Isabella Margaret Delallo (bad_ass_babe) wrote in btvsal, @ 2009-12-06 17:19:00 |
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Current mood: | relaxed |
Making A Friend
Who: Isabella and Delilah
When: Backdated! Tuesday December 1st, Coffee Time!
Where: Chloe’s Sugar Shack
Given that Isabella was a new arrival in town, Rupert Giles had suggested that she make acquaintance with Delilah, a fellow Watcher and proprietor of a soon-to-be open magic shop. Given that Isabella didn’t… have any friends in town as of yet (apart from Giles, and potentially Meeghan), she decided that the worst she could do was dislike a fellow colleague. So she made a call and arranged to meet at Chloe’s Sugar Shack. Isabella was currently sitting at one of the tables, sipping her black coffee, wearing blue jeans, a white shirt and a brown leather jacket (she had a few leather jackets), humming a little to herself out of boredom.
When Delilah pulled up to the Sugar Shack, she half thought to just turn her car around and leave. Was she so sad now that Giles was setting her up on 'friend dates?' Still, she had said that she would meet the woman. She remembered Isabella vaguely from the Watcher's Academy, but didn't know her very well. She did need friends other than Jeremy, whom she could barely stand to be in the same room as now, for obvious reasons. She wasn't even sure if she could handle going to the wedding that she knew was going to come. Finally, she got out of the car and walked inside, walking up to the table that Isabella was sitting at. "Hi, you're Isabella, right?" she asked.
"Good call," Isabella replied, not remembering Delilah in the slightest. She pursed her lips together and appraised the other woman, first impressions were kind of important, after all. So far? Isabella didn’t have much. She chuckled inwardly at the thought. "Do you want a coffee?"
"Yeah, let me go grab something and I'll be right back," she said. She went up to the counter and returned a few moments later, a cup of black coffee in her hand. "Watch out for this place. They have the habit of putting more sugar than coffee in their drinks." She smiled. "Unless that's your sort of thing."
"I had noticed that," Isabella replied, nodding toward two teenagers, who were giggling over said coffee. They were far enough away that it didn’t bother Isabella so much, but if they were any closer she would have been extremely irritated. She was not a fan of giggly. "I think I’ll stick to black," she added, lifting her coffee cup in salute.
"I think we're members of a dying breed, then," Delilah said to her. "So, what do you think of the States so far?"
Isabella winced, "Didn’t get the best first impression, but it’s growing on me." She took a sip of her coffee. "How long have you been here?"
"Quite a few months now," Delilah told her. "It had its good and bad points." She shugged. It could have treated her a hell of a lot better than it had, that was for sure.
"I’m starting to detect a friend here," Isabella smiled faintly. It was the way of the world, wasn’t it? "So, tell me. What do you do with your spare time?"
Delilah merely smirked at her comment about a friend. She certainly hoped so. "Well, right now all of my spare time is involved in opening up a magic shop. All the ones in LA are rubbish.”
Rupert had mentioned that, but Isabella found it interesting. She leaned forward, pressing her elbows against the table. She wasn’t one for etiquette. "Are you a witch, or is it just a curiosity for you?" My, wasn’t she full of questions?
"I can conduct and control electricity, and I have a lot of technical knowledge of magic, but I'm not an actual witch, no. I had a bit of an accidental brush with magic recently, though that reperked the old interest that I used to have from the academy."
Isabella was surprised, honestly. And here she was a plain ol’ vanilla-human, who also liked to hit things, but still, vanilla. "Interesting. Useful, too… since you said most of the magic shops are rubbish here. How is the opening coming?"
Just goes to show that not all watchers were completely normal people interested in the supernatural. "So far, so good. I'm stuck on a name, though. I want something catchy but not completely cornball."
"Oh god, yes. I’ve seen enough ‘Magic Happens’ bumper stickers, thank you very much." She bit her lip thoughtfully. "I haven’t got the foggiest, but if anything comes to mind I’ll see what you think of it," she smiled, willing to help there.
"Thanks. I don't want people to just to think that it's another crystal ball and love potion shop," Delilah said with a smile. "Although I can't exactly turn those people away, either."
"No, I imagine they’d bring in a pretty penny," Isabella chuckled and rolled her eyes at her phrasing. God, she felt old. "Are you training a girl at the moment?" Since it honestly just occurred to her to ask.
"Yes, a girl named Cynthia," Delilah told her. "Have you been assigned a girl yet?"
"I always liked that name," Isabella murmured. She barely refrained from making a face when asked if she’d been assigned with anyone. Barely. Bubbly teenagers didn’t go over well with Isabella. "Yes… Bethany."
