starsmisalign (starsmisalign) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2020-10-13 20:55:00 |
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Entry tags: | celeste henry, penny norton |
Captivity
Who: Penny/Celeste
What: Browsing
Where: Las Vegas, Boulevard Mall
When: Present
Ratings/Warnings: Low
The Boulevard Mall was large and overwhelming and shiny, each surface designed to catch attention with bright colors and splashy advertising. Celeste didn’t usually frequent such places, but she hadn’t come to Las Vegas with an extensive wardrobe and it was looking like she’d be staying for the foreseeable future, so clothing shopping felt necessary.
The brunette stood before one of the large pillared directories, eyes roaming over the options before her, even as the ever-present smell of mall food caused a sensation of artificial hunger. Fashion wasn’t a necessity to Celeste so much as utility, so she had no real preference on where to start.
Penny didn’t bother with an excusal.
The siren slipped up next to the brunette woman close enough that their bodies were nearly touching. Around the other woman Penny lifted an arm, her finger pressing against the words on the marquee. She drew her finger down a line of shops, pausing at one. A double tap from the pad of her finger once she found what she was after and only then did she step backwards though only a single pace. Her hand dropped and she made a motion to adjust the few bags in her hand.
She was wearing the bright, multicolored platform wedges she’d just purchased which seemed to compliment the rest of her outfit. Of course she hadn’t planned that, but it worked out.
“Looking for something?” She inquired of the other woman, offering a bright, friendly smile.
Celeste, being focused on the words of the directory, didn’t entirely notice the woman sneaking up on her. She would have to up her game, the brunette decided, she was slacking off in the observant department. Recognition clicked into place.
“Hi, Penny.” Her gaze dropped to the woman’s outfit, ending at the extravagant platform shoes. “Fancy.” She noted the shopping bags clutched in her hands. “I’m trying to decide where to go. Am I an Old Navy person? Is anyone an Old Navy person?”
Now she remembered this woman. Her smile grew. “Hi Celeste,” came the reply. She twisted herself a bit as if showing off her attire and her shoes. “Thanks, I just picked them up over there.” Penny pointed in the direction of the store and then shrugged. “Are you? You don’t really look like one.”
And then her face contorted a bit with consideration. “You don’t look like the sparkly kind either. How about we look around and if something jumps out at you, we go inside?” Window shopping could be good when you couldn’t decide on something.
“Sure, why not?” She made to follow Penny, who seemed to know her way around the mall well enough. A somewhat awkward silence ensued. They didn’t know each other that well, and the last time Celeste saw the other woman, it was in a pretty peculiar situation.
“How’s Derek?” she asked. “Did everything, you know, work out?”
“Oh he’s back to his normal self,” she replied, walking alongside Celeste. “Thanks again for helping, I don’t know what we would’ve done.” Derek was important to her and his well-being meant knowing who to call and who to keep happy. And she wasn’t one to get caught up on the past. It was over and the future was wide open, ahead of them to shape.
“Oh, that’s pretty,” Penny remarked, motioning to a blouse on a mannequin.
“I think that would look nice on you,” Celeste offered, looking at the blouse appraisingly. “But I don’t think it’s really my style.” After uttering that phrase, though, she wondered if that was true, or if she had never taken the time to really think about what her style was. Her mind had always been occupied with other things, like impending, catastrophic doom.
“Maybe I’ll try it on,” the brunette amended.
At first, Penny’s eyebrows lifted. But at the amendment, the siren nodded. “Come on, at least try it and if you don’t like it...well, that’s the fun part. You will find something.” At least, she tried to look at it in a positive light.
She got the door for Celeste and wandered in after the brunette, eager to dive into the racks. “Ooh, everything in here is so nice.”
Celeste thumbed through the racks, tilting her head as she tried to imagine herself wearing various pieces. She picked out a long-sleeved shirt in sage green and held it up to Penny. “I like this,” she said, “though if I’m being honest, it’s not really reaching for me. It does make it easier for you to blend into different environments, though, which can be an advantage.”
Penny tilted her head. “Why do you have to blend in?” She wandered over. Gently, she grasped the bottom hem and pushed it lightly around Celeste’s curves. “I think it suits you. And if you like it then that makes it better! Why don’t you try it on?”
