The woman's foreign scent filled her strangely sensitive nostrils, overwhelming the general stench of the street. She could just see the predatory gleam in the woman's cold eyes, and felt a strange sort of gutteral response, almost more curiosity than antagonism. But like two wild creatures meeting, it was all about the gestures, the posturing.
At least for now...
"In a manner of speaking," she replied, enigmatically. Perhaps this woman was one of New York's darker citizens, like the ones that Kilraven had spoken of. The thought filled her with many things, apprehension and eagerness twined together at the forefront. Perhaps if this person didn't kill her, she'd be able to learn something. Be cagey, Bryn, she said to herself. Keep her talking, not fighting.
Bryn had been involved in her fair share of street scraps in her life, but, as with so many things these days, she suspected all that she had ever experienced was going to do her little good.
She could smell aggression leaking from every pore of the woman's fit body, and sensed within herself a new beast rearing its fearsome head in response, looking out from behind Bryn's wide blue eyes.
"Hm," Eleanor responded with a slow nod. She began pacing slowly in front of the girl, the chunky heels of her leather boots clicking dully against the stained pavement.
"Had a little run in, I see," she said, nodding towards Bryn's torn sleeve.
"You should be more careful," she added, flashing an almost mocking grin in the girl's direction.
If it had been day, or had the alley been more appropriately lighted, the clear gleam of elongated canines would have been obvious through her smile, but all that appeared the darkness was a barely noticeable glint. A glint she hoped the newly-turned lycan would possibly catch.
A shrug rolled through her shoulders, feigned nonchalance obvious in the gesture. "Excessive care is not my forte," she said, almost flippantly.
"Besides, isn't there some saying about the things that don't kill you. I hear they make you stronger." The saying certainly seemed to be proving itself true at least in this instance, Bryn reflected. She just hoped she wouldn't have to test herself against this creature. She took a moment to silently chide herself because she firttered away the day without finding a nice isolated place to find out a little bit more about herself.
Her gaze follows the pacing of the woman, not letting her leave her field of vision. She had a feeling that would be a bad, bad idea. She caught the dim gleam of light off of the fangs, and placed a mental checkmark next to the question of whether the woman was something other than human.
It had hardly been long at all since the paths of the two women had crossed, but Bryn was already getting tired of this strutting, spitting cat bullshit. She had told herself just a few minutes ago to be smart, cunning, all that crap, she just wasn't a very good listener.
"Look, I don't know who the Hell you are..." she stopped herself at that point, amending her statement both internally and in vocalization. "Well, I have a pretty damn good guess what you are, but that's beside the point. You may be big and bad around here, but I don't play those games. Maybe I should; it'd probably mean I'd be in a different place in life, but I have very limited patience for bullshit.
"So do you have something real to say to me lady, or Hell, even something real to do? Because I've had a helluva day. And while I don't have a home, a bed to go back to tonight, there are places I'd sure as Hell rather be than sitting here playing mindgames."
She ended in a huff, arms crossed over her lean torso, her eyes fearlessly meeting the other woman's, fatigue only marginally weakening her steely regard.
Eleanor glared back at the girl, amusement standing out clearly on her sharp features as she waited patiently until she had finished her outburst.
She had guts, that much she admited. But guts wouldn't get anyone very far in this life, in this time. Guts would only get you killed, or worse.
"Alright then. Let's skip the mindgames and go to a little piece of advice."
Without warning, Eleanor shifted so fast any human looking on would have thought she had simply disappeared and popped up in a different spot. Her hand grabbed both of the girl's wrists, pinning them with a deadly force over her head against the wall behind her. Her other hand shot to Bryn's hair, pulling the girl's head back and sideways so as to fully expose her neck.
Eleanor leaned in swiftly, fangs showing clearly now, and stopped just short of piercing the girl's smooth skin. She could hear, smell, feel, see the bloody pounding through her veins, she could almost taste it she was so close. Her lips hovered just above the girl's ear, her cold breath brushing against the skin.
"If you want to live around here, you'll have to learn to be a tad more tactful," she whispered coldly. "Because no matter how powerful you may think you are, you're as good as dead meat."
It never seemed to occur to people that the groin of a woman is almost as sensitive as the groin of a man. You just have to get it at the right angle. Her arms might have been trapped, but that left her with a good pair of legs. Instead of replying to Eleanor's little speech, she chose a more direct response with one of tha afore-mentioned appendages.
