15160/Lounging in the lounge

Lounging in the lounge
Date of Scene:	17 June 2023
Location:	Fourth Floor: Lounge and Sitting Room
Synopsis:	Gabby and Lydia talk about stuff and things.
Cast of Characters:	Lydia Dietrich, Gabby Kinney

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Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Sometimes you just need to get out of the house, even if all you want to do is read, which is why Lydia can be found in the Belle's lounge, curled up on a couch with a romance novel in hand. On the coffee table next to her her laptop has been set up, but it's put itself to sleep since she hasn't used it in a while.

    She can smell Gabby long before she shows up, so she waits patiently until the young woman is at the threshold and says, "Hey, Gabby. Come on in. I'm just doing a bit of relaxing."

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney made sure to spend a good portion of her time at the Booke these days, if only to help out, or keep an eye on things. It wasn't always glamorous but given she'd taken up the responsibility of helping lead things it only made sense. If she wasn't here, or with her SO's, she was out in Gotham. So far this place felt kind of homey to her at least.

With coffee cup in hand from some place definitely NOT here (Nettie did not like the brew) she's already taking a sip when her ears perk catching Lydia's greeting. A grin creeps over in response. "Hey Lydia. Nothing wrong with relaxing. How're you doing?"

Even as she asks she makes her way toward a chair to flop down into with a sigh.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    "Doing well," answers Lydia. "I might have made a new friend the other night. She's a doctor who'd been infected with low level vampirism and she's //very// keen on interviewing me," she says, sounding mildly amused. "I don't think the answers I have are going to be the answers she's looking for."

    She puts down her book, marking its place with a finger. "How about you? How're you holding up?"

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney makes a little bit of a face at mention of another vampire, and she raises her cup to sip her coffee slowly. "Really? What's her name? I ran into a teenage vamp the other day--But haven't been able to find her since. Usually don't get that many in a row do we?"

Looking to Lydia she can't hep but grin faintly. "Or maybe you do more than I do." It's shrugged off with hand raising to run back through her hair. "... Mostly okay. I've been connecting with some old friends lately which has Nettie pulling her hair out. I may have invited the king of Atlantis to tea without informing her first."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    "Priscilla something. She's looking to cure herself of her condition. She's not fully vamp yet so there's still hope." She shakes her head, "But since my 'affliction' is more supernatural than biological, I doubt she'll discover anything useful from me." She gives Gabby a curious look, though. "Oh? What was her name? She a full-on vampire too?"

    "King of Atlantis. Namor or..." She rolls her eyes as she tries to think of the name of the other one. "Or that other guy?" She shakes her head, "I shouldn't be surprised, really. We have Superman and Batman visiting us every once in a while, so why not the King of Atlantis?"

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney can only shake her head a little at the question with a growing frown. "I was following her in Gotham after she'd fed, so there's at least that. Unfortunately," she adds with a sigh looking down to her cup. The lid is taken off to per inside, and swirl around the contents to mix it up a bit better. "That's the same night that necromancer attacked. He opened up a ton of portals to pull zombies, and other undead through, and I guess it pinged in on her as undead? Anyway we both ended up porting through right into the middle of a huge fight. Nettie brought me and her out, but soon as we touched down she was off again. Young though," she adds again. "Wore a trans-pride t-shirt."

Looking up again she grins in amusement. "Abslantis. Namor. I never met the other one though I've heard of him. There's files. As for him, well, I invited him because I knew him when I was younger and we ran into one another again recently."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia pulls a frown. "She left her victim alive, hopefully. I wouldn't assume she's actually a teenager, though. Who knows how old she really is." Her expression turns pensive. "Though, if she's trans odds are she hasn't been a vampire for //that// long. Glad you made it out, though. Necromancers are nasty business. What was her name? I'll keep an ear to the ground to look out for her."

    "Abslantis," she snickers. "I heard he's kind of an ass, but he can't be //too// bad if he came here for tea. It takes a certain amount of civility to have tea with somebody."

Gabby Kinney has posed:
"That was my thought," Gabby points out toward Lydia with a grin. "I know I may not seem it but I do have a little bit of detectiving in my training. So probably last twenty, thirty years tops? That's stretching the last part though. Sunrise was her name. The vamp not the necromancer."

For a moment she looks rather thoughtful. Frowning she asks, "Is vamp a bad term? I guess I should start thinking about that sort of thing."

