multiversallogs | 003 | OPEN. red lipstick on the end of a cigarette.

003 | OPEN. red lipstick on the end of a cigarette.

Who: Hasibe Ozcelik, and OPEN.
What: A show premieres at The Vault.
Where: The Vault.
When: Evening til the wee hours of the morning.
Notes: I will set up sections in the comments for people to hang out.
Warnings: WELL IT'S AN ADULT CLUB, SO.

The show starts at nine o'clock, and the bar is full pretty quickly thereafter, but the variety in the club is pretty striking. Xenians in their best suits, non-Xenians in leather and ripped fishnets, everything in between. There doesn't seem to be a lot of cultural divide here between human and not, even given recent issues. Hasibe makes good on her promise to have members of her cohort given seating preference, as she's sweet-talked the cocktail dress-clad hostesses, and the bartenders (in their vague approximations of suits with very open shirts) are aware that she's invited a lot of heavy drinkers. ...she just assumes people in her cohort want to drink--they've been kidnapped to a strange city with many new things to offer, so why wouldn't they?

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He blinks slightly. He's always smelled the difference, but seeing the edge of it was a little unusual. He doesn't question it however, and goes over to her. Whatever alcohol he's had isn't affecting him yet. It takes a lot to dent his system.

"Enjoying yourself, I hope?" He really prefers this area. There's something oddly homey about it, in a way he can't really identify. Perhaps that Nietzscheans don't generally lock their doors inside their family houses, and someone can come in whenever they feel like it.

Her attire... does not go without notice.

As much as she's not especially interested in pursuing most of it (impulse-driven, she drifts back to Ivan's side now and then to remind herself what he would and would not like her to do and that she actually cares about that), she's been mildly entertained by the very different reception her visible inhumanity has earned here. Her scent is mostly perfume and cigarette smoke, but she passed a vampire earlier who remembered what lies underneath it from Gutters; she'd smiled, because she has no goddamn self-preservation instinct.

"I am," she says, on that note, twirling her empty cigarette holder in her hands for something to do; she's restless, almost, unable to still but not terrible demonstrative in it. "I was too young to see Hasi perform when we were in Italy-- I loved it, though, here. And I like what else you can see. It's beautiful, when you go up into the Ctenophora and just look down and watch everyone moving."

...a little more talkative for the booze, yes.

Hands clasped behind his back, he breathes a laugh. "She has a level of talent rarely seen before. It's exceptional." And, in his culture, would have been gladly cultivated. Though he's aware of the divide- an more respectful of it than other Nietzscheans.

"Have you thought about it?" He asks, starting to walk around her, giving her a good once over like a museum curator would give an artefact of high quality. Though respectful of those boundaries he is still what he is, and doesn't shy from appraisal of the people around him.

"About--?" Ilde straightens slightly under the scrutiny, tucking one foot behind the other and half-turning as he moves, tilting her head back so she doesn't miss anything he says when he's not in front of her. That she doesn't lose her balance in those heels, with her alcohol tolerance, is really something in and of itself - she tenses on the edge of what's noticeable when he's behind her, too.

After a beat, clarifying: "About performance?"

He nods. "You obviously have a sense of balance. And you know how to show what you want to be seen, and keep other things private." His sly indication that he had noticed something peculiar about her, but didn't necessarily mind. "You dress in manner that's flattering. You should be proud of it."

Her laugh is quiet, the rush of a river from a distance; secretive isn't among the qualities she's heard cited before in the list of reasons why she should perform, and it seems fitting in a way that keeps her smiling when the laughter fades, wry. Sleight of hand is so much of what she is, after all--

"My father wanted me to sing," she says, touching the side of her throat, just under her hair, splaying her fingers there, thumb at her collarbone. "I was supposed to study for it at Guildhall, but it didn't- work out that way." Kidnapping and the apocalypse will put a crimp in the best laid plans. "I thought about playing somewhere, here; the cello, or if I can find a harp..."

A shrug.

"It's my personal belief that discretion is for the things you don't want people to see. Things that are yours. But strengths and talents should never be wasted.

"From what I've gathered, the majority of what this place is good for is either using it as an opportunity to indulge your abilities, or escaping what might have compromised them before." He leeeeeans just so, teetering to see into one of the rooms, then bringing himself back to standing.

"It's a big city. Certainly there must be at least one."

"Inexpensive and good enough for my tastes is- a little hard to find," she says, wryly; she's choosy about her instruments and a grand harp isn't the kind of thing most people just have lying around, unfortunately. Still, she's patient (even if she keeps prioritizing wardrobe over instruments in the list of 'things she doesn't really need but wants, anyway').

"But my music is more than talent--" that she follows his gaze into the room is reflexive, and she manages to stop herself from leaning as well when she realizes she's doing it, "--so I'd have to be very careful. Though it might be of interest somewhere like here."

Well, it's a thought, anyway; she meanders tangents.

"More than a talent?" That sounded more useful than simple performance. Not that he had any use for it, but it was notable. "Then I'd make getting one of those instruments a priority.

"Do you have company here tonight?"

Diverted from her initial thought - to tell him about arriving with her cello, the same cello that her father had bought her, that she hadn't seen for years before Baedal - it takes her a moment to recalibrate, mentally, to answer the question in a sort of 'oh, right, men' moment.

"I do, yes. The tall vampire in the priest's collar." Her involvement with Ivan accounts, more often than not, for the fact she occasionally smells like fae-blood; bitemarks don't heal overnight no matter where they're left. "I think I left him in the Ctenophora."