She brought her knee up in a sharp movement, one almost as fast as the creature herself had used on the girl. Her kneecap hit the woman's pubic bone with a resounding crunch. Huh, that was a new sound, part of her mused while in the moment immediately following the blow, she used all the strength she could muster to wrench her arms from the wall, pivoting her whole body away from the poised fangs and bringing the woman's hand, if it is still clasped around her wrists, across her own body and using momentum to unbalance her, heedless of the clump of hair gripped in the woman's hand. There were far worse things to be lost than hair, and in any case, her grip was likely weakened by surprise if nothing else.
Eleanor had immediately let go of the girl's wrist upon the first blow, dull pain shooting up her body, but she fiercely ignored it, having gotten used to worse pains over the years.
Her fingers remained tangled in Bryn's hair, but the girl's attempt at throwing her off balance went unheaded. Vampires were known for having immaculate balance.
Instead, she used the girl's own momentum to slam her back against the wall, face first. She locked both her arms behind her back, pulling them up roughly, and pressed a knee between the girl's legs so as to keep another incident from happening.
She hissed harshly in the girl's ear, pushing aside the throbbing pain that still rang in her groin.
As one might have guessed by this point, restraint was not part of Bryn's vocabulary of actions, nor was giving up. She had managed to use her free arm to break the impact of her body against the wall before it was captured behind her back, so no major damage done there.
With every passing moment, she felt the beast growing within her, the woman's hissing voice only spurring it more. Bryn just couldn't hold onto herself strongly enough to fight it. A low growl started in the back of her throat, an inhuman reverberation that rumbled through vocal chords that were struggling and writhing within her into new shapes.
Silly bitch, putting her face so close to Bryn's. With a sharp twist of her head, Bryn's cranium slammed into Eleanor's nose, leaving behind a handful of hair twisting through the woman's fingers. The motion had been sharp enough to rip the hair from Bryn's head rather than holding it back. She rolled back into the woman's weight, using the leg the woman had thrust between her own as a fulcrum, getting her booted feet onto the wall and shoving, upward and outward, with all her might, using that thrust to lever herself above her captured arms. Bryn had always been an athletic little thing, a situation which seemed to have only improved with new developments. Her back was then the part of her body that directly hit Eleanor's upper chest and head, sending them both tumbling away from the wall.
Eleanor slammed back against the wall, stabilizing herself against it. She glared back at Bryn, fury now boiling through her like molten lava.
Silly little girl. She has no idea what she'll be up against.
Brute force. That was all she had been using. But Eleanor had the advantage of both experience and age.
Another smirk spread across her face, twisting her features into that of a purely devilish creature.
"Well you're a strong little lycan, aren't you? Though I hope you realize that up until now, I would've had countless chances of snapping that pretty little neck of yours had I chosen to do so," she hissed coldly.
She crouched there on th ground some few yards away, where she had fallen, landing on both feet and falling into a position from which a swift spring could send her in most any direction. Tendrils of dark hair fall over the girl's visage, casting it into savage shadow. Her gaze is feral now, blue shading into wolf-gold. She struggled with the beast who consumed her and tried to change her, forcing it down. Once she felt she could speak at all like a normal human being, she did so, unnoticing of even the slender rivulet of blood making its way down her face from her ravaged scalp.
"Then why the Fuck didn't you? Are you just looking for someone to grovel at your feet, to shake at your every word, rather than to have a troublesome little girl like me well out of the way by killing me? Like I said, I don't give one shit about your games. If you can kill me, fine. I am not afraid of death. Life is so shitty, death really can't be that bad. And I would prefer dying over dancing to the tune of your loveley self as well as every other goddamn bitch and bastard in this city who won't leave me the Hell alone."
She meant it, this little stripling of a thing, every word. Death wasn't such a bad thing, as long as you have fought the good fight. It was confidence in this belief that allowed Bryn to meet Eleanor's demonically twisted features with no trace of fear. No, fear was washed away, along with the last of Bryn's innocence.
"I don't know exactly what you are, but I don't think its the same thing I have become. If this is some sort of racial thing, get the Fuck over it. Discrimination is out of vogue. If you do this to everyone who happens to get bitten by some strange wild animal through no fault of her own, you need to get a fucking like. This isn't high school. Beating up the freshman just creates more monsters for the future."