"Eh, Abslantis is what I call him because he won't put on a damn shirt and it's *distracting* now that I'm older. ... Okay it was a little distracting when I was younger, too," she mumbles from around the edge of her lidless coffee cup taking another long drink. "He's... Haughty. And proud. Handsome, and he knows it. Arrogant a bit." Wow she was really making him sound GREAT. "But for those he considers friends he's not a bad guy. Even cracks a smile now and then. I used to be around one of his ex's a lot and met him that way. He was even there when I was learning to drive. Hadn't seen him for years though."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia snickers. "The irony. A vampire named Sunrise. I shouldn't laugh, though. She probably chose her name long before she was turned."

    She considers Gabby's question for a bit. "I think it depends on the vampire," she concludes. "I don't have a problem with it, obviously, but somebody like Jubilation would. Then again, Jubilation is... special."

    "Mmmm. Abs." Lydia says as her mind wanders. "I can appreciate the appeal of abs. Not so much on a guy, though, but I can appreciate the aesthetics of it. Give me a woman with abs and biceps..." she starts fanning herself. "Wooph!"

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney can't help but laugh at the reaction with a pat to her own stomach. "Mine aren't bad, but I'm no where near some. Like have you ever seen Wonder Woman in a strapless dress? She *lifts*."

"I think Namor's more like..." she waves a hand in the air struggling for the word. "Athletically built? He's not like a power lifter sort, but kind of streamlined muscles which is different than what I'm used to seeing, mostly. I guess Tommy's that way too, though, just a bit leaner being a runner." A pause, "Speedster," she explains further.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    "Not personally, no, but the imagination runs wild," Lydia says with a sly grin. "As for me... well... I had a little bit of a pooch and noodly arms for most of my life, but Raven made me start working out before I was turned. I didn't get much bulk, but now I can lift a motorcycle over my head. Sadly, even if I worked out now I'd never gain more muscle. Even my hair is kind of stuck like this," she says running her fingers through her tight curls. "I can style and cut it, but it grows back in a matter of days."

    She nods knowingly. "He's got a swimmer's bod, which only makes sense." She's a silent for a bit, as she bites her lower lip. "Speaking of which. How's Bunny? Her ankle isn't ... doing anything out of the ordinary, is it?"

Gabby Kinney has posed:
"Oh yeah, swimmer. Definitely. He took me down to check out a coral reef, it was really cool till I cut my foot and some sharks came sniffing around. We got out of there quick, though," Gabby adds with a laugh recalling it. Only for the laugh to taper off, head tilting to the side a bit.

"Nnnooo? She got into a fight the other day and had a concussion because some asshole came at her with a baseball bat. This was at rollerderby, even! So thankfully she had her helmet on and her older brother was there too." A slightly proud pause comes as she says, "I'm told she broke the guys nose." Still that left a question hanging. "What... happened with her ankle?"

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia purses her lips and fidgets uncomfortably. "You remember when I opened that clinic and was healing people with Viscera's power? She came to me with a broken ankle. I was never able to hunt her down to see if I could pull Viscera's threads off of it." She shakes her head. "Not everybody I healed had them, so it's a crap shoot as to whether or not she does. Just... keep an eye on it, okay? I don't want viscera's corruption to take a hold of your girlfriend."

    Her mood takes a downward turn, as she studies her hands. "I can still feel its presence from time to time, you know. It's very faint, but... I can't tell if it's real or if it's just PTSD. I //should// be clean but... what if I'm not? I mean, I know we trapped the thing but what if I still had its power? It gave it to me freely, and there's nothing that says that the power would go away when we trapped it. The only way to find out would be to try to use it and I can't afford to go down that path again."

Gabby Kinney has posed:
"... I didn't know that." Gabby admits of the visit Bunny had made to the clinic. She really hadn't. Never occured to her--She hadn't met Bunny at that point yet. With her mouth feeling a bit dry she goes for another swig of her now-cold coffee finding it less than satisfying. It makes it easier to talk though.

"I try not to talk about it often. My own brush with the Endless War and the Eternal Soldier... But I remember. I remember another life entirely. One where..." A quick shake of her head comes.

"Just because it's gone doesn't mean it hasn't left scars, or in your case, shown you how to do something. I think it's like that sometimes. Like, the guy who taught me how to kill is dead and gone, but that doesn't take away what he taught me." She lifts her eyes to look back at Lydia.

