sunrise

Birdie | Kanemaru — something is changing bruising and aching and i'm trying to find out just what the fuck it is

[artistryawry]

What feels bad takes over everything, clouds everything that could possibly be good until it's all you can see. It's how she felt right now, but in this moment it would help her; her and Birdie could burn the last remnants of Skinner to the ground and Thao wouldn't have a hint of hesitation.

Thao allows herself to be comforted instead of shrugging Birdie's touch off her, somewhat surprised she'd gotten out of the car to be close enough to comfort her. When she finally has nothing else to bring up, she wipes at her mouth and offers her sire a thankful smile, "I know, that's why we need to get this out of the way, so that we can both put even more of him in our rear view mirror. I'm.. I'm good, thank you. C'mon, get back in, let's get going."

She puts herself back into the car, closing the door and waiting for Birdie to get back in, before driving to the second spot she had plotted out, a little closer to the outskirts of town.

"Know anything about this one?" Thao questions, undoing her seatbelt and taking the gun back from the center console.

[birdieofprey]

They share a moment together - just enough of one to remind the both of them that they're both on the same team here, she reckons - before they pack in and haul through snowy darkness of a town that's slowly dying out, it's quiet broken by the distant lethargic wail of a fire truck, before they're confronted with a warehouse - close enough to werewolf city to make her nervous. Thao's question pries that knowledge out of her in a croak.

"Yeah, this borders Warwick and Eventide turf, so... be careful."

That'd been why he'd set up here, she'd reckoned - any reasonable vampire is wary around werewolves, and Warwick is notorious for how much (or really, how little) it's thought of their kind, apparently. It's more old bad blood she's inherited from Nsilo.

"Another blood farm. Used to be a guy who ran some kind of blood works out of a fight club. Skinner was either trying to muscle in or rug-pull him or whatever."

She looks up - just a sliver of moon in the sky, so that's reassuring, at least a little. "I had you all cornered here, he was trying to stick a foot in any door it'd fit into."

Across the vacant lot, she leads Thao, looking over her shoulder. "When I shut myself off, it made it easy to just bait him. Didn't care who got hurt."

As if Thao needs a reminder of that.

[flashfanged]

She shrugs at the way the blonde says 'mansion' and gives a nod. "It seems to be where Lomidze mainly works out of. I avoid it mostly unless necessary." She lets out, the compulsion to speak before thinking fully slipping out.

"Suit yourself." She lets out regarding the stake the other has fashioned being still held in hand.

"It kind of reeks in here. Half makes me want to go try my hand at getting through the blizzard. It's gotten worse if you hadn't guessed." Letting out a sigh and accepting this would be where they would both be staying, she watches the blonde as she checks her phone, bending at the knee as she lowers herself to sit on the floor, one knee up and other leg stretched out. When she's spoken too again her head lifts to look at the other and she lets out a hum.

"I haven't been out much, so this is like the first I've seen of this." Between Zakar and that woman who had blood that burned and soured, rancid on her tongue, save for a few outings, Madison had stayed mainly holed up in her loft.

"I was out hunting, it's been pretty easy. Wrong time to wander I suppose."

[birdieofprey]

"Guess so, Something's fucked up." She holds the phone up and tosses it to the other vampire. "The normies are bunkering down - I was on my way to pick somebody up when all that shit outside happened."

She leers. If this is one of those body-snatchers, she doesn't have any way of telling. She tries to brainstorm some sort of half-assed litmus check - she knows she's Birdie, and that's all she's going to have to rely on.

"I haven't seen you around," she admits. The vampire circle in the city isn't that big. "You anyone important?"

[artistryawry]

Birdie had made her way up the steps without question, and Thao lit the match. She watched the fire engulf the place, spreading into each corner and licking at the walls. She had stayed and watched it work, almost mesmerised, almost for too long until the smoke irritated her dead lungs and she had the sense to get out until she burned with it.

She made her way to the car, opening the driver's side and setting the gun down in the middle of them, as Birdie had done before.

"I want to bring him back to life, tear strips of his skin and flesh off in the most unpleasant ways, and feed them to him, then let him heal and do it all again," she spoke, voice shaking with anger, "but yeah, I'm fine. We have two more places to hit." She was good at shoving the trauma down, but even as she started the engine of Birdie's truck, the tears stung her eyes.

