1291/Up on the roof no one can hear you...

Up on the roof no one can hear you...
Date of Scene:	22 April 2020
Location:	A rooftop in NYC
Synopsis:	A first meeting between Helena and Elektra with more in common than the rooftop they chose to perch in.
Cast of Characters:	Elektra Natchios, Helena Wayne

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Elektra Natchios has posed:
Elektra could still smell the stench of blood on her Sais.

They had been coated in blood an hour ago where she had given way to her rage and ended one of the Hand. Someone she had known in the past and couldn't afford to let go and report to what she was up to here in New York. A dual life between working with the Hand and at the same time attempting to topple them. And it also went against what she had promised someone. That she would attempt not to kill anyone while she was here. Well, it's not like a predator's nature can be changed...

So it was with those thoughts that she took up to one of the New York rooftops later that night, feeling the chill night air on her face, garbed in her usual black and red outfit, sais on her sash yet the mask down, her eyes up on the sky.

Would it rain tonight? Maybe that would clean away the blood scent she was feeling in the air.

Helena Wayne has posed:
Helena has her own strange reasons for being on the rooftop, specifically in the dark purples and whites of her Huntress outfit. It was a new name for her - stolen, she later found out - but it was as good as anything else. She'd pick something else eventually. Maybe.

For now, here is a good place to think. Far away from Metropolis and a confusing conversation she doesn't want to revisit just yet. She drops down from a higher vantage to land several feet away from Elektra, regarding the woman from the distance in silence for a moment. Her own footfalls are silent even on the gravel-strewn rooftop, and when she announces herself it's with a no-nonsense voice largely devoid of emotion. The product of much practice.

"This seat taken?"

Elektra Natchios has posed:
If Elektra noticed the other figure when it landed there was no motion to acknowledge or otherwise turn towards it, simply continuing to look out into the night, one foot up on the ledge, long midnight-black hair whipping about at the wind that is picking up.

The voice does make her stir though, head turning slowly to regard the newcomer, the outfit. Familiar? Gothamites have never been her specialty even if she has been there a few times. With a rather faint smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes she gestures.

"It is a big enough roof." she says. A moment of consideration and then she adds, "You are good." perhaps in acknowledgement of the silent manner in which she approached Elektra's spot.

Helena Wayne has posed:
"I had a good teacher," Helena answers, leaving it at that. She moves towards the edge of the roof, still moving with silent footfalls despite having made her presence known. She leaves several feet between them, reasoning they both need their space, and lightly drops down. Heavily booted feet dangle out over the edge, heels bumping arrhythmically against the brick of the building they sit on.

"I come here to be with my blood-soaked weapons, too," she says, only faintly turning her head to glance sidelong at the other woman and grin lightly.

Elektra Natchios has posed:
"Seems the world is full of those 'good' teachers." It makes her smirk just so, continuing to watch the woman's posture and motions. Would she consider her own a good teacher? Mmm, interesting question. It does bring her back to a conversation with a certain bat-like hero though.

Yet those thoughts vanish when Helena mentions blood-soaked weapons, her dark eyes seeming to glint briefly, smile finally appearing to reach them. "Have you?" she murmurs, "To hope they wash in the rain?"

She folds her arms together, turning her torso to regard Helena more fully now.

Helena Wayne has posed:
"That good teacher of mine never trusted water for cleaning," Helena explains, that faint smile still playing on her lips and clearly visible through the wide domino mask she wears, "It was industrial solvents or nothing. He never wanted to risk bringing anything home that he didn't know about."

She sighs, leaning back on the palms of her hands and staring up towards the sky as well. She regards it carefully with narrowed eyes, embracing the long silence that follows.

"Do you ever think it's kind of weird we live in a world where people in masks meet on rooftops to talk shop?"

Elektra Natchios has posed:
"That's rather drastic. But understandable for someone who may have a home to protect and keep safe." Elektra replies, her full face continuing to show. For someone who never really bothered to find a 'hero' name for herself besides her first name it doesn't seem to her that people seeing her real face disturbs her too much. Or at least those that do not seem connected to the Hand.

Yet silence seems to be just as welcome as talking, the assassin turning her gaze to watch the city below them, the lights, people moving to and fro even this late. A city that never sleeps indeed..

"Violence and blood is often what brings together those with masks like us. An attraction towards the danger." but then some curiosity. "What would you talk about instead, if you could?" maybe she welcoming of a change of a pace of what is her 'normal' life.