"Well, she goes by Sin," Delilah added as an afterthought. "I don't know of a girl named Bethany. Must be one of the new ones. Good luck with that. It's sort of a crap shoot as to how good or willing the girl will be."
Isabella smirked, "I was going to say that a girl is as good as her nickname… and she seemed excited. Of course, she seemed excited to be outdoors, but… I suppose it’s better to have a willing participant rather that someone who abuses that power," she mused.
"We've had problems in the past, so someone who wants to work at it is considered a godsent." Sad but true. Oh, and that they wouldn't snap and hurt someone.
"Yes, but then there’s the worry about being too gung-ho… it really is a fine line, isn’t it?" She murmured. That was one of her fears, although she’d probably never voice it. What if Bethany did something that resulted in her getting hurt? More reason to train her properly, the cynic in her replied.
"It really is a fine line," Delilah agreed. "It takes a delicate balance to make a good slayer."
"Or a good human being," Isabella murmured, taking a sip of her coffee. Sometimes people, including her, forgot the core thing about Slayers. They were still human.
"It certainly helps out a lot if they are a good human being," Delilah agreed. "We actually had a problem a while back. One of the Slayers turned against everyone, attacked another Slayer, and fought for the side of Wolfram & Hart." That was a sad case.
"I hadn’t heard about that." Of course, how could she have heard about it? She rolled her eyes at herself. "How did it play out?"
"Very badly. The girl ended up flinging herself on another Slayer's sword," Delilah said bluntly. "Suicide attempt. She lived through it, though. She woke up from a coma recently and took off. We're in the process of locating her, but, well, she's in deep hiding, for the most part. Not that I blame her, considering what some people want to do to her."
"That indicates some sort of mental issue that we might have overlooked." She wasn’t laying blame, since she doubted she knew the whole story, just stating a likely possibility. "I don’t know… I find that utterly depressing to be honest. Let’s talk about something light." She moved her mouth to the side. What was ‘light’? "Do you… like fluffy bunnies?" She smirked.
"Well, not every girl possibly destined to be a Slayer is stable, unfortunately," Delilah told her. "As for bunnies? Yeah, they're fine." She laughed. "What about kitties? Do you like them?"
"That’s true," Isabella murmured. She closed her eyes tight and grinned cutely. Yay for random changes of topic! "Kitties are so cute, with their little claws and the rawr! pouncing." Oh yeah. Who was badass?
Delilah started laughing. It looked like she wasn't the only one to forget how to conversate after so long, either. "Kittens are definitely cute," she agreed.
Well now there was something they could say that had in common. The love of small furry animals. "As you can tell, I don’t talk to people much. Beyond work and Council matters."
"I really haven't either for a long time," Delilah admitted to her. "I have a friend here, but he's been...busy."
"Busy?" My, wasn’t that vague? "Do you want to elaborate, or is it something you’d rather … not tell a complete stranger?"
"I'm sure you'll hear about it, anyway. Slayers around here are known for their gossip, after all," Delilah said. "My best friend forever is also a Watcher who works in LA. Right now he's so wrapped up in his girlfriend that he barely has time to go out anymore. I don't begrudge his happiness, but it would be nice to see him for a change." OK, that wasn't the whole story at all, but she REALLY didn't feel like getting into that with a stranger.
Ye-ah, Isabella doubted that was the full story, but she wasn’t nosy enough to ask more questions. If Delilah wanted to tell her something, she would have. And some women like their privacy. Briefly, she thought of Meeghan, but only briefly. "Well then, you’re just going to have to remind him who his friend is, aren’t you?" She said, although she was joking the inflection of her voice suggested a ‘Do anything necessary to get his attention’ attitude.
"Been there, done that, got the t-shirt," Delilah pointed out somewhat bitterly. Then she shrugged. "I know he's still my friend, though. It's just...different than before." She rolled her eyes. "And I'm dumping my problems on an almost-stranger. I'm so sorry about that." She just honestly had no one to talk to about this.
"Eh, it’s fine. I, too, know the loneliness of being dumped for a new girlfriend," Isabella admitted. Although why anyone would dump two such attractive ladies? Was a mystery. "But I like to think that this level of awesome," she leaned back and did a game show hostess hand-waving gesture across her thin taut body, "cannot be contained." She grinned, honestly trying to cheer her fellow Watcher up. See? Even Watcher’s had a sense of humour, sometimes.
Delilah did laugh a little. "Apparently we have more in common than we realized."
“I’ll drink to that,” Isabella murmured, lifting her cup in salute.