Her eyes flickered to the fitting room, and then she looked at her new friend. “You’ll be beautiful, I promise. Go.”
The brunette considered this, then shrugged. “You would know more than me.” She grabbed the green shirt and the same blouse that had been spotted on the mannequin in her sizes and headed to the fitting room. Sliding back the curtain, then shutting it after her, Celeste found herself faced with her reflection. Taking off her top, she spoke out loud. “Penny, are you out there?”
While waiting for an answer, Celeste tried on the more elaborate blouse first, twisting and turning to evaluate the results.
“I’m here,” she called.
She wouldn’t let a girlfriend go without a good opinion. Celeste was a natural beauty. Penny had created her own look based on the human response. If anyone was winning, it was the other woman. “Can I take a look?” She almost asked if Celeste was decent but she wouldn’t have cared about privacy. She hung back anyway.
“What do you think?” That was the important part.
“I think it looks okay?” Celeste opened the curtain so that Penny could see. “I mean, logically I know it looks decent, it just doesn’t feel like me.” She tugged the gathered hem of the shirt down. It was a peasant style type with slightly puffy short sleeves and a colorful print. The brunette had been right before, the top would suit the other woman better.
“I’m going to try on the other one,” she stated, turning back to re-enter the dressing room.
Penny nodded.
The shirt looked good, but Celeste had a point. If you didn’t feel good in what you had on, it wasn’t worth wearing. “What is your style?” She inquired, curious. With a direction, at least, she would be better help to the other woman.
With a smile she waited for Celeste to try the other shirt on, hoping it was more what she was looking for.
“Um, I don’t know how to describe it,” Celeste answered, pulling the blouse off over her head and tossing it aside. She picked up the other shirt she had selected and held it up to the light before putting it on. “I like shorts, tank tops, boots, uh…” She thought of the way one past acquaintance had described the brunette.
“Someone once said I was a cross between Lara Croft and Ellie from the movie Jurassic Park.”
Penny tipped her head to the side. She couldn’t recall who the people were that Celeste was describing, but her smile never waned. “Aha,” came the reply. “Well, you’ll find something.” Everyone had their preferences. Celeste didn’t seem to be the club or casino type, which meant flashy and sparkly was out.
“Please tell me you have a black dress, at least?” Not the funeral type, but the sort that made men stare at you when you walked into a nice place, and made the man with you proud to be holding onto your arm.
Once again, she slid open the curtain to face Penny. “I have one dress,” she said, only a slight note of defensiveness in her voice. “I don’t really see why I would need more.” Celeste turned toward the mirror, nodding in confirmation. This was definitely more her, and it would go into the ‘yes’ pile. She plucked up the discarded blouse and offered it to the other woman.
“If this is going to lead into a makeover, I have to voice my objections now,” Celeste stated wryly. “I mostly came here for the aquarium, if I’m being honest.”
One dress. Penny grinned, nodding. “Hey, if you don’t go out a lot, one dress is okay.” Either Celeste wasn’t about that life or she had no one to take her out, either way there was more atmosphere for Penny to absorb.
As the blouse from before was offered, she set down her bags and held the thing up to look at better. It was definitely her style.
Picking up her bags again, she draped the blouse over her shoulder and shook her head at Celeste. “It isn’t, don’t worry.” A soft laugh and then her expression brightened. “Yes! The aquarium. I nearly forgot that was here. Why don’t we get these shirts and then go see what the aquarium is about?”
Celeste nodded, retreating to the dressing room one more time to change back into her original clothes. She slung the green shirt over her arm and headed to the cash register. “Ronnie told me that he gave you a fish,” she remarked. “He was very...winky about it, which confused me.” The brunette removed her wallet from her bag to pay.
“Very winky?” Penny tipped her head at Celeste.
“Two Angel fish. They were for my birthday. I didn’t know he knew that much about me,” she replied. “He and I hadn’t met before that, not really. But he’s so important to Derek, I should’ve known.” She didn’t mind. It was a thoughtful gift.
She waited for Celeste to pay, standing casually behind her.
“That was sweet of him,” Celeste remarked, taking her change, receipt, and shopping bag from the cashier. She turned to the other woman as they stepped out of line.
“So, aquarium. I want to see the sharks, what about you?” the brunette asked cheerily. This was much more her style than shopping.
