She chuckled one last time and shook her head a little bit, removing a strand of crimson hair from her face as he pulled the car neatly to a stop. She blinked, leaning over to try and stare out the window a little more, attempting to see if he'd bumped anything. She'd tried driving a few times... it had always ended badly. She supposed he'd probably had a lot more practice than her.

As soon as the car was shut off, reached to open her door, a little bit too slowly. It opened before her hand could grip the handle, and she pressed her lips together into a line as she stepped out, crossing her arms in front of her belly. “Thanks, but yeah, could have managed.” It wasn't that she particularly minded the gesture, it was nice and all, of course. However, manners from the guys she lived with weren't something she was particularly accustomed to, and she still wasn't quite sure how to respond to it. It was difficult to keep a snippy attitude with someone who was nothing but polite.

She wanted to get right going, of course, but she couldn't; she didn't know where the restaurant was, and so she'd have to wait. Her stomach gave an uncomfortable little growl that she sincerely hoped had been audible only to her.

[]GAH! I've been waiting for Kathryn to come back, but it looks like she's lost interest...I'll play her until she comes back. I'll try to stay in character...[]

Kathryn stepped out onto the wet sidewalk, reading a book entitled Metals in Magic. She was completely unaware of the conversation between the two older people in the car, because she was able to tune out anything while reading.
Vincent put a few quarters in the parking meter, and began walking towards the river. Seven o'clock on a Tuesday morning and this is as close as I could get to the restaurant? That's mad...
The sidewalk sloped steeply down towards the river. Vincent could see over the tops of the buildings at the bottom of the hill, across to the other side of the Potomac. When Vincent reached the bottom of the hill, he crossed the street to the sidewalk on the opposite side.

[]Rupert was here.[]

[]NOW POST![]

((Yeah, fair enough. Maybe we should PM her…? Maybe her computer crashed or something >>

Sorry I didn’t post for so damn long. I was in Toronto at a conference x.x))


Kira followed him quietly, watching the little girl with the book, trying idly to peek over her shoulder and see what she was reading. She wasn’t really all that interested, per say, she just wanted some way to occupy herself while she waited to get to the restaurant. Her tummy was still rumbling unpleasantly; she wanted food. Silently, she hoped Flint would be willing to cover some of her bill. She wanted to eat something big. She had no idea why she was so hungry, considering the fact that she’d eaten at lunch. Well... she hadn’t eaten much at lunch. Maybe that was it.

Eventually they made their way down the hill and into an area filled with buildings. She figured the restaurant would be here. Hopefully it wasn’t too much further of a walk; in spite of her hunger though, she couldn’t help but admire this place. She’d never been to this part of the city, and it was nice having everything so close to the river. “Flint, in my experience, these river-side deals tend to be sort of expensive… you said it wasn’t too bad for price. How “not bad” are we talking?” She was painfully aware of how light her wallet was right about then.

[]It's "per se."[]

Vincent looked at her as if the thought of financial issues hadn't occurred to him. Actually, it hadn't; he had assumed he'd foot the bill. Why was she asking about money again?
"I tell you, Kira, it's nothing I can't handle. I don't cook. I go out to eat all the time. Do you think it would upset my budget that much? Just so long as you eat all you order, and I'm not actually throwing money out the window, I'll be fine with whatever you do."
He came up to a building that had "RIVERSIDE" painted in large gold letters on the outside. It shared side walls with both adjacent buildings. Vincent glanced in the window and groaned. He had forgotten the unspoken "jacket and tie" rule.
Few patrons to Riverside actually wore a jacket and tie, the place wasn't that formal, but Vincent was sure that the girls' attire would we frowned upon. Although the staff of the restaurant hadn't created this air of formality, the customers would probably stare. He decided to warn the girls of this.
"Kathryn, Kira," he said, "Your clothes are a bit too casual for this place, but it's not like they'll throw us out because of it. You'll get some funny looks from the other people in the place, but just ignore them. Most of the staff know me, and they're used enough to me to make sure you don't get too much trouble." He left the last statement vague enough for the girls to draw their own conclusions.
"And we can get a table upstairs. They usually fill up the ground floor before they start on the second, to make it less cumbersome for the wait staff."