Eleanor simply shrugged a Bryn's little bout about death and discrimination. She'd heard it all before. Ravaging new converts, hopeful lycans and demons. Anyone foolish enough to believe they could all get along or go down with the rest of them.
"After a few hundred years of walking around this bloody place, you run out of things to do. You're just my newest bit of entertainment."
She smirked again, finding a sort of twisting amusement out of the rage that burst from each of the girl's pours. "But don't worry, I won't be making you beg. That's what the humans are for."
Was the woman really finished with the confrontation? Her words seemed to lean that way, but Bryn still felt wary.
Her system was beginning to smooth back into watchful equilibrium, the beast momentarily calming, subsumed by her more human personality, which was currently mulling over a particular phrase Eleanor had used. After a few hundred years...
The thought sent a little chill down her spine. She couldn't imagine why the woman would be lying, and in light of other revelations made recently, Bryn wouldn't necessarily fully disbelieve any preposterous notion thrown her way.
And what was it that the woman had called her? Lycan? As in lycanthrope? Bryn tried to remember how she knew the word. Probably from some trashy horror novel. Also, some vague recollection of the usage of a similar word in her conversation with Kilraven the morning before, combined rather ominously in the man's explanations with the term 'curse'.
"Alright, so if I am a lycan, and you aren't, but are also not a human, just what the devil are you, then? I mean aside from being a heartless bitch." Bryn's lip curled into a harsh sneer as she tried to underplay her curiosity and perhaps elicit some more information.
((OOC: Sorry about the delay. Classes and all. x_X ))
Heartless bitch. The irony of her using that exact term was almost funny after the little discussion she'd had with Magnus a few nights prior.
Eleanor rolled her eyes at Bryn's attempt at looking menacing, or mean, or cold, whatever the hell it was she was trying to achieve through sneering and calling her names she was aware fitted her perfectly.
"You really are innocent, aren't you?"
In a flash, she covered the two steps seperating her from Bryn and her hand flew out at the girl's face, her black-varnished nail scratching against her cheek. Before Bryn could protest, she caught the single drop of blood slipping from the small cut on her thumb before slowly licking it off, taking care to let her fangs slip out.
She stood back, holding out her hands as if inviting Bryn to analyze her.
"What the bloody hell do you think I am?"
ooc: Noooo problem. I haven't really had much time to reply either :/
She unconsciously bridled at the use of the word 'innocent' in reference to herself. She had not had that particular term ascribed to her in longer than she'd care to admit, and yet she admitted that it was probably true insofar as her current situation. Preoccupied with these thoughts, she was caught off-guard as the woman darted close and extracted the drop of blood from her smooth, unsuspecting cheek.
She skittered back, after the fact, a stinging sensation only now pricking her flesh as she watches with wide eyes the woman consume the drop of blood. It wasn't at all like someone sucking a cut on their finger, or even pretending to like the flavor of blood. Her goddamn eyes practically lit up with pleasure, and something deeper, a dark, feral hunger. Her eyes once more found those gleaming, knife-like incisors, and suddenly she found herself in little doubt at all as to what the woman was.
"Well, looks like I stumbled into a fucking Anne Rice novel," she said harshly, the words spit out like small stones, projectiles thrown at some unknown assailant, perhaps her own newly-discovered naivete.
Eleanor let out a short, cold laugh, smirking in amusement.
"Yeah, the woman really doesn't have that much imagination. Just fairly good resources," she corrected.
Part of her was enjoying this. Corrupting the girl's innocent view of the world, watching it shatter as she was fed more and more truth she would never have agreed to had she not been surrounded by it.
At least for now...
"In a manner of speaking," she replied, enigmatically. Perhaps this woman was one of New York's darker citizens, like the ones that Kilraven had spoken of. The thought filled her with many things, apprehension and eagerness twined together at the forefront. Perhaps if this person didn't kill her, she'd be able to learn something. Be cagey, Bryn, she said to herself. Keep her talking, not fighting.
Bryn had been involved in her fair share of street scraps in her life, but, as with so many things these days, she suspected all that she had ever experienced was going to do her little good.
She could smell aggression leaking from every pore of the woman's fit body, and sensed within herself a new beast rearing its fearsome head in response, looking out from behind Bryn's wide blue eyes.
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"Had a little run in, I see," she said, nodding towards Bryn's torn sleeve.
"You should be more careful," she added, flashing an almost mocking grin in the girl's direction.