She sits unmoving, the only sound being the engine idling, knuckles turning white with how hard she grips the wheel.

"They were unrecognisable, Birdie."

Thao didn't need to say more; she was sure Birdie had seen more of Skinner's work than she ever had done. Imagining it was enough, was better. At least it wouldn't be the real thing. She had to know what was in that file, but now she felt like she could throw up everything in her system. Did vampires throw up? She didn't know the answer, but she felt like she was going to. "I don't know if we can be sick, but I think I'm about to be." She flings the truck door back open and starts heaving.

[birdieofprey]

Birdie unfolds a pack of cigarettes from her jacket, packing them against her inked palm and nodding in understanding as the fledgling - her fledgling - vents an ounce of her feelings.

Unrecognizable Thao had said. Everyone who ever crossed paths with that man is unrecognizable in one way or another. He's filth is - was - is sticky and filthy and caustic. Irrevocable. She doesn't voice this, because Thao knows. They both do - but confronting it is different.

In its own twisted way, it's a lucky run that her family was taken away quick. Parents, sister, and then, when she'd emerged from that hell a vampire, she'd taken her lover in the throes of thirst. For all the misery and all the woe, having nothing left had meant having nothing to lose, and without that she wouldn't have taken Skinner off the board. Still, looking at Thao, she wouldn't go back to it. Having someone to lose has been nice in its own way, even if it means death for her peace of mind.

She's about to answer - that yeah, Vampires puked, and it sucks because puking blood sucks, but then Thao finds out the hard way. It's not the first time she's watched somebody spill their shit, and her jaw clenches briefly at the sympathy.

At first she stays not talking, and sits in pitying observation, but the passenger door thumbs shut as she exits to round the vehicle, and offers a touch of compassion in rubbing at the woman's back. "You know we... feel shit differently - heavier. What feels good feels... you know, great. What feels bad though..."

"I'm sorry," she says.

[artistryawry]

She's ready to open it, fingers already probing at the edge of the pages to drink down the file's contents as Birdie's words reach her. The older vampire is right; whatever is in this file, whether good or bad, she can't take back the bliss of ignorance or the hope that somehow, her parents are still alive or that, at the least, their deaths were quick.

Thao had never been good with impulse control; even when they were younger, despite having big dreams and fighting for them, she would make dumb decisions at most turns based entirely on impulse. This was a dumb decision, she knew that, but she opened the file anyway.

The first page contained her basic information and picture, and the plans that Skinner had for her - he had executed them almost right to the tee, yet even he couldn't foresee his death and her turn. Upon turning to the next page, her jaw steeled, teeth grinding as she was confronted with pictures of what he did to them.

She shut the file, shoving it into her jacket, and marched towards Birdie, grabbing the gas cannister from her and recklessly flinging the liquid around the room. She trailed it through the corridor she'd made her way up from, right to the base of the steps, "Let's go, Birdie." Thao ordered, only a small recognition in her that she had no right to be ordering the other around as she lit a match.

[birdieofprey]

Birdie's seen it before - the way people break. Once her body'd been used up by Skinner, by the people who paid Skinner for what women like her had - when she'd been so busted up and hollowed out by loveless sex and the corrosion of the substances it took to keep her stupid and in line, she'd been fed enough vamp blood to get her on her feet and then she'd been dragged along on the same violent, late night door-knocking affairs that had created her.

It was hard at first - Birdie wonders, if Skinner just stopped compelling people at some point - if that's the only reason Thao hasn't learned until now just what all had come to pass - what was intended.

There's a bit of envy in her at the notion, but nothing the supercedes the empathy or the guilt - like as not she'd have done Thao the bigger favor by leaving her in an open field to find the sun instead of leaving her in that apartment.

That guilt weighs heavy, heavy enough that Birdie turns enough to get out of the way and doesn't protest when Thao starts to douse the place.

She gives a quick scan about the place - considers stuffing as much of the files in that drawer as she can under her arm, but it's pointless - they're hurt or dead or something worse.

It's another hard lesson she gets to learn in a lifetime course on too little too late.

So she follows, shouldering the shotgun and waits at the edge of the property, texting shitty selfies to Lara, as if she isn't on the edge of a nervous breakdown. When Thao shows back up, she can smell fire. "You gonna be alright?" She asks. She knows, first hand, what too much feeling can do to them.

