English Weather (MS/Open)

[Lady Thorn]

It was raining... again. It was September, a month she remembered had been warm and balmy last year, and yet it was pouring down with sheets of freezing, bitter rain and the wind was whistling round her, flapping her coat out behind.
Lady Thorn was not entirely happy.
Her red hair was plastered down to her white skin, her eyes sharp against the sodden darkness of her fringe. Her leather coat was pulled tight around her thin frame, her hands tucked under her arms, hugging herself against the onslaught of the weather. She was shivering and mumbling curses to herself, her lips tinged with blue as another gust of what felt like a gale rattled by and a tongue of lightning forked across the sky, the windows nearby shivering and humming with the roll of the thunder.
She tumbled into a doorway, seeking refuge from the dreadfulness.
"Bloody England..." she moaned, wondering where exactly she was taking shelter.
The doorway was dark, and with the rain pelting down, it was difficult to perceive any marks or signs. The streetlights were down again... perhaps the storm had taken out a power station.
With a heavy sigh, Lady Thorn leaned into the corner of the doorway, trying to edge away from the rampages of the weather.
The door swung open and she tumbled inside, out of the cold but into an unknown room. Her head slapped against the floor, sending sparks flying across her vision... she couldn't see.
"Uuuugh..." she moaned.

[msman]

Mitsuaki had high hopes. Simple bag boy, right, two years. But, there was a reason they kept him, he was good. Very good. His manager had come up to him after work two days ago and gave him a ticket to England. Something about him not going to be able to attend some kind of meeting. So he was sending Mitsu. Instead of the assistant manager, or someone higher on the ranks, he was sending Mit. And he was going to be paid his whole week away. So awesome. Renting a suit he packed a few things, hopped on the plane (it had been two years since he had been on one) and was on his way to the hotel that was lined up for him…

And when he got there he found out why his boss didn’t want to go. It was like a Motel Six, only, lower. So it sucked. His bed had springs poking out of it… even his bed in his 8th class apartment was better than this. Well, whatever. The meeting was tomorrow, but he couldn’t sleep. Call it jet lag, call it boredom, Mitsu called it annoying. Throwing on a pair of pants he slipped his boots on and headed to the elevator… which wasn’t working.

Power was out. So he used the stairs. It was raining; he was going to enjoy it. It didn’t rain much around his area. Not in Japan, not in America… England was nice. Kind of. Opening the door to the hotel from hell a girl fell at his feet, making him look down at her sodden head, only inches from his left boot.

“Um…”

[Lady Thorn]

Regaining her vision and a vague sense of dignity, Lady Thorn managed to pull herself up from the ground. She looked, frankly, a mess. Her hair was wet and held bits that the wind had thrown at her, and her clothes were dusty from the floor. Lovely.
But her mind wasn't so addled as to forget her manners.
"Sorry... damn weather... I apologise for my klutzish behaviour."
She looked up at the person at whose feet she had fallen. Male... attractive-ish... young. Not a vampire. That was all she could glean. Then again, everyone was young, by her standards, so it was even less.
"I wouldn't go out in that, if I were you," she added, brushing herself off and pulling bits of leaf from her ginger hair. "It's blowing a gale and what feels like the contents of the Irish sea. It's not a night to be out on the streets," Not that it was her place to tell him, but a bit of friendly advice never went amiss. Well, almost never.
"Where the hell am I?" she added as an afterthought, looking around at the dingy reception area. Nothing salubrious, but since her wandering had been rather random due to an inability to see, she could have been anywhere, anywhere at all. Blasted rain. "I hope I haven't barged into somewhere private by mistake..." It wouldn't have been the first time.

[msman]

Despite the wind and rain, Mit noticed, faintly, that she smelled funny. Couldn’t quite place it, but it was funny. Raising an eyebrow at her he tilted his head to the side and watched as she talked on and on and on about the weather, before finally asking where she was. Looking around Mit had to find a way to sum up where they were.

“The srum’s srum. Clapiest prace on ealth.” His accent was strong here than normal, maybe because it stuck so hard against the English accent to prevalent in everywhere he went. He never experienced the L-R problem so badly before. But what he said was true, the slum’s slum. Taking a step back he jerked his head to the side.

“Well, get in.” If she was going to complain about the weather she might as well get out of it.

