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Lirije Vllasi ([info]haunted_dancer) wrote in [info]haunted_roads,
@ 2008-06-04 23:33:00

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Entry tags:lirije, rei

Week Nine: Monday
Who: Rei and Lirije
What: Reunion
Where: Outside the Towers, to start with
When: Monday evening, early

To say Liri had been on edge since that meeting with Drystan weeks ago would be an understatement. Every time she opened a door, turned around, or walked into a parking lot, she expected him to be waiting for her, to finish the job he'd left undone before. He wasn't one to give up. She knew that. Every time she got out of the shower and looked in the mirror, the D branded on her hip reminded her of it. Ever present. Never fading.

She made it out of ballet safely again, walking with a group of girls from her class. They were twittering happily about some triviality. Lirije tried to join in as best she could, and made a good show of it, but she never felt as if she belonged even if they accepted her. She had seen too much, been through too much. She just didn't have the naive ability to just be happy for no reason, to live life so... exuberantly. It didn't exist within her.

She drove back to the towers and parked the car in the closest parking lot possible. It was nearing dark, but she wanted another cigarette before she went upstairs. She was a neat freak about her apartment, the first place she'd ever had for her own. Smelling like smoke was out of the question. Her pointe shoes were draped around her neck, ribbons tied together so they wouldn't get misshapen while damp in her bag with her other clothes. Her tights were rolled up to just below her knees, a pair of flip-flops on her feet since the relative chill was really no concern, and a light sweatshirt had been thrown on over her leotard, along with a denim skirt. Her hair was still in its usual bun.

She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her ballet bag, tapped one out into her hand, and replaced the pack before letting the bag fall to the ground beside her. The bright orange lighter in her skirt pocket made quick work of getting the nicotene flowing, and she took a long drag, leaning against the wall near the front doors to the building. She closed her eyes as she exhaled, smoke flowing out in a thin stream.

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[info]shiftersoldier
2008-06-05 12:04 am UTC (link)
His orders had not been fulfilled, at least not yet. The man his mistress had sent him after had simply disappeared suddenly. The trail had just gone completely cold. However given what information he had dug up, what little there was on him, this was hardly a man he felt safe getting for his mistress if he had suddenly disappeared. Still it was a disappointment that he had not done what was asked of him. It was not as if she often asked him to do anything really.

Given he had been attempting to follow that man, he had not been back to the Towers in over a week now. For the most part he looked too dirty to be allowed into his mistress' home, but he really had little choice in the matter at the moment. He was tired, even with it having not been too late. Trying to remember the last time he had actually slept for a great length of time was proving troublesome, which was most likely not the best thing for him.

He was going to have to report to her that he had lost the trail and as far as he could tell there would be no picking it up for the time being. Shaking his head as he headed up to the Towers, he pulled out a cigarette and lighter, lighting it up. Mistress was probably at work, given the time. He could pause out for a cigarette before heading in and cleaning himself up before going to see her, or heading out again if that was what he chose to do.

There was a girl outside the Towers already, doing the same thing that he was. That seemed normal enough, though he did not recognize the girl in any capacity. Leaning back against the wall a bit away from her, he frowned as the wind changed direction and he smelled something. It was not a scent he knew, at least not one he was aware he knew, but it struck a chord somewhere in his mind.

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[info]haunted_dancer
2008-06-05 12:15 am UTC (link)
Lirije sighed before taking another drag, looking up at the gray sky. Such awful weather. Inside the ballet studio it felt bright and alive, but out here... it was drab and chilly. Sometimes she wondered why she ever left the PNB at all, even for sleep. It was the only place she felt at home.

She smoked the cigarette down to the filter. The trashcan was on the other side of the man that had joined her outside the building moments before. She had watched him carefully, a side effect of her paranoia, but had found him no threat. It was only when she moved downwind of him to bury the cigarette butt in the ashtray that she smelled him.

He was a wereleopard. The scent was undeniable. She looked at him immediately, eyes casting over his form. She had never met another. And something about the way he smelled beyond that, it... she felt like she remembered him from somewhere. Which, of course, couldn't be the case.

God, maybe she was just hallucinating. Could you hallucinate scents? She walked back over, picked up her bag, and started to walk inside, but something stopped her. She had to at least talk to him, right? Even if the thought of approaching this man terrified her. He could be one of drystan's, though she didn't smell the vampire on him.