[flashfanged]

She mumbles softly under her breath about just how unforgiving Lomidze is, but doesn't make it anything worth mentioning fully. The fight seems to have died before it has fully started and she keeps poised just in case.

"Madison. Not sweetheart." She says simply, body starting to relax, a sign maybe that she isn't about to attack, a glance towards the door she had just come through. Though her ears stay trained.

"I have no idea. I was hoping if I got to the mansion maybe one of the others would. Can't say I've ever seen a firehydrant sprout legs outside of a fucked up horror game." She looks back to the blonde.

"You can put that down. If I was going to try anything I would have tripped you or tried to throw you at something before I ran."

[birdieofprey]

"The mansion?" A smug smirk plays across Birdie's face.

Her eyes cast to the stake in her hand, and then back to Madison. "I think I'll keep it."

She mentally cordons the space off between them - her side, the other person's side. The whole place smells like pepperoni grease and olive oil - in a way that might turn her stomach if she had a real, functioning stomach to turn. The wood does at least lower, even if it's still in her hand as she takes her phone out to check for missed calls or texts - cool on the outside, frantic on the inside as nothing really seems to be working right.

Her mind thinks back to Anika at the diner and when the silence gets too loud she decides to break it. "Couple weeks back I was meeting somebody and something came at me. It wound up... going crazy or something. If it weren't for the others around I'd think it was some kinda fucked up dream."

[lrivkin]

She's right, Lara knows this. It wasn't the dancing - there was.. more than that. She looks away for a moment, rubbing at the scars on her face. There's been times where she's considered it - asking about it, at least. Maybe it would make her feel good about herself and the way she looks again. Maybe it would fill some hole that'd been carved out of her a century prior.

Every time she's thought about it for more than a minute, though, her mind turns to Birdie. Birdie's helped her heal, helped her through all of the insecurity. It wasn't easy between the two of them to begin with, and some days it was harder to allow herself to even be seen by her.

"I have. Thought about it, I mean." She turns her head back and tries not to scrunch or twist up her face more, the scars already awful enough with her frown. "What do you think about that? I mean - I don't.. I don't think I want to, really. The more I think about it, the more it makes me uncomfortable, and.. the shit that happened to me during.." She trails off, shaking her head.

[birdieofprey]

Birdie looks up from her plate - slow going, because eating is hard for her now. She's listening though, Lara's lilt filling the space between them. It's almost like she's nervous to answer. Birdie's quiet at first, eyes considering her.

After a bit, she nods thoughtfully. "I think I don't like it?" She says, matter-of-factly, shrugging her shoulders as if to imply— 'what can ya do'? "But I'm jealous and I don't like sharing?" She never has - the concept is alien to her - maybe it's the romantic idea of devotion she holds on to too tightly, but it is how it is. "I thik if you did... want to, there's a talk there, and I don't know how it goes but... you know... it's a talk." She nods again - a little nervous. "A talk we can have. If you want to have it."

She smiles though, and stands, because the food is good, but it's the person behind it that means more, and she rounds the table to drape herself across Lara, pressing lips to her cheek - close to but not on top of the marks - in case its a bad pain day.

"But if you want to dance again, I think you should dance again."

[flashfanged]

Dark eyes track her movements, eyes scrutinizing as she looks over things left out on the counter, shifting out of reach. She doesn't know the blonde and trusts her even less. But when has Madison ever trusted anyone without some struggle and vast amounts of time. Trusting got you killed. At the root of all things people all were opportunistic, they'll take and stab and take again when they find any form of weakness. Any crack in defense.

Her words process in their mind, connecting the dots on just what she is suggesting. "Guess I'm just faster." She replies and then there is a crack, the broom handle in the other's hands breaking in two. She tenses, shifts into the defensive.

"And I think I just worked smarter instead of harder. Careful where you point that thing, my clan isn't the most forgiving." A lie, she'd be an after thought in what had happened for the day at most. She doubts a family who has lived so long would bother with the disappearance of nuisance.

[birdieofprey]

The way she responds to a sharpened stick all but confirms that, fake or no, there's a vampire in here with her. Her eyes narrow though, looking her over and sizing her up - Birdie can't help but smirk at the snark though, even if the grin doesn't hit her appraising stare.

