Logs:A Fresh Poison Each Week

A Fresh Poison Each Week
cn: assault/violence/blood
Dramatis Personae DJ, Dusk, Isra
In Absentia	2021-10-14 "Sure there's better targets out there right now if you're in a fighting mood."
Location <NYC> Freaktown - Riverdale
It's late, and Riverdale has gotten quiet, ish. With the lights down low and the curtains drawn and many of the residents either in bed or absconded to more lively parts of the city, it almost looks once more like the respectable estate its erstwhile residents wished it would be. Still, between the patchwork of new construction that's cropped up -- chicken coops and vegetable garden beds and trampled-down sparring rings in place of manicured lawns and gazebos -- the bright absolutely not-HOA-approved decorations, the motorcycles docked at many of the mansions, it's evident even now that the neighborhood has changed. Perched currently on the roof of one sprawling mansion, tucked among a half-built rooftop garden bed in jeans, warm thick flannel, DJ is not so in inconsiderate as to be continuing construction at this hour. Instead he's keeping a wary eye on a trio of motorcycles circling the periphery of the territory unofficially carved out as Freak Town, telltale white crosses on the riders' jackets. He doesn't quite relax even after the bikes are long out of sight. High above, a shadow passes over the gibbous moon--to large to be a bird, nocturnal or otherwise, and hopefully not a plane flying so low and quiet. Not a terribly unusual sight around Freak Town, Isra's decent is leisurely, by flying standards, banking as she nears Riverdale to survey the sleepy neighborhood below. As she passes DJ's perch she tucks her trailing wing, turning more steeply and shedding more altitude. Though her trajectory is bringing her to him. for a moment it seems like she might just keep going past to land in the yard below or perhaps the next house over. The she stalls her motion in mid-air and hovers, regarding him steadily before dropping down to land lightly on the rooftop nearby. Her skin is slate gray, the membranes of her massive wings blacker then the night above New York and certainly more studded with stars. Her caprine horns and the talons on all six of her limbs gleam like polished hematite. She's dressed in voluminous white garment that looks like it belongs on a Greek goddess and not a looming gargoyle with entirely too many sharp digits. A blue nazar on a chain around her neck and her cat-green eyes are the only color on her person. She does not blink, hardly moves at all save for small adjustments to wings and tail as she keeps easy balance in the night breeze. "I am Isra," she tells him levelly. "I was curious to see you up close. I will leave if you do not wish to be perceived." A bit of inflection creeps into her voice here, though it is hard to identify what, if anything, it conveys. "Many people have been curious." DJ's eyes have locked into Isra through this recent, his expression shifting through several discomfited states -- though by the time she lands it's mostly just settled back into wary. Her speech doesn't seem to appease this much, though it does add a curious tilt to his head. "I'm guessing you knew him too, then." He mostly sounds resigned, here, turning to look back out over the neighborhood. "Won't lie, I did like the time in my life when nobody ever looked at me twice. Isra, you said?" "Yes, Isra." Her voice does not exactly stray from its near-monotone, but it sounds creepily doubled now, a barely audible bass echo beneath her resonant alto. "I knew him." Her tail lashes just a little faster behind her. "I liked that time, too, and if you would prefer it I can avoid regarding you in the future." From someone else this might come off sarcastic or even passive-aggressive, but she just sounds entirely matter-of-fact. "Thank you for your work on the grounds." One taloned wingtip makes a sweeping gesture to indicate the garden beds in progress. There's another shadow circling overhead, though this one not for long. It comes from the direction the motorcycles had disappeared to, a quick ungainly flap of wings descending erratic to the roof in a gust of air, a thump of boots. Dusk still looks bony-sharp as he has for months, now, but there's more color in his cheeksp. His wings snap back behind him when he lands, dark eyes flitting between the others on the roof. "-- anybody ever fucking sleep around here?" It doesn't sound like he's expecting much of an answer, because he continues on without waiting for one. "You seen any more of those assholes tonight or was it just three of them?" "How did you like --" DJ begins, but cuts himself off to watch Dusk's arrival now, too. He frowns, looks back down to the street. Looks to Dusk. "I only saw the three. You'd think they'd have learned to come here in bigger