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Post by shinigami on Jun 29, 2008 14:49:57 GMT -8
Beatrix was standing outside The Mirage when it happened for the second seventh time: somebody asked her to take their picture.
The young witch with the luminous hair and the skin as lovely and fair as moonlight, although most of that was tucked underneath a large black cap with kitty ears tonight, was just minding her own business. Which was, at the moment, nothing more than walking from shadow to shadow. It was ironic that she chose to come to The Strip at sunset -- when The Strip started to turn on all its lights and dazzle, glimmer, milky way on earth.
She didn't feel good, you see. It hadn't been as easy as calling Mom and Dad the night before to get Val home and she felt -- well, sick. Which is why she was wearing garnets around her wrist, garnets around her throat, a garnet tucked inside her bra where it was making a mark on her skin -- well, secretly.
She liked that whole secret quality.
But. Somebody was asking her to take their picture. The seventh person to ask her so far, and Beatrix said: "Okay. I'm sorry if it doesn't turn out okay."
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Post by lily tomlinson on Jun 29, 2008 15:03:20 GMT -8
The sun was setting, a time for vampires to come out and hunt or play or whatever should strike their fancy. Damon had woken up not so long ago, had spent little time to look the part of dark perfection, but he had not wanted to spend an evening in his penthouse alone. Once, he'd craved silence, he'd lived for loneliness, but now the silence was deafening. The silence was when he thought too much, and so tonight he takes a walk among the strip. A place of noise and activity. A place to loose oneself.
And then he saw her, the girl, Beatrix, luminescent and yet so dark. Constantly being coerced into taking pictures. How he hated tourists. Quite a few had tried to coerce him as well, but one dark look and they had fled. He smirked at that thought. It was good to know he hadn't lost his touch.
Silently, like a hunter stalking its prey, he moved in behind her and then reaching oh-so-delicately over her shoulder, he took the camera from her hands and tossed it back at the tourists. The look on his face still had it's usual coldness, a look that clearly said they should know better than to bother another, to leave before he decided to kill them. And as always, the pathetic humans fled.
Yes, he definitely hadn't lost his touch.
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Post by shinigami on Jun 29, 2008 15:45:51 GMT -8
Beatrix didn't have the slightest inkling that the Italian vampire was there until he reached oh-so-delicately over her shoulder and plucked the camera away. Despite herself, she stiffened slightly -- at least until she turned around, cool as could be, to see who it was.
The humans fled. They didn't know what this was, but they knew they didn't want any part of it. Beatrix lifted both eyebrows in surprise. Today, tonight now, Beatrix's eyes were shadowed -- let's call it sleeplessness.
"I don't think there was a bomb or any bad juju in the camera, but I appreciate the gesture." There: the hint of a smile, faint.
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Post by lily tomlinson on Jun 29, 2008 15:53:20 GMT -8
"Ah, but foolish tourists should know their place," Damon said tauntingly, his lips still showing a shadow of a smirk. Let us call him sardonic, tonight, for he feels more like his old self, sarcastic, cold and cruel. Just like he should be. "It is a bothersome thing to be pestered when minding your own business."
Besides, he did find it quite amusing to scare humans. It was just so easy.
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Post by shinigami on Jun 29, 2008 15:58:29 GMT -8
"Oh? What is their place?" Beatrix asked him, gravely. Her voice -- even her expression -- was a little wondering. She reached up to tuck a strand of shining hair back underneath her kitty-ear hat.
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Post by lily tomlinson on Jun 29, 2008 16:05:31 GMT -8
Damon raised an eyebrow, dark and elegant as always, as it should be. "Back in their respective towns, as any sane person should be," he said, "Not running around in their Vegas-trap shirts and hats, fanny packs- or whatever it is they call them, and not wandering with gaping fly-traps of mouths, and 'idiot' plastered about their faces. After I've seen so many, it has only become an irritation."
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Post by shinigami on Jun 29, 2008 16:14:46 GMT -8
Beatrix listened. And he was so beautiful it wasn't a hardship. Beatrix even tipped her head and flicked her eyes to the side and then back in a sort of well, you've got a point, expression when he described the tourists. Then -- because Bea was a fey girl -- she sort of gave Damon this look. The kind of look that started at his toes and worked its way up to his eyes. Back down. Up again. A man'd get himself slapped, looking at a woman like that. She said: "I see. You're a local, are you? Where's good to eat?"