If it had been day, or had the alley been more appropriately lighted, the clear gleam of elongated canines would have been obvious through her smile, but all that appeared the darkness was a barely noticeable glint. A glint she hoped the newly-turned lycan would possibly catch.
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"Besides, isn't there some saying about the things that don't kill you. I hear they make you stronger." The saying certainly seemed to be proving itself true at least in this instance, Bryn reflected. She just hoped she wouldn't have to test herself against this creature. She took a moment to silently chide herself because she firttered away the day without finding a nice isolated place to find out a little bit more about herself.
Her gaze follows the pacing of the woman, not letting her leave her field of vision. She had a feeling that would be a bad, bad idea. She caught the dim gleam of light off of the fangs, and placed a mental checkmark next to the question of whether the woman was something other than human.
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"Look, I don't know who the Hell you are..." she stopped herself at that point, amending her statement both internally and in vocalization. "Well, I have a pretty damn good guess what you are, but that's beside the point. You may be big and bad around here, but I don't play those games. Maybe I should; it'd probably mean I'd be in a different place in life, but I have very limited patience for bullshit.
"So do you have something real to say to me lady, or Hell, even something real to do? Because I've had a helluva day. And while I don't have a home, a bed to go back to tonight, there are places I'd sure as Hell rather be than sitting here playing mindgames."
She ended in a huff, arms crossed over her lean torso, her eyes fearlessly meeting the other woman's, fatigue only marginally weakening her steely regard.
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She had guts, that much she admited. But guts wouldn't get anyone very far in this life, in this time. Guts would only get you killed, or worse.
"Alright then. Let's skip the mindgames and go to a little piece of advice."
Without warning, Eleanor shifted so fast any human looking on would have thought she had simply disappeared and popped up in a different spot. Her hand grabbed both of the girl's wrists, pinning them with a deadly force over her head against the wall behind her. Her other hand shot to Bryn's hair, pulling the girl's head back and sideways so as to fully expose her neck.
Eleanor leaned in swiftly, fangs showing clearly now, and stopped just short of piercing the girl's smooth skin. She could hear, smell, feel, see the bloody pounding through her veins, she could almost taste it she was so close. Her lips hovered just above the girl's ear, her cold breath brushing against the skin.
"If you want to live around here, you'll have to learn to be a tad more tactful," she whispered coldly. "Because no matter how powerful you may think you are, you're as good as dead meat."
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She brought her knee up in a sharp movement, one almost as fast as the creature herself had used on the girl. Her kneecap hit the woman's pubic bone with a resounding crunch. Huh, that was a new sound, part of her mused while in the moment immediately following the blow, she used all the strength she could muster to wrench her arms from the wall, pivoting her whole body away from the poised fangs and bringing the woman's hand, if it is still clasped around her wrists, across her own body and using momentum to unbalance her, heedless of the clump of hair gripped in the woman's hand. There were far worse things to be lost than hair, and in any case, her grip was likely weakened by surprise if nothing else.
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Eleanor had immediately let go of the girl's wrist upon the first blow, dull pain shooting up her body, but she fiercely ignored it, having gotten used to worse pains over the years.
Her fingers remained tangled in Bryn's hair, but the girl's attempt at throwing her off balance went unheaded. Vampires were known for having immaculate balance.
Instead, she used the girl's own momentum to slam her back against the wall, face first. She locked both her arms behind her back, pulling them up roughly, and pressed a knee between the girl's legs so as to keep another incident from happening.
She hissed harshly in the girl's ear, pushing aside the throbbing pain that still rang in her groin.
"Like I said. Tact."
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With every passing moment, she felt the beast growing within her, the woman's hissing voice only spurring it more. Bryn just couldn't hold onto herself strongly enough to fight it. A low growl started in the back of her throat, an inhuman reverberation that rumbled through vocal chords that were struggling and writhing within her into new shapes.
Silly bitch, putting her face so close to Bryn's. With a sharp twist of her head, Bryn's cranium slammed into Eleanor's nose, leaving behind a handful of hair twisting through the woman's fingers. The motion had been sharp enough to rip the hair from Bryn's head rather than holding it back. She rolled back into the woman's weight, using the leg the woman had thrust between her own as a fulcrum, getting her booted feet onto the wall and shoving, upward and outward, with all her might, using that thrust to lever herself above her captured arms. Bryn had always been an athletic little thing, a situation which seemed to have only improved with new developments. Her back was then the part of her body that directly hit Eleanor's upper chest and head, sending them both tumbling away from the wall.