"I'm sorry," she said, apologizing, as usual, before she even got started. "I just... well, I couldn't help but notice that you and I are..." she trailed off, looking around at the humans passing. He wouldn't need elaboration anyway. Something about him was familiar, but she couldn't place what. "I should probably introduce myself, before I start going on about nonsense." She hesitated, and then offered him her hand for a shake. "I'm Lirije." She felt no need to give him her last name. If he was one of Drystan's, he already knew it anyway.

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[info]shiftersoldier
2008-06-05 02:42 pm UTC (link)
His eyes narrowed as she walked by him. The scent was unmistakable, it really was. But it was not just the fact that she was a wereleopard. There was something else too the scent. No matter what a person was, their scent was uniquely them, scents could not fully be duplicated. And there was something about hers that stirred his memory.

On top of that, she was scared. He knew that she could smell him, much as he could smell her. But there was the bit of fear there as well, a scent he had become intimately acquainted with. When she walked away he was relieved and saddened at the same time, and he was truly not sure why. He had no business with this girl, even if her scent was familiar.

And then she came back, which was as confusing as before. He looked at her oddly for a moment as she started to talk, taking a slow drag of his cigarette. When she mentioned what they were, he simply nodded. There was no need in elaborating on that little fact, it spoke for itself really in a way humans would never understand.

Watching her curiously, he put out the cigarette and took her offered hand. "Lirije?" he asked curiously. "That's... a familiar name. Not a common one to America though, I would think." Reaching out he took her hand and shook it briefly. Lirije... again there was something spookily familiar about the name. "Mine's Rei." he said simply, after their hands parted.

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[info]haunted_dancer
2008-06-05 05:08 pm UTC (link)
Fear was as much a part of Lirije as anything else. It always existed, interlaced with any other feeling she experienced, lurking just beneath the surface ready to paralyze her at the proper time. She couldn't remember not being afraid in some form. Lately, the emotion overwhelmed, surpassed all others.

She wasn't sure why she went back. The smartest thing would have been to walk off, to forget the encounter altogether. Dealing with other supernaturals invited the chance that they were somehow connected to Drystan. That's not where she recognized his scent from, she would remember if he had been in the manor with her, but even so...

Something emboldened her, however. And so the introduction came to pass. "Familiar? Really?" she asked, a jolt of momentary panic making itself known. She pushed it back. Too late to just retreat now. "No, it isn't. I'm originally from Kosovo." At least, she had been told that. She wasn't sure how much of the past was actually true or just a fabrication concocted by her tormentor. "But that was a long time ago." Her accent, or lack thereof, proved that well enough. The way she spoke gave no clues as to her heritage. She'd been around those from so many parts of the world that her own speech patterns were nondescript.

Rei? Why did that name make her hesitate, pause a moment before letting her hand fall to her side again. She shifted her bag on her shoulder. "I feel like I've heard that somewhere before," she mused, before shaking her head. "I'm sure it's not the case, though."

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[info]shiftersoldier
2008-06-05 05:37 pm UTC (link)
Fear was something that Rei was aware of, but something that had been forced out of him for the most part many years ago. The only thing he feared at the moment was something happening to mistress. But luckily his mistress for the most part could take care of herself and so it was not often that he feared anything would happen to her.

"Kosovo?" he asked, looking confused. This was becoming curiouser and curiouser. Kosovo was not exactly the biggest country in the world, it was rather unlikely to just run into someone from there with a name that was familiar. "I haven't been to Kosovo in a... very long time, don't even remember it really." Or at all. Most of his memories before the action were dim, if they existed at all. When he tried to think of that time it was as if he were looking through murky water, not something he spent much time on.

Rei shrugged, but looked at her keenly. There was something about her, more than just a scent that tugged at his heart. It was a strange sensation that he was not completely familiar with. "You're a very long way from home." he said simply. So was he, if Kosovo counted as home.

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[info]haunted_dancer
2008-06-05 05:45 pm UTC (link)
She had only herself to take care of, and apparently now that she had struck out on her own for the first time, she hadn't been doing such a great job. What were the odds that she'd let herself wind up in the same city as Drystan? Part of her wanted to leave, but the defiance that remained insisted that she not let him run her life. Not any more. Besides, he'd ignored her this far. Though unlikely, she hoped it would continue.