[Lady Thorn]

She smiled faintly at him, pulling herself inside gratefully.
It took her a moment to work out what he had said, then she cottoned on. She had an ear for accents under normal circumstances, but she was distracted today, and hadn't been listening all that well. The slum's slum... lovely. Just the place to find oneself in a dreadful storm.
Once the door swung shut, she immediately felt a surge of warmth run through her. Slum it might be, but there was central heating. She could forgive most things for that right now.
Peeling off her sodden coat, she revealed herself to be quite well dressed, in contrast to the slightly shabby surroundings. Sure her jeans were soaked, sure her hair was plastered flat to her head, but she was still... elegant, in her own way.
She smiled a pleasant smile at the stranger.
"On holiday here are you?" It was an odd choice or a holiday, she thought. But maybe it was cheap enough to warrant such surroundings. If he was, he'd made a bad choice of time to come. Autumn had really begun to set in.
She paused, cocking her head to one side for a moment and looking at him strangely. Something odd about him. What was it?
A slightly unusual smell, but nothing wrong with that.
A strange way of holding himself.
An odd posture.
What was it?
Ah! She had it. Some form of were. Not wolf, she thought, but she couldn't decide what. She realised she had been biting her lip while she thought, and that one fang had been poking out against the red painted skin of the aforesaid lip, displaying what she was for all to see.
She smiled guiltily.
"Oops."

[msman]

(Pretend there’s an accent.)

Mitsu started up the stairs to his room, looking over his shoulder as she asked him about being on Holiday. What was a holiday? One English word he had never learned, it wasn’t important. But when he looked he found something interesting. She had fangs…

Fangs. So she had smelled strange, smelled like a vampire. Even Japan had those; he knew that much from Kitty. He had never seen one until he got to the states, and now he was in England with one. He stopped on the stairs, looking back at the glistening white tooth that smiled at him.

“Oops my foot.” He muttered, coming back down the stairs. “Vampire, I knew you smelled funny.” He grabbed her wrist, trying to get her up the stairs and into his room. They couldn’t do anything here, not with humans around.

[Lady Thorn]

She followed with mild interest. Obviously there was some problem with her being what she was down here. But she was glad enough to be out of the cold and wet. If things turned sour? Well, she could take care of herself. She was a big girl.
The place was pretty much as he had described it. Slummy. The room, when they went in, was no different. Lovely.
As soon as they were out of sight of the general public, she shook her head, scattering droplets of water, and put into practice her little power. A nimbus of flame shimmered into life around her, warming her and drying her out, until she stood, steaming gently, but perfectly dry.
"There we are, much better," she said, grinning and looking around without much enthusiasm. Not the sort of place she liked to find herself in, but one had to do what one must in such conditions. She couldn't really go out until the weather had died down.
Presumptuous as ever, she sat on the bed without asking permission, crossing her legs and kicking off her boots. The metal heels twinkled in the dimness of the lights. Obviously the place had some form of back-up generator. It wasn't much cop though. The bulb wavered and glimmered like a dying glow-worm. Perhaps it was a blessing, since she doubted the room would be any more pleasant in full light.
"Nice place you've got here..." the sarcasm was subtle twisted around her words. Probably a mistake, given that English clearly wasn't his first language, but never mind. "Why exactly did you drag me up here now?" She fiddled with a strand of her auburn hair, looking him up and down. Wondering who he was.

[msman]

Mitsu mumbled to himself in Asian, ignoring the burst of flame behind him as he closed the curtains and locked the door. Stupid broad. Did she have no idea that people could kill them? He didn’t know what the UK was like, but he did know that there were people after vampires. He wasn’t so much on the hunted list. Too few weretigers out there to be a threat really. But it didn’t mean that there weren’t those that wouldn’t take a swing at him if they had the chance. Shaking his head he looked over his shoulder at her. Shaking his head again he went about the place, picking up his things and tying his hair back as he did so, ignoring the pull of the barbells on his back.

“You stupid or something? Letting teeth like those hang out can get you killed you know. Or those around you killed. And that fire thing, gah! What if someone looked out their window into mine, huh? Could have lost me the room.” Flustered? You could say that. Having some woman fall on your feet only to catch fire in your room… yeah, that would make anyone uneasy.

[Lady Thorn]

She laughed, leaning back on the bed and watching his irritation.
"It hasn't got me killed these past 2800 years... I think I can manage y'know. And if you're hanging round these parts of London I don't really think you need to worry about people after you for being near a vampire..." she yawned, stretching cat-like and chewing a strand of her auburn hair as the watched him. "They're probably more likely to go after your wallet... or maybe you kidneys."
This was broadly true. No one had ever bothered her for being what she was in these parts. Ok, hotel management might have a thing or two to say about bursting into flame, but only if they found out, and she wouldn't let that happen. She wasn't some young kid with no sense of control, after all. It wasn't like she'd accidentally set fire to the curtains... well, not unless she was really angry at something.
Sitting back up, she shrugged off her coat, no longer needing it's protection against the cold. She didn't concede she didn't need its other protection of a heck-load of knives, but she still had her palm daggers and some others concealed elsewhere, so she had no qualms or worries about defencelessness in the room of a strange were. Besides, those knives up her sleeves were edged with silver.
Which reminded her...
"What form of were are you anyway?" she asked, her tone not at all accusatory, merely curious. "I'm intrigued... I thought only the lycans wandered these parts."
She slid a knife from her sleeve and began using it to clean her nails, daintily and fussily.