packs by now." Isra's ears prick up before Dusk's shadow begins to veer towards them. The slight mantling of her wings and the sinuous sway of her tail might not register as relief to the uninitiated, and her facial expression changes very little as her partner alights on the rooftop with them. Nor does she seem to take any issue with his tone, perhaps taking his question as rhetorical, in any event. "I approached from south-southeast and saw no others." She tips her head toward DJ by way of agreement. "Perhaps the rest are watching the game." Her ears press back and she stretches the long spar of one wing toward Dusk. "I can patrol with you, if you are concerned about an incursion." One hairless eyebrow ridge arches up. "Or spoiling for a fight." Dusk growls low, his tongue swiping quickly over fangs that glint in the moonlight. "Please, like those cowards put up a fucking fight." His wings stretch out restlessly, pull back in, talons scraping hard against the rooftop. When he whirls on Isra it's sudden; the wing that snaps out toward her has, distressingly, regained the lion's share of its strength the past couple days. "You think I can't handle a few goddamn flatscans? What the fuck are you even doing here now anyway, slumming it?" Isra does not recognize she's being attacked until the blow almost lands, her reflexes only fast enough to tumble her just backwards out of its reach, wings stretching wide and tail lashing wildly for balance. "No, I--Dusk" Her cry is startled and distressed, but the growl that rumbles from her chest when her words fail is low and warning. "Hey --" DJ shimmers away from the railing a moment later, blinking just in between Dusk and Isra with hand up and open. "Pretty sure this place is for all of us, friend." His voice is lower, cautious. "Sure there's better targets out there right now if you're in a fighting mood." Unconcerned with Isra's tumbling, Dusk is all too eager to redirect his energy -- the spar of his wing following through to snag sharp claws around DJ instead and hook him closer when he foils the first blow. His next snarl is harsher, torn up from his throat as his teeth snap hard at the other man's throat. Isra regains her balance quickly when DJ intervenes -- at least physically. The growl softens but never fully fades. Her wings flare out then suddenly pull back in with an impulse to flight that quails when Dusk catches hold of DJ. "No. No. Stop." Her tone is off, and she's struggling to say more, but the growl swells to drown it out. She only manages to force out "please" an instant too late. It is likely that whatever DJ was expecting, it was not actual biting. His hand has curled, arm starting to lift as if to ward off a blow that does not exactly come; instead it's a curl of wing, a snap of teeth; for just a second he's unbalanced, though with Dusk's wing behind him he doesn't really have anywhere back to fall. "Dusk --" even now comes more startled than angry, at least until teeth snap; his hissed "-- st --" might have been halfway to stop but it's as far as he gets before an uncomfortable pained gasp. The stop is answered only with an outward lash of Dusk's other wing, batting toward Isra with an irritable swat. Where his fangs sink in there's a sudden rush -- pain, yes, but euphoria as well, heady and delirious and muscle-weakening all at once. His tongue laps hungrily against broken skin, the thick flow of blood. His wing tightens hard enough to bruise; his low growl easy to feel, now, rumbling through his chest and DJ's both. Bewildered and panicked she may be, but Isra clearly knows better than to contend with even an off-handed sweep of Dusk's wing in his current state. She dances out of reach only to dart back in and seize the same wing he'd just swatted at her. Her own wings snap down and forward to lift herself, a desperate and ungainly bid to wrench the much, much stronger man off-balance. "Stopstopstop" She's not shouting or screaming or crying, just repeating the word over and over. The growling, though, never stops. DJ isn't saying anything, anymore. If he's trying it only comes out as a soft rasp, quiet and breathy. He's gone largely slack in Dusk's grip, eyes wider and head lolling back against the soft wing. Probably at some point in here he's tried to jump away -- drugged and disoriented as he is, though, this only results in both he and Dusk blipping some feet upward, not helping much with Isra's attempts at rescue. Dusk bites down harder when they're suddenly in the air -- abruptly his arm is curling where his wing had been. His wings snap outward, shaking down hard -- both to dislodge Isra from her grip with little heed to where she ends up and to vault him and his passenger up, swiftly, into the sky. He doesn't slow, just a dark shadow that briefly blots out the moon over Riverdale and then is gone.