Helena Wayne has posed:
"I'm not really complaining, I suppose. I think this is probably the thing I know most, truth be told. I've been doing it all my life. Now, if you wanted to talk about North American flying mammals - I could talk your ear off about that, too ... "

Given a moment to think, Helena can't quite understand what compels her to just lay her soul bare on a rooftop. She was taught to be guarded and she's stuck by that maxim since she arrived in this strange place. But once she realised she wasn't actually alone in the world, it was like a dam had burst. She'd almost gotten into a debate about miniature crossbows in the Starbucks line.

"I've got to ask," she adds tentatively, nodding to the sais, "Did whoever got the business end of those at least have it coming?"

Elektra Natchios has posed:
Elektra can certainly understand so. Considering she has been making a living out of killing ever since a rather young age. Shaped by it. With the occasional bursts of light and hope that have been very few and spaced in time. "We all need to be good at something in this life. Some are only good for dying. Others survive no matter what." the way she says it seems she puts herself on the latter category. Perhaps putting Helena there too. Still, a rather grim look on life and death.

The question about her Sais makes her lift her brow, thoughtful. She glances towards one as well. "Would it matter if they did or not?" she questions, but then continues on. "They won't be coming back to refute or complain how unfair it all was. Not that we live in a fair world.." and she can't help but smirk at that. "Yes, certainly not a fair one." though then she finally answers. "If I have my sights on them they always have it coming." judge, jury, executioner type it seems. But that's Elektra. Though she does ask. "Did yours?"

Helena Wayne has posed:
"It'd matter to them, don't you think? Whether or not they can say anything about it."

That's religion. Helena's father didn't do religion. Neither did she. But then again, a best friend that she'd seen die before her eyes recently floated back into her life courtesy of an Instagram image. Maybe there was something to the whole 'life after death' thing.

Or not.

She looks down at the miniature crossbow on her hip, thinks on it for a moment, then shrugs.

"I suppose you're right. It probably doesn't matter."

Elektra Natchios has posed:
The Hand assassin considers Helena for a few moments, quiet, again that study on her expression.. She eventually decides about sitting down, pretty much mirroring the other woman, legs dangling down the ledge, not particularly afraid of heights. Always a crucial aspect of rooftop-dwelling vigilantes. Or assassins..

"And it matters to you as well, doesn't it?" Elektra finally speaks, thoughtful, perhaps just as much on what Helena is saying but also on what she is. "Hesitation can be a deadly thing. Stopping. Not going ahead with a kill. Many consider it a weakness." and it certainly brings to mind recent events in Gotham. Not going ahead with a kill. It had, ironically, saved her own life.

"Do you think it should matter?"

Helena Wayne has posed:
"It's not something I'd do myself," Helena answers slowly, glancing sidelong at Elektra, "If that's what you're asking. I can see the merit of it, but I was always taught that if you kill a murderer the number of murderers in the world doesn't change."

She shrugs her shoulders again, looking down off the edge of the building at the pavement far below. She sighs, unhooking the mini-crossbow from her belt and moving it to sit on the ledge alongside her. There's a brief sigh as some semblance of comfort returns without the thing poking into her hip.

"It's very easy to come up with reasons to do it. Maybe nothing that comes easy is worth having?"

Elektra Natchios has posed:
"What if you kill five, ten.., twenty murderers?" Elektra retorts, one finely-trimmed brow arching up as she glances towards the other woman. "That ought to change the numbers a bit. Of course that then one needs to live with it. Which is the difficult part." one that often she still found herself at odds with. Specially after having returned to New York and come across certain people of her past.

She stays silent for a few moments after, digesting both Helena's and her own words, perhaps having voiced the doubts that brought her up here to this rooftop in the first place. So much easier sometimes to just open up to a stranger than someone you have met for a long time.

"I wouldn't say nothing. Many things come easy that are worth having. At least depending on the perspective." she gestures towards the city. "So many people live out there, choosing the easy choices. Are they happy? Perhaps."

"Killing should never be an easy choice. But it should never be off the table."

Helena Wayne has posed:
"You and Immanuel Kant wouldn't get along," Helena says with a faint smile, leaning back on the palms of her hands, "Or maybe you would. He believed that all we have is the imperative to do good and our duty. My duty is to keep people safe, not to execute the people who threaten that. That's my black and white. I can definitely see where you're coming from, but if I make the exception one time then it'll be just a little easier to make the exception again."

