Delilah Shaw, Odette. Sunday 29th Jan, 1943
[17:01] Odette di Benedetti wandered up the lane enjoying the evening breeze and relative quiet.
Her debut was in two days and she had yet to be able to meet with the costumer, and perhaps the nerves were just touching her.
Odette spied the shingle for the pub and it occurred to her that she might be in need of a nip of whisky.
Her house was only barely habitable, even for a nearly five-hundred-year-old vampire, so there was no whisky to be had at home.
Giving the door a small shove, she stepped inside and was greeted by the smell of aged yeast and hops and sweaty bodies.
Fantastic combination.
It took only an instant for her sharp vision to adjust to the change in lighting, and those black wide eyes scanned the dingy interior looking for, perhaps, dessert for her whisky.
[17:07] Delilah Shaw was, mercifully, not of the undead variety that had to forgo drink. She was however of the type that required large quantities of significantly /strong/ drink for her corpse-like physique to somehow process it. This largely lead to her aimlessly binge-drinking away what money she typically had on her person. Right now.. she was doing it while glaring out the bar window at the imposing asylum looking over the entire island. It wasn't the healthiest way to spend her time, but she had scarce little else to do right now. At least the bartender seemed to sympathize with the Allies. That and her being visibly from the homeland meant she got cheap drinks, which.. meant more drinking. It was a cycle. She pulled the cigarette from her mouth and took a long stiff drink off of the glass of stout in her hand. Yeah, she was handling things /great/.
[17:07] Delilah Shaw caught the sight of pure white in a small shape from the corner of her eye, and she sort of.. stopped drinking mid-sip. The glass was set down for a moment, and she rubbed at one or two of her eyes to focus it. Was that.. no, couldn't be. It'd been well over a decade and change before Berlin happened to her. The odds were bullshite-impossible. But, by chance, she ventured her voice up a tick. "Geimhreadh ardaigh?" <"Winter rose?"> Came the curious bit of Gaelige from her mouth, as she sat up in her seat a bit.
[17:22] Odette di Benedetti peered down at the floor, carefully stepping over discarded peanut shells and the occasional cigarette but to pick her way to the bar.
The man behind it was stocky, though congenial enough when asking what she'd have.
"Jameson's, neat with a drop of water, please.". Odette was rather proud of herself to have placed her order without wrinkling her nose in distaste.
It took only a moment for the man she could only assume was Murphy, given the shingle that hung above the door, slid the glass of whisky across the bar to her. Odette lifted it with a small nod of her head and a murmured, "Thank you."
She held the glass just far enough away to not appear judgmental, though she did sniff the contents to assess the authenticity. It was at that moment she heard the voice.
The hair at the back of her neck and along her arms stood on end.
It couldn't be.
That voice...so distantly familiar that it could have been her own...those words in a beloved tongue.
Odette froze, afraid to turn in the direction of the voice only
[17:22] Odette di Benedetti have it be a mirage. Or hallucination.
Geimhreadh ardaigh. That had been Delilah's nickname for her.
Winter Rose.
Without turning around, the diminutive muttered the phrase in answer, knowing that if it were real, if it were truly Delilah, she'd hear her.
"Dreach tairisceana." Tender Thorn, because you could not have one without the other.
[17:24] Odette di Benedetti (moirraah.flanagan): *diminutive woman
[17:29] Delilah Shaw evidently /did/ hear her, because her face softened in ways it didn't really look like it was meant to. She drains her glass and pushes up to her feet, and sort of just.. stands there in disbelief. "I'll.. I'll be fucked. Either I've snapped and my mind's getting creative in the tormentin' lately, or I've finally caught a bit of luck." Delilah starts to push her way past the other patrons in the bar at this hour, just imposing enough in stature that even the drunkest of them parted with at most a nudge. When she gets close, it's easier to get a look at her. It really does look like her. "Odette, truly, is that you? I.. fucking hell, I didn't think I'd see your face again." For Delilah's part, there's.. differences. Her hair's chopped short and barely reaches the jawline. She's got a soldier's coat on over her clothes, and the gun strapped to her hip looks decidedly military. "It.. is you, yeah?"
[17:38] Odette di Benedetti 's spine was ramrod straight as she waited.
Then came the answering expletive and the small woman turned, slowly, to watch the other cross the room.
Fathomless black eyes widened then skittered over the taller, decidedly differently-looking woman.
Odette could feel the tell-tale prick behind her eyes that, under other circumstances, would have preceded tears, and she swallowed hard.
