drink, but couldn't have one. A smoke would have to do.

After abandoning the bottles on the bar, she grabbed her leather jacket from a stool and pulled it on. An ink-covered hand went to one of the inside pockets, grabbed her pack of Marlboro Smooths, and flipped the top of the cardboard pack open. Using just her lips and teeth, she retrieved one of the cigarettes and then tipped the carton over her open palm to dump the lighter into it.

[Kenlie (DELETED 4989)]

--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--

Pi dArtois:

Pi didn’t walk fast, she had no urgency or any place she had to be. There was a wealth of time a person had when they didn’t have to do… anything pressing and no real need to rush along the night shrouded street because, despite the fact she looked like something that could easily be taken advantage of, she was sure of the fact she sat, quite comfortable at the top of the supernatural food chain.

Tonight she had plans to meander back into the caverns. Where she ventured into the sewers reluctantly because she knew she needed to do something about the hunters that lurked there, the caverns were an unexpectedly pleasant place to be. Under the earth surrounded by the loam of soil and rock was comforting in a way she hadn’t expected. She was comfortable and enjoyed being there, and enjoyed even more the fact she could also hone her skills with gun and sword and strength.

She was walking but almost meandering. If it were daylight it would make sense the rather lazy way she put one foot in front of the other but it wasn’t and because it was near to midnight she knew she looked out of place with her simple dress and ballet flat shoes. Her intention was to head home and change before she went into the caverns but for now, she enjoyed the street.

Kenlie:

As she took a long drag off of her cigarette, Kenlie tipped her head back against the brick and closed her eyes. Considering the fact that she was still becoming used to all of her newfound senses, doing that alone was like putting a pair of noise-cancelling headphones on and turning up the volume. Every sound around her became louder and that much more detailed to her senses.

First, she heard the distant chattering between what sounded like a few gangsters. What with being so close to the slums, on top of being a biker bar, they tended to attract some questionable individuals and groups. All of Redwood did, really. It was like the land of the misfits around here. Gangsters, blood thieves and industrial goths galore. (Thanks, Nightmode.)

Quickly becoming disinterested in their banter, Kenlie's attention drifted to the next sound that she heard. It was softer, but closer. It was almost like rain falling on a surface, but slow... No, it was heavier than that. It was footsteps.

The woman opened up her eyes and let her head lean towards the source of the sound for a few seconds, before she finally turned her head to look. It was someone she had probably seen a handful of times while she was moving furniture and decor inside of the building that was The Handle Bar, but she didn't know her name and had never actually spoken a single word to her. Every time, it was the same thing. So it was again tonight.

Kenlie tried to work her usual polite smile, but tonight it looked more like a grimace, unfortunately.

There wasn't a light in her eyes; not the kind that they usually held from excitement or the mere joy of working. They were dull, dark... different. She finished their semi-awkward, semi-polite greeting with a half-nod of her head.

Pi dArtois:

The woman Pi passed looked familiar in the way of someone you’d seen before, but couldn’t place when or how. She was sure it was someone who lingered here often but Pi wasn’t able to pin point the times she’d seen her. Maybe it was the biker’s bar Pi was about to walk past, she couldn’t be sure. But there was no reason not to nod her head, her lips lifting in a smile that barely touched her lips before dropping away just as quickly.

Eye contact was minimal in the way you do with strangers you were happy to be polite too but didn’t want to linger too long in case the stranger decided that conversation or interaction of any sort was needed. Pi, while happy to nod as she walked by, had no intention to take the gesture further than that.

Her mind was elsewhere and her intention was beyond this street and this woman with her long dark hair and tattoos. Where Pi looked out of place walking along the street, this woman looked at home, leaned nonchalantly on the wall, smoke lingering around the cigarette that burned between her two fingers.

And a nod was all Pi gave and that small abbreviated smile that said nothing, but just enough of a vague nothing to edge polite before she moved beyond.

Tonight she’d planned to talk to Elliot about something she’d heard about and joined. A group of vampires who had created a private place on the crow away from prying eyes of humans. She wasn’t familiar with everyone there but she recognized a few and she hadn’t joined in on the discussion but she was happy, for now, to sit back and read. She had disconnected from what the city was discussing more and more since the Under Secretary was pulled and now she let herself dip her toes into the eddying waters of the vampire world… and, by the looks of things, vampire politics.

Her thoughts wandered and as they did any lingering thoughts about the woman on the street left and relegated itself to a forgettable part of Pi’s short term memory.

Kenlie:
Kenlie's eyes drifted away from Pi's the second the woman's met her own, and she leaned her head back again. Smoke billowed from her lips in a thick cloud that matched the cold air as she breathed a sigh of unease. Maybe she would leave early.

Putting the filter of her cigarette back between her lips, she shoved both hands into her jacket pockets to feel around for her keys. Inked digits curled around a Mickey Mouse keychain that Dom had given her, and she dangled the keys in front of herself until she picked out the one that went to the doors of the bar. After locking them up and giving the door handles a jiggle to be sure, she spun around on a boot heel and strode towards the 'Cuda that was parked to the side of the building, just between it and the pub across the way.