Escaping him for good would be impossible, anyway. He'd find her. She always had known that he would.

Her brow furrowed. "You've been to Kosovo? I lived in Pristina. I was very young, though. I don't remember anything but the name." And that her family was murdered, but this hardly seemed a good thing to bring up. The only memories she had of the place tended to arise in dreams, and dreams weren't always a reflection of reality.

The way he was looking at her made Lirije slightly uncomfortable, and she crossed her arms over her chest, looking down for a moment. "I don't think that's home. I... I don't have family there. This is home, now."

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[info]shiftersoldier
2008-06-05 05:56 pm UTC (link)
Rei's eyebrows furrowed together as he looked down at her. "My family was from Pristina. This is very odd." He could not help but to voice that aloud. Finding someone else who had grown up in Pristina, someone else who did not remember it, someone else who was a wereleopard... that just did not add up. The vampire often said that he had spared one of his sisters, but Rei had never really truly believed him. A man like that would have never spared a small girl, and had she been spared her fate was even worse.

It was not possible, it simply was not. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts of the possibility, he rubbed his temple slightly. Not sure what to do with himself, he pulled out another cigarette and lit it, taking a calming puff from it. The idea that this young woman did look at least a little similar to him started biting at the back of his thoughts.

"Your last name wouldn't happen to be Vllasi, would it?" he asked, though it was certainly a strange question to ask. But that thought was in his mind and now he could not stop thinking of all the horrible things that monster had said. All the horrible things he said he had done to his little sister. A little sister he knew full and well had been dead over a decade now.

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[info]haunted_dancer
2008-06-05 06:05 pm UTC (link)
"Really?" she asked, growing more and more surprised by the second, it seemed. "It really is." Too many similarities. She felt a nagging sense of remembrance in the back of her mind, but she couldn't place the familiarity, even still. Too much of her past was lost.

The werepanther in front of her seemed perplexed as he lit another cigarette, and though she felt the distinct need for another burst of nicotene herself, she refrained. He didn't look familiar in the least to her, and she didn't grasp the similarities in appearance between them. Not yet.

When she heard him speak her surname, she froze for a moment, too shocked to reply. After blinking a couple of times, she nodded, glancing around as if someone had whispered it to him and she had not heard. "How did you know that?" she asked, voice softer now. He couldn't know, not without Drystan's help. Everyone else who had known her, who could have told him, was dead or allied with the vampire. It was impossible that there was another explanation.

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[info]shiftersoldier
2008-06-05 06:20 pm UTC (link)
"I didn't." he said quietly, leaning against the wall. It was impossible, it was just not possible that this could be her. But what else could explain this amount of coincidences? There was no other explanation. It meant that the vampire had been telling the truth all of these years! "I only asked because that's my last name." his voice was still calm as he said this, but inside he was burning.

Everything that vampire had said that he was doing to his sister, he had been telling the truth. There was a fire inside of him begging for him to rip that worthless lump of immortal flesh apart. Thoughts of how he could never possibly stand up against the other did not matter, just the single minded idea that he should destroy him.

"You name is Vllasi, then? I had thought we were all dead..." he took another drag to keep himself calm. This was a bit too much for his mind to handle right now, as tired as he was.

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[info]haunted_dancer
2008-06-05 07:05 pm UTC (link)
What? She was well used to not trusting people, but he didn't appear to be lying, and that made this even more confusing. She let out a slightly frustrated sigh, staring at the concrete until he confessed that it was his last name as well. She looked at him, really looked at him, trying desperately to remember anything. But she felt as sure as anything that she had never seen this man before in her life.

She wasn't cold, but a shiver traveled up her spine before she shook her head. "No. I mean, yes, that's my name, but... it's not possible." How could she possibly explain this? He was standing there, calmly smoking (she was too wrapped up in her own nervousness to notice the distinct lack of composure that floated just beneath his even-keel surface) and that in itself seemed to prove that this was not what he thought it was.

"I was five years old when my family... they're gone," she said, glancing downward again. "I know they are." It had to just be the most insane coincidence ever. She couldn't even wrap her head around the alternative.

"I don't even remember them. It was a long time ago. And I'm sorry if you thought..." she hated to crush someone's belief that they'd found family, but it seemed necessary. "It just can't be."