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Silly little girl. She has no idea what she'll be up against.
Brute force. That was all she had been using. But Eleanor had the advantage of both experience and age.
Another smirk spread across her face, twisting her features into that of a purely devilish creature.
"Well you're a strong little lycan, aren't you? Though I hope you realize that up until now, I would've had countless chances of snapping that pretty little neck of yours had I chosen to do so," she hissed coldly.
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"Then why the Fuck didn't you? Are you just looking for someone to grovel at your feet, to shake at your every word, rather than to have a troublesome little girl like me well out of the way by killing me? Like I said, I don't give one shit about your games. If you can kill me, fine. I am not afraid of death. Life is so shitty, death really can't be that bad. And I would prefer dying over dancing to the tune of your loveley self as well as every other goddamn bitch and bastard in this city who won't leave me the Hell alone."
She meant it, this little stripling of a thing, every word. Death wasn't such a bad thing, as long as you have fought the good fight. It was confidence in this belief that allowed Bryn to meet Eleanor's demonically twisted features with no trace of fear. No, fear was washed away, along with the last of Bryn's innocence.
"I don't know exactly what you are, but I don't think its the same thing I have become. If this is some sort of racial thing, get the Fuck over it. Discrimination is out of vogue. If you do this to everyone who happens to get bitten by some strange wild animal through no fault of her own, you need to get a fucking like. This isn't high school. Beating up the freshman just creates more monsters for the future."
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"After a few hundred years of walking around this bloody place, you run out of things to do. You're just my newest bit of entertainment."
She smirked again, finding a sort of twisting amusement out of the rage that burst from each of the girl's pours. "But don't worry, I won't be making you beg. That's what the humans are for."
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Her system was beginning to smooth back into watchful equilibrium, the beast momentarily calming, subsumed by her more human personality, which was currently mulling over a particular phrase Eleanor had used. After a few hundred years...
The thought sent a little chill down her spine. She couldn't imagine why the woman would be lying, and in light of other revelations made recently, Bryn wouldn't necessarily fully disbelieve any preposterous notion thrown her way.
And what was it that the woman had called her? Lycan? As in lycanthrope? Bryn tried to remember how she knew the word. Probably from some trashy horror novel. Also, some vague recollection of the usage of a similar word in her conversation with Kilraven the morning before, combined rather ominously in the man's explanations with the term 'curse'.
"Alright, so if I am a lycan, and you aren't, but are also not a human, just what the devil are you, then? I mean aside from being a heartless bitch." Bryn's lip curled into a harsh sneer as she tried to underplay her curiosity and perhaps elicit some more information.
((OOC: Sorry about the delay. Classes and all. x_X ))
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Eleanor rolled her eyes at Bryn's attempt at looking menacing, or mean, or cold, whatever the hell it was she was trying to achieve through sneering and calling her names she was aware fitted her perfectly.
"You really are innocent, aren't you?"
In a flash, she covered the two steps seperating her from Bryn and her hand flew out at the girl's face, her black-varnished nail scratching against her cheek. Before Bryn could protest, she caught the single drop of blood slipping from the small cut on her thumb before slowly licking it off, taking care to let her fangs slip out.
She stood back, holding out her hands as if inviting Bryn to analyze her.
"What the bloody hell do you think I am?"
ooc: Noooo problem. I haven't really had much time to reply either :/
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She skittered back, after the fact, a stinging sensation only now pricking her flesh as she watches with wide eyes the woman consume the drop of blood. It wasn't at all like someone sucking a cut on their finger, or even pretending to like the flavor of blood. Her goddamn eyes practically lit up with pleasure, and something deeper, a dark, feral hunger. Her eyes once more found those gleaming, knife-like incisors, and suddenly she found herself in little doubt at all as to what the woman was.
"Well, looks like I stumbled into a fucking Anne Rice novel," she said harshly, the words spit out like small stones, projectiles thrown at some unknown assailant, perhaps her own newly-discovered naivete.
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"Yeah, the woman really doesn't have that much imagination. Just fairly good resources," she corrected.
Part of her was enjoying this. Corrupting the girl's innocent view of the world, watching it shatter as she was fed more and more truth she would never have agreed to had she not been surrounded by it.
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