Another shrug.

"There you go. A free lecture on Kantian ethics while you wash your stabbers."

Elektra Natchios has posed:
A shrug is returned even if a faint smile does crease up on Elektra's expression. "He can go to the long list of people I don't get along with. I can live with that." she brings one leg up to her, arm wrapping about it and keeping it to her chest. A more relaxed posture perhaps even if her words are not. "So we are going back to choices, and exceptions. What if you didn't have one?" she questions. "If you were put on a situation where your survival, or that of a loved one for example, was on the line and the only way out was to kill. Would you do it?"

She shifts on her side of the ledge to keep her eyes fully on Helena now, curious. No judgement on her tone either, sure she has met these type of vigilantes.. Batman, Daredevil.. Heck, some even more than just 'meet'.

"Because your choice of weaponry doesn't seem to convey non-lethal methods." A look given to the crossbow.

Helena Wayne has posed:
"My application of my weaponry is non-lethal," Helena offers, "Just because I can kill someone with it doesn't mean I will. I suppose that's all part of the mystique. If they're never quite certain just how far I'll go, then they won't be so willing to push. That's the idea, anwyay."

"Your other question is basically the trolley car problem." She can't help but grin, winding it all back to philosophy lessons. The sort of things her parents never had a great deal of time for, but that she ate up. "If a trolley on a switch-track is rocketing towards five people you don't know and a person you do is on the other track - do you pull the lever to lessen the damage? Kant would say you don't touch it and nothing is worth making yourself an agent in that situation and taking on some sort of responsibility at the cost of your personal ethics."

A sigh, she pulls a quarrel from her belt and balances it on the tip of her finger.

"That's a fancy way of saying I'll cross that bridge when I come to it."

Elektra Natchios has posed:
"See, this is why I hate philosophers. No praticality to things. Not doing anything would be even worse." And damn, Elektra certainly didn't like this trolley car problem as it was explained, her dark gaze narrowing. "So Kant would wish us to do our duty, and what is good. But at the same time we should take a step back, forgo that same duty and just let it happen. Wash our hands, like Pilates." she knows some religion too! Which is always a great mix, religion and philosophy..., or not..

"This is why I have never liked lines in the sand. Black and white. Good and evil. All of that is ever-changing in this life."

Though then she presses her lips together, expression softening. She can understand it, even if it's a bridge she crossed long ago. "Everyone in this life has to, one way or another, in a point in their lives. No matter what they may tell you."

Helena Wayne has posed:
"You sound like you'd be more at home with the eastern philosophers," Helena suggests, glancing sidelong at the other woman for a moment, "Or maybe not. I'll admit, sometimes it's nicer to have your own morality and leave it at that. I suppose you never have to explain anything to anyone if you don't want to. You're only ever accountable to yourself."

She lapses into silence for a little longer, leaning her chin against her shoulder and casually regarding Elektra over the top of it. She's silent for a long moment, then a grin of sorts creeps across her face and she adds:

"You know, if I were the sort that talked to people, I'd be talking to them about how this is the closest thing to a date I've been on in years. Moonlight. Scenic view. Deep and intellectually stimulating conversation. I imagine a date would have less talk about the morality of murder, but that's living in New York, isn't it?"

Elektra Natchios has posed:
"I have never been a follower." Elektra replies, resting her hands back to support her weight in a more relaxed manner, and perhaps assuming there won't be a fight happening in the near future. "Letting others judge me has never been my thing either." unless we'd be talking about a certain blind lawyer. But that'd be an entirely different story.

Silence or talking seems just as a good to her though, comfortable in either. In truth, probably more comfortable than she has been as of late with anyone. When she notes that grin she turns her head briefly to look at Helena more fully, one eyebrow arching.

"New York does have that tendency. To bring the worse but also the best in people. Admittedly, I see a lot more of the worse, but this is a good breath of fresh air."

Then an amused gleam comes to her eyes and she adds. "Though if this was to be a proper date we'd need to at least know each other's names. I am Elektra."

Helena Wayne has posed:
Helena weighs that up in her mind for a moment. All her instincts are to go with her false name - the alias under which she operates when in uniform. That's what her father taught her. That's what she lived by for years. But then, her father was the wealthiest man in the country and a household name. Ever since coming to this world, Helena had dropped the family name feeling it would never rightly fit her here. Now she was just an anonymous person - even the false name she lives under would net very little in the way of a digital footprint.