His brows raise right up. The idea is concerning, that she is with something that could potentially use her as a food source.

But doesn't want to think she'd remain in a situation where anything non-consensual was occurring, even the drawing of blood. He manages to keep the hair on the back of his neck from prickling up at the thought (no offense to Ivan, Rhade had a fair amount of post traumatic stress left over from war, and has come a far stretch in moderating his reactions already).

"Oh." What a profound statement, Rhade. "And were you looking for someone in particular back here?" Or like him, and just being painfully nosy.

Rhade's neither the first nor (likely) the last person to find something a little worrying in Ilde's choice of partner; it'd probably be a very good thing if she were even half as worried about it as nearly everyone else. (Cindy may actually stage an intervention, one day.) Half the problem is-- maybe she would stay. Even she (privately) admits maybe she should've cut her losses when the only thing between her and an untimely death in Mafaton was lucky timing.

...and yet.

"I wanted to see what it was like," she says, touching the edge of the nearest doorframe with her thumb; her smile is oddly absent, but not awkward. "A locked door always seemed like a suggestion to me." To do something, or to investigate behind it; most of these are just closed, admittedly, but the sentiment remains. If something is just slightly out of her reach, she wants to go and see why.

Sadly, his concerns are from a lingering prejudice that he's only now starting to be rid of. After months of seeing people that he believed in act like monsters. Cindy's intervention is likely much more justified in its reasoning.

"We don't often lock our doors within our family homes. If you have secrets, you learn to keep them, as well as what you won't mind distributed." And the awkwardness of walking in on someone having sex was practically negligible.

A touch amused, he adds, "It feels a little bit like home."

Ilde's smile skews wry, less for how she feels about anything than in awareness of what other people tend to expect her to-- "A little for me, too, but-- it's not cultural, for me, it's just that Daddy was always so casual about his lifestyle. He'd love this place. That's how I knew Hasi, actually; she lived with us for a few months, when they were together."

"Was he a good father?" The most honored titles a Nietzschean can hold; husband and father. It was a necessary question. Too few people shared the ideal he was raised with. The right to carry on genes and philosophy too easily dismissed.

Though if Hasi was only there for a short while, he assumed the man wasn't an exceptional "husband".

This is not a question she's ever been asked- partly because most people who wanted to know had met Emery and made their own minds up ('no, not really' is the accepted narrative there), and partly because she just doesn't know a lot of people who're inclined to ask. Maybe she gives him an honest answer just for the novelty of it.

"He wanted to be," she says, after a quiet pause, and that's the story of Emeric Featherstonehaugh's life, right there. Damned with faint praise, but always trying. "Daddy is an artist, though, and...that's just how he is." 'Artistic temperament' is not actually an excuse for Ilde's childhood. "He had his moments, though. Good moments, I mean."

Her tone is protective, almost; she sees herself as responsible for him far more than the other way around.

He was a good enough father to rouse his daughter's concern for him, whatever the case.

"Good intentions can be the source of unsuitable conclusions." Oh Rhade knows that better than he'd ever hope to in his life. "However he appears to do have at least given you the better parts of his DNA and ideals. I do think that counts for something."

Leave it to Rhade to get in a conversation about parents when he's surrounded by scantily clad clothing. Which he is not ignoring, noting the low cut of a dress worn by a woman that saunters out of the room he's next to.

It makes her smile - 'the better parts of his DNA', not the dress of the woman passing them by, although she does fleetingly think how much she likes that fabric - in a curiously deliberate way. It's because of her father that she is what she is, faerie ancestry tracing through his lineage and bleeding out of him into his music, and she'll be the first to call it the better part.

"I think so, too. And," with a thoughtful glance further out into the club, "I learned to appreciate art in as many of its forms as I can stand." Which is a good reason to be here, she thinks.

"Versatility is a virtue. Even if it's only as much as you can stand. That's why I can play as many tactical games as I do." And he didn't even like all of them. Though Go was eternally his favorite.

He almost offered that his mother was a musician. He held back. But the attempt at words, the cut short offer, was about as well hid as that mysterious shimmer in her appearance.

"Should I let you return to your companion? I don't want to monopolize your time."

The tilt of her head is inquisitive, catlike; she doesn't pretend not to be curious as to what wasn't said, there, but she doesn't ask. (Ask her no questions, she'll tell you no- well, that's not quite right, but close enough.) Instead of pursuing it, she smiles and touches his arm, briefly - personal space is not a concept she has a lot of truck with, and her fingertips coast the edge of his boneblades as she withdraws, just to see. "I should find him before he thinks I've wandered off. It was nice to see you again, though."

The boneblades are sharp. Not so much that a graze would cut someone, but they're notably sharp enough at the tips to cut through skin with some pressure. He doesn't seem bothered by how close she gets, though, and watches her inspect the bony protrusions (which he plans to make no effort to hide, no matter how it is people treat xenians here).

"Enjoy the rest of the night. Tell me if you see anything interesting." That's almost a joke, considering where they are.

The temptation to apply pressure is there, and after a moment ignored; it'd be impolite, she reasons. Yes, that's why. Her curiosity sufficiently satisfied for the meanwhile, regardless, she salutes him with her cigarette holder-- "I think I saw the designer who made my dress running around without trousers on, if that counts."

In point of fact, she's off in search of her now.

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003 | OPEN. red lipstick on the end of a cigarette.

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One day. One day I will do a thread and not do that.

ilu bb if anyone asks i saw nothing

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