"Most clans don't do much forgiving, sweetheart." She says.

There's a really deeply annoyingly pregnant pause between them. The girl isn't making moves. She isn't either. Whatever passes for an adrenaline spike is starting to chill the fuck out now, as she doesn't hear whatever the fuck creepy shit is going on outside now.

"You know what the hell's going on out there?"

The stick stays raised - not exactly a threat, but a warning.

[anikabooker]

Her eyes narrowed as she stared at Birdie. There was no fucking way these people just fell on their backs and made snow angels in their yards. "How the fuck do you get used to this? It ain't normal, Birdie. I'm coming from another town that's a hell of a lot more normal, I know what normal looks like now."

There was no pride in escaping the hell that had taken so much from her and starting over, only to find that the new house was just another haunted place. Months spent chasing spirits out of the walls and cleaning whatever leftover shit had been rotting in the basement. They'd put in the work, and it still hadn't worked. Assholes still chased after them, the dead kind and the living, waited with held breaths and weapons tucked behind their backs, only to drive the knife in the moment you got close enough.

But she liked to pretend it was better, that they were better, that she was better. For a while, she'd actually believed it.

"That's fucking bullshit." Anika leaned forward on the table and pushed the blonde's overly sweet coffee out of reach. "You ain't ever gonna say some shit like that." She studied her closely, eyes turned to slits. "You okay? You possessed or some shit? Who's in there?" She nudged her chin toward the vampire. Birdie was tougher than that. She'd never make peace with some bullshit storm. "Is Lara getting used to it?"

[birdieofprey]

Anika pushes back, but it's not really enough to penetrate the lackadisical haze of the foggy funk she's settled into. She can't argue for normal - because her life hasn't been normal for twelve years - not even open to normalcy. Surmountable or not, Birdie's truama's etched onto her face, not just in the mirror but out there for everybody to see. In this, Anika's got a point - she doesn't understand normal and probably wouldn't know it if she was sitting in it.

Then there's a sea change, and it's almost like she snaps out of a trance when Anika pushes the issue closer and the coffee and its distraction further away. Birdie nearly winces, blinking like she's woken up out of a dream.

"I..."

She shakes her head - Anika, for her part, keeps pushing.

"Look..." Would Lara? "She-"

It's like the questions have blossomed a headache, a migraine's spike driving into the connective tissue holding her brain together. She just hasn't thought about it - and here, thinking about it, the sense of it slips off her like oil. She can't really protest, but the idea of confronting it makes that drill-bit feeling worse.

So she stands up. "I gotta get going."

Birdie stalks out after smashing a wad of useless cash and coin on the table, and pulls her hood over her head as she skulks down the bit of sidewalk in front of the place, and around the corner towards her truck, moving quick. She has to get away from Anika - from her blunt-force questions and stupid appeals.

She's stopped though at the sight of somebody by her vehicle, somebody that looks like an unfinished sketch of her, weird trails of silver ink still filling in places. The way it moves isn't exactly human either, but she finds she can't stop looking at it - at herself.

Thinking about how she should have left when Skinner died - taken Lara and gotten the fuck out of here. Now she's saddled with a whole group of vampires she barely knows - who barely know her. That remorse weighs her down - but not the strange copy that's moving towards her, one of her own stakes in her hand.

[artistryawry]

Thao takes the gun, with no time for hesitation or to explain that she'd never shot one in her life. Her knowledge was from TV shows and movies - all she had to do was make sure the safety was off, aim, shoot, prepare for the recoil... right? Hopefully she didn't have to use it. Birdie was right though, it was good in a pinch as a delay tactic. They still felt pain, and would want to dig out the bullet as soon as possible so that they could heal.

She looks around, seeing nothing of worth, her nose filled with the scent of stale blood. It was something she had never smelled before, as a vampire; it was enough for nausea to rise up her throat. Birdie unshoulders the shotgun and Thao suddenly remembers danger could be lurking, clicking the safety of her own gun but keeping her finger off the trigger, for now.

Nodding, she starts towards the office, slowly. Thao does what they do in the shows, weapon steadied in front of her and checking each corner of the room before proceeding to the office door. It's locked, or jammed, she isn't sure which but with one swift kick it's open, hinges broken.

