Characters in Scene (in Order of Appearance):
- Lilith
- Phobia
- Jack Knight
- Huntress
-----==[ Little Bohemia - Metropolis ]==--------------------------------------
This intimate area had its origins in a village predating Metropolis, which is the reason why it is so distinctive; the urban sprawl gradually included it, but it has always remained its own stylish place. Radiating from the idyllic Bimmington Square Park, Little Bohemia spreads out in narrow and meandering streets lined with trees and foliage, colorful buildings stretching overhead almost protectively.
The creative community focuses here, as Little Bohemia is considered the arts capital of Metropolis. So, too, comes the vast gay and lesbian population of New Troy, for trendy locales to meet friends. Metropolis University's main campus is located in Little Bohemia as well, which draws volumes of students, and a popular basketball court provides a high-traffic area to play. Several theaters also dot the locale, always running some new performance.
-----==[ Coffee Bean Cafe - Metropolis ]==------------------------------------
The place is crowded but somewhat comfortable. Beatnik and oddball indie music plays in the background. The tables are painted in odd colors and patterns, no two alike. Above, ceiling fans turn and the dim lights sometimes flicker. This place is usually full of people wearing dark clothing, frequently with tinted glasses, and men often with some manner of facial hair. The coffee is always good and dark with strange flavors and aromas.
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Anywhere else in the city, it might seem odd for a woman in imposing-looking red robes and wrap-like gloves to walk into a coffee house. But in Metropolis, especially in Little Bohemia, it's pretty unexceptional. Lilith steps inside and stretches a bit, and although a few heads turn, they figure she is just doing her thing. Some wave or call out a greeting, and of course she waves back. She's well-known touring the coffee house circuit as a sitar player and general new age guru. But tonight, she's here because she wants some chai. So she walks up to the bar and looks over the chalk-written menu.
Elsewhere in the city, a prim English woman in a coordinating tweed two-piece suit and matching clutch would seem completely normal, but here, well... perhaps she's an art collector looking for something a bit new-age to add to her gallery? Angela Hawkins, better known to those of the Titan persuasion as Phobia, enters the shop. Moving on dove-gray high heels that click click on the floor, the villianesse makes her way to the counter. Green eyes narrow faintly at Lilith's attire, thin lips pressing into a faint line.
Lilith, meanwhile, tilts her head from one side to the other. She really wanted chai, but she always has chai. Maybe cafe au lait! Or that pumpkin coffee they're promoting! "I think I'll have a nice big cup of the pumpkin au lait," she at last decides. "That sounds *really* groovy. Oh, and um, I totally think whipped cream and sprinkles sound marvy." She has a laugh with the barrista.
Phobia's eyes flick from Lilith to the chalked menu. Her gaze travels the writing, lips set into an unpleasant little frown as she waits her turn to order. As Lilith laughs, Phobia glances her way again; one spidery eye brow flicking upward and away from her eye.
"Man, this thing is starting to cramp my style. It's okay for Gotham, but..." Lilith steps back and unfastens something on the robe, and it just falls around her feet. Apparently it's a lot like a long coat, as she wears her usual micro mini underneath, looking like she just came from 1967, and boy does she have some stories to tell. She picks the robe up and tosses it over her forearm, then takes a little card from inside a little compartment on her belt.
"Does Twiggy know you have her dress?" Phobia murmurs in her posh british tones, eyes slid sideways toward Lilith. Phobia takes that one half step toward the bar, ready to order from the barrista.
Lilith is at the counter ordering her pumpkin coffee, with a striking red robe over her arm. She glances to the side, when Phobia comments. "Mm? Oh, thanks!" She seems like the type to be extremely cheerful and agreeable, even to strangers. Especially for strangers. "You think it's worthy of Twiggy?" She spins around, laughing. It's a pretty sound, the sound of a trained voice. "That's sweet." She waves her hand, then, to the barrista. "She's with me, my treat."
