Cast: Ali, Dia
Location: La Fuerza Warehouse, Florence, South Central
Time: Late evening on April 10, 2016
Synopsis: Ali and Dia discuss "The Beast".
Warehouse - Florence - South Central
The interior of the warehouse is huge. High overhead rusted steel beams stretch across the roof. Once they might have provided home for city birds to roost, but now the only signs of former life are abandoned nests. The floor is concrete; stained with oil and other, unidentifiable, markings. At night, the light is weak. The overhead lights are huge, circular orange things that barely throw enough light to reach the floor between the fifteen foot rows that hold box upon box of unlabeled inventory. There is a small, obviously makeshift seating area in the middle of the warehouse, off to one side, and a metal walkway overhead leads to an office of some kind.
This room has +views and places.
Contents:
Ali
Obvious exits:
Office (NE) exit (SW)
Outside the warehouse it's a virtual explosion of activity - cars, men hanging around, women hanging around on the men. Florence is alive, tonight, and it's alive in blue. Inside the warehouse, though, it's another story. A body is draped, lying backward about halfway up the staircase with one hand dangling over the edge while Ali sits on the second step across the door, examining a lit cigarette between her fingers as if it held all the secrets in the world.
"Those things'll kill you, ya know?" Dia asks rhetorically as she steps out of the hallway - the petite Brujah wrapped in nothing more than a blue towel. The towel is wrapped tightly about her body and held closed by a hair clip positioned near her left breast. The towel itself cover her modestly considering her small frame, looking no worse than many of the dresses socialites and young women wear these days. Her raven black hair is slicked backwards and noticeably her blue extensions are missing. Her bare feet make little "PAT" noises as she walks across the ground barefoot, her eyes focused on Ali. "Looks like they already had their way with what's their face…" Dia adds with a smirk before up-nodding towards the body lying on the staircase.
"They'd have t'stand in line." Ali purses her lips and blows on the tip of the cigarette, urging its flame to a bright spark before she drops it on the concrete and crushes it beneath her heel. Craning backward, she looks at the body. "Aw, no. That was me. I'm surprised you didn't hear it - if I'd known y'were in there I woulda taken it upstairs."
"Early-night snack?" Dia asks simply as she tilts her head first to the left and then the right, evidently ensuring her ears are free of water. "Doesn't matter… So what's going on tonight? We gonna go out and raise hell? Or are we just going to stay in and do damage control?"
"Raise hell?" The edges of Ali's lips curl upward; she smirks. "I prolly did enough of that yesterday. If I do it too often everyone's gonna get their panties in a snit. I'm hangin' home, makin' sure I got control'a myself before I go back out. It's bad enough to do that shit in Elysia; if I lost it on the street I'd take a few hundred people out 'fore anyone could stop me. Maybe more." She shrugs. It's not a brag, nor a lament, it just is.
"Yeah… I can see me jumpin' on your back, tryin' to steer you away from public places like one of them cowboys on a buckin' bull…" Dia says, the right corner of her mouth quirking upward into a smirk. Dia takes a few steps towards her amante, the young girl clasping her hands at the small of her back. "But I don't blame you on keepin' things cool for now… 'specially after the other night."
"Better that y'just go get someone older; prolly a few someones." explains the Colombian as she stretches her hand toward Dia. "Yea, well. Sometimes the Beast gets out." She shrugs again, eternally unbothered by the thought that her anger could swell so great that she would murder hundreds. "Sometimes dumb fucking Malkavians say stupid shit and provoke it. You were smart to just stay back."
"Well, I was thinkin' at first I could at least try and calm you down or distract ya…" Dia says as she takes Ali's hand without question, allowing the larger woman to guide her as she pleases. "And then after I saw that fuckin' loco jump out of the shadows and try and blast you… and then I was thinkin' I could help you… Luckily, Izzy showed up. Owe that girl one."
Ali nods, her expression bland as she pulls Dia toward her. "You can't, though. You'll just get killed. Anythin' in front'a me I'll beat until it stops movin'; until it's dead." She wraps her arms around Dia's waist and tilts her head up, looking into her amante's eyes. "So if it happens, you go get someone like Isabel; don't bring any'a my family in. It won't matter. They won't be able to stop it an' they'll just get killed like the rest."
"Easier said than done…" Dia says, draping her arms over Ali's shoulders and probably leaving two damp spots on the woman's shirt in the process. "Just gotta figure out how to contact Isabel, and if I can't, who to call after that… Ain't like I got Izzy in a glass case that says, 'BREAK IN CASE OF FREAK OUT!'."