((....oops >>))


Kira had been silent, staring up with a blank face at the restaurant, her mouth open slightly for a moment before she remembered to close it. This was nice. Much, much nicer than anywhere else she’d ever gotten to go to. Sure, she’d been taken out for dinner before. But her company at the time had been ex-soldiers and mercenaries. They hadn’t been known for caring much for eloquence. Of course, she’d grown up with that atmosphere, and it had rubbed off on her, so she hadn’t cared much either. Now that she was looking at it though and knowing she got to eat here, suddenly it didn’t seem so bad. Except for the bill. Now that seemed utterly atrocious.

However, before this unpleasant thought could wiggle its way too far into her head, Flint was speaking again. "I tell you, Kira, it's nothing I can't handle. I don't cook. I go out to eat all the time. Do you think it would upset my budget that much? Just so long as you eat all you order, and I'm not actually throwing money out the window, I'll be fine with whatever you do."

The young vampire blinked, her face going blank for a second as she looked over at him, a weird mixture of surprise and irritation. He was just assuming that she couldn’t handle it herself. Well of course he knows you can’t handle it, it’s pretty obvious you’re dirt-poor. Shut up. It’s true. He’s not paying for me. This is the guy who freaking killed me more or less. So? It’s free food. He’s also paying for the roof over your head in case you forgot. Only ‘cause he has to. No he doesn’t. ….shut the hell up!

She chose to stop her mental argument at that point and the expression left her face, being replaced with a mingled look of resignation and gratitude. She was hungry. She wasn’t going to skip eating to save her pride. She really didn’t want to be nice to him, not at all, but when someone’s being nice to you it’s difficult to be a bitch in response.

Then he was talking about her clothing. As he spoke, she glanced down at herself; old rocker tank top, torn up jeans, combat boots… personally she saw nothing wrong with the arrangement. Then again, how often did she eat anywhere fancy? She heard him say that it wasn’t going to be an issue, but she didn’t much care, to be honest. What were they going to do, tell her she couldn’t eat ‘cause she wasn’t dressed up enough? Pfft. Yeah, okay. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know why him being there would prevent issues though.

“Yeah… if I had anything more…formal, I’d wear it.” She responded. Truly, she didn’t care. But it was just easier to avoid a fuss sometimes. “My old…friends…well, they weren’t into that. I guess I picked it up a bit.” She half-stumbled over the word ‘friends’. What would they think of her now? She forced the thought away as her heart tugged. Instead, she brought a thin, false smile to her face and shrugged. “Oh well. Let’s head in then, I’m starving.”

[]Yes, DC is back and posting![]

Vincent held the door for the girls and followed them into the foyer of the restaurant. The room was dimly lit, and the walls and ceiling were painted black. The tiled floor was in a deep red and blue.
"Mister Flint," said a teenage boy standing at the front desk, "Your usual spot I---oh? You have...company?"
Vincent scowled at the boy, who stared blankly back at him.
"So..." the boy said, glancing at Kira, then Kathryn, then back to Vincent, "Table for three then?"
Vincent rolled his eyes and gave a "Well, duh" look. The boy picked up two menus, for he knew exactly what Vincent was going to order, and asked, "Upstairs or down?"
"Upstairs, if you have room," Vincent said. The maître d' was called Simon, and he was a chicken. Vincent enjoyed scaring him, when he got a good chance.

[]Gah, how do you make yours so long? There's nothing to say... I will describe the restaurant in more detail after we go upstairs.[]

Kira flashed the boy a bright smile as they passed, offering a sarcastic little wave before following Flint and ignoring him again. He was intimidated by the man, it was obvious, and Kira personally found it rather hilarious. She'd only found Flint to be an intimidating guy once, and in that situation she'd been unarmed and quite literally about to die. She figured that showing him to a table in a restaurant hardly matched up. Then again, she'd been hunting these guys. Perhaps their natural intimidation had worn off for her.