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[info]shiftersoldier
2008-06-05 08:06 pm UTC (link)
He looked at her calmly, but with a feeling of seriousness. There was no possible way that this was simply a coincidence. There were many things that he believed in, but this simply did not add up. Perhaps it was her fear that was holding her back. This was understandable, because if she was his sister she would have more fear in her than he could bare to think of. The conditions he had held her under, that he would taunt Rei with, they were unimaginable to him.

It was true that the conditions he had been trained under were cruel beyond thought, but he had been found by a kind mistress and since then had led a life of relative kindness. However her life would have not been the case, if the vampire was to be listened to. Rei hated to think that he was truthful, because lies were much easier to deal with.

"If that is what you believe." he said softly, knocking a bit of ash off his cigarette. He looked down at the ground for a moment before looking at her ever so slightly. "My sisters would have been harmed by a man named Drystan. He said killed one, but kept the other." Shaking his head, he just put out the cigarette. "It would be very nice for you if you're not my sister. You would have a much better like."

Reaching up he scratched the back of his neck before starting to walk to the doors of the building slowly. He was not sure what to do about this, it was more than he could really fathom.

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[info]haunted_dancer
2008-06-05 08:38 pm UTC (link)
She was glad for a moment that he seemed to accept that this was just the strangest of coincidences, but that moment of relief was soon completely shattered. First, he'd said sisters. Well, that made it seem even less likely that what he believed was true, because even though she sometimes dreamt of a sister the same age as her, she doubted profoundly that she'd had a twin. But then he mentioned his name.

It was as if she'd been struck. Terror spiked, leaving her standing motionless for a moment before she stepped back, one hand reaching up to touch her face. He would be able to smell the fear. The very mention of the vampire's name was enough to terrify her. It was as if speaking of him would make him appear.

He started to walk toward the doors then, and for a moment she didn;t move, just tried to steady herself, regain composure. Then she followed after him, steps quickening to catch up just inside the doors. Timidly, she put a hand on his arm, quickly withdrawing it. She only wanted to catch his attention, but it seemed like such a dangerous thing to do, reach out and touch this stranger that might be family.

The look in her eyes said it all, and yet she couldn't find the words. "You're..." she trailed off, and for a moment she looked near tears. This was too much for her to wrap her head around. "I thought everyone was dead," she said quietly, not as much speaking to him as just musing aloud. She wished he could explain, because her memories had been destroyed long ago, or else placed somewhere beyond access.

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[info]shiftersoldier
2008-06-05 09:18 pm UTC (link)
The terror was coming off of her so thickly that it was nearly palpable. That man's name had a way of invoking reactions like that, though his was not fear. The vampire was the most disgusting creature he had ever met, even counting the 'trainers' that he had been under before being placed in the service of his mistress. It was her, that name proved it right then and there. Rei was almost certain the next time he saw the vampire that he would try to go for his throat.

It was a surprise to him when she followed him. It was more of a surprise when she actually touched him. Stopping, he turned and looked at her softly. She was so small, so exceptionally tiny. And she looked so very breakable, so much more so than she had mere moments previous.

His expression softened even more as she seemed to search for something to say. There was not much that he remembered either. Names were gone, memories were gone. All he had were the shadows of them haunting in the back of his mind. And then whatever Drystan chose to torment him with when visiting his mistress. There was not much he could really give her. But there was something, blood, there was blood between them. That was more than he had had a few hours previous.

"Should get you inside, it's cold out." he said softly, looking at her. "And you're not really dressed for the cold."

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[info]haunted_dancer
2008-06-06 09:32 am UTC (link)
No one who had not had the profound displeasure of meeting the vampire would have no way of understanding. She smelled his anger, and for a moment it caused her to falter even more, but somehow she knew it wasn't directed at her. It was Drystan. People couldn't seem to help reacting harshly, in some way or another, to his name. At least, those who had been somehow mistreated by him.

She half expected to be struck for stopping him. It would not be an uncommon thing. Any interruption or indiscretion on her part had always been punished swiftly and harshly. Humans were different, they were more tolerant, but the mention of Drystan's name had put her on edge and she winced a bit, as if steeling herself for pain, when he turned around. Instead, he looked at her with a softness she could never remember seeing before. Glances cast her way had always been disdainful, menacing, patronizing, appraising--never soft. Even among her friends at the ballet, there was a competitive edge. Sizing up the other dancers. No one had looked at her that way before, not since her family had died, and if it had happened before then the memory had been erased with time and trauma.