"I can't claim to be an expert in magic, but I think once you're shown how to do something, it leaves it's mark on you."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia lets out a bitter laugh. "Scars, yeah, that's one way to put it. I get panic attacks when I see raw meat, now, you know that? You have no idea how weird it is feeling like you have to hyperventilate when you don't have to breathe. Thankfully since I don't actually eat anymore I don't really come into contact with raw meat all that often. If I were still alive, I'd have turned vegetarian."

    She turns deathly still, "Just thinking about it... Excuse me a moment." Memories of the time she changed Jon flood her. How //good// it had felt and how //wrong// it all was causes her to shudder. She closes her eyes and deliberately starts breathing to center herself, trying to calm herself and clear her mind. Eventually her breathing slows, and stops and her eyes open. "Sorry about that."

    She lets out a sigh and says, "I can't help but worry about being put in a situation where I have to try to use it, you know? Like, what if you, or somebody loses a limb or gets mortally wounded? I could use that power to heal, but that's what lead me down that road in the first place. Do I just... let somebody die because I can't take the chance of being corrupted again?"

Gabby Kinney has posed:
At the pause where Lydia has to gather herself, Gabby can only nod in understanding. She'd been keeping herself busy enough she didn't have to recall her own past memories... and hers were perhaps nothing compared to Lydia's. She hadn't given in, and was only tortured by the pair of Old Ones. It wasn't the first time she'd been tortured. She allows Lydia the time she needs to gather herself again.

"First off... Don't ever do that to me even if I lose a limb. It *will* grow back," she assures with a wry grin that fades knowing that if such were to happen to others it wouldn't be the same. "That's a hard one to say. We all want to help people. I think, maybe when it starts to go into trying to perfect people or make things in your own vision that is where it becomes corruption."

"But, um, there are other ways you can... you know, save someone from not existing." She lifts her hand to tap a finger to her canine tooth. "Though that's a tough decision, too."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia nods. "Duly noted. How long would you think it would take to grow back? I know your healing factor is quite astonishing, but I don't know the limits of it."

    She lets out a little sigh. "Right. But the line between helping people and perfecting them is //very// blurry. Giving trans people the body of their dreams is a bit of both, you know?" She shakes her head. "Let's just hope that it never comes to that."

    She nods. "It is, but I'm still too young to actually turn anybody, I think. The process is pretty strenuous from what I gather. I don't know. Maybe also being a mutant will help? If it comes down to a choice between letting somebody die or turning them I'd give it a try."

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney scrunches her face up in thought, considering. "It takes me maybe half a day to grow back a finger, so for an arm, a couple of days perhaps? Week? It's not something I've tested out... Other than the finger," she points out with a small shrug. "If I'm anything like some of the others, I could heal from a lot worse than limb loss, too."

"Guess that's your option then. At least there is an option other than the power you don't want to use, so you don't have the excuse to say 'there was no other choice.' Maybe that will help?" It was a long shot she knew but it was a hope. A small smile is offered attempting to be reassuring. "Most of all, though? I think speaking about this, and keeping people aware will also help. Having someone or someones who can stop and go 'this is going too far' when you need. But, I still don't recommend fooling with that at all. Just in case."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia looks shocked. "You chopped off your own //finger// to see how fast it would grow back?" She shakes her head. "That's insane. I know I heal pretty quickly, but I don't know if I'd regenerate lost parts. I can take a lot of hits, though, on account of not actually having working innards."

    She returns Gabby's smile, "Indeed. I don't plan on fooling around with it at all if I can help it. The danger is too great, and I don't want to lose my head again. Slowly turning into an actual monster once was enough for me."

Gabby Kinney has posed:
"What? No of course I didn't cut it off to see how fast it would grow back," Gabby responds with a nervous sort of laugh as she glances to the side with the sort of expression one might when they were very, very bad in some way.

"... I cut it off so I could give the middle finger to someone as a joke."

Here she pauses head hanging a little while her hand rakes back through her hair with a sigh. "It was recently after I got out of the labs, after my sisters all died. I can't claim I was in the best mental state at the time. Probably still am not a hundred percent," she mumbles to herself with a shrug. "But I knew I healed, knew I'd grow it back just not how long, and I can't feel pain. To me, it wasn't a big deal. I did it for the shock factor when I was like, fifteen."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
     Lydia just //stares// at Gabby. "I... see." she says slowly. She shakes her head, "Well, I guess I can understand being an edgy fifteen year old. When I was fifteen I was fighting with my mother about trying to 'cure' me. She didn't take me seriously until I locked myself in my room for three days straight. Eventually she caved, though. One of the few times I won an argument against my mother," she grumbles.