Probably worse than a blood farm, but Thao couldn't think about that. There was no one here now, no one they could save; whatever happened, it was done with.

The office was just that, papers strewn across the desk, filing cabinets along the wall and a half-finished bottle of whiskey on the desk. Clearly, someone had thought they'd be returning here. The papers on the desk were of no importance, invoices long paid for services rendered an age ago, so she moved to the filing cabinet opening drawers and flicking through the files until something popped out at her.

"Birdie." She pulls out the file and turns it to show her. In bold letters on the tab, 'THE ARTIST.'

[birdieofprey]

Birdie's kicking around piles of refuse in the cell room - makeshift rigs meant to hold somebody in place making her expression contort into discomfort and squeamish recollection.

No bodies, at least, is good.

Birdie had done work to chase Skinner here, out of the Nevada desert, further north, further west. A dog chasing down a dirty hare, she had kicked the door in on many such places, always a step behind her target but just in time to run afoul of his cronies.

She hopes - maybe with futility - that the emptiness of this place means him being gone has wiped his smear off the map, but absence of power creates a vacuum; this she knows.

Thao's voice calls her name and she turns, a flash of recollection; needles in her skin, Birdie Birdie Birdie. It'll look so good. It'll make him happy, seeing his name on you. She shakes it away, stepping out of the room and into the office, sizing the file up before closing the space between the two of them.

A tilt of her head follows. She moves to the same drawer, fishing through, and finds another one, then another - names that are familiar, names that aren't.

She wonders if there was ever something like this on her - by now, it's all burnt away; her family, her old life, anything she might have ever been without all of this - dead potential.

"Be sure you wanna look at that," she says idly, looking at the contents of another file, stomach turning as she scans the words and images, credit reports, bank accounts, addresses, medical info. "Be really fucking sure, Thao."

[lrivkin]

Lara beams - pride written all over her features, stretching at the scars that have completely changed her, it seems. "Yeah?" She turns to her own plate, trying a bite and snapping her fingers - "Oh, yeah. Nailed it." She gives a soft laugh - she knows that eating this won't satiate her, but it's.. nice, sometimes, to just have the flavor.

"Really?" That surprises her, somewhat. She'd always thought that Birdie hated the idea of her at the Cabaret - then again, it's been a very long time since they've even talked about what she used to do. For Lara, it's still somewhat of a sore spot to think about, even with apologies and making up for it.

"I thought maybe you would have.. not been okay with that?" Part of the reason, too, that she'd tried for a fancy pasta dish. "Since that is.. you know, part of why we had so much issue."

[birdieofprey]

Stuffing another forkful into her mouth, she chews it - something that feels weird these days - and rolls her shoulders in a shrug before offering a shake of her head, then she looks up. "Dancing wasn't the problem." She says, maybe a little over-blunt.

Sitting back in the chair, she shakes her head. "You thinking about the other thing?"

It's not news that some of the girls at the Cabaret do more than dance. It's part of the furniture at this point. Below mention. The workers there are free to do what they want to do so long as any mess gets addressed and any... untoward action gets dealt with.

She thinks as she waits for Lara's answer - wonders whether she would be okay with the other thing.

[artistryawry]

The gun makes her nervous, even if she knows normal bullets can't hurt her, but Thao has a feeling that the gun isn't loaded with your everyday ammo. She sets the nerves aside, deciding to put the trust in Birdie even if neither of them have fully earned that yet, and keeps her focus on the road. It's not long until she's pulling up on the side of the road and motioning at an alleyway between two storefronts.

"Mm, so I heard." The fledgling comments, stepping out of the car and making her way towards the alley. "There's a cellar entrance just up here, one of his less than finer hideouts, but it was close to town for emergencies, I suppose." She shrugs, not pretending to know what Skinner's true motivations for each of them would have been. Honestly, she didn't care to know either; she just wanted them gone.

Reaching down, Thao rips away the padlock and chain on the cellar door and looks to Birdie. She counts to three in her head, throwing the doors open and checking for any obvious sign of recent life. Not seeing any, she steps down, descending into the abyss. This couldn't take all day, she doubts either of them has the time or the energy for that, so it would be a quick look through anything left there to see if anything was remotely useful, then burn the place, she imagines. Make sure that no one can ever make use of it, or Skinner, again.