For Lirije, it was all lost as well. She had been so young when her world had been destroyed, and all she remembered now was what had come after. The pain, the torment, the horrible life she'd been forced to lead. But now she knew where she remembered him from. She knew that somewhere deep in her mind existed a piece of him from long ago. The scent had remained like a lingering shadow. Who knew what else might be there, undiscovered?

Blood. It had always had a negative connotation. Now that it was between them instead of being spilled... it was an odd type of feeling.

She nodded at his response and started walking slowly toward the doors. She wasn't cold, she could handle the temperature, but she didn't want to continue whatever this was--a reunion?--out of doors.

"Rei," she said, half to herself as if testing the name for any memories that might be attached. She met his eyes again as the lobby doors closed behind them. "I'm sorry. I don't... I don't remember you." She wasn't sure why she felt the need to apologize. It was almost a compulsion with her, drilled in by years of necessity.

She started toward the stairs, out of habit, but looked at him instead, pausing. "Do you live here, too, then?" It really seemed unfathomable, but why else would he have been smoking in front of the building?

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[info]shiftersoldier
2008-06-08 11:30 am UTC (link)
The vampire had no capacity for kindness. This had been something Rei had settled upon since meeting the creature. Everything existed to be of amusement to him, there was no such thing as compassion. It was a world that Rei could not even begin to fathom. Even after years of torture, compassion was still something that was very much part of him. When people were just cruel for cruelty's sake, Rei could not understand them. At least not when he was in his right mind.

Given that, he was a very soft individual. He could not imagine just striking out at a woman, no matter who she was. There was no threat in her action, so he had no reason to be. All there was too her almost was the fright. It was sad that one emotion could make up so much of a person. Then again they both only had Drystan to blame for what had gone wrong in their lives. While he had been lucky in getting his mistress, she would not have been so lucky.

Walking with her, he shrugged slightly. "I don't remember you either really." he said mildly. He did not want her to know that the only reason he knew she might possibly exist was because of the vampire's taunts. "You do smell familiar though, so my nose remembers you." he added, as if to try a lame joke.

Hands in pockets, he stopped when she reached the stairs. Nodding he looked towards the down stairs. "In the basement, seems a lot of people like us live in this place." It was hard not to tell that this place was a haven for supernaturals when ones sense of smell was so strong. There were few here that were pure human. Most were ones that had used to be, or those so different from human they did not even come from this world.

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[info]haunted_dancer
2008-06-12 08:24 pm UTC (link)
Lirije might have been a ball of fear and nerves, but she still had the capacity for compassion, for empathy. Somehow she had made it out of everything with the ability to feel for others intact, even if parts of herself had gone numb.

If Liri was ever threatening, it was because she was backed into a corner and could find no other way out. Other than that, she was gentle, timid. She was more likely to keep to herself than to even speak to a stranger unless it was out of necessity. The only time she really felt any confidence or sense of self was when she was dancing. She didn't remember this, but her mother had been a dancer as well. It was as if following in the path of the family was instinctual despite lack of conditioning.

And no, there had not been a kind mistress or master for her to go to once the terror was over. She was either in Drystan's grasp, or she was alone and terrified. The rich man in New York had used her, but he'd given her a place to stay. When he had crashed over the Bahamas in his private jet, she had been alone again. Now she was in Seattle, and Drystan was there as well. She couldn't seem to win.

She laughed a bit at his attempt at a joke. "Your scent, it... it was familiar but I couldn't place it. To be perfectly honest even though I know now, I can't remember ever actually being near enough to you before to smell it." She shrugged one shoulder.

So she lived upstairs, he lived down below. "When I walk past the basement stairs, I can always smell vampires," she said. "I know there are some on my floor, but it seems more.. concentrated or something." She crossed her arms over her chest, thinking. She didn't want to just let her brother walk away without trying to get to know him at least a little, even if it was too late to really be a family. "Would you... like to come upstairs and have something to eat?" she asked. "We could talk."

