pleasuretoburn (pleasuretoburn) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2020-11-03 12:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | noah restic, penny norton |
Siren's Call
Who: Penny/Noah
What: Discovery
Where: Las Vegas, Street/Night Club
When: Present
Ratings/Warnings: High, Violence, Gory Imagery
Sometimes, night clubs didn’t have the best reception, and one was called on to do business over the phone at inopportune times. Because of this, Noah had to find an exit toward the back which let out into an alley, his eyes on his cell phone. He had missed three calls from a contact with very limited patience. The pyrokinetic sighed and leaned against a wall, bringing the rectangular device to his ear as it rang.
It was then that he thought he could hear a faint moan, and rustling. Noah paused, considering, but curiosity got the better of him. He clicked out of the call and slid the phone back into his jacket pocket. Silently, he stepped further into the shadows.
An audible, wet slurping sound would follow the soft ruckus. Then the breaking, shattering of something hard. A bit of growling, enjoyment oozed from the garbled sound. All the while Penny kept herself and the person currently in a state of being devoured tucked as far into the shadows of the alley as possible. Nearby, set into a small alcove, were her human belongings.
Heels were set neatly aside.
The body of a woman would be clutched in the grasp of the monster, fingers working over an area. And then the woman hit the pavement with a sickening smack. Another breaking sound, a bone being torn apart, and she stripped the flesh from the arm quickly. There was never enough time to eat the whole thing, not by herself in a single sitting, and she hated to let it go to waste.
Jagged teeth worked the flesh from the broken bone, scraping the brittle ivory to the splintered tip.
As Noah slowly approached, he could smell the scent of blood in the air, metallic and unmistakable. Then he heard the sounds of...eating? But not vampiric, he’d recognize that. That was usually a bit quieter. The pyrokinetic watched silently as a woman hit the ground lifelessly. He raised an eyebrow, then looked up at the other figure in the shadows.
“Holy shit.” Not much surprised Noah anymore. This definitely did the trick.
Penny caught a glimpse of something moving. Instantly the large, spread flaps of skin that were normal lips in the human form drew back to expose bloody, sharp teeth at the man on the approach. A growling noise, this one with more purpose and danger tangled in it was emitted. In one hand she held the severed limb up, the torn bone protruding like a weapon, the fingers of the other curled into a fist.
She couldn’t smell the desire to want to encroach on her food, but her metaphorical hackles remained raised for another moment to ward off any threat.
The woman whose arm Penny clutched lay lifelessly in a pool of water commingled with her own blood, forgotten momentarily.
Noah heard that growl tossed his way and held up a palm. “Easy there, tiger,” he said, looking curiously at those jagged teeth. He had never seen anything like that before. A glance down at the woman strewn haphazardly on the ground between them. “I’m only curious.” And that was the truth. He wasn’t scared, but still cautious. He didn’t need a fight just then. The pyrokinetic also didn’t plan to let whatever she was close enough to him to take a chunk for a souvenir.
Suddenly, he remembered Ro’s words from their last time together. A friend who needed to eat flesh to survive. “Can you talk?”
At the extended palm, a gesture she knew, and the lack of fear sensed in the air the arm she clutched would be lowered a bit. And then the large teeth began to recede, a face coming into some form of normal shape.
More like her human self, Penny tilted her head. “Yes. I can. Who are you?” Her lips twisted up into a curious, playful grin and the severed arm would be tossed down next to the woman she had taken it from though the siren didn’t move. It wasn’t often those who stumbled upon her feeding were curious. Derek had once been curious and they ended up here.
“My name is Noah,” he answered honestly. He laughed a little incredulously at the casual way in which she tossed down the limb, like a dog dropping a chew toy. The scene from before, when her teeth were on full display, was still vivid in his head, completely surreal. He had never seen anyone eat someone else before. “And we should probably talk elsewhere. I’m sure you don’t want to be discovered here.” Nor did he. Far too many questions for his taste.
His words were her own thoughts aloud. Penny held up a finger and gathered her shoes, sliding back into them. She gathered her handbag, licked any blood remaining from her mouth, and then stepped closer toward Noah. “Let’s go.”
Penny grabbed Noah by the arm gently and sashayed out of the lip of the alley, into the general flow of traffic on the street. Her bright eyes would turn to Noah and she smiled, “So, Noah, right? Do you come down this way a lot?”
