Don’t worry, Garnet. One of our leading lady’s least favored activities to engage in, right after the last sip of dusk pours itself out into the cold-soaked streets, is leaping into being a territorial bitch. There’s an archaic ritual, you see, a drafty pause that her deceptively bony shoulders must ease, then tense into, a sort of cognitive antechamber. A place where she must prepare for that centuries old role, that tired creature, that boring procedure of being who she is. Or rather, what.
She swiped the soft gutter of her cupid’s bow, grinned at the girl. Obviously, acknowledged that she, too, was kindred. Her grin was feline, with a tinge of something untamed. Beneath the erratic flutter of that slow-pulsing, twitching streetlight, dying overhead, Elly seemed to glister with a fingerprint of mischief. She enjoyed having company when she smoked, and no one was out here this early. Everyone in that tired, dingy building behind her was only just twitching up in the shadow-softened corners of their dens. The smile had never abandoned her face, intrigued as she was.
“Didn’t startle me,” she said, the end of the cigarette paled, palpitated, darkened. “Wish you had though, wouldn’t that have been fuckin exciting? At least, for me. You smoke?” a tumble of wolf-grey smoke writhed out from the side of her mouth.