Phobia blinks. With a slow sort of precision, the brit turns her head, a swivel on her neck, and peers at Lilith as if the youngster had grown a second head. "It's quite alright," she entones properly. "there is no need for such a thing," she adds as her eyes tense slightly and the frown returns. On her clutch, her fingers tighten, turning her hands slightly white around her perfectly manicured nails.
The bell over the door rings softly to announce another newcomer into the Metropolis coffeehouse. Jack enters, completely in civvies, talking on a cellphone and clearly trying to disengage from whomever he's talking to. "....know, I know. uh-huh...no we're not charging them an appearance fee we're doing this episode gratis....because it's youth center and hence on the terminally short of spinach list and I'm not going to charge them for a damned thing. Okay..okay...I'm not changing my mind, Kate. We'll talk once I'm back Opal-side. Look I'm going to lose you here in a second, I've finally found a java house that's not a Starbucks. Good-bye." he says and shuts the phone off before slipping it into a pocket and making his way towards the counter. Though clearly frustrated by the call he still has a genuinely chipper bent to his stride.
"Oh, Jack!" Lilith waves her free hand, completely ignoring Phobia's attempt to stop her from treating to coffee. "Come join us, Jack! They've got some groovy pumpkin coffee and this ginchy chick just said I look like Twiggy!" She's in the sky over this. A lengthy, and imposing, red robe is hung over her forearm.
Phobia closes her eyes a moment, seeming to steady herself as Lilith calls out to Jack. When her eyes open, she leans forward to order from the barrista, setting a few twenties on the counter to cover the bill of whatever she, Twiggy-fan-girl, and Jack would like. That's when she turns to look at Jack. She starts lightly, clearly not having expected a familiar or even friendly face here. "Earl gray. Hot," is Phobia's order. "And their money is no good here. Am I understood," she demands of the barrista in tones she hopes is low enough to not be heard clearly by Lilith, but would brook little to no arguement from the server behind the counter.
Jack Knight looks up when he hears his name called and smiles. "You know, Lil, if you were a pirate I'd just assume that I was hallucinating you as often as you turn up where I don't expect you to." he looks to the barrista and orders himself a double espresso extra sweet and then looks over again when he hears a familiar British accent. "Hey, you're the girl from the Metropolis Arms hotel bar. Angela isn't it?"
"Well you know, I could probably swing it. Oh! Oh look!" Lilith pulls on her robes and models them, then pulls up the hood. Her voice changes to a rather imposing, supernatural sort of tone, with an echo that can't possibly occur by itself. "What do you think of Omen?"
Phobia nods politely to Jack, fingers on her clutch slightly white-knuckled still. "Yes, Mr. Knight. It is a pleasure to once more be in your pre-" her words are cut off as Lilith models her robes and supernatural sound effects. In her tailored tweed suit, Angela (better known as Phobia) eyes Lilith again, and closes her mouth.
Jack Knight accepts his coffee and takes a sip. To the now scarlet robed Lilith he says, "The 70s horror flick or as a possible name for you?" and then to Phobia adds, "Ditto. I'd suggest that we get another stuffed shirt in to make fun of but I think we're in entirely the wrong type of java joint for it." he grins. "Though if one wanders by outside I'll do my best to point him out and provide any apporpriate ascerbic commentary I can."
"Well I don't know, I mean..." Lilith continues to speak in that bizarre, distorted voice. "I thought it would be kind of a neat thing to do in Gotham. Everybody there's all imposing and scary, right? They expect it!" She reaches up and pulls the hood back again, grinning at the others.
A real smile threatens to bloom on Phobia's face. On her clutch, her grip slackens slightly before she reaches for her cup of tea. "So long as he can hear you, the entertainment would be muchly appreciated," she replies, lashes lowering faintly for her to peer through them at Jack. But as Lilith speaks up, Phobia stiffens back to proper, pulling that distance chill back over her features, before stating crisply, "Shall we find ourselves a more suitable locale at which to enjoy our teas and conversation?"