Both drink and bag were set on the bar, and without preamble, Odette stepped close, her head tipping back to look up at the woman she'd thought lost to her forever.
It took her a long moment to finally answer,
"You're here.".
It was a simple statement, and those liquid obsidian eyes fixed on the familiar face as one hand lifted, fingertips touching a short lock of red hair between them.
If she allowed it, Odette would slide her arms around Delilah's waist to wrap around the other, her face tucking under Delilah's chin and she'd murmur,
"You're here."
[17:45] Delilah Shaw felt her face visibly going numb for the second time in as many days when the other woman confirmed herself as really, genuinely there. Odette practiccally rushing across the room and eliminating any distance between them managed to catch her by surprise, though. If the decidedly standoffish vampire ever looked thrown off-balance, it was when those small hands reached up to touch at her hair. "I.. yeah. It's me." Her arms splayed out a bit to the sides in even further surprise still when Odette embraced her, the limbs staying wide for a moment before they wrapped in tight around her. "I'm here." She lowered her face down to press her forehead against the crown of Odette's head, and she let out a quiet sigh. "I'm apologizin' to someone again today, it seems. Sorry, love." She squeezed inwards a bit. "I was out at a diner looking for food, someone heard me talking to someone that wasn't there in public, and.. off to the 'asile' I went. You 'n Gethis were the gone by the time I slipped out."
[17:46] Delilah Shaw (delilah.mercury): ((*were gone by))
[17:57] Odette di Benedetti just...stood there, her arms around Delilah's waist, the pressure of her forehead against the crown of her head...the fragrance that was so wholly Delilah.
Images flashed through her mind- the moment she'd realized Delilah was gone with no clues as to what had happened, searching the city's every rotten nook and cranny hoping for some morsel of information.
The day she'd finally packed up the apartment and left Paris.
"She's gone. Died nearly forty years ago now. Stupid bitch got herself roasted like some fat aristocrat's Christmas goose....", her voice broke a little at this. She didn't really think of her former partner as a stupid bitch, but it was easier to say that than, "My heart perished in a fire.".
After several moments, Odette leaned back enough to look up at Delilah's perfectly freckled face, pushing up on tiptoes enough to press her lips to first one cheek, then the other, before coming back to rest on her heels and say,
"No apologies. I am so sorry I could not find you. We both looked...
[17:57] Odette di Benedetti so long."
A throb of guilt shot up her spine as she realized Delilah had been institutionalized and had finally escaped to find her gone, the apartment deserted.
She didn't want to let go, but she had no doubt they were in the way and people were clearly starting to stare.
"Sit with me?", she asked, finally releasing her former lover to snag her bag and drink, and make her way back to the table Delilah had risen from.
[18:05] Delilah Shaw visibly felt her face fall when Odette revealed what ultimately happened to Gethis. There's a grunt and she pulls back, tries to reach for the smaller woman's chin to look her in the eye. Either way, she gives the most sympathetic look the Irish woman's capable of. "Oh, love." She sighs, eyes somehow managing to soften despite their seemingly impentrable hardness. "We both know you don't mean that. I'm.. well, sorry doesn't quite cut it." The pair of kisses got her lips to actually quirk up into a small smile, before the overwhelming dourness of her face pulled it back into shape. "Means enough you tried. We both know how life is for us types, sometimes we just.. up and disappear." Her head cants a bit to one of the distant bar-goers. A mortal, by the smell of him. "Usually their fault."
[18:05] Delilah Shaw gave a small nod when Odette bid them both to sit, neither seeming all to keen to hash anything out in the middle of a bunch of strangers. "Gladly, love. There's.. shite, a lot to go over that none of these folk deserve to hear" She turns on a heel and walks back over to the booth she'd been sat in. And.. even her walk seems different. It's stiffer, and she seems preoccupied scanning the horizon out the window the entire time on her way to her seat. But sit she does.
[18:14] Odette di Benedetti followed to slide into the booth beside Delilah, the neat whisky immediately brought to her lips for a deep pull of the amber liquid before her dark gaze lifted to land on the side of the other's face.
Guided by Delilah's line of sight, Odette could see the preoccupation, had noticed the military uniform, the difference in the gait.
They all lived though hellish things in their many centuries, but something different had scarred this woman who was still a large part of her heart and soul.
One dainty hand lifted to rest on the coated forearm, an attempt to pull the attention from something dark and painful.