When they got to their table she sat down, looking around the place, ignoring any disapproving glances that she noticed. “And you come here a lot? You really must be loaded.” She said, half-awed.

It was a Tuesday morning, so the restaurant wasn't exactly filled with people. However, Vincent was there, so it would be safe to draw certain conclusions about the other patrons. Diurnal people didn't eat dinner at four in the morning.
What Vincent didn't tell Kira was that her clothes weren't the only reason people were giving her looks. The people eating dinner could probably tell that she was an inexperienced vampire, and were more likely snubbing her for her immaturity. Vincent just hoped that none of them recognized her. Who knew what horrors would ensue...

The stairs were made of wood, stained a deep brown, almost black. There was a deep blue carpet runner that seemed to be cut to fit that particular staircase. The upstairs room was nearly empty. There were two other tables occupied. A young Asian couple sat making eyes at each other in one corner, and an ancient, gnarled man sat alone in another. The tables were covered with jet black cloths, and the plates were black, with accents in deep blue and red. Even the silverware was darker than usual. The lights were dim, and they all had red shades. Out the window was a remarkable view of the river, which shimmered in the night, reflecting the city lights. Every now and then, an airplane would fly low over the river, to land at the nearby airport, and the low roar would drown out the soft music playing in the restaurant. Simon seated the trio near the window, and what sounded like classical rock seeped in, probably from a neighboring building.

There was a candle encased in blue glass in the center of the table. Simon lit it, and handed Kira and Kathryn menus. He, like the rest of the wait staff, knew exactly what Vincent would order.
"Our soup tonight," he said, "Is lobster bisque. We are out of halibut, and Miller lite. Restocking trucks usually come at seven in the morning, so we're tight right about now. Someone should be around to take your order soon."
With that, he walked away, a bit too quickly.

"Don't mind him," Vincent said to Kira, "He's a chicken."

[]I just went back and read page 10. I am in love with page 10.[]

((I know. I'm in love with that whole scene; I think it's probably my favourite so far. Aside from Kira trying to shoot him, and forgetting that she hadn't loaded her weapon. That was...so me.

I have an idea that could add some cool conflict later on >> What if one of the vampires here did recognize Kira? Like, she hunted down a friend or a lover of theirs or something before?))

Blue eyes stared after the boy as he left, her expression fallen a little bit. "I can see that..." She said idly. He had a funny smell about him, different from how the other patrons smelled, and different from how Flint and Kathryn smelled. She didn't know if she herself had a smell like all the others, but she did know his was different. It smelled...really good, actually. She wasn't sure what to think of that.

"Why's he smell so weird?" She asked, half to herself, half to the others, assuming that they'd be able to catch the scent as well. She watched as he headed back down the stairs, then her eyes flickered over the only other two occupied tables before she flipped her menu open and scanned it. She found herself immediately drawn away from the section that displayed several salads that normally would have sounded delicious to her. They some how didn't seem very appealing at all. She scanned the menu for a minute, then sighed and closed it up, glancing around the room.

"This is nice..." She said quietly, admiring the decorating scheme. She'd expected something more... stuffy, somehow. Perhaps it was just because the window was so close, and the view was lovely. It made the room feel much more spacious in her opinion. "You said they have good steak?" She asked, turning back to Flint. She'd never had steak before, but this wasn't the sort of place she normally ate at. The items listed on the menu all sounded really foreign to her. They probably weren't, she knew. She probably just didn't recognize all of the names. But regardless, steak sounded safe enough. "How come you didn't get a menu, anyways?"

"They stopped giving me a menu after the fifth time I came here, and told the maître d' that I wanted steak before he left my table. It wasn't Simon, then. It was a black boy who had to be a foot taller than me. He had an afro. About Simon's smell..." Vincent thought, and put a hand on his chin. "I don't know. Everyone has a different smell, but I never noticed that Simon was particularly remarkable."
The dull clip-clop of high heels on wood announced the arrival of a waitress. Vincent's back was toward the staircase, so he turned around to see if the girl was coming to their table. Upon seeing that she was not, Vincent turned back to Kira.
"What are you going to order?" he asked.
"Hey," Kathryn spoke up, pointing to a spot on her menu, "How do you pronounce this?"
"Zucchini," said Vincent. "What did they feed you at the foster home? Easy-Mac and sloppy joes three meals a day?" Speaking to the pair of them, he said, "Do either of you recognize anything on here?"

