ArchivedLogs:Their Betters

Their Betters
Dramatis Personae Isra, Shane
In Absentia	2014-07-28 '
Location <NYC> The Roost - Harbor Commons - Lower East Side
The second level of this house takes up less floor space than the ground floor, owing largely to the open sweep of balcony that overlooks half the home below. Up here the floors are in natural hardwood, polished and smooth. At one side of the balcony, again, a door leads over to the adjacent unit in the house. One door off the balcony leads to a quiet office space, with a wide metal-and-glass desk, long sofa and armchair opposite a large pair of bookshelves. A tall glass door in the large windows on the back wall leads out to a wide outdoor balcony overlooking the river. The second door leads to Dusk's bedroom, dominated by greens and greys. He has finally actually gotten himself a /proper/ bed to pair with his dresser and bookshelf, king-sized and settled low to the ground onto a solid wood base with a number of drawers built into it. His desk holds the desktop -- somewhat literally. The desk /itself/, with see-through glass body and softly glowing lights inside, has been configured to /be/ the computer case. Closer inspection of a pair of small decorative aquariums sitting to either side of its three monitors finds them to /also/ be computer cases, their inner workings submerged in a pale blue liquid on a bed of aquarium pebbles alongside plastic plants and little plastic castles or fake coral. In this bedroom, too, a door leads out to the same balcony outside. Capping off the balcony at its other end is a guest bedroom, large wood-frame bed with a small end table, dresser, a hammock-chair hanging from the ceiling in a corner, a desk by the window. The muted whir of a motor issues from the kitchen below, and a moment later Isra ascends the stairs with a massive cup in one long-fingered hand. At a casual glance she might be mistaken for some other tall, gangling gargoyle woman. Her skin, normally slate gray like living stone, has become azure like the summer sky, shot through with dark gray stripes like those of a tiger. The leathery membranes of her wings are a darker blue, and more subtly veined with black. Only her horns and her eyes retain their usual ivory and green. She wears one of Dusk's batiked sarongs--indigo and abstract as if it were an unlikely extension of her unlikely appearance--loosely wrapped and knotted at the left hip. It probably would not even stay on if she did not have a tail. She pauses on the balcony, completely still for a moment save the faint twitch of her tail tip and one ear. Her wings, previously relaxed at her back, slowly mantle outward as she sinks slightly lower on digitigrade legs. Condensation forms on the cup she carries, beads and runs down to drip-drip onto the floor. There is a quietquiet scritch of claws against stone, a shifting whisper of bare feet against hard surface. A blue form up overhead eeling its way from stone to stone, a path that looks rather precarious in a way that would /probably/ displease Shane's fathers. The tiny sharkboy is in a similar state of not-very-dressed, a pair of black boxer shorts low on his hips, still damply clinging to his skin. Sniffsniff. From some length above the balcony there is a soft assessing, scenting the air and -- /maybe/ deciding not to make Isra go through the effort of making herself a second smoothie. Less FLYING TACKLE from above, then, and instead Shane scrape-slides his way down to drop onto the balcony behind Isra with a soft /whump/, subsequently climbing back /up/ -- over the back of one of those wings, using a long upper spar for support as he cranes his head up to gnaw on one backswept horn. Chewchewchew. One of Isra's pointed ears swivels sharply back, and the growl that has just begun to climb out of the subsonic range dies in her throat. She straightens to her previous height and lets the boy scamper onto her shoulder. "Perhaps next time you might provide me the challenge of fending off an airborn shark while /also/ keeping my drink upright," she says, bracing one wing against his side, though she does not actually seem concerned that he will fall. In fact, she ambles over to the railing, sipping her smoothie all the while. "It would probably make a gigantic mess." This last almost /philosophically,/ as though the notion of creating a mess did not have any specific implications. "So, have you torn yourself from work and/or study just to find a chew toy?" A smile quirks Isra's dark blue lips, though she does not turn her head very far given that her passenger is /attached/ to it. "I could climb back up if you like." Shane says this around a grindy-gnawing mouthful of horn, teeth scraping against it. Maybe he is a rabbitshark? Trying to keep them worn down to manageable levels? He does have rather an excess of Tooth to keep in check. The backs of his claws trail against one long wingbone contemplatively. "You should wear blue more often," he decides, finally lifting his head from its chewing. "It /is/ the best colour." He also seems largely unconcerned with falling, settling in comfortably and enjoying the /view/ from up here, black eyes turning out towards the river below. "I tore myself from studying to find someone who still smiles." He's /not/ smiley, notably, just kind of thoughtful as he leans in against the support of Isra's wing. "We've been kind of /short/ on that lately. B's