Jack Knight collects his coffee and gestures to the two ladies in a "lead on" gesture. "You know, Lil that would actually make a hell of an argument for /not/ going the scary route but if it mows your lawn then I say go for it. Far be it from me to be the screendoor in someone else's submarine." back to Phobia he adds, "Except maybe those four-corners in the bar that one night."
A few minutes after Jack and Lilith entered the coffee shop, another woman steps inside, looking almost immediately out of place. She gives the place a quick once-over as if casing the joint for exit routes and the like, then heads over to request a beverage from the barista without bothering to take off the baseball cap -- she somehow managed to tuck ALL of her hair up underneath it except for a stray lock hanging in front of one ear.
Lilith smiles to herself and takes off the robe again, her usual micro mini underneath, as before. "That sounds groovy! Let's all go over there. That's--" Then she notices the whole thing with Phobia's money and gives her a lightly chiding smile. "I get the next round, all right?"
Phobia's eyes narrow faintly at Lilith, but without comment she turns away. Chin held slightly above parallel to the floor, Her Royal Poshness glides her way from the counter, only pause at the sight of the very out of place baseball-capped woman.
Jack Knight takes a seat at the table and turns his cellphone back on though he leaves it on silent. After satisfying himself that the person he was speaking to as he entered has not called back he sets the phone on the table and sips from his joe again. Looking between Lilith and Phobia he arches an eyebrow and says, "Did I miss something?"
Huntress just steps aside and brushes lightly past Posh Spice here to look at the barista. She knows this kind of place, and she HATES this kind of place. "Large, /plain/ black coffee. Please." She's speaking with a heavy Italian accent, perhaps an attempt to conceal her identity further.
"Just the ordering. Did you get your coffee ordered, Jack?" Lilith looks back to the counter and then to Jack, still smiling. She doesn't seem to be bothered by Phobia's aloof qualities, but then she's a bodhisattva. It's her thing.
Phobia steps away from Huntress as the italian in a baseball cap pushes past her. With a faint sharp nasal exhale, Phobia turns and makes her way toward the table Jack selected, tea cup in her hand, steaming. This she sets down gingerly, obviously, eyes flicking from Jack to her chair wordlessly.
Jack Knight holds up the cup of steaming espresso that he as sipped from multiple times in Lilith's presence but knowing that her attentions are often elsewhere he doesn't seem vexed by this. He takes another sip and says, "One of the first decent espressos I've had since touching down in Metropolis."
Huntress stands at the counter and watches every step the barista makes until her coffee is set in front of her. She then pays for it, giving the sour-faced twenty-something a comfortable if not generous tip. She plucks one of those free local events papers from next to the counter and carries it with her coffee across the seating area to sit a couple of tables away from Jack and Lilith with her back to them. She looks for all the world like she's just wasting time in this trendy little coffee shop until something else happens.
Lilith keeps smiling contentedly and looks between the other two. She slowly walks towards the table and lowers herself to one of the seats. "Oh, sorry. I guess my mind was elsewhere. Visions, you know." She waves her hand and puts the robe in the empty chair beside her. "You know, this place is totally different than most places like this, you know?" She has a sort of breathy tone with what she says. "This is the real deal."
Phobia settles into her own seat, finally, a light frown on her face. She stirs her tea as Lilith chatters, only to grimace as she takes her first sip of her tea. "Hardly," drones the brit. Her tea cup, little more than a small coffee mug on a mix-matched saucer, is set down with a clink.
Huntress sips at her coffee slowly, waiting for something interesting to happen. C'mon, Lilith, you said that this was gonna be eventful. She turns a page in the events newspaper. Good GOD this is boring.