[]I'm trying to find a way to weave page 10 into a flashback in the version I'm using for school. Any ideas?[]

((No clue, but I'll think on it and get back to you >>))

Kira glanced past him for a moment to eye the waitress, frowning when she saw that she was approaching one of the other tables instead. Dammit, she wanted to eat... the blood had helped with her pain, but her regular old hunger was still there. She heard Kathryn ask a question about zuchinni and smiled to herself a bit as she once again mindlessly scanned the menu. She recognized names of fruits and stuff, but the names of the actual dishes were beyond her. She didn't want to accidentally eat frog's legs or something weird like that.

"I don't...really know anything on this menu." She responded, her tone wistful. "I'll probably just have the steak...it must be good if that's all you get." She'd never tried steak before, but it couldn't hurt anything.

Vincent fiddled with his ponytail as he looked past Kathryn's left ear out over the river. Turning to Kira, he said, "That's fine with me. How do you like it cooked?"
"Um, all the way?" Kathryn inquired.
Turning to the younger girl, Vincent said, "Eew. Well done? Yuck."
"Well how else would they cook it?"
A look of realization coming onto Vincent's face, he turned the pages of Kathryn's menu until he found a little chart.
"Rare," Vincent read off the menu, "Cool red center. Medium rare; cool pink center. Medium; warm red center. Medium well; warm center with a thin line of pink. Well done; order chicken."
As he spoke, a girl with large, curly blonde hair walked up to the table. She smiled. Her mouth was very big. She looked something like a horse.
"And what would you like today, Mister Flint? The usual? For you two, I'm Sheffie."
Vincent coughed something that sounded like "And that's a wig." Sheffie glared at him.
"So what can I do you for?" the waitress said, beaming at Kira and Kathryn.

[]Sheffie is a vampire, but she tries to hide it. Hence the wig. If you're dead, your hair won't be that bouncy and, well, alive. Kira and Kathryn shouldn't be able to tell immediately, but they might...[]

Kira scanned her menu one last time, then glanced at the waitress, a tiny smirk tugging at the corner of her lips as she heard Flint's not-so-well hidden remark. She still hadn't really decided what to eat (she didn't see any Big Macs or anything of the sort listed on the menu, so simply choosing was a tad difficult for her), however, she didn't want to wait any longer and Flint probably knew what he was talking about. "I'll uh...get a steak...and I'll take it..." She scanned the menu quickly. "..medium rare? Sure. Yeah, that sounds fine. And water to drink." She wasn'treally sure what vampires would drink, but water seemed fine. It occured to her that for all the years she'd spent making vampires (namely hunting them down) her entire life, she really knew nothing about actual habits and what everyday life was like for them. After all, here was one working as a waitress, a completely normal, mundane job. I wonder how many times I've spoken to a vampire like this and not even known it... It was a strange thought, but one that she suddenly realized was very, very likely. Her order finished, she left Kathryn to order, and turned her eyes back to Flint. "So...thanks for bringing us here and stuff. It's uh..nice of you. And uhh...sorry about before. Trying to kill you...and all that." Apologizing wasn't normally in her vocabulary, but it seemed appropriate, as awkward as it felt for her.

Kathryn made her order, and the waitresses shoes made a clip-clop sound as she walked away.
Vincent was about to open with "darling," but thought better of it.
"Kira," he said, showing his better judgment, "It's really I who ought to be apologizing. You're the one who's deader than she was two days ago." [[Was it two days ago? I've forgotten...]] He sort of half-smiled, not sure whether or not he'd bother Kira by bringing that up. "The least I can do to make up for it is treat you properly. Although, in actuality, it's the most I can do. There's not much a man can do to make up for an unwilling conversion to almost a different species." He shrugged. Unless, of course, he happens to be a member of that species...
Kira wasn't stupid. Vincent could tell that, but he didn't take too kindly to people who attempted to kill him, no matter how pleasant and intelligent they were once you got to know them. Normally, he would have played dumb for as long as it took to get rid of her, but that strategy apparently didn't work. Normally, upon that failing, he would have taken her somewhere and taken all her blood, simply because she was there and why not, and she was a vampire hunter, and the fewer there are of them the better. If, for some reason, he had been indisposed to do that, he certainly wouldn't have turned her. He still wasn't sure what had compelled him to do that.