"She's usually around - if not, well.. if I'm not somewhere you kin lock me in, then just get the hell outta the way. It's all fucked if I'm out on the block anyway. I blow the masquerade to bits." explains Ali. "The list is fuckin' short - there's not much anyone kin do. Maybe Melciah, A4, I doubt Cora.. Rachael, but by the time she gets down here half'a South Central is gone. It don't matter, chica. It's like if the bombs fall - all you can do is hope to stay outta the way. What you want is someone who can sing like the Gangrel. Most I know it's only Gangrel and Nossies that can do it. Past that, it's just fucked. You don't gotta worry about it, though. It's not for you to worry about. This shit happens - Beast gets out, people die." She shrugs. Life goes on.
"Well, fuck if I'm going to be one of those people…" the little Brujah jokes. "But I hear ya on how bad it is. And trust me, I won't stay around if I don't think there's something I can do to help the situation. But why is it just the Gangrels and the Nosferatu that can do all this? I mean, why can't I do anything to help? Seems kind of a cruel joke that we need to go to them for help."
"I don't make the rules, amiga." Not outside of Florence, anyway. Ali pulls the little girl closer, until their bodies are pressed flat against one another. It's the comfort she seems to unconsciously seek tonight. "They wan I always understood it, it was because the Gangrel are close to the animals - they can talk to the Beast, calm it down. The Nosferatu can do the same, but I was always told it was because they have a much smaller Beast - they wear theirs on the outside, so combined with their affinity for animals they can communicate with it as well. I kinda think its shit, but I always keep a Gangrel on hand.. " Which is enough, apparently, to cause a shadow to break across her face and her to turn away.
Dia takes the opportunity with the closeness to adjust her comparative height to Ali - the girl standing and her amante sitting. Slowly, she begins to straddle the Colombian, her entire body now dampening Ali's clothes. Dia locks her hands behind the Brujah's neck and focuses her eyes on Ali's. "Never thought of it that way, but I guess it makes sense… Whole karma and ying-yang shit… Gotta have as many pluses as you got minuses and all that…" she says before shrugging her shoulders. "But now that you put it like that, I guess I can understand… So is there anything we can do for them? I mean, why do they even tolerate us if they're the ones that can do all this shit for us? Seems like they'd be the ones holding all the chips."
Ali offers a wry laugh. "Lots of reasons, I figure - the Nossies prolly do it so they can be privy to things they'd otherwise not know; the Gangrel, well. It's not like they exist to do it. I've begged, borrowed and stolen to have someone around that could sing if I needed it. Most'a the time I figure they do it because I'm more useful alive then dead. Or because the only thing worse then something that kills everything is something that kills everything and can't be controlled. Now?" She shrugs. "I just don't worry about it. Any vampire who doesn't understand that the Beast escapes and does its thing is just plain dumb."
"So - what's mine?" Dia asks innocently, the topic seemingly having peaked an interest in her own well being. "I mean, if some girl running her mouth sets you off, is that something I gotta be afraid about in the future? I mean, it's almost like you're my mom in some way…" The girl then shudders as she realizes what she said. She averts her eyes to look down at the ground to her left and makes an audible, visceral sound. "Baauauuuuhh…." she murmurs before lookign back at Ali. "Sorry… That just didn't sound right… But you know what I mean…"
"Yea, that's… " Ali shakes her head, clearing that whole ick-ness from her brain. "Got no idea what yours is- could be anything. We don't come with labels. It isn't necessarily that, either - lots of things can set me off. It's better that you just keep it to yourself. Anyone who wants me gone could just drive me to the Beast, then I'd never come back." explains the woman. "I'd be like that, but forever. Someone'd come an' put me down." She frowns. "Anyway, yea. Fire'll do it, for sure. Sunlight.. those are the most common ones that I've seen. Anythin' after that is up in the air. Violence usually sets someone off."
"So it's kinda gonna be like trial and error… I'm gonna have to wait until shit gets bad for me sometime before I know what too look out for?" Dia asks, not really expecting an answer. She shifts slightly in Ali's lap, the girl's muscles probably locking up from the awkward position she's in. "Well… Whatever mine is, once I know it, I'll keep it to myself… As for you…" Dia pauses as she gazes upon her amante's face for a few brief seconds. "… I don't think its any secret people can push you and shit, especially after last night… But I ain't gonna tell anyone you got a short fuse on certain subjects, and I'll do my best to make sure they never come up."
"Well." Ali laughs. "I'm a Brujah; the fact I got a short fuse isn't really news. I've spent my second life tryin' to keep it in check, so .. I'm decent for the time bein'. If I've made an' enemy so big that they ain't scared of a frenzyin' Brujah, then I'm fucked anyway. Usually it ain't in anyone's best interest if I lose it." She stands then, scoops her arms around Dia's thighs and holds her there. Lifting her foot high she navigates over the body and ascends toward the office. "Come on, I got a snack upstairs - hang out a bit.. ?"