[birdieofprey]

Birdie gets out of the car, hoisting the strap of the shotgun around her shoulder, dipping back into the truck before returning to follow quietly behind Thao.

"Every roach has to have a hole or two to scurry into," she says.

Thao tears off the lock, and before they go in, Birdie holds the pistol from the truck seat up. "I get it, pea shooters don't matter, but they still hurt. Take it." An ounce of prevention or whatever. Birdie follows behind Thao, the contents of the gas can in her other hand sloshing about, providing their descent with an strange score.

The basement into which they descend is dank and dark. Couches dot the first room, an old TV, a desk littered with money bands, drugs, and viles of stale blood. Birdie tries a pull-chain for a light but there's no power. Setting down the gas can, she unshoulders her shotgun, flipping off the safety as she peers down a hallway lined with rooms, most seemingly empty. "Door at the end of the hall, probably some kinda office or safe-room or something. Probably check there."

She looks with some level of disgust at the small rooms lining the basement hallway. They look like small cells - most with little more than a rotten mattress inside. "Blood farm, maybe. Or worse." Memories - unpleasant ones - flood into her mind.

[flashfanged]

She should feel chastised, at least she supposes she should, it'd be the normal thing to feel. But there is no audience but a lone vampire who clearly could manage her own, and so, Madison simply doesn't feel the complexity of the situation.

Better you than me.

Runs through her head. The only thing her is awkwardness, because now there is a possibility of a fight, and the urge to go home. Well the mansion. Feels top priority. Though a part of her does wonder if that'd be the best place to be. Zakar is back, she isn't sure if he resides in the mansion yet, but she does know he is in the city and that meant pressure. Pressure to perform, pressure to behave accordingly, the leash is tighter with him so near.

She watches the blonde as pizza toppings are taken down and she gives a slight shrug. She, Lomidze, and a few others scattered around this city are all that truly matters. "You clearly didn't need any assistance then if it wasn't the first rodeo." She says simply, standing ground as the other moves closer, if anything she just draws up her height to look down at her. "It was either you, or me. I took the smarter route. But again, you're clearly fine."

[birdieofprey]

"Yeah no I'm fine," she says, idly playing at kitchenware that's been left to sit idle while the world seems to waste away. "And you know, it's fair, the you or me thing."

She turns to her. "But this is kind of my hiding spot." Birdie's shoulders shrug. "And I think its funny you're in here, looking fine, you know, your own words, but me I'm covered in the funk."

She foregoes a knife, because a knife isn't what she needs if the dead-head across from her is one of these fuckin' pod people. She breaks a broom-handle in half.

"So I think you're one of 'em."

[flashfanged]

For : @birdieofprey

She had admittedly left the other vampire to fend for herself as the most mundane objects began to shift and alter in the streets,Madison had never been a protector, her focus was herself. It was what ensured survival. There was only one group she had to be loyal to, and even then, it was to survive.

So sure, maybe it was a bitch move to wish the blonde luck when she saw an opening through the weird-ass creatures that had once been things as inconspicuous as a fire hydrant. But they didn't know one another. So no harm really, right? They'll never see one another again, and if she navigates the side streets well enough, avoids the freaky-ass creatures roaming through this fucking never ending snow she can make it to the mansion. The problem is that the snow isn't letting up and it's becoming more and more disorienting.

Crashing through the backdoor of an unknown business, she slams it close behind herself at the sound of crunching ice. Just a break, just a reprieve. There is a shift and her head darts in its direction a familiar face now, tattooed skin. The awkward smile that quirks at her own lips. "Oh…uh — hey?"

[birdieofprey]

Birdie's hand, shaking, lights a cigarette as she sits on top of a food prep counter. Her jacket is slashed to ribbons, her hands covered in blood, and lashes on her face are healing as the red-head spins and catches sight of her.

"Hey." She says, sucking air through the cigarette and pulling the fire with it, blowing smoke free from the corner of her mouth. Her smile is facetious and shit-eating.

Clapping her lighter shut, she cracks her neck and leans over, taking another drag. "So - asshole - fuck you, actually. You ever fight a rabid mailbox? I have, but only ever on some fucking primo-shit, I'll tell you that much."