[msman]

Two thousa- wow. She was old.

I’ll just leave it at that. She was old, and in his room, and he was looking at her like she was crazy. Sure, she might be able to watch herself, make sure no one hurt her and was frightening. But he had a record, kind of, and he had to be careful. No old hag vampire was going to get him into trouble. Shaking his head he retrieved a shirt, still wishing he could have gone out into the rain. Maybe later, it’s not like it was just going to disappear, not with it being this heavy. No, Japan was like that too. They would get heavy weather that would last forever.

She pulled a knife, he smelled the steel and silver in his room. Only faintly, it wasn’t until he looked at it that he knew what it was. He was still getting used to smelling everything. Animal senses were strange. She asked him what kind of were he was. So she could tell he was a wereanimal. Interesting. Maybe they had a sixth sense? He didn’t know, didn’t care. She asked him, and he wasn’t sure if he should tell her. Maybe if she knew what she wouldn’t think of attacking him. Hey, you never know! Vampires liked blood. They didn’t care how or where they got it, right? So long as it didn’t hurt them.

Trying to ignore the prickling pain across his skin as thin fuzz grew from it. Orange and black coated his skin, hiding the inked wings on his back, curling around the piercings, striping his face and back. He felt his teeth get bigger, and he stopped there. He didn’t want to be completely tiger.

[Lady Thorn]

She watched with interest. She'd never seen a were-tiger before. Or at least, she hadn't when she was sober enough to remember it... It counted as pretty much the same thing.
"Cool," she murmured, nodding with a smile, "and I love the colour." She winked, patting her own ginger hair and sliding the knife back up her sleeve. "Much better than the usual wolf option of 'befouled grey' or 'sewage-brown'. Always good to have a bit of colour going on."
She sighed, looking round her surroundings again and wondering if there was anything to do. She was already bored, and the evening had barely started, but the wind was still going strong outside and she could hear the rain thrashing the window, so her only options were more blind wanderings or to stay here. She picked boredom over possible self-harm. Cowardice was a nice way of prioritising one's actions.
"So..." she said, pouting and sighing, "what is there to do in this "slum's slum", hm?" It'd be too much to hope for any form of actual entertainment. Perhaps she ought to tone down on the personality, though, she thought, as being a great irritation to someone when they were kind enough to move you out of the way of having to pay money or be seen for what you were was an unwise thing to do indeed. If she felt guilty easily, it would have made her feel the first twinge.

[msman]

Snapping back the fur Mit shook it off, literally. He shivered a bit, hating the pin-prick/insect feeling his fur always gave him when it grew. He liked the outcome, but not the process. It was supposed to get easier the older you got, but he wasn’t too sure about how much of that was truth and how much of that was Kitty wanting to make him feel better. She didn’t have to, really. But that was Kitty. She always made him feel better. She was teased all the time in school, Mit would always be there to protect her. And she was always there to clean his cuts and bruises afterwards. Funny relationship they had.

But Thorn’s talking pulled him from memories, making him pay attention again. Shrugging at the color he pulled his shirt on, feeling the pull in his shoulders. Hmm, they had changed a bit too, not as fun. He needed to work on how he changed into tiger a bit more, maybe later. She was asking him a question. Accent verses accent hit hard and he took a moment to understand the slum’s slum idea. Realizing it was his own wording he blinked at her and shrugged again, sitting on the bed next to her.

“Dunno, not here long enough. Sleep is out of question, though sleep at the meeting might be bad. You live here, you tell me.”

[Lady Thorn]

She laughed, a conversational, pleasant laugh.
"Sure, I live here, in London, but not here... well, not for a good hundred years, anyway. My digs are the other side of the river," by her guess, she was somewhere near the old hospital and her old prowling ground when she still worked the streets. Gods above, she'd not been here for years. It was exactly a salubrious area, and she'd got quite accustomed to salubrious. Money made the world taste nicer, and all that jazz.
To be honest, when she thought about it, there wasn't all that much to do in this area anyway. It had never undergone the remodelling some of the other bad ends of the city had, and the residents were all... well, they were here to live here or stay here and little else. If you lived here, you got out, as quickly as you could.
It made her smile to remember how it used to be. Not that it had been a better neighbourhood, but it had been her home, and it had been fun. Damn nostalgia.
But what to do...? Her options seemed to be restricted to talking, making a scene (which she cared not to do, because it was a waste of money sorting it out afterwards), or wandering off and looking for somewhere else in the rain. She didn't fancy the last one, so talking it would have to be.
Trying to postpone any half-arsed attempts at conversation on her part, she paid heed the poking her stomach had been giving her these last few minutes.
"Have you got anything to drink in here?" she asked, biting her lip. Then she realised that could have been misinterpreted. "I mean tea, by the way, that sort of thing. I'm not after your neck." She didn't want to cause that kind of trouble either. Violence was not fun.