Cast: Ali, Dia
Location: La Fuerza Warehouse, Florence, South Central
Time: Early evening on May 22, 2016
Synopsis: Dia tells Ali about pulling a knife in Elysium.
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.
Obvious exits:
Office (NE) exit (SW)
Dia Reina Chavez sits dead center on the cleanest of the leather couches in the warehouse, the television in front of her turned off and her hands folded neatly in her lap. Her head is tilted towards her right shoulder slightly and her eyes are focused on some invisible point just below the television screen. She's rather motionless and certainly isn't making a sound.
The door opens and Ali wanders in, casual, but wearing her years for the first time in a while. She smacks the edge of the door with her bat and it swings closed with a bang. A quick slash of her wrist and its bolt is thrown, locked. She curls a brow upward and looks on her childe, then exhales. "Whatcha doin' over there?" she calls out.
Ali's entrance doesn't face the girl - she doesn't turn around to see who it is nor does she jump when she hears the bat crack against the door. "Nothing…" Dia says in a tone that screams anything but her answer. She may physically be doing nothing, but her fingers begin to twiddle and pull at one another for a few seconds after she hears Ali's voice.
Ali stops. Her bat draws up to her shoulder and she stares at Dia, then squints and looks upon her like a second time would matter. "Wanna try again?" she asks. "I still ain't sucked a Malk down, but I don't really need any special eyes to see that line'a bullshit."
Dia rolls her eyes to the right to look upon the tip of the bat that has just come to rest on her shoulder. Slowly, she closes her eyes and makes two tiny fists with her hands. "I'm just so f*ckin' mad about f*ckin' people thinkin' they can do whatever the fuck they want… First, you got that stupid Asian b*tch running her mouth at you and then that psycho with the guns… And now…" Dia throws her fists down on either side of her, her hands making a loud "THWAP!" noise as they hit the leather cushions with force. "… now some f*ckin' clown is going ta get me in trouble cause he thought'd be cute to jump out of the shadows at me or somethin'… Wanna remove that face paint by dragging him behind my f*ckin' car!"
Maybe, maybe the tantrum was supposed to have scared Ali. It should scare some people. It will, eventually, scare most people - - but for now it only brings a smile to the older Colombian's lips. "Yea, me too." she admits. "Ain't much to do about it, though. I'm not about to jump on the Camarilla train and ride it to Downtown. Don't worry about it, anyway. I already smoothed things over with Apolo. Eventually Kusala will pull her panties out of her crack. Unlife goes on." Ali makes her way over toward the couch. "What clown is this - the mime from Downtown? What are you gonna get in trouble for?" she wonders.
Dia turns in her seat on the couch, the bat falling down towards her lap if Ali doesn't correct for gravity. She looks up at Ali with a miture of fear and hate, her right hand now gripping the back of the couch with a bit of strength as the leather tightens. "Yeah… Coco or whatever Nita called him…" Dia says, pausing for a moment to collect her thoughts before continuing on. "Was tellin' Nita and Conrad what happened in the Elysium that night with you… Next thing I know, he right in my face…" She lets go of the back of the couch and brings her hand up to within an inch or two of her nose to show Ali how close he was. "Scared the livin' sh*t out of me…" She puts her hand back down in her lap. "Thought it was the same f*ckin' deal as that idiot with the guns, so I pulled out my knife… Now I'm hearin' all this sh*t about me breakin' Elysium rules and all that…"
"You didn't hit anyone, did you?" wonders Ali as she drops down onto the couch, then kicks up her feet. "No harm, no foul. Just get in touch with Bells and explain it to her. There are some fucking vultures in South Central lately. Some people who seem to have forgotten that we're dead and sort of by our fucking nature, aren't very nice, or calm, or .. well, pleasant. That mime has been screwing a lot of shit up. Didn't I warn you about him?" wonders Ali.
"No, no…" Dia says shaking her head. "Didn't hit anybody - more afraid of having to deal with you if I did than anything else." The young girl gives off a faint smile as she tries to throw a bit of humor into the conversation, but it dies just as quickly as it came on. "I've already left her a note about speaking with her… Plan on explaining the whole thing and makin' sure she knows why… And yeah…" She looks Ali square in the eyes. "… you warned me about'm. Just wasn't expectin' him to come lookin' for me for some reason."
"Then you're fine- no harm, no foul. They're always gonna go after you, amiga. I'm sorry." Ali looks back and while her words carve apology, her tone curves pride. "You're a Fuerza. There's nothin' stronger, nothin' taller, nothin' harder. You're my kid." she says. "You're gonna grow up an' turn this world on its ear - - so yea, they're gonna start now. They're scared'a what you could be." she explains.
Dia smirks at the morale booster and then looks down towards her lap. It's hard to tell if she's embarrassed or if she doesn't believe Ali. "Yeah… I'm you're kid…" she says in affirmation. "But it doesn't look like it… I mean, at least I don't think people look at me like it." She raises her eyes back to Ali. "Ain't that strong, ain't that tall and ain't that hard… I'm the Hello Kitty of Florence. I feel more like the red-headed step-child, ya know? If they were scared of what I was or whatever, they wouldn't be pullin' that sh*t…"
"Course they would - you're a kid now." explains Ali. "But there's gonna be'a day that you're not. It ain't all about throwin' cars an' shit.. believe it or not." she adds quickly. "If it were, I'd toss the lot of you out since I can do that just fine on my own. It's about family an' watchin' each others backs. It's about fillin' in the spots that are empty. It's about the whole, not the one. You're not gonna be the hardest bitch on the block yer first day in the joint, chica. It takes some time."
Dia gives a faux-disappointed look at Ali, the smile creeping back onto her face to have a more permanent stay. "I know, I know…" Dia says, shaking her head and looking over towards the television set. "It'd be nice just to be respected I guess, especially where we're all supposed to be civil - whatever that means… Someone wants to call me a b*tch on the street, go ahead…" Dia shrugs her shoulders. "… But I'd just like to know I can go figure out what the hell's goin' on in my backyard and elsewhere without havin' ta fear for my safety or sanity."
Ali smiles; a contented, but mildly condescending look is given to her childe. "Amiga - you know why we have Elysia? Cause we can't be trusted to be civil. We gotta be threatened." Her shoulder lifts, then drops and she sets the bat on the floor then leans her chin on the head. "It's just how it is. If I could do what I wanted, I'd off a whole fuckload of people." And with that charming note, and a smile, Ali stands and extends her hand to Dia. "Come on, let's get outta here."
"I'd let you do what you wanted… Just so long as my name wasn't on that list…" Dia says as she takes Ali's hand without question, the young Brujah letting the Colombian guide her on to their next spot for the night.
