ArchivedLogs:Takeout

Takeout
Dramatis Personae Chloe, Clint, Arrow, Saeta	2016-05-17 "Poor girl is probably bored to death."
Location <NYC> Chloe and Deanna's Apartment - Harlem
This apartment comprises half of a duplex in a brownstone in the lower half of Harlem, not far from Central Park's north bounds. A decent sized home in a mid-range neighborhood, it makes a more than comfortable dwelling for two. The entryway opens onto small hallway, coat closet on one side and a small study on the other, a bathroom at the far end of the hall. Between study and bathroom, the larger living room branches off to one side, with adjoining eat-in kitchen. There's a screened-in porch at back of the kitchen, looking out over a tiny backyard shared with the other half of the house. Upstairs is another bathroom, two large bedrooms, and what would be a third bedroom though it's been equipped as a small exercise room instead. The house itself is a nice one, newly renovated with gleaming wood floors and bold colorful tones chosen throughout. New appliances in the kitchen, a large entertainment center in the living room, small fireplace in the study. Scattered throughout the house, on walls and endtables, a carefully chosen selection of fine art. The place looks well lived in, kept well clean but with its clutter sort of an /organized/ mess. Even in the middle of the workday, there are quite a lot of people out taking advantage of the bright, clear spring weather so long in the making. A solitary brown mutt--medium-sized, probably some random mix of setters and retrievers--trots along the sidewalk, occasionally stopping to snuffle at trash cans or bushes. His coat is shaggy but clean, and he wears a purple nylon collar bearing a city license as well as a ID tag that reads 'Arrow'. He wags his tail at passers-by, but generally gives them a berth if they show any interest in him. Arriving at one particular duplex, he sniffs the air deeply and makes for the stairway that leads up to the second-storey side entrance. There, he rears up onto his hind legs and peers into the window beside the door, black nose pressed wet against the glass. One paw bats at the glass. In the plush bedroom inside, a large Rottweiler is tucked into an equally plush bed that resembles an enormous poofy fuzzy beanbag moreso than a proper dog bed. She's licking peanut butter out of the inside of a large Kong; at the sound of the batting she traps the Kong under her enormous paw, ears pricking up. Then up further; she closes her jaws around the treat, carrying it over to drop it with a thud at the door. Then more thuds, as she noses it into the door in a somewhat fruitless attempt to share. When this first attempt fails, she rears up, too, her own paws landing with a heavier smack against the glass, breath fogging up the window and her nose pressing up against it. Arrow's floppy ears twitch at the distinctive sound of Kong Hitting Floor, and he sniffs at the door with great interest. When finally he sees the other dog his ears perk up--as far as it is possible for them to do so--even more, his tail wagging wildly. He butts his head against the bottom of the window and pushes up with a purpose, but it does not budge. The whine he emits sounds more disgruntled than plaintive. Then, stretching his muzzle toward the center of the window where the bottom of the top pane meets the top of the bottom pane, he noses in the general vicinity of the latch. He raises his paw again and swipes at it clumsily, little though he can reach it from the outside. Saeta's whine sounds a good deal more plaintive than Arrow's. Her tongue swipes at the glass, leaving long wet trails behind it as her muzzle butts up against the pane. Her nose follows the path of Arrow's head, butting down towards the latch with another small whine. On /her/ side, at least, her nose does encounter the latch -- knocking against it to bonk it aside as her head moves along with the motions of Arrow's swiping paw. Perhaps not really understanding the /mechanics/ of the latch, Arrow persists pawing at it longer than altogether necessary before bracing his head against the window again to push it up. This time it shudders and begins to inch up--he doesn't have particularly good leverage, using only his /face/. But once there's a narrow opening visible along the windowsill, he simply wedges his muzzle in between the window and frame, levering the whole thing open with comparative ease. Shoving his whole head through now, he licks at Saeta's face before hopping down and turning a few circles in place on prancing steps, mouth hanging open and tongue lolling out. Saeta yips when the window begins to open, scrambling backwards to thump back down to the floor, her tail whooshing furiously again. It takes a few moments before she reappears -- this time with her Kong in her mouth, letting it thunk through the window first