"Hardly what?" Lilith smiles over at Phobia and then looks up as her coffee is brought. "Thank you!" She takes the cup and saucer and sets them down in front of her. "And maybe, why do you seem to have a total chip on your shoulder towards me? I'm pretty sure I'd remember if we'd met before...I'm sorry if I did something to offend you in the past and forgot it, but...refresh my memory?"
Phobia very delicately pushes the tea cup away from her and opens the medium sized clutch in her lap. As so looks over at Lilith, her hands dip into her purse. She tilts her head to one side, as if trying to recall the face, the twiggy-mini. "Hm. Doubtful that we have met, unless you associate with certain costumed individuals from San Francisco. Although, I rather htink I would have a difficult time forgetting someone of your... color pallette."
Huntress pulls a cellphone from an inside pocket of her jacket to check the time. This is really starting to feel like a spectacular waste of time.
"I used to be in the Teen Titans! But that's a long time ago, and we weren't in San Francisco." Lilith takes a sip from her drink and makes an appreciative sound, then licks her lips and sets it down again. "I always try to cheer up the surroundings a bit. Too many dour, sour people around, you know?"
"No," Phobia replies.... well, dourly. "No idea," she adds. From her lap, the tiniest click of metal on metal might be audible over the sound of the coffee shop. A smile, smake-like, drifts across her features. "Titans. Really? How pleasant. Tell me, do you know Nightwing?" Her eyes flicker toward a patron, then back to Lilith. Her tongue darts out between lips again, wetting them.
Huntress sharpens her attention at the subtle change in the British chick's words...and the fact that she asked about Nightwing. Outwardly, though, she just idly turns another page in the newspaper thing.
Lilith glances over to Huntress, raising an eyebrow, before she returns her attention to Phobia. "Nightwing? Oh yeah, I know Buns!" Apparently a sort of nickname for him. Anyone who has met him would probably know why. Maybe it would be a surprise to Huntress that she knows him.
Phobia's eyes flick toward the idle reader at table #14, before they shift to another patron. In her lap, the softest sound of metal scraping might be heard now and again. Phobia, however, laughs. A cold, dark, altogether unfriendly sort of sound. "Buns, huh? I'll have to remember that, the next time I... see him." She continues chuckling, eyes flicking toward another patron. Her smile fades lightly, frown threatening. her gaze shifts back to Huntress. A brow quirks as her eyes narrow.
Huntress has picked up on that odd little metal scraping sound. It's disconcerting. She seemingly reaches for her phone again, but is actually checking to make sure the switchblade in her pocket is set where she can pull it quickly if need be. She 'idly' sips at her coffee again, trying to mentally identify what is causing those metallic noises. 'Cause if nothing else, this British chick is twigging on her Freak-O-Meter something fierce.
"Right, could you say that while you're twisting a handlebar moustache? It completes the look." Lilith laughs to herself and shakes her head, going back to her coffee. She doesn't seem to *mind*, of course. It seems to amuse her more than anything.
Phobia quirks a brow at Lilith, eyes drifting back to her table mate. In that silence before Phobia responds, the soft metallic whisper can be heard. "Alas, but I think they are repulsive and shan't be growing one," she muses in response to Lilith, though her mind's focus reminds on Huntress. Phobia's eyes glitter faintly, her fingers, resting atop the clutch in her lap, moving like a spider's legs spinning a web. "The name is amusing, is all: Buns. Not something I think had crossed his mind when he and I... mmm... met," she replies, seemingly to be idling making small-talk for all that her tone retains that softly sinister desonance to it in Huntress's mind. To the rest, her tone seems only to chill and grow more aloof.
Sonofabitch. She's here to help Lilith, what's up with the heebie jeebies she's getting from the British chick? And that metal scraping noise. It's reaching fingernails on a chalkboard level of annoying. Huntress resists the urge to shift in her chair, knowing that if she gives away her discomfort, she could well ruin whatever reason Lilith and Jack had for coming here in the first place.