"Tell me what's going through that busy red head of yours, Thorn?".
Surely, it could be so much. But, something was heavy on Delilah's soul.
Odette's velvet rasp was not loud enough for a mortal to hear, but her companion would surely have not missed the words.
[18:23] Delilah Shaw settled into the seat with the all the posture of someone that looked ready to bolt at a moment's notice. She withdrew into her head for a moment while she waited for Odette to join her in the booth, and that hand on her arm managed to quickly snap her back out of her mind. And.. there it is. "Never could hide it from you, especially. Always bleedin' knew." She breathes out, a small trail of smoke exhaling with the breath. There's a few beats where she's clearly figuring out how to answer, and she finally just shakes her head and lets out a bitter laugh. There's no real response at first. She.. seems not to want to share, but Odette's gaze on her, that /nickname/.. all makes it sort of just start to spill out of her. "Where do I start? Maeve going missing after our last fight? What they did to me in the sanatorium? Berlin, and how I lost yet another lover there? Getting dragged off to war? Deserting said war? My mind cracking one piece at a time one day at a time? Escaping here to find not one,
[18:23] Delilah Shaw but two pieces of my heart I thought dead and gone neither dead or gone?" Her fingers are pinching that cigarette between them like it grounds her to reality. Delilah falls completely silent for a few minutes after that. "It's been a long decade and change since we lost sight of each other, Rose."
[18:24] Delilah Shaw (delilah.mercury): ((*few decades and change))
[18:36] Odette di Benedetti 'd had turned enough to watch the shimmer of emotion behind Delilah's eyes. The features, not as much and she could tell that whatever had happened had steeled her Boudica's spirit even more than before.
The glass was lifted once more, the rim rested on the lower one to be pillowed there for a sip as Thorn gathered her wits.
When the words began, it was a tumble of explanation and all the tiny vampire could do was hold on for the ride.
Maeve...missing.
She noticed Delilah did not say she was dead, and the childer would know. Hopefully.
The sanitorium. It was ironic that Odette had visited the one on the hill just today, only to find that her Thorn had been subjected to one.
Berlin. Oh, no....Berlin and another lost love. No wonder it had taken then so long to find one another again.
The Godsforsaken war. That explained the uniform, the salt of her posture and demeanor to a degree.
That had that had dropped lifted once more to gently grasp the forearm, a tender squeeze given in a show of support.
When
[18:36] Odette di Benedetti Delilah got to the part where she'd found not only Odette herself, but someone else, she lifted her eyes to Delilah's much lighter ones, her own wide with shock,
"Wait....here? On Callisto?", her rasp was rusted with the depth of it all...
[18:41] Delilah Shaw felt the energy slip out of her after that, and she forced eye contact to fully break between them then. Her face turned to look out the window as she let herself get a hold of herself again. The outburst of emotion wasn't /her/, she didn't do that. And it showed in the way that she seemed to stiffen back up in the waking moments of her outburst, only to relax a bit when Odette grabbed for her arm again. "Here." She said, quietly, nodding on up to the asylum on the hill. "It's.. a long story, but their name is Alex. After you and I lost each other, I met them in Berlin. I'll spare you the sob story after all that I just dumped on you, but they're up in there." She pointed up now with the two fingers holding her cigarette. "Their family sent them here five years ago, same night I had to flee Berlin. I've gotta bullshite and claim I'm their cousin just to see them."
[18:54] Odette di Benedetti could do no more than blink, and her eyes followed up to where Delilah pointed.
"shit...". It was a hissed expletive. Perhaps it was construed as empathy or simply shock.
What were the chances that she'd meet Alex today at the same time Delilah found her way here and found them /both/.
"First of all....should you find it foolhardy enough to try to 'spare me the sob story', I will know and I will attempt to kick your rosy ass."
Odette reached out and gently took the cigarette from Thorn's fingers, tucking it between her cherry-slicked lips to take a deep drag from it, then replaced it in its owner's grip once more before continuing.
"Secondly, Alex is adorable and delightful. I'm going to take a stab in the dark and guess they can see the same things you can.".
That made so much sense after what she'd experienced today.
Her dark eyes slid to Thorn's face, and her hand lifted to join them, the pad of her thumb dashing lightly against the gentle cleft in the sweet chin.
"My darling. We will get them free. I am
[18:54] Odette di Benedetti so sorry for all you've been through. But, you will have your love back.", this punctuated with the tenderest smile she could muster.