Penny stepped up to the counter to make her purchase. It took only a moment, a slip of a plastic rectangle in the machine, and she was ready to go. The blouse would go into one of the bags she had already to spare her from another thing to carry, and then to Celeste she would turn and smile.
“Sharks are beautiful. Want to put this stuff in my car? That way we don’t have to carry all of it.”
The bags would be held up, as if to show her new friend what she meant, and then Penny turned and led the way from the store to where she’d parked her vehicle. “I love fish. Aquariums are some of my favorite places to go.”
“Yeah, that’s cool.” She followed Penny. Celeste thought about everything she knew about the woman. She knew that James and Phanuel had helped her and Derek, and she had read up briefly on what sirens were. The fondness for aquatic life made sense in that context.
The brunette had questions, as usual, and she parsed through them for the ones that might actually be appropriate. “So...can you talk to fish?”
“Kind of,” Penny replied. “Not really like this, but in my other form, yes.” She could communicate enough that one aquatic being could with another aquatic being.
She strolled up to her car before too much longer, depositing the bags into the trunk. When Celeste put her bag in, the trunk would be closed.
There were always questions. She did the best she could to answer them in a way they could be understood without giving too much away about herself at the same time. Discretion kept her alive and safe, after all.
“You know how at Atlantis here, they sometimes have those people dressed like mermaids swimming around? You would kill at that job,” Celeste pointed out.
Penny smiled a bit. “Really? I never thought about doing that.” But then she probably would’ve grown tired of entertaining people like that all day. While it sounded fun, she liked being on the land. “I don’t think I could do that all day. I might slip in transformation or something.”
That would not be good at all, forgetting to be half changed all the time and slipping into full form.
“Come on, let’s see what’s in the aquarium!” With a smile she beckoned Celeste to follow and headed that way.
Celeste fell into step next to Penny. She scrolled through her phone, looking up information on the mall’s star attraction. “This says you can feed exotic birds,” the brunette informed the siren, a note of excitement evident in her voice.
“And they have an exhibit where you can touch a shark. A little one.”
She listened with enthusiasm.
“Oh, I want to try everything!” There was a soft spot in her heart for birds; her sister was an air siren, after all, which meant feathers like birds. “What should we do first? Baby shark, or feed the birds?”
Celeste watched Penny’s mood and mannerisms change from fashionable sophisticate to excited kid, and it made her smile. “I say...birds. I hope they have a macaw.” The colorful SeaQuest Las Vegas sign loomed into sight. The crowd was a mixed bag of tourists and small children.
She didn’t even notice the change in demeanor. Very few things made her so excited, which was probably to be expected when you’d been alive for so long. “Birds then. I like birds. They’re so colorful.” Some of them sang well, while others just made a bunch of noise.
“Are Macaws your favorite? You know they can live nearly a hundred years.”
“I don’t know if I can pick a favorite, but they’re high on the list” she replied. A beat, and then, “Turtles can live really long, too.” Celeste was beginning to suspect she and Penny had some common ground, after all.
They reached the area of pay for their tickets, and she got out her wallet once again. The brunette always dealt with cash. She liked physically seeing her money.
Penny smiled. “I don’t know a lot about many animals, but I watch nature shows and sometimes they have featured species - like the macaw and the tortoise - and I learn so much.”
She waited for Celeste to pay for her ticket and when her friend was down Penny stepped up to do the same.
“I watched a program about cheetah’s the other day, it was really fascinating.”
“Oh, really?” Celeste smiled at Penny as she grabbed a map of the exhibits and unfolded it. “I don’t think they’ll have cheetahs here, unfortunately.”
“They do have otters, though. Know anything about them?”
She nodded. “Of course not, it’s an aquarium!” Softly she laughed and then took a look with Celeste at the map. “Otters are cute. The only ones I’ve ever seen are the freshwater type. I think they have fur, and they like rocks.” But she hadn’t ever done much more than observe.
“Why don’t we see what we can find out about them?”
As they walked in the direction of that area, Celeste took in the sights around them. It was weird that an aquarium would be in the middle of a mall, and it was admittedly a bit gimmicky. Kids were laughing and touching different animals as employees guided them.
