does it cause me scarring if the words stay true

[23rd]

Who: Laura Kinney & OPEN
What: Laura leads a busy life. Also, fuck the police.
Where: Specifically mentioned are Aspic, the Arena in Griss Twist, and the Spatters, but she can be anywhere.
When: Ruudary 19th-22nd
Notes: Laura is a highly unsocial character -- I WANT YOUR CR /GRABS HEADS but like, she won't strike up conversations with strangers and she won't say very much at a time if she does speak, so uh. There's that. Doing Stuff she can respond to is probs better.
Warnings: Violence is very possible! Otherwise, to be added as needed.

Laura is not bored. Her days are too full for that, although if asked, she'd have very little to show for it -- because most of it she can't tell anyone about. She leads people to think that she doesn't do much except wander and acquire money from some mysterious sources -- people probably think she's hooking again, but she isn't.

She prefers to get food from the various street vendors, especially down in the city's center; to be polite, they're more colourful than restaurants that tend to play down unique flavours to attract human Earth-native customers. Of course Baedal has very little in the way of food regulations so God only knows what all they're actually serving, but she is neither squeamish nor easily scared, so she tries everything. Every time, she asks for peppers or hot sauce; they sometimes try to talk her out of it, it... is never very successful. Sometimes she stays and chats with them (or rather, lets them chat at her), and she hears a lot of interesting things this way. Small things, like the right way to season wyrmbeast meat, and bigger ones -- missing people. Who's been arrested for what. ... dognappings.

She stops a purse-snatcher in Aspic -- by running after him, breaking his arm, and driving her clawed fist into the wall by his head. He drops the purse and wets himself before the Sheriff gets there and reads her the riot act over it (apparently authority figures dislike it when people take the law into their own hands; who knew?) but she more or less just shrugs and walks off.

She has started visiting the Arena. She doesn't participate and she doesn't bet, but she watches and thinks about it. That kind of organized bloodsport makes her sick -- it's hard for her to extricate her memories of what was done to her -- but she tells herself these people chose this... until she sees the brands on some of them. Hands. Chests. Faces, sometimes. She leaves angry and sometimes she picks fights that she never loses, and after which she never has any bruises. The memory of scars is not enough; there is enough rage and pain in her to flood the city streets, but she does nothing about it.

She has a friend in the Spatters -- a teenage xenian girl who was born a Stranger, her family having refused to integrate into normal Baedal life. Laura visits her a lot, listens to the way she talks about how things are there -- and more importantly, she gets a couple of interesting names. Corruption on this scale can never be stopped by picking off a couple bad apples (they are all bad apples, nobody has ever been able to convince her otherwise) but it's still a good idea to have specific names and faces in mind. It's still imperative to be aware.

The more she sees of Baedal, the less she likes it.

Comments

[bangyoudead]

Remy doesn't track Laura - he can't - and when he looks for her it's not exactly manhunting, either. If she doesn't want to be found, he's not going to find her, but he knows a thing or two about her habits and preferences, by now.

Still, it's mostly coincidence that some guy ends up sailing headfirst off a building into a dumpster at around midnight in Aspic. Remy was just hanging out up here, jeez. Go try and pick somebody else's pocket. (Or.. go to a hospital now that you've been thrown off a building, whatever.) He peeks over the edge of the rooftop to check for signs of life, and is greeted with a few club-goers on their way down the street at the end of the alley shouting at him. A brief incredulous exchange occurs, after which apparently they decide this weirdo on the roof with faintly glowing eyes was just doing his civic duty, and they move on.

Remy laughs to himself and goes back to the other side of the roof, to nab the cigarette he'd put down on the ledge.

[23rd]

Laura stops where she is when she sees some guy come flying off a building, an eyebrow quirking upwards when he lands only a couple feet to her left. She can guess what happened there, and it only takes a moment of catching the scent on the wind to know who it was.

She doesn't bother seeing if the guy is okay -- she doesn't care, he almost certainly deserved it -- but she does stop and stare at him while he hauls himself out and goes slinking off when he doesn't get any sympathy. The rest of the people milling around don't even see her there, and she makes it a point to keep it that way as she climbs up the side of the building away from the street. It's not a big deal if people see her, certainly weirder things happen every hour in Baedal than some goth chick scaling buildings, it's just a habit of hers to not be noticed.

Result: she pops up seemingly out of nowhere, her hands in her pockets. "Hi."

[bangyoudead]

"Hey, petite." Of course he isn't surprised. (Sometimes he is - sometimes he jumps nearly out of his skin, but this time he expected her. So there.) "Out enjoyin' the nightlife?"

Sure, that's totally what she was doing.

[23rd]

"No." No you're not enjoying it or no that's not what you're doing, Laura? The world will never know, because she doesn't dwell on the subject. Sad.

She glances back down at the street where people have long since dispersed before crossing the distance between them and standing next to him. "What are you doing?" Is it something useful, can she help -- is it going to be something with action because she's still all angry nerves, hours after watching at the Arena.