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Post by lily tomlinson on Jun 29, 2008 16:51:43 GMT -8
Damon smiled. The charming one, the one that cut right through a person's defences and made them want to melt. On and off in an instant. "I'm a local everywhere, sweetheart," he said, holding out a gentlemanly arm. "Do you like Italian?" He quirked an eyebrow, his smirk growing devious as his small pun.
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Post by shinigami on Jun 29, 2008 17:15:06 GMT -8
The witch-girl just wasn't at the top of her game. Was he really -- why, yes he was, perfect gentleman, offering her his arm. Beatrix's darkly radiant eyes narrowed, slightly. Yep: she just looked dreamy, sleepy, not dangerous at all.
"It's true that I detect no hint of a fanny pack." Beat. Yeah; definitely off her game. Why did she have to feel so tired? Stupid Val, getting in trouble the way he did. "And I suppose that depends." And she took his arm. Okay, she took his arm, and then she pulled him closer so they were standing arm-to-arm. "What sort of Italian are we talking?"
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Post by lily tomlinson on Jun 29, 2008 17:27:58 GMT -8
Damon levelled her with an intense gaze. Dark as the spaces between the stars, dark as a winter night, but it was intense, yes, kinda like a laser that could cut right through a person. And that smirk was back. "Depends on what kind of Italian you're looking for," he said. He found he didn't mind the closeness. Interesting. Very interesting indeed.
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Post by shinigami on Jun 29, 2008 17:37:44 GMT -8
Beatrix lifted her other hand and tweaked her right kitty-ear down a couple of times. Anime Cute Chic, yo. "Sicilian," she said, the very portrait painted of the incarnation of Innocence before she'd ever met the incarnation of Debauchery. An answer guaranteed to inflame the blood of any redblooded Italian -- Sicilians being to Italians what Other Americans were to people from Manhattan. Except worse.
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Post by lily tomlinson on Jun 29, 2008 22:53:38 GMT -8
Damon swept his eyes over her, amused. "You may prefer Sicilian, dearest," he drawled, "But I assure you, once you've had Florentine you'll never go back to any other."
Ah, yes, he did quite enjoy this banter, and he did not fall for the innocence one bit. He, after all, was quite apt at playing innocent as well. His act in Fell's Church had been so believable that the town had loved him, turning against the fair Elena whenever she had said one bad word against him. Now those had been the funner days. The days when he still thought he'd had a chance of winning her.
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Post by shinigami on Jun 29, 2008 23:04:12 GMT -8
Damon was a man of mystery. Bonafied man of mystery. But Dark was the mistress of that which was mysterious, and that which was secret, and nothing really ever was for long. Still, she liked them. She really, really did.
"That sounds awfully dull," she replied. Banter, Beatrix could do. Even exhausted. "What about Venetian?"
And Beatrix went up on her tiptoes, turned her head towards him, and whispered more-or-less against his shoulder or his neck or his ear -- whichever was nearest. "For somebody who claims he's a local everywhere I think that just maybe I am detecting a bias. With my masterful detecting skills."
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Post by lily tomlinson on Jun 29, 2008 23:48:38 GMT -8
Ah, and the girl had spunk! He loved it when they had spunk. Damon threw back his head and laughed, really laughed, a deep, rumbling sound without restraint and full of humor. When at last he quieted down to look back down at her, the corners of his mouth still held the edge of amusement, and there was a sparkle in his eye that hadn't been there in a while. "What can I say, poca nerezza? A man's first home stays with him. I am bound to be a tad biased." ((OOC: He called her Little Darkness, btw. I thought it was fitting. ))
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Post by shinigami on Jun 30, 2008 0:10:16 GMT -8
How interesting.
Dark watched as he laughed. And really, her eyes were very, very dark; it was hard to see how they could possibly get any darker. And yet, and yet, and yet.
"What does that mean? Poca nerezza?" Her accent was okay, but not perfect. Made her voice smokier, lower.
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