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[info]shiftersoldier
2008-06-12 09:59 pm UTC (link)
"Well, I'd hope not, actually." he said with a mild smile. "I was a great deal smaller then. If I looked the same then I must have been a rather terrifying child." But smells did not change all that much. Certainly other scents could cover them up, but for the most part people stuck with the same scent. They knew each others scents, that was something special, something that hearkened back to those years that neither could remember.

It was true that the downstairs did smell of vampires. But it also held his mistress, which made that bearable. Should she chose to live in the middle of hell, Rei would be right there with her, as long as she required him. Still, the scent annoyed him at the moment in time, considering a certain vampire he would like to get his hands upon. Even better would be his paws, really.

Shrugging slightly, he looked up the stairs. "I know what you're saying, it's not the most pleasant scent to be around for long periods of time." That was the curse of a sensitive nose though. He looked at her curiously when she offered that invitation. He was still a mess, he should really get cleaned up. But this was his past, his sister, a connection to a time where he had been happy.

"Yeah, all right." he answered softly, nodding slightly. If she did not mind his current appearance than he could come upstairs and spend some tie with her before going to clean himself up. He had no news to tell his mistress, so there was no real hurry in the first place.

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[info]haunted_dancer
2008-06-13 06:07 pm UTC (link)
Liri smiled at his description. "Actually, yes. That would have been terrifying. Do you remember how old you were?" she asked. "I think I was around five years old, but I'm not sure, exactly." Nothing about that time before Drystan was a clear memory. Nothing was precise. It was all guesswork to piece together the rest of her past, and sometimes it seemed as if nothing before him even existed. At least, it had until now.

He was a mess? She'd seen people in far worse shape. Besides, Liri herself wasn't exactly outfitted to host a dinner party. She was still in her ballet clothes, just covered up enough to look decent walking from her car to the apartment. Her hair was up in a bun still, slightly sweaty from the long day's rehearsal. She had been wearing makeup at some point but most of it had been either sweated or rubbed off during the day, leaving not much trace of it behind.

"Good," she replied, smiling when he accepted the offer. They took the stairs to her floor and she rummaged through the duffle bag until she found her key. "Sorry, my bag's a bit of a mess." But her apartment was spotless, something that showed the moment she opened the door. She had rearranged the space in the one-bedroom flat a bit to accommodate a makeshift dance studio near the window in what should have been her living room. Seating and a television was in the dining area, and there was a small table and chairs in the kitchen. She let him in, shut the door behind them and locked it out of habit, and then set her bag next to the barre in the living room, hanging her pointe shoes over the piece of equipment to dry overnight.

"Um," she said, pressing her hands together. "Is there anything in particular you're hungry for? You look like you haven't eaten in awhile."

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[info]shiftersoldier
2008-06-17 10:46 am UTC (link)
"They started training me when I was twelve." he said, a bit absentmindedly. The only reason he knew this is because they had told him. It was part of the information for his sale to his mistress. "I suppose I must have been twelve, at least that's what they told me. No way of really knowing if that's the truth or not, but there you go." He was not sure really how they knew either. Still, everything blurred together for him. For all he knew they had asked him.

While he was a mess, he still took care of himself for the most part. On the outside he looked much more presentable than he actually was. There were a few marks from a scrap or two that he had gotten into to get information. A bit painful, but they were nothing that could not be covered and nothing that could not be ignored.

Following her up, he looked at bit awkward as he waited for her to find her key. This felt strange, really. He was not sure why, but then again he was not really the kind to make social calls. The fact of the matter was he had no one to make social calls to. Still, he liked her apartment once they entered. It was nice and orderly, the way he liked things. "You're a dancer." he said in a rather obvious tone of voice. certainly that had been easy to spot given her attire and bag, but still for some reason it just slipped out. It felt familiar.

Pulled out of his distracted observations when she talked, he looked over at her and then shrugged slightly. "Nothing in particular, I'm not really all that picky when it comes to food." Or anything else really.

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[info]haunted_dancer
2008-06-19 12:07 am UTC (link)
"Training?" Lirije asked, looking over at him questioningly. Then she remembered how uncomfortable she would feel if asked about her past, and she immediately apologized. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't ask. Don't feel like you need to answer. Sometimes I ask too many questions." It had gotten her in trouble plenty, as well. She wasn't allowed to question things as a child, and had been punished often for even the most innocent of queries.