Ah, screw it, she thinks to herself. It'd been a tough few weeks.

"I'm Helena," she offers, reaching out a hand to shake.

Elektra Natchios has posed:
Is there surprise registering there on the assassin's gaze? Elektra is aware that one normally wears a mask for a good reason. Identity being one of them. Even if it had been something she had never particularly cared about, a false name or alias. Always using the same identity. Those that wanted to come after her? They could do so at their own peril. It was one of those things of being an assassin, those that learned who she was rarely lived long to spill the beans.

She extends her own hand out. "Helena.." echoing the name, taking the woman's hand and giving it a shake. Firm enough, as it should be.

Still holding that hand she murmurs, "I have heard rumors of someone using a weapon pretty much like yours who went on a rampage on a few Gotham crime families a while back." leave it to assassins to know all about that fun stuff, "Don't think that could be you though."

Helena Wayne has posed:
"Ah, yes," Helena says with a knowing nod of her head, "I know a bit about her. The Huntress. I suppose I'm stealing her thunder a bit with my own look and name but ... well, I steer clear of Gotham. If she ever comes to call about it, I'll claim I was franchising."

To be fair, she'd kind of grabbed the name because someone had asked what she called herself and it was the first thing that sprang to mind. She didn't realise until later where that particular thought had come from and now it was probably too late.

"I think it's just one of those things. Maybe we watched the same TV shows growing up?"

Elektra Natchios has posed:
"Huntress." Elektra confirms with a brief nod. Not that Gotham was her beach, but she had been there from time to time, always in short bursts because there are certain night creatures one should make sure to avoid. Even if sometimes without success. "I mostly steer clear of Gotham as well but sometimes there is just no avoiding it, is there? We do what we must." though when Helena mentions franchising there is a slow arch of a brow that starts to rise up, amused.

"You don't look the type that franchises. But very well, I don't need to pluck all your secrets right away at the first date. I will leave it for the second one." Her eyes turning back to look over the city about them. The moonlight. It could indeed be a beautiful place from up above, away from all the killing, death, blood.

"Why did you decide to take on this life?" Nope, no small talk questions.

Helena Wayne has posed:
"You're winning me over with all this talk about a second date," Helena adds, before giving her shoulders a little shrug, "I don't know that I've got an answer to that question that would suit you. It was how it was going to be. There wasn't really ever an option for anything else, I don't think."

There's a pause and she clicks her tongue against her teeth.

"Maybe for a moment there was. But, like you said, that's second date material."

Elektra Natchios has posed:
Options. That makes Elektra ponder a moment. Did she have one back then? Not that she'd had chosen it no matter what. Between life or death she knew well what she'd choose. Or at least she believes she does. Yet she quickly dismisses those thoughts with a slow shake of her head and with a murmured sound out of her lips that passes as a low chuckle.

"Do you have a preferred rooftop for this second date? This one doesn't have a bad view yet we could do better." she reaches for her Sais, sliding her legs up and then under herself as she picks herself back up to her full height, Sais placed back on her sash.

Helena Wayne has posed:
"I'll tell you what," Helena adds, slipping her feet up under her in order to rise to her full height, "I'll let you pick, since you seem to have the taste for them and I'm still learning the city."

She reaches into her belt, producing what looks like a pager of the type that would be found in hospitals, albeit modified. She tosses it in Elektra's direction easily, not watching to see if she catches it or not.

"If you want to meet up sometime and I'm in the neighborhood, give that a buzz with the address. It doesn't have a tracker in it, but I won't begrudge you pulling it apart to make sure - just make sure you put it back together again the right way."

Elektra Natchios has posed:
It wouldn't do well for Elektra to not have the reflexes to go with being an assassin with the reputation she has, so when the pager is tossed in her direction she catches it easily, watching it with a thoughtful mmm. But then an accepting dip of her head is given to Helena. "Letting me pick? Feeling adventurous, are you?" she replies, some amusement to her tone.

The pager then disappears under her sash, she tucking it on a pocket underneath. "I will keep in touch." she then says, with all the dangers associated of keeping an assassin 'in touch'!

Footsteps then begin to carry her to the shadows on the other side of the rooftop, where the entrance to it is. "Take care, Helena. I will be looking forward to your answers on our second meet." she says over her shoulder just before she disappears in the shadows.