That was easy. He looked down at their linked arms with a bit of visible surprise, then back up at her. She was markedly attractive in this guise. He wondered if that was what allowed her to procure victims. “I’m everywhere, all the time,” Noah told her confidently. “And I didn’t catch your name.” The pyrokinetic paused to wipe away a small spot of blood from the front of her dress.
“Penny,” she offered. As the speck of blood left a sequin on the front of her sparkly dress, her smile evened out a bit. Her arm didn’t leave his, still wound around as they moved. “I haven’t seen you around here before, but it’s okay. It’s a big place.”
Then her gaze was drawn to the life around them. It teemed with potential. “What do you say to a bit of fun?” She asked the crowd but the question was for him.
“As long as the fun doesn’t involve using your teeth on me, Penny,” he said, gaze sweeping over the crowd before them, “then I’d say we’re going to get along just fine.” Noah liked how game she was. Why hadn’t he met her before? Of course, if she looked like this most of the time, she blended into the Vegas partygoers quite seamlessly.
“What did you have in mind?”
“You don’t like teeth,” she laughed, turning and murmuring into his ear. A playful nip at the appendage and then she dragged Noah into a dark nightclub, walking past the bouncer and the entire line as if they were VIP. “I don’t know,” she confessed, biting at her lip as her eyes surveyed the people.
“We will know it when we find it. Oh, let’s go upstairs.”
That was the VIP area. Penny led Noah to the stairs, ascended quickly, and stole one of the booths with a table. The bouncer hadn’t seen them creep in.
“I might come around on it,” he said, lips turning up at the corners as her mouth brushed against his ear. She was dangerous, in more ways than one. Noah wanted to see more, and he let himself be led into the club and up the stairs.
Settling into the booth, he slid closer next to her. “Let’s play a game.”
“Sure,” Penny nodded. “What kind of a game?” Her interest was there, for sure. What was a bit of fun with a random stranger? This was a hobby of hers she’d taken up more frequently before vanishing and moving on to the next one. It kept the empty minutes filled when she wasn’t working or eating.
“You get to start, because I’m feeling generous,” he told her. A server wandered over to there table, and Noah looked up at her. “A bottle of Grey Goose, please,” the pyrokinetic ordered, slipping her a credit card with someone else’s name on it before turning back to Penny.
“You ask me a question, any question, and then I get to ask you one. If either of us refuses to answer, we have to take a shot.”
This was going to be an interesting game considering she rarely drank alcohol. A drunk siren could be dangerous, but the game sounded intriguing and she wanted to play. “Okay.” A moment to think. The corner of her mouth twisted up a bit as she considered the question. “Why didn’t you run when you saw me in the alley?”
Noah grinned. That was a good first question, he would give her that. “Because I wasn’t afraid,” he told her. “I was fascinated. I’ve seen a lot of ways to kill people, and a lot of the different people and creatures who do. And I’ve never seen that.” He watched as the server came back with a magnum bottle of Grey Goose, a sparkler in the mouth of the bottle. She set it on their table and removed the sparkler, letting the flame sputter out.
“Okay, my turn. What are you?”
The waitress went ignored.
Penny stuck an elbow on the table, nestling her chin into the shell of a palm. He wasn’t afraid. That was a first in quite a while though not many had seen her that way. “You have?” That was a question but a sidetrack from the game. It could be revisited later so she could answer his.
“Have you ever heard of a siren?”
Noah leaned forward curiously. He poured two shots for the both of them, just in case. “That’s answering a question with a question,” he said, smirking. “Usually not part of the rules, but I’ll forgive it this time. I have, vaguely. They sing and kill sailors.” He tilted his head, watching her closely. Her eyes were bright in the club lights, her sequined dress dizzyingly shiny. A far cry from what he had seen in the alley. The camouflage was fascinating.
“Are you a siren?”
Penny’s smile grew. “I am.” She didn’t move to take a drink or do anything more than watch him, offer Noah this playful expression, a dangerous mixture of mirth and mischief.
“And do you have something special you can do?” She inquired for her next question, already formulating a list of what she wanted to ask next.
“There is.” When the servers were gone, and no one else was looking their way, Noah concentrated and let a small flame develop in the open palm of his hand. After a moment’s demonstration, he closed his hand, letting it dissipate. “I can create it, move it, control it. Use it to do whatever I want.”
The pyrokinetic looked up at the siren. “What do you want the most?”
Her eyes drifted down to his palm and what she saw there surprised her. Penny blinked, sitting up straighter as the flame flickered and then dissolved. “That’s impressive.” Water, meet fire. At least, in a sense.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. Her shoulders rolled in a shrug. “We don’t want things that a human might - money, power, love - so it’s hard to say for sure.”
