Rose and Crown: I Too Am Not A Bit Tamed

[Kaliyah Shah]

Callie heads into the bar in the evening, finally arriving after wandering around town for quite awhile. Sitting at the bar, she orders a beer and listens to the local band playing while she waits.

[Victoria Valentine]

"Goddess, I need a drink," Victoria sighed, making a gesture to the bartender, who started mixing her a drink. "Time to drink away everything we learned this week..."

[Kaliyah Shah]

"Victoria?" Callie says, sounding surprised.

[Victoria Valentine]

Victoria blinked, looking over. "Callie? Oh my goddess, what are you doing here?"

[Kaliyah Shah]

Callie laughs, suddenly wrapping Victoria in a crushing bear hug, "I was just transferred here! Cheese and crackers, it's been forever!"

[Victoria Valentine]

Victoria... blinked. "Who are you and why do you look like Callie Shaw."

[Kaliyah Shah]

"Shah," Callie corrects out of reflex, as she lets Victoria down. As the bartender sets down Victoria's drink, Callie puts some money on the counter and then hands it to Victoria, "I don't even know where to start. Machines were mice and men were lions, once upon a time. That sort of thing."

"C'mon," Callie says, picking up her beer, "Let's get a table and get caught up."

[Victoria Valentine]

Oh. My. God. "I... all right," she said, letting herself get pulled along, seeming... rather off-balance for once. Idly, she pinched her arm to see if this wasn't just a weird dream.

[Kaliyah Shah]

Callie takes a seat in one of the booths, smiling at Victoria.

"God, it's been too long. How's it go? 'Who shall put forth on thee, Unfathomable Sea?'" Callie says, "...Something like that. How have you been?"

[Victoria Valentine]

Victoria took a seat, opening her silver cigarette case. I think I liked her better when she was calling me a degenerate... "Oh, you know. A lot like boarding school went, just with more Sentinels and people trying to take over the world," she said. 'Idly,' she started drawing a design on the table in the condensation from her glass.

[Kaliyah Shah]

"That is absolutely amazing," Callie says, "Back in boarding school, I always kind of thought you'd end up knocked up or living with some psycho dude that thought he knew magic and owned a disturbing number of knives."

Callie shakes her head, "God, I was such a nasty, hypocritical bitch, right?"

[Victoria Valentine]

To her credit, Victoria didn't squeeze her glass hard enough to shatter it. "And back then I thought that you'd end up having an existential crisis over killing and maiming a bunch of your friends and spend years unloved enough that you'd start assuming that even people you were shitty to would be good company," she said, smiling sweetly before she took a sip of her drink. "Crazy, huh?"

[Kaliyah Shah]

"Actually, it's pretty spot on," Callie says, sipping her beer, "I am glad to see you though. I know it's weird and we hate each other, but there it is."

[Victoria Valentine]

"Well if you're going to take the fun out of it by copping to it," Victoria sighed, lighting the definitely-not-tobacco cigarette.

[Kaliyah Shah]

"Sorry. Six years of intensive therapy kind of covered up that sore spot," Callie says, leaning forward a bit, "But I promise to be emotionally devastated if you lend me one of those."

[Victoria Valentine]

"Ohhhh, if you insist," Victoria said, smirking as she slid one of the cigarettes across the table. "So, how're your folks," she said, 'conversationally.'

[Kaliyah Shah]

"Embarassed and absent," Callie says, tapping it down and then lighting it, She takes a deep breath and then coughs for a moment, "...How's yours?"

[Victoria Valentine]

"White-trashey and bigoted as ever. I think they were protesting someone's funeral last weekend. How about your old roommate... what was her name, Cindy? The one that swore up and down she was straight until every time she got drunk enough and ended up with her face between the closest set of legs?"

[Kaliyah Shah]

"Dead. A good large chunk of wall separated her spinal cord from her brain," Callie says, "What about that one friend of yours? Ember? The girl with the piercings who spent the night with the Pre-Calc teacher?"

[Victoria Valentine]

"In a convent after she spent senior year being molested for cash and ended up too afraid of the world to face anyone in the general public again. How about... oh, which one of the twins was it that sent naked pictures of herself to the football team at the highschool up the road?"

[Kaliyah Shah]

"Melissa," Callie says, "Died in a meth lab explosion with the coach of the same football team."

Callie took another deep hit from the cigarette, "I'm starting to think my therapist was right. I have a terrible, fucked up peer group."

[Victoria Valentine]

"Mmm, like gravitates toward like," Victoria said, taking a long hit off her cigarette and serenely flipping off the bartender who was giving her a dirty look.

[Kaliyah Shah]

"Then we must be mirror images," Callie says, "'I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions..."

[Victoria Valentine]

"...Except when someone has short hair and you tell the school counselor that she's a lesbian and tried to touch you inapropriately."

[Kaliyah Shah]

"Well, I don't know about the lesbian part, but she did touch you inappropriately," Callie says, "Along with about half the school, if I remember right."

[Victoria Valentine]

"And you always were so cute when you felt left out."

[Kaliyah Shah]

"Awww, thank you," Callie says cheerfully, "You were always cutest with duct tape across your mouth."

[Victoria Valentine]

"And you were always adorable when you were jammed between two naked wrestlers. Who may or may not have ended up being gay, you must have given SUCH a stellar performance..."

[Kaliyah Shah]

"What can I say?" Callie says, sitting back a bit, "I love bringing people together."

[Victoria Valentine]

"Mmmm... oh, like the English teacher's husband? Was that you?"

[Kaliyah Shah]

"You don't remember?" Callie says, "You were wasted."

[Victoria Valentine]

"Mmm, what did that school get closed down for, anyway?" Victoria asked leaning across the table to tap out her cigarette in the ash tray.

[Kaliyah Shah]

"Mmm," Callie says, taking another drag, "Ethical violations and criminal endangerment."

[Victoria Valentine]

"Called it, seventh grade," Victoria said, taking another drag and then putting the cigarette out. "Some things never change," I guess.

[Kaliyah Shah]

"And some things fill out rather nicely," Callie says.

[Victoria Valentine]

"Mmm, you know without a bra on, it's even more obvious how much more it turns you on when you don't know if you want to slug someone or rip their shirt off."

[Kaliyah Shah]

"And it also becomes obvious that no matter how much you despise me, you can''t stop staring at my tits," Callie says with a smirk.

[Victoria Valentine]

"Well for goddess's sake, they're just so perky and squeezable and you're sticking them out right there. And it's not like your eyes have met mine for the last five minutes," Victoria said leaning back and stretching her arms over her head and apparently stretching out a cramp in her leg.

[Kaliyah Shah]

"Why on earth would I be looking at your eyes?" Callie says, settling more comfortably into the booth. Apparently cramps are contagious, because Callie also had to stretch out her leg a bit.

[Victoria Valentine]

"Don't you even touch me with those dirty barefoot toes," Victoria mused. "You know all about what happens when you don't worry about hygene, after all."