“Do you ever get lonely during the day?” she asked Penny randomly. “I assume that Derek is on, um, a different sleep schedule than you.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Kind of. We are both more of the nocturnal variety, if I’m being honest. I work at Iris as a deejay,” she explained. “But some stuff isn’t open at night, so I have to either not sleep or sleep at night to get up and do stuff during the day. I don’t mind.”
There were the fish, as well, to keep her company.
While it was quiet in the apartment she wouldn’t say it was lonely necessarily.
“Makes sense,” Celeste nodded. And because she could openly talk about employment now, for the first time, “I work at Curiosities.” They came upon the otter pool, and there was a sign next to it giving a brief rundown on the animals.
“Huh,” the brunette murmured. “They’re carnivorous.”
Curiosities.
Penny thought where she knew that from, and then it hit her like a bolt of lightning. “Oh, that’s James’ occult shop.” Wasn’t it? Did she recall that correctly?
She looked down at the little brown mammals and smiled. “They look happy to be in there.” The otters swam and played, relaxed. Some of them slept and clasped paws.
Celeste smiled and nodded. “Yes, James.” She folded up the map and put it in her bag for safekeeping. “He’s my person.” The brunette’s smile grew as she said it. The feeling of vulnerability that came immediately after confessing her feelings to him, had shifted into something far more comfortable and easy to inhabit.
The siren glanced over at the brunette, her smile growing. “Really? That’s wonderful. He seems very nice.” Of course he had saved her fin once and so she would always be grateful. “Now I really have to take you shopping.”
Penny elbowed Celeste gently, turning back to the otters.
She turned to Penny, confused. “What do you mean?” A group of small children behind a Celeste were trying to see the otters, so she stepped aside so they could be in the front. The brunette glanced at the map to pinpoint the path to the exotic bird location.
“I mean, that men like it when we dress up beyond our normal few staples once in a while.” That didn’t mean Celeste was obligated to move out of that comfort zone, but she had seen couples struggle because both people wanted different things out of the partners.
As Celeste moved, Penny did too. “Birds next?” Her gaze would lift and a glance around taken as if she could spot the direction.
“Ohh,” Celeste breathed out. “I don’t think James is like that. But I appreciate the offer.” She gave Penny a friendly touch on the shoulder as they moved away from the otters.
“The birds are this way,” the brunette informed her, leading the way.
Penny would nod in reply and offer her friend a smile, “Okay then.” She wasn’t going to push anyone to do anything, it wasn’t like her. “He sounds like a good man.” Obviously he was, but she meant in the context of their relationship.
Wandering after Celeste, they headed for the birds. “I’m excited to see what they have! I need to bring Derek here.”
“They do have macaws,” Celeste answered, reading the brochure. She spotted one of the employees holding one, talking about the bird to a gathered crowd.
“I wonder if this aquarium is legit?” she wondered. “Like, is this just SeaWorld but on a smaller scale?” The brunette was suddenly concerned for the animals.
“Legit?” Penny blinked. She had heard of SeaWorld but never really bothered to stop by and look at the animals or the shows. If she spotted an aquarium in a town she visited if she had time but they were the smaller ones compared to this.
“Let’s go look at the Macaw!” Penny gently took Celeste’s arm and guided her over to the small crowd to see the bird up close. It’s feathers were bright red with a mixture of blue, yellow, and green on the wing and tail feathers.
The bird was pretty. People were allowed to take turns feeding it. A second employee was passing out a mixture of seeds and berries. Celeste wanted to take part, but something felt off. She hung back behind Penny and began examining the brochure again.
“You can go ahead,” the brunette told the siren with a smile.
The term legit was something Derek said once in a while. She had come to know these phrases affectionately as Derekisms.
When the assistant came around Penny accepted the food provided in a tiny paper cup. She poured the seed and berry mixture into a cupped palm, approaching the bird timidly. Her smile brightened.
“Hello,” said the bird in its elderly-like tone.
“Hi,” Penny replied, brightly. Her hand went out and the macaw browsed, tickling the flesh of Penny’s palm with its beak as it smacked.
Celeste smiled despite herself as Penny fed the bird. She wasn’t sure exactly why her mood had changed or excitement waned, and she worried that she was being a downer. But the siren still seemed to be having a good time. Maybe it was seeing all these animals confined to a tourist trap in a mall, but then again, maybe that was just Vegas.