“What about you?”
Noah looked into her eyes, noticing for the first time that they were green. He wasn’t sure what he saw there, if anything at all. They were an attractive disguise. Then he reached for the shot full of clear, burning liquid and tossed it back. “Sorry,” he said, very clearly not. “I’ll be skipping that one. For now.”
He refilled the glass from the large, frosted bottle. “How do you get your meals to come to you? Do you just use your looks?”
She smiled as he shot back the drink. Hers remained untouched.
“I have, what some call, a lure,” she explained. “The looks help, but that only goes so far. If I really want someone...I can be very convincing.” An eyebrow quirked. “I want to revisit a question I had from a few moments ago,” she sat up a bit straighter, “you said you have seen other ways people have been killed, what do you mean?” It was an inquiry dredged in interest and intrigue.
“When I said that, I mostly meant the different ways I’ve killed people,” he answered plainly, sitting back against the leather booth. “Fire, of course. Poisoning. Sharp weapons, blunt. There are a lot of ways, if you’re creative. Though I prefer the first way most of all.” Noah paused, smiling genuinely. “Of course, I don’t eat them afterward. But you could have my leftovers, if you wanted.”
The pyrokinetic wanted to ask something that she would want to skip, but she was a hard read. “What’s your type? For meals.”
His answer had Penny nodding. He wasn’t wrong, humans and non-humans could be killed in a lot of different ways. “It would be a waste of good food otherwise,” she stated, nodding again. “Why leave it when you can eat it?”
The next question didn’t surprise her. “People like you, who kill other people, actually.”
“Oh, that raises a lot of questions,” Noah chuckled darkly. “And it isn’t even my turn.” He ducked his head toward her, mimicking the way hers had brushed against him earlier, to speak near her ear. “In case you’re thinking about adding me to your menu, I would think about that very carefully.”
The pyrokinetic brushed a lock of blonde hair away from her face before pulling back. “I can be a very useful friend to have.”
Her smile widened a bit. It was the same with her, she had a lot of things on her mind all competing for the chance at utterance. “Oh is that a threat? Cute.” She laughed, looking at Noah pointedly, “If I wanted to eat you I would’ve done it already.”
As his fingers swept back the blonde tresses, she made no move to lean into or away from the gesture. “Is that so? What makes you so valuable?” That was her next question for this little game they were playing.
Noah shook his head slowly. “Not a threat, more like...a barter. You’re a predator, I assume you’re relatively intelligent.” He looked down at the tiny glasses of vodka yet to be consumed.
“Your first question to me was why I didn’t run when I saw you in the alley. That’s why I’m valuable. You might have survived thus far, but have you really thrived? That’s not my question, by the way, just something to think on.” The pyrokinetic looked back up at her pointedly. “I can open doors that would remain closed to someone like you. Doors you didn’t even know existed.”
He took the shot anyway, despite having answered the question. “Do you choose the victims based on some kind of moral code, or are they just more convenient?”
Observant was this one. He seemed to be one not to be underestimated, and the cadence of his words sounded strikingly familiar. “I’ve been doing well enough for almost a century on my own,” she mused, sitting up a bit. “You sound like The Lady when you speak like that.”
If Noah knew Elfleda then she wouldn’t be surprised, but the dropped title was for reaction purposes only.
“I have a code. Not necessarily a moral code, but a set of guidelines that keep me safe and fed. Humans of your ilk don’t typically have anyone who would come looking for them, to miss them or want them around. They’re typically easier targets to lure and kill.” Even if they were armed, most of the time she could break through their defenses before they even realized the game.
“What’s your favorite color?”
At the mention of the Lady, Noah’s smile grew as he refilled his glass. What he had been suspecting since first seeing her was now confirmed, and a tingle of excitement and triumph ran up his spine. A tarnished but lucky penny plucked from the sidewalk. “First, there are no humans of my ilk,” he clarified. “There is no one else like me.”
“Second,” he continued, his voice intentionally softening. “Someone like you should be able to choose whomever they want, whenever they want, without worry or fear. You’re above them.” His glance swept over the first floor below them, where the masses were packed together, sweaty and dancing and groping. “Why should you have to scrape from the bottom of their barrel? They didn’t create this world. Creatures like you did.”
The pyrokinetic let that sink in before following up with his question. “Do you know someone named Ro?”