before she backs up to leap through it herself, the balcony creaking uner the weight of her landing when she gets outside. She joins Arrow in his prancing -- though hers is less in circles and more on /top/ of the other dog, rearing up to bat excitedly /at/ him. Where Saeta rears up, Arrow flattens himself down low in a textbook playbow, his hindlegs still dancing left and right even when his front quarters remain in place. Then he pops up, too, colliding with the larger dog to bounce off of her solid bulk. He picks up the Kong--it only just barely fits in his mouth--and tosses it up. When it rolls down the stairs he tears after it, catching the Prey as it attempts to flee under the staircase, though he's instantly distracted from it by the wail of a police siren passes a few blocks away. Saeta leaps up, teeth snapping audibly in the air as she tries to snatch the Kong out of the air -- she seems undaunted by it rolling off away from them to go bouncing down the stairs. She isn't quite as ready to chase after it, though -- at first she hesitates, forepaws dancing uncertainly on the top step with a glance back towards the open bedroom window. She looks at Arrow as he goes dashing off, though, and soon she follows, bounding down the stairs after him to sniff out her toy. She has it in her mouth when /he/ is distracted, one ear cocked, head tipped to the sound. Tongue kind of lazily lapping at the remnants of peanut butter still in its hollow insides. /She's/ distracted from that soon enough by the nearby skittering of an inordinately large alley rat -- the Kong is dropped, as she goes darting off after the ropelike tail disappearing around the side of the building. Arrow whirls around and bounds after Saeta, though he almost certainly does not know what she is chasing. What /they're/ chasing, now. In mortal danger, the rat moves remarkably fast despite its ponderous bulk, fleeing down the long, irregular space (it would be generous to call /that/ an alley) in the heart of the block, between buildings. It squeezes its fat body behind a garbage bin. Arrow is not so easily shaken off, however, and, skidding to a stop, darts around to the other side of the bin, dropping down low to bark at the terrified, half-hidden rodent. Movement stirs inside the house, the other half of Saeta's duplex. Saeta's nose presses to the ground; she snuffles at the base of the garbage bin. The rat may be terrified but her tail is wagging eagerly, paws scrabbling at the gravel- and broken-glass- strewn ground. Her claws scrape against the garbage bin for a moment -- at least until the door to the house opens, voices calling to each other. Saeta perks up -- then ducks her head, ears flattening. She leaves off sniffing at the rat, turns her back on the sound of the neighbors' voices, and bolts past Arrow to head out of the alley. Arrow peels away from their cornered quarry somewhat more reluctantly, tail tucked between his legs as he follows Saeta, fleeting her alarmed neighbors. He puts on a burst of speed and races past her, though he slows again, almost to a stop, at the mouth of the alley. Lifting his muzzle, he sniffs at the air. His tail wags, tentatively at first, then with growing confidence. He headbutts Saeta's side in his excitement, then lopes down the street in the direction of the faint yet distinctive scent of greasy pizza. Saeta's excitement is only fed by Arrow's -- though she may not know quite what they're getting excited /about/, she headbutts him right /back/. Kind of tackles, maybe trying to wrestle him right there in the street -- though she's eager enough to follow after him when he starts loping off again, nose twitching in the air. Her tongue hangs out of her mouth, a thin thread of spittle already starting to drop down off the side of her chops. Arrow dances away from Saeta's tackling, nimble and very, very focused on his newest mission. The pizzeria is small and dingy, but seems to do plenty of business from its prime corner location. There are two men loitering outside the door, smoking and chatting. The smell of oil and cheese and bread suffuses the air. Arrow ducks into the alley beside the restaurant, where the door from the kitchen has been propped open with a cinder block. He creeps toward the door, floppy ears at half-mast, and peers inside, one foot lifted up as if pointing out his mark. Saeta has less creep to her, heading straight up to the door to snuffle at it with a slow hopeful swoosh of tail. Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, her ears pricking up and head cocking to the side as she peers inside the room. Her enormous head wedges into the door, pushing it further open to prop it wider, heat and still more greasy-pizza smell spilling out into the alley. The door is heavy, designed winch shut on its own, but certainly no match for Saeta's strength. Once the door is open enough, Arrow darts in underneath his companion's head. For all his creeping, he's made at once by one of the kitchen staff. The jocular Spanish conversation inside erupts into a chorus of startled cries, though at least one of the humans is just /laughing/ instead and another is, judging by his tone, /asking/ Arrow something. For his part, Arrow does not linger to find out. He rears up, snags a pizza box from the counter, and spins around to scramble for the door, his claws skidding and scrabbling on the dirty linoleum floor. Saeta braces the heavy door against her stocky side; despite the cries from inside her tail is still wagging furiously. All the more furiously when Arrow erupts back into the outdoors with the pizza box in his mouth. She backs out of the door, letting it thud heavily back onto its concrete doorstopper; nipping eagerly at his haunch, she frisks in one circle around him before taking off down the street. Out on the sidewalk there are a few /more/ startled voices at the frisking and un-Person'd large dog, but she ignores those, staying on the sidewalk only briefly before escaping down another alley peopled mostly by drawn-up fire escapes and dumpsters. Arrow's tail waves high and fast behind him as he follows Saeta down the street, slightly slower for the ungainly prize clutched in his jaws. Two of the pizzeria's kitchen staff push out into the alley, but the dogs are already disappearing around the corner. The humans laugh and chatter incredulously at each other, giving no pursuit. Even so, Arrow does not let up at once. Only when the traffic noises have receded into the background does he drop the box somewhat unceremoniously to the ground. He makes a noise half-way between a yip and a whine in Saeta's general direction, then worrying at the pizza box lid with his incisors until it flips open. The pie inside is pepperoni and cheese, fresh and steaming. He pulls away a slice and chomps at it, not caring that it's just a little too hot to eat. Saeta skids to a halt, racing back to half /pounce/ on the box. Her paw lands in the pizza at first though as with most things she seems unbothered by this, slumping down on the ground to tear away a large mouthful of crust and cheese and devour it eagerly, licking up the toppings that have spilled off it onto the cardboard. Then licking her paw clean. Then chewing at the cardboard. /Then/ eating the rest of the slice. <NYC> Empty Lot - Queens The low income housing that once occupied this sizeable lot was demolished years ago to make way for some manner of high-speculation commercial development which, for one reason or another, never came to be. As the grounds have been left largely alone in the interim, nature has moved in to to reclaim it. Trees of Heaven have sprouted up along the edges, near the fence line, and here and there small patches of vegetables can be found--volunteers, or the offspring of seed bombs, perhaps. Toward the center of the lot, the soil is poorer, choked with brick and concrete and other ghosts of the building that was, yet even there, weeds grow exuberant and lush. A row of portable targets have been set up, anchored in cairns of rock and brick and concrete rubble. Arrows protrude from several of them--rather impressively, most have sunk into the inner rings, near to the bullseye. Dressed in a purple athletic tank top and black cargo pants, Clint is not shooting at the moment. He holds his intricate custom compound bow in one hand and one of his arrows in the other. It's not a trick arrow, just a regular target shaft with a tapered point. His thumb brushes over one of its bright purple synthetic vanes. "...It's a trade-off, certainly: less stability, but also less drag. I'd experiment with that more, but I'm no fletcher." He allows a small, crooked grin. Then, in Spanish with a heavy American accent that almost but doesn't quite mask other, less familiar idiosyncrasies of pronunciation, "{I just be shooting in the dark.}" Chloe is perched atop a large slab of rock, kneeling on one knee, her other crooked up. One arm is draped over her knee, her own -- custom, fancy, albeit less so than Clint's -- compound bow laid on the rock beside her. She's dressed in deep green and gold leggings tucked into slouchy black boots, black tank, mesh-y athletic jacket discarded nearby with her bag, spinning an arrow (unlike most of her also-synthetically vaned ones, this has feathers at its end) lazily between her fingers. "{I don't know I'd say /less/ stability, it really depends -- what you use, how you treat it. I /have/ made a fair few of my own but if I'm being honest I don't know if it's worth the extra /upkeep/.} Have to change them out far more often." Just as lazily, she sights down the arrow towards the distant targets, though doesn't bother to pick up her bow again. "Another few rounds and I should go check on Saeta. Poor girl is probably bored to death."