[[I'm going to have to stretch this quite a bit for his motivations to be solid (hence his thought earlier), iffin' ya don't mind.]]
[[Btw, I just read page 10 again. So much love for that scene... <3<3<3<3]]

Kira half-smiled, then laughed a little bit at his response. "Well, you certainly have a point there. Honestly though, you wanna know the truth? You could consider us even as soon as you got me out of that god forsaken old bag's place." She faked a face as if she was going to be sick. "You know, I used to like cats. Now I think they're only good for punting." She stopped there, catching herself in a ramble. "Eh...right. Don't mean to get all boring on you."

Thinking about the old woman made her think of the rest of her old life as well (less than half a week ago, and she was already thinking of it as her old life. Go figure.), and the thought made her frown a bit. She looked at Flint again, her expression more serious. "You know they're going to look for me, of course. And they'll find me eventually; I mean, I've never known them to be unable to find whoever they wanted to. How...well, how do you want to go about dealing with that? ...if I go somewhere else, they'll leave you alone." Her eyes flickered to the window as she said it for a brief moment. She didn't want to have to leave; she had no idea how to survive as a vampire. Even if she hated Flint and Kathryn, she'd never manage on her own. And she didn't hate them in the slightest. If anything, just the opposite; she was coming to rather enjoy their company. However, she knew it reallywasn't up to her in the end.

((OOC: Agreed. I've been reading over all of it for like two days now ^.^ ))

Vincent sighed.
"I had suspected something like this. I figure the best way is to lie low while training you in undead self-defense. Vampires are rather good at escaping and not getting killed, as you're probably aware."
He was becoming more and more annoyed that he was not allowed to keep his house in the country. Although, he couldn't really call it the "country" anymore. The old neighborhood was now filled with McMansions on tiny plots of land. Kira was old enough, she could probably stay out there on her own...
"Well, we can't move until after tomorrow, because I'm booked at Blues Alley. Friday's the last day I have to clean out my house in Virginia...wait...what about Tina? I have a friend who lives around there who we might be able to stay with for a while. If it gets out of hand, I also have a house in upstate New York...but I would have to cut my contract with Rob..."
"What about me?" Kathryn said, cutting him off. "You're not just going to drag me along while you go off on this crusade, will you?"
I HATE children.
"Well, since you are not old enough to stay anywhere on your own, I have little choice. You like Kira, though, don't you?"
Kathryn glared at Kira. "I guess."

[[I like how I actually have some future events planned. This is one of the most structured RPs I've ever done...]]
[[I'm bored, and I feel like writing, so I'll go for description.]]

A small moth flew around a lamp across the restaurant. Vincent's eyes followed it absentmindedly. The dimly lit room was decorated with fishing and sailing paraphernalia and paintings, and it smelled vaguely of low tide. The top floor was half as large as the lower floor, so there was a large open space where diners on the top could look down into the bottom floor. Since the table was near the far wall, Vincent could just see the top of the front door and the red "EXIT" sign that hung above it. And the giant swordfish that hung above that.

The moth was joined by another moth. The door opened, and Vincent heard another night patron enter the building. Simon came back upstairs and led the woman to a table across the room, in the corner without a window. Her table was lit by a red-shaded lamp hanging on the wall, and it made her glow dimly maroon. Simon pulled out a flyswatter and killed one of the moths as he walked back downstairs. Vincent felt too warm.