“So I’m a creature now?” Penny smirked, lifting her hand. She brushed her fingers across Noah’s jawline, watching the shadows break and reform with the dimmed club lighting. Humans were always so selfish and proud, quick to remind her that they were unique, special. Plainly she didn’t care when it came to the bottom of things, but she didn’t protest or argue with Noah. It wouldn’t have done any good.
“I do, for the most part, with a few exceptions to the rule now and then. It’s not that I can’t eat whomever I want whenever I want, it’s survival. When you have to hunt and kill for your food you learn what’s easy and what’s not.” She wasn’t sure this one would understand, but then maybe he did.
Her hand fell, then her head tipped at mention of her friend. “I do know Ro.”
“Why?” She inquired, using that as her next question.
“That’s my point,” Noah reiterated, letting her touch him. It was effective, he would admit that. He had a hard time imagining she ever really had to use the lure she spoke of. “You shouldn’t even have to think of survival.”
He licked his lower lip, considering his next words carefully. “I made Ro’s acquaintance a few months ago. We had a mutual benefit sort of relationship. Once she found out about what I do, she was disgusted. She said she didn’t even want to be around me. But not before mentioning you.”
Noah leaned toward her again, his eyes flashing in the dancing lights. “Not by name, but it wasn’t hard to put the pieces together, she was descriptive enough. She called you a flesh-eater, said you had to consume to survive. Like it was sad, and there was pity in her voice.” He brushed his own fingers across the bottom of her soft chin. “Is that how all your friends react to you? That can’t be fun.”
Penny offered Noah a smile. “We have been friends for a long time, she accepts me for who and what I am without question and I do the same for her. If she reacted a certain way to you, I have to trust that she made that decision based on something else considering you and I have a common denominator here.” The siren didn't have enough information for an informed decision, but this morsel would be interesting to bring to her friend for discussion.
“What if I don’t want to eat humans all the time?” It was a clear question she felt was important. There were so many other things to do than hunt and kill. While she enjoyed the few moments of being a predator, it was taxing. Plus she had her career to look at and her life to lead. Now that Derek wasn’t there, she had more time on her hands than usual.
“The company I keep is light, and it’s also particular. I’m not sure Ro would ever find what I do sad.” She let him touch her face, keeping her gaze on him.
“To your face.” Noah let his hand drop. “But I doubt she allows herself to think about it for too long. I guess you’ll find out the next time you see her. Ask her why she thinks she’s better than you because she doesn’t have to kill to get her food.” He smiled and leaned back.
“I don’t imagine it’s all you do. What fills your days and nights, Penny?”
Her shoulders shrugged. She wasn’t a dramatic being, she didn’t care about what humans had to say here and there about something she was doing. As long as she kept herself fed, that was the important thing. “What makes you think you know so much?” She inquired, expression playful.
“I’m a Deejay. Right now I work at Iris,” she explained. Music dominated a large part of her days and nights. She considered going on tour with a few of the more modern day artists but hadn’t quite yet taken the leap.
Noah’s lips twitched at her question. “Because I listen. I collect, and save, little bits and pieces that others discard like trash. Information is power, but knowing when and how to use it? That’s an art.”
He brushed his hand over some of the sequins on her dress, watching them shimmer and change in the light. They were almost like scales. “There are 24 long hours in a day. Surely work and eating doesn’t fill all of them.”
“Sleep, go on adventures with friends,” she laughed, offering a smile. “Right now I’m playing this game with you. I just find things to do.” She didn’t really have a set schedule right then, nothing pressing. Go with the flow had been most of her life. With Derek they had things they did together, and she looked forward to the nights together, but presently she found things to occupy her free time.
“Would you like to go on an adventure with me?” He looked up into her eyes. Despite her status as a predator and her many years of lived experience, there was something naive about her that Noah took special notice of. He wasn’t sure if it was an act or not, and that was intriguing.
“What type of an adventure?” While she was curious, she also knew her own boundaries and limitations. She didn’t expect whatever he had in mind to be tame considering the forward and unfazed attitude shown so far.
But then this club was just like all the rest of them. She knew all of the layouts by now, where all of the best slot machines were rumored to be or where the hottest dance party was happening. Predictable.
Without deliberation or hesitation, he opted for the shot instead of answering her question. “When the time is right.” Noah grinned at her, then stood from the booth. “I’ll come find you at Iris when it is. Nice meeting you, Penny.”
She nodded and looked up at him. “Okay.” That was where they were going to leave things and she was alright with that. Vague, but interesting. “Nice meeting you, too, Noah.”