She pops a stack of pepperonis in her mouth and sucks some of the blood off of her fingers for seasoning (not her own, for those wondering) before hopping down. She' looks up at Madison, glaring. "Not cool."

[artistryawry]

She catches the keys between her fingers easily, something she would have fumbled when she was human, and she slipped into the driver's side of the other's truck.

"Kinda figured, considering you showed up." Thao teased, if only to ease the tension in the air. The trust wasn't totally there for either of them; you could feel it in the air, but there was also the want to trust. Thao didn't know if that was some fucked up version of a sire bond or something she actually wanted, but either way, Birdie was in her life - or death - whether she liked it or not.

Starting up the truck, she began to drive to the closest base of his, as her maker asked the same question that had been rattling around her head since she realised Skinner's strongholds still existed.

"I think I need to know. I may not want to know, and I already realise I'm not going to like what I read, but... I need to know what he did to them." If Thao were honest, she had a little sliver of hope that instead of killing them, he'd decided it would be crueller to turn them - she didn't see Skinner coming to that conclusion, but the hope still stayed.

"We need to be careful going in, looking around. Asshole probably had booby-traps or something, either set them up when he moved onto a new place, or so that only trusted people could get in and out." A beat, "either that or he was an idiot that set no traps because his ego thought that no one would dare try to go against him and gain access."

[birdieofprey]

Birdie nods as the car rolls along through the cold. "I get it." She'd been given that closure the night it had all happened. There's a mean-spirited, jaded part of her that wants to set the expectations basement-level, but she's come to the realization that, for the walking dead, there's no such thing as false hope if it keeps you on the wagon. So she just nods in understanding.

The subject changes as they near their first destination, something she's thankful for. "Most places I cleared out were pretty desolate," she says, opening the glove box and pulling out another pistol in a holster. She places it on the seat between them.

Birdie'd spent the years between her death and her arrival in Port Leiry as a traitor to her own kind, stalking vampires connected to Skinner and extracting information from them with a biblical prejudice. "I don't think he cared to trap most of them but maybe here he got more paranoid." She checks her phone one more time before turning it off. "Guy always preferred putting on a show, who knows."

[anikabooker]

Why was everybody asking about the kid? It was a damn kid, not a fucking three headed dragon. Although, Anika could swear she preferred the latter sometimes. At least a dragon didn't need to be spoon fed. The waiter had brought over two more cups of coffee, when the warmth from the first ones hadn't been enough. Birdie didn't care about the cold, but Anika was freezing in those old boots. She hadn't imagined they'd end up back here and in this wintery bullshit. Leaning back in her chair, she kept her eyes fixed on the blonde across from her, thumb pointing at the window behind her. "What the fuck is up with that blizzard?" It reeked of magic and the nasty kind.

"Who'd you piss off?"

Not Birdie specifically, as annoying as she was, Anika doubted she was capable of dropping a plague on an entire town. It had to be somebody else, or something else, maybe the kind of creature that liked to shit where it ate. At least everything else looked the same. The buildings, although buried beneath layers of snow, still looked the same, and the people wrapped up in thick coats and knitted hats, wore the same faces she remembered. It was the same fucking miserable town.

How much longer, Reid? He'd tried to convince her she had friends and allies here, bastards carrying the same kind of fate she did. Anika wasn't so sure, when Birdie looked perfectly content where she was.

"You don't look too bothered by any of this shit."

[birdieofprey]

There's a sort of discordant static - above what there normally is when dealing with Anika. Birdie's never quite been able to crack the nut that is this woman sitting across from her. Anika makes her think of a snake - but not in the way you usually think of snakes - Anika isn't sneaky, or deceitful. She's this beautiful, striking thing, with tell-tale patterns all over the shop and a rattle on her that absolutely lets everyone in spitting distance know she will fuck your shit up.

"Jim Cantore," she answers with glib sarcasm as the topic of the kid is abandoned for the elephant taking a big fat snowy shit on the town. Birdie dumps so much sugar in this coffee that, were she not already corpse, would surely make one out of her. When she sips it, she's unsurprised; dull as dishwater, and she's not so gauche as to dribble a slug of waitress blood into her coffee in front of Anika fucking Booker.

