The Lake; Briar and Newt Who: Briar and Newt What: First meeting Where: The Lake When: 1/3 after midnight and going towards sunrise Warnings/Rating: PG-13 for language?
It was too goddamn quiet in this town. Briar was thinking about trying to move above one of the bars instead of the shop in fact, she needed noise to sleep and noise to focus and she liked a little more variety than just putting her music on max volume all the time. Also, not everyone nearby liked that sort of thing. It was driving her up the wall, and with the threat from the Masked Busybody (like she was one to talk but that wasn't the fucking point) eating at her she needed to be busy or sleep good. Something.
So she had stayed up all night shoring up defenses around the place, not really because she cared about her safety but more because it was a matter of her goddamn pride okay. She hadn't done shit (yet) when that guy interrupted her smoke, just minding her own business and here was this guy thinking she could be pushed around. He was probably some 19 year old city slicker rich boy who worked off the books for justice because he thought he was better than the police.
Or some other high and mighty bullshit.
Whatever.
She had used up so many of her supplies setting up perimeters, failsafes and triggers to blow half the block(okay. maybe less) sky high at the push of a button or the muttering of a code word that she definitely needed to go on another supply run before anyone else placed a request with her. Or maybe she could send Reece to do it.
Still, what that all equalled out to was that Briar was fucking exhausted, had huffed out of her too quiet dwelling to go down to the 'haunted' lake. She got situated under a swinging bench close to a tree where she hoped the night birds--and the morning ones as well--along with the water sounds, and all other noises nature had to offer would be enough to lull her ragged self to sleep.
What she hadn't counted on, because she was distracted, old and maybe too cocky in her ability to hide among mortals--is her body's instinctual genetic camouflage running wild while she was sleeping. As the bench lightly swayed on the bench in the breeze, going in and out of the moonlight, branches moving from in front of her and behind her, her exposed skin tried to compensate. What was revealed around her hoodie, cargo pants and boots was mostly her wrists, face and neck, but it was enough for anyone who was paying enough attention to see her skin shifting like a chameleon to try and stay hidden based on the light levels and what was currently around it--which kept changing as the tree and bench swayed.
Really though, she had no one to blame for herself. At least most mortals would blame it on a trick of the light or the late hour.