When he observed that she was a dancer, a true smile came to Lirije's face. "Yes, I am. Once I got away from... well, I ended up in New York and began training. I came here, actually, to dance with the Pacific Northwest Ballet. I'm just in the corps, but maybe someday I'll be able to work up higher. I have to be patient." She didn't know why she felt comfortable talking to him like this. He was a man, and normally she shut down entirely around them. Perhaps it was as simple as the fact that he was family.

Pursing her lips, Lirije opened the door to her refrigerator and looked at what ingredients she had to work with. "I'm sorry. I haven't been shopping in a few days, rehearsals have run late. How does spaghetti with meat sauce sound?" she asked, turning her head to await his reply and to guage his reaction by his face. If he appeared displeased at all, she would simply find something else. She was well-conditioned to make sure she pleased everyone.

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[info]shiftersoldier
2008-06-19 12:15 am UTC (link)
He shrugged slightly, smiling a bit when she apologized. He was used to answering questions really, conditioned to for the most part. She did not come off as a threat to him or his mistress, so there was no reason why he could not give her small answers. It was a strange thing to have said anyway, he figured. "I'm a bodyguard." he said as way of explanation. It was enough explanation for him, he really could not think of a very good bodyguard who had not gone through training like he had.

It was amazing to see the transformation of her face when she smiled. She was truly lovely when she did, he felt that she should have reason to smile more often. Having such a beautiful smile hidden from the world was rather saddening. "I'm not very good at dancing." he admitted. It was funny, considering his training made him graceful and he had ease of movement. "But I'm certain you're wonderful at it, given how committed you seem to it." And in his heart, he was grateful that the monster had not taken that away from her.

Any kind of food sounded delicious to Rei at the moment. It could have been completely tasteless and he would be excited. "That sounds wonderful." he said calmly, but his eyes lit up slightly at the prospect of food. His stomach gave a rumble to remind him again just how long it had been since he had eaten properly.

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[info]haunted_dancer
2008-06-23 01:07 am UTC (link)
"Bodyguard, really?" she asked, genuinely interested. "That sounds exciting, actually. My old... well, a man who sort of looked after me in New York, he had a bodyguard. I think he had a lot of enemies, is why he had one, but I don't really know. He didn't tell me much." Her old patron had just paid for her housing and ballet training in exchange for her being basically his mistress. It wasn't as if she'd had many options, and at least he had used her kindly instead of cruelly in the way that Drystan had.

"Oh I bet you would be if you ever tried. I'm still really awful at like, dancing like
do in clubs. I don't go to those places though, so it doesn't matter," she said, taking the ingredients she needed out of the fridge and pantry before beginning to cook. While the pasta boiled, she fixed a salad and began preparing the sauce.

She was a decent cook, really. She knew how to take care of herself now and she took pleasure in preparing food. Sometimes she went a little overboard and tried recipes she wasn't ready for, but she knew she could handle this one without ruining it.

While she cooked, she talked a bit about ballet. "I don't know if I'm really that good, compared to some of the others," she said. "I'm a bit short for it, actually, not quite long enough in the limbs. But it makes me easier to lift, so I suppose that can be an advantage too." She seasoned the meat and gave the sauce a stir. "But I don't know if committed is the word. I think most people would call it obsessed. I... it's one of those things that's mine. Just mine. And I haven't had many of those in my life."

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[info]shiftersoldier
2008-06-23 01:00 pm UTC (link)
Rei gave a weak smile of embarrassment at that. "It's not all that exciting really. My mistress and her employees are fairly capable themselves. I'm just there in case someone gets too rowdy." And it was true enough. However he did make note of this man she mentioned. It was not the time to really ask questions about people that were and had been in their lives, but he tucked it away somewhere in his memory.

He made a face at that. "I'm not too fond of those places. Every so often my Mistress will want to go. I'm not sure why she likes those places." Actually, he was pretty certain it had something to do with sexual energies or something like that. But he never saw the appeal. There were too many people and it made it too hard to keep track of her in the crowd.

"I'm sure you're wonderful at it." he said as he watched her cook, not really sure what he was supposed to be doing. "You're very passionate about it, and passion is a big part of it I'd think." It was strange, he almost envied her a bit for it. Not really though, but the idea of having something that was solely yours, that one could believe so much in, he had never had anything like that in his life. It was admirable more than anything.

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