What she says next is a bit of a hammer to the side of her head. Birdie feels the truth worm it's way through the weird foggy layers of complacency. It's not normal, right? Sundown at three-thirty and endless flurries in the middle of, fuck, what is it, April? May?

"You get used to it," she says. If Anika can deflect, so can she. "Just. Port Leiry shit, I guess, you know."

The headache she'd started to feel spiking in her brain fades then, chased off by her indifference. Anika'll understand soon enough. "Some shit out there, got us trapped in here." It feels weird to say it. "Just gotta live with it."

[artistryawry]

@birdieofprey

[ sms — birdie ] are you busy? i need your help with something [ sms — birdie ] he has places left, hidden around town [ sms — birdie ] i want to burn them to the ground, and it seemed like a good trauma bonding opportunity.

Thao had only recently discovered that some of Skinner's little hideouts still existed around Port Leiry. She had wrongly assumed that when he had been killed, they'd destroyed all the old 'bases' he'd built. The young vampire was sure there would be some still existing outside of the confinements of the town, but they weren't her problem. Port Leiry needed well and truly cleansed of Skinner, and if she were honest, she was hopeful that she could find some information he left lying around whilst they did it.

But she needed Birdie at her side. Someone who knew what she had been through, that shared trauma, and could hopefully keep her grounded, and Thao could return the favour if it were needed.

She made it to the meeting spot they agreed on when it got dark enough, which was thankfully much earlier, with the storm clouding out the sun.

"So he has three bases here that I know of, some outside of Port Leiry too, but they're not our priority. I want to burn them to the ground after we look for information. I'm hoping... I'm hoping that he left notes lying around. I want to find out what really happened to my parents."

[birdieofprey]

The snow falling has been a constant reminder of things that Birdie isn't sure she'll ever outrun. Santa Barbara wasn't exactly the picture of a white Christmas the night Skinner had come knocking on their door, but winter is winter, and trauma is trauma.

It doesn't take her longer than a few seconds to reply to the text;

>> thao ; be there. where am i meeting u

She rolls up in the same truck she'd hunted Skinner and his cronies across the desert in, and when she gets out, she's carrying a shot-gun in one hand, stakes laid in a strap around her thigh - the same kit she'd rolled into town with more than two years ago - and a can of gasoline in the bed for when they're done.

They dispense with the greetings and Thao explains. Birdie searches her expression, her body language - part of her is afraid to trust The Artist, even if she knows now that the why of it all, of what happened to and between them, boils down to manipulation and coercion, that they're both victims just as much as they're both perpetrators.

"I'll help," she says - that might have already been clear, but now it's out in the air.

Birdie'd cleaned out a few of these places during her war on Skinner, and she knows of more than a few of the ones outside of the city - down in Death Valley and the Mojave and Sonora. She tosses her keys to Thao, because her fledgling knows the way, but once their in the truck's cab, she turns to her, passing streetlights dancing shadows across a furrowed brow.

"You sure you wanna know?" She finally asks it. "Might not be... good."

[lrivkin]

She likes this - more than she has any right to. The domestic nature that they've fallen into. After all the bullshit they've gone through, it's a nice reprieve. For a brief moment, Birdie's care makes her want to forget about the fucking pasta and jump on her. But instead, she staves that reaction for later, and pulls her off towards the plates.

Lara'd taste tested some of the sauce already - of course with the blood - and it had been great, but she wants to see Birdie's reaction before digging in. Sliding over the plate, she sits down and waits with her chin in her hands.

"I was thinking, by the way - maybe I could start dancing again? Have a mask as a gimmick?"

[birdieofprey]

Birdie spools pasta onto a fork, and, after a moment of bracing herself for that weird void of ashy non-flavor that food has become in this life, finds it's almost too much when it hits her tongue. The aroma itself fills all the space in her mouth, sense of taste almost overstimulated after more than ten years of disuse. Her eyes go widen, and her crooked jaw rolls it around a bit before she smiles, tight-lipped as always, but enthusiastic at Lara. "S'really fuckin' good." She says.

She looks up from a second bite when Lara speaks. "Yeah?" A part of her hates the thought of a mask - wants to tell her she doesn't need it. But Birdie knows better by now - knows what the injury etched into Lara's face has done. "I think you should." She says, elbows resting on the table.