“I think he likes you,” the brunette pointed out in an attempt to lighten the mood.
“You should come feed it!” Penny waved her friend over, then offered the bird the last of the food from her palm.
“Hello,” the bird said again. Penny laughed and smiled at it. Why people kept things captive she didn’t quite understand - birds, fish, dogs, cats. Until the fish for her birthday, she had never thought about having a creature of her own to care for. But if she had to pick one by herself, perhaps it would be one like the parrot.
“Bernie needs to rest now, but he’ll be back in an hour!” the handler announced to the crowd, who greeted this news with collective ‘awwws before scattering aimless, off to the next adventure.
Celeste turned to Penny with a shrug. “Oh well. I guess Bernie’s in a food coma. Where to next, bird whisperer?”
Penny waved sweetly at Bernie as it was carried away, its giant wings flapping a bit to regain its footing with the sudden motion. “Aw, it was so pretty!”
To Celeste she would turn, “Didn’t you say something about sharks earlier?” Her grin may have turned a touch predatory at that.
“Oh, yeah,” Celeste replied, consulting the map again. “They’re toward the back.” As they walked, there were several wall-to-wall tanks filled with fish in various sizes and colors. Kids pressed their faces against the glass as if that would allow them to see better.
“So, did you ever have, like, any personal encounters with sharks?” the brunette asked curiously.
Penny followed along. As they moved, she watched the animals and the humans interact with each other. Maybe that was how the fish in her tank back home felt like when she looked at them.
“Yes, we would run into them from time to time. They’re more of a threat to the surface merfolk and the mid merfolk. I’m more of a middle, deep.” Her hand shifted from side to side in a sort of kind of motion. “But we saw them. Some of them move on their own, others with their own kind in small groups.”
Celeste’s eyes widened slightly. “Mer...You mean, like mermaids?” Well, she shouldn’t have been surprised, maybe. If there were sirens, surely there were merpeople, or merfolk. Mer-Americans? Why did she think they would be the one creature to be entirely mythical?
“I can’t even imagine what it must be like,” the brunette mused. “Sailing along in the water, not having to worry about a scuba tank or anything. Oh, what about dolphins and whales?”
Penny nodded and smiled. She shrugged as if it were no big deal at all. “Yes. Sirens and Mer are cousins. Sometimes we get mixed up, though.” Humans tended to put them all together and call the entire group the same thing but she knew the difference.
Nodding, the siren mused a bit too. “Yes. All of the ocean creatures, from the coral reef to the octopus, to the whales, sharks, and seahorses. I’ve seen just about everything.” Interacting with certain creatures was different, though. They stayed away from anything that could kill unless the siren were in a group.
“Cool,” Celeste remarked. She didn’t ask how Penny coped being in a relatively land-locked state. She figured she had peppered the siren with enough questions for the moment. They came upon the sharks. They were small, swimming around an open-topped tank.
Penny looked into the shark tank. “They’re cute when they’re this little,” she remarked. Most of the sea creatures were, though. It was after they grew that they became a problem. But you couldn’t fight nature, predators did what they were supposed to do. What they were made to do.
“Yeah, I doubt they would let people pet the bigger ones,” Celeste commented. “Lawsuit waiting to happen.” One of the employees overheard her and shot her a look. The brunette bit her lip and moved closer to Penny.
She half-heard Celeste’s comment, caught up in the little swimming predators. “Sharks are beautiful. I think people really underestimate their power and majesty.” Some didn't. She was a big fan of shark week.
Turning to Celeste, she smiled, “Would you like a better look? I can move out of the way.” She seemed to be hanging back and not as excited as before.
“No, that’s okay.” Celeste was getting antsy, shifting her weight from foot to foot slowly as she looked around. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting. Maybe not sticky-fingered children crowded around a glorified paddling pool and crude flash cell phone photography. The brunette brushed her hair back behind her shoulders.
“I should probably be getting back now,” she told Penny. “But I think you guys have my number and everything, if you ever want to…” Celeste trailed off, unsure how to finish that sentence.
“Hang out?” Penny smiled, nodding.
“Come on, I’ll walk back with you. You have a bag in my car anyway, remember? Do you need a ride home?”
Gently, she took the brunette by the arm and began to lead her toward where they had entered the aquarium area.