As he opened the window, the sound of the river lapping at the shore came softly to Vincent's ears. It was very faint, and Vincent was sure he could only hear it with his enhanced hearing. It was a peaceful sound, but naturally Vincent's nature made it something that would calm very few. His first thoughts were of the plagues of Egypt, when the river turned to blood, a thought that he found more relaxing than the polluted Potomac washing up on the banks. The moth flew into the lightbulb, died, and fell to the table.

Kira listened as he listed their options, relieved not to hear any mention of her leaving to fend for herself. She was, however, surprised to here mention of the three of them getting up and moving altogether.She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting him to say, but it had been something along the lines of the three of them just hiding in the apartment for as long as they could before someone came looking. Now that she thought of it, of course, it didn't make much sense. They'd be more or less sitting ducks that way, she guessed.

She remained silent for a moment or so after he finished; she heard him address Kathryn and smiled a bit at the young girl's response. This situation... moving to live with two of their sort (well, her sort now too), and having one of them openly admit that they even liked her. It was too bizarre.

She smiled as he opened the window; the breeze felt nice. She couldn't think of any appropriate response to what he'd said. Honestly, she wasn't sure it really warranted a big response. "That sounds good to me." She said simply. She was about to say more, but then a very human feeling snatched her attention away: hunger. "Flint...how long does the food here normally take?"

[[Not as human as you might think...and I was planning on having the food arrive in this post, actually.]]

"Oh, it should be around about---"
Clip, clop
"---now."
The waitress returned, and placed two steaks and a soup at the table. Kathryn scowled.
"What is this?"
"Lobster bisque," the waitress called Sheffie said.
"Did you expect Campbells?" Vincent asked.
"I said I wanted soup..."
"That's soup. It's good. Trust me, I've had it."
"Pardon me if I don't exactly trust your tastes," Kathryn said, gesturing at her neck. Vincent's eyebrows shot up. The waitress raised an eyebrow at Vincent, who scowled at her.
"Will you be needing anything else?" she asked.
"No," Vincent said, and she walked to the table with the Asian couple.

Vincent watched her go, until the other patron in the far corner caught his eye. A gnarled old man sat staring, with what Vincent assumed was a half-puzzled expression, at their table. At Kira, if Vincent was not mistaken. Vincent picked up a pen and wrote on the napkin:
Don't look now, but that guy in the corner is staring at you. Do you know him?
Vincent could probably hear anything the man might have said, so he took precautions in case the man was also a vampire. Vincent hadn't known a vampire to let himself get that old, but you never know. He could just be some random creeper, or he could be one of those pacifist types who don't drink human blood. Animal blood could keep you alive and running around, but you would look---well, like a gnarled old man.

Kira had already began cutting into her steak hungrily, barely even paying attention to what Flint was saying because she was so intent on her food. However, once she heard her name mentioned, she glanced up and listened, and then looked in the direction he was indicating, her eyebrows raised curiously. Sure enough, there was some strange old guy looking overat their table; when she caught his eye, though, he looked back at his own food. She watched him for a moment more, then swallowed her mouthful of food and shrugged, looking back at Flint. "Not sure. I don't thik I've seen him before...actually..." She frowned a little bit and looked back. She looked thoughtful for a moment, then her eyes lit up in realization. "Wait! Yeah, I think I recognize him... he used to come into the old lady's store all the time. Aside from that though I have no clue who he is."

She began cutting into her steak again, thinking of how nice a salad probably would have been two days ago to go along with this meal, and how strangely unappealing it seemed now. "I dunno, it doesn't seem that weird... I've run into random people I've met in the city before, so why not that guy?" She couldn't help but wonder though; maybe Flint had some reason to think it over that she didn't know. "Why? Do you think he might be trouble?"

"I don't know..." Vincent said. "I may be paranoid, but I believe that no good comes from strangers who pay undue attention to you. Also, there aren't many kinds of people who come to dinner restaurants at this hour."
Kira used to be a vampire hunter. Several of Vincent's family and friends had been killed by such people. He would be surprised if none of the other people in this restaurant had acquaintances who had had bad run-ins with Kira, or her sort.

[[Sorry for the shortness, but it was getting crazy that I hadn't posted this yet, and I can't think of anything good.]]