Lilith clears her throat. "When you met, or when you...did what exactly? And what do you think you're doing now? If you think you're being subtle...totally wigging, you know?" She laughs quietly, but her expression has changed to a more serious one. "It's totally ungroovy to mess with someone's head, you know?"
Phobia perks up, seeming to find Lilith even more fancinating than ever. Mentally, her mind's locked on Huntress like a tick neck deep in a dog's backside. Every uncomfortable beat of Huntress's heart seems to send the tiniest shiver of enjoyment up Phobia's spine. "When he and I met," she replies pleasantly, her voice an unsettling half-tone too low for such sweetly spoken niceties. "Sparks flew. He shared with me such sweet dreams, the like of which I shan't speak of in front of... innocent ears such as your own."
Huntress rubs her forehead with one hand briefly. That metal scraping...wait. It's familiar, and NOT sinister. Bisabuela. She used to make knitted doilies non-stop on metal needles so fine they looked like she ganked some guitar strings from somewhere. Now that she's place the noise it no longer bothers her in the least. But that British chick... Damn. She just wants to kick her ass and get it over with.
"I'm a hippie, and a bodhisattva too. I mean, I'm one with everything, just like the joke goes." Lilith gets to her feet and seems to accidentally -- accidentally! -- spill her coffee. "Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry!" Maybe that will jar the woman out of her concentration and attack.
Phobia nearly hisses as coffee spills everywhere. Her chair growls against the floor as she pushes herself away from the table, grabbing up her clutch and the delicate spidery lace she was making. Anger floods her features, nearly pulsing out of her, as she finishes the motion by rising to her feet and stepping to the side, knocking over her own chair as she goes. The tenuous link she had built to Huntress, the gossamer thread of anxiety edging toward fear, shatters. "Ungraceful little twit," Phobia sneers, mind fighting to steady itself, regain its footing, and press back a growing sense of dread.
Huntress startles and turns to look at the two women, the klutz and the snarl. She tosses a silent look at Lilith -- you cool? I've got your six -- and then she looks at the British chick who is WAY more offended than should be explained by some spilled coffee.
"I'm *so* sorry!" Lilith just laughs and snaps up the coffee cup, saving at least half of it. She snatches a napkin and dabs it before it even gets across the table. "Gosh, I just don't know *what* got into me, I guess I was just thinking about Nightwing too much. You know?" She offers a smile over her shoulder at Huntress. A simple one.
There's a noticeable twitch under Phobia's right eye, and the muscles at her lower jaw works as she presses her teeth together. A few of the patrons that glance her way instantly start, gasping and withdrawing away as if the shadow of the worst of their nightmares whispered the veiled threat that it would make an appearance. The feel of their fears, collectively, seems to cool the sudden anger that flared up; a crisp autumn breeze on a late summer afternoon. With that wash, Phobia inhales slowly, drawing her shoulders straight once more, expression smoothing.
Huntress nods ever so slightly at Lilith's nod and turns back to her table, seemingly just another stranger mollified. She's still paying attention to the two women even if she's got her back to them.
"You know, I *totally* am late for an appointment at the Tripitaka Foundation." In the middle of the night, but whatever. Lilith waves her hand. "I'm totally covering your next round though, if you want one! Bye!" She snatches up her robes and heads for the door, glancing to Huntress as she makes her way out, to sort of give her a signal. Then she's out the door.
Phobia glares at Lilith as she makes her exit. Eyes narrowed. There's only one thing on her mind: Tonight, someone's going to get a visit from El Cucuy! No dream-catcher's going to help her victim tonight. One good nightmare, that's all she needs, and in the morning, this little Phobia'll be right as rain.
Huntress doens't outwardly acknowledge Lilith's departure, and doesn't follow straight away, either. That'd be obvious. So she stays for a while longer, sipping at the cooling coffee. Finally, after a few other people depart, she glances at her cellphone's clock again and gets up to leave.