kind of been --" He lapses into silence, gills briefly fluttering. "Dusk just gets /toothier/ when he's upset though so I figured over here was a good bet. Surprise chewtoy was a nice /bonus/." Admittedly he'd probably have chewed on Dusk /too/. Isra's tail flicks, fast one way, fast the other, then back to a slow sway. "It is not /quite/ the same if I know it's coming. Best to keep me on my toes..." She glances down and flexes the talons on her feet, each painted metallic cobalt blue like her equally sharp fingernails. "...or further up on my toes." She flares the wing out and wraps Shane in a half-hug--as much as she can manage with him perched on her shoulder. "I have not seen much of hir since the raid," this softly, her lower bass voice a ghostly shadow beneath the usual alto, "and I do not suppose I could help hir much. Not with talk, anyhow, and not with my smile--I did learn it from Dusk. Perhaps..." Her tail sways faster. "...we should go hunting." "Ze hasn't left our room much," Shane admits with a heavy huff of breath. "Everything's just been --" This ends not in words but in a sharp frustrated growl. His teeth chomp in against Isra's horn again, and then he just rests his head against the side of it. "And now that woman. Neve. /Nox/. She might be coming /here/ I --" He turns his head, glancing back towards the door back into Dusk's room. "-- can't imagine /Dusk/ is really. Thrilled about that /either/, not. After Ian and -- /Christ/, she /knew/ what they were doing to Matt in the labs and went to help them /anyway/. How could anyone fucking --" His teeth clamp together, words a little hitchy as his gills ripple faster. "... B was going to them," he adds, softer and unhappier. "The Themis people. To make hir fucking /normal/." This is unhappy, /too/, though there's a trace of disgust now mixed in with the pain. "... we /should/ go hunting." The tightening of Isra's jaws pushes her ears back. Her hand closes so hard around the cup that her talons leave indents in the plastic outer wall. She takes a long pull of the cold, fruity mixture. "Here? For her safety, I suppose." Her tone is dry, uninterested, but her posture remains tense. "It is not my place to object, and I'm sure the irony escapes no one." She finishes her smoothie and sets the empty, claw-marked cup down on the railing. "Even if Themis House has the financial backing to weather this storm, they can keep their 'potential' and their 'normalcy.' Two years ago, I would have jumped at the offer. Now." She stretches her wings out wide, muscles flexing beneath bright blue skin on her shoulders, back and chest. Pulled taut, the membranes catch even the slightest breeze, but she balances against it. "Now I pay Tag to make me look like an even bigger freak than nature had made me." Folding the wings back in, she flashes Shane a fangy smile. "And I might just stick with the blue for a while; it makes me harder to spot against the sky, too. Let us see if we can drag Dusk and B along." "Here," Shane affirms. "For her safety. After she and her fake-ass dad went all condescending-asshole on my dads for being worried about their genocidal murder project." His eyes narrow. "Dusk agreed to it. /I/ agreed to it. B wants to tear her damn throat out and I don't blame hir. I would not shed a tear if that sick fucking /kapo/ got run over by a bus. -- I can't even imagine what Anole's probably feeling like. She was like his mom." He wobbles, wavering slightly as Isra's wings flare further, straightening so he isn't leaning against one any longer. One foot hooks down against her side to keep his balance on her shoulder. "All my favourite people are freaks. The world's just got hir convinced that's a /bad/ thing." His teeth bare, sharp and fierce as he hops down in a smooth shift of weight, dropping from Isra's shoulder to land perched on the railing -- there's a /wobble/, feet curling down against it, that in other people would probably signify a very precarious perch and an imminent topple down to the ground two stories below, but Shane just stretches his arms out wide, claws flexing as he looks back up at the sun. "Maybe the taste of hot blood on hir tongue will help remind hir how /good/ being a freak can be." "Hmm." Isra's pensive rumble always sounds a touch sinister, and now more than usual. "I suppose we are meant to turn the other cheek and prove ourselves their betters. Even if we had something to prove, our hopes of proving it with the tolerance that every bigot already expects to receive seems slim." She makes no move to steady Shane, although he is within easy reach if she should need to. "I do hope so." Her eyes flick up, pupils contracting so rapidly that they seem to vanish into the bright green of her irises. "If nothing else, B is too good a scientist to hold any opinion above scrutiny, and too good a hunter to let other worries get in the way of the chase." "We /are/ their betters." Shane snorts, head turning down towards the ground. "At the least my dads sure as fuck are. Also kind of better at that whole forgiveness thing than me. Dusk promised," he says with another fierce teeth-bared grin, "/not/ to tear out her throat. That's a start, huh?" Another wobble, another rock, and he's hopping backwards down off the rail to plant feet solidly on the balcony. "-- /Probably/ means he'll be only too glad to tear out something /else's/, though. Let's go rustle them up."