7316/Is This Yours Or What

Is This Yours Or What
Date of Scene:	11 August 2021
Location:	Main Room - Titan's Tower
Synopsis:	Antonia Monetti speaks a forbidden name (
Cast of Characters:	Toni Monetti, Rachel Roth

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Toni Monetti has posed:
An evening before, something fateful happened over in the women's dorm. Someone slipped on a stray towel and knocked over most of what was on the sink.

"****!" said Toni Monetti, already fatigued from having to go comfort her nerd-ass dad because he was worried about being in some kind of select committee on the latest alien invaders and so on and so forth and who just insisted on seeing her and mostly asking her if she was OK sixteen thousand times.

A quick glittering plasma-silver bowl had caught most of the vanity items before they were smashed against the ground. Breathing out, Toni had placed them onto the side of the twin sinks.

But that was then.

This is now.

"****," Toni Monetti, fresh from a deep cleansing shower, says, while staring at the as-yet-unreformed supplies for vanity and skin care. She picks up one, staring at it with her eeriely corpselike face -- because her skin is a *ghastly pure white* and the lighting around the sink is making that even clearer -- and says to herself, rhetorically, "Is this mine?"

She picks up a small pot of something. "Is... this mine."

"Shit," Toni says, finally stepping down on the swears.

Anyway, that's why Toni, wearing a bathrobe and carrying a pot of some kind of cream eyeliner and a blush palette, is marching out into the kitchen, raising them up above her head. "Hey! Hey is anyone around? HEY! I need to find Rachel," she announces, perhaps to God. She pauses near a fruit bowl, lingering to momentarily inspect the goods.

Rachel Roth has posed:
    This whole thing is going to be a strange encounter. Frankly, of all the Titans, only one is aware that Raven conjures her various toiletries, as she does with basically everything she needs. That said, whenever anyone finds anything Khol, or a bottle of black nailpolish, or a lipstick in a shade other than 'Nebulously Seductive Cherry' or 'I Want To Look Natural But Not TOO Natural Peach' the question is always 'is this Raven's?'

    As a result, she has fielded this more often than many other questions, because it seems like the only thing worse than asking Raven a question may just be using something that /is/ Raven's without her permission. Either way, with Argent making some level of fuss- and enough noise that someone so sensitive to it as Raven can hear it despite where it's coming from- the other Titan cannot keep herself away as much as she want to. The noise will continue until Raven pays attention.

    This is why, shortly after Argent's declaration that she needs to find Raven, the other woman simply appears in that portion of the tower. Where she came from is a mystery. Clearly she hasn't been there long, but much akin to a serial killer from this year's Halloween blockbuster, when she arrives is entirely in question: She is simply there, outside of Argent's periphery, hopefully not with an axe or some other sharp murder implement.

    "What do you want?" her gloomy voice calls, rising just a bit in volume so as to ensure that it's heard, but lacking any sort of emotional inflection. Perfectly balanced, and utterly inhuman in how /dry/ it sounds, Raven doesn't /greet/ Argent so much as she launches directly into short interrogation.

Toni Monetti has posed:
Argent jumps a full yard in the air, yelping and jack-knifing around as she lands, having turned most of a half-circle to face the gloomy woman. As she does, she says, "Jesus Christ! You snuck UP on me!"

She smiles, hugely. It looks a little ghastly since her lips are also white. "Hey," she continues, holding out a hand. "Sorry if you were napping or something. I'll make it up to you. I wanted to ask you," and here she turns the two items in her hand over for examination.

"Some stuff fell over and I think it messed up how things were sorted, and I couldn't remember if this was my stuff. If it's not my stuff," Argent continues, "it's probably your stuff because you got the same kind of complexion as me, so it stands to reason, right? Incredibly winter. /Dead/ winter."

"Did you teleport?" she asks, with sudden suspicion.

Rachel Roth has posed:
    Raven remains grimly silent as the other woman reacts akin to a cat that had just been confronted by a particularly menacing cucumber. Her hands remain firmly sheathed in her hoodie, and if she is in any way surprised, she in no way lets it show.

    Quietly, she regards the hand as if it was some horror that had been offered her instead of a friendly gesture. She doesn't take it, seemingly not caring how rude that may be, or indeed is. Raven cares little for being rude, of course- it goes with the territory that everyone perceives all manner of beings' continued existence being rude in some fashion to Raven.

    "I keep assorted glassware for the purpose of making better-than-drip coffee in the cabinets. I wash them after they're used, and put them away to make sure that mistakes like these do not happen with regards to my things. It is unfortunate that /others/" Seemingly Argent included in that disdainful remark, though not to the exclusion of anyone else "do not have the presence of mind to keep their things separated enough to remain theirs. I can assure you that that is not mine. For simplicity's sake, it isn't my brand."

Toni Monetti has posed:
After a heartbeat or two, Toni runs her hand through her hair, just so she isn't Left Hanging. That's rude for her to do, in its own way.

Argent gazes ahead at the statement, as if having momentary problems following along, which may be due to overexposure to hair care products or to - ah, she gets it there, her white brow knitting slightly into a precursor of a frown.

She stops it. There's a little effort there.

"You sound so... /arch/," Argent continues, wonderingly. "It's great elocution. I'm impressed." She takes several light chews of a piece of gum that had been stuck in the corner of her cheek until now. It is at least improving her breath. "OK, though, that's good, unless we got some other pale-ass girl hanging around."

Toni immediately opens up the little jar of some kind of cream eyeshadow and also the container of blush, crouching down to put the former on while watching herself in a tiny mirror in the top of the latter. Just, straight up, right there.

"So did you teleport, though, or are you just really quiet," Toni continues as she gets her left eye in order. "Because seriously I thought I was going to literally shit myself."

Rachel Roth has posed:
    The lack of expression on Raven is in itself a form of art. There she is, pristine as ever- as if she doesn't sweat at all. She knows every angle from which to look at what just happened, and the sheer lack of bother or regard on her features is quite telling in its own way. She isn't concerned with the effect she has on people- the more standoffish she is, the less people tend to bother her. The one exception has been Donna, and judging by where that's led, one can imagine it isn't a revolving door.

    Truthfully, associating with Raven is much akin to courting a dragon. That someone else succeeded is rightfully taken as meaning that there's no guarantee anyone else will. Though Raven herself is made of marble, ever facet of her existence screams such a thing is true.

    "Mm." she notes, regarding the other woman's statement with as much attention as one wouldn't if they were any less callous in their disregard as only Raven can be. "I do not believe we do. You're safe." So oddly formal, the way she weaves in contractions only when she has apparently deemed them utterly necessary, as if she's listening to every word in those moments before they're spoken. It is, indeed, very Arch, as it were.

    "That would have been unfortunate. Try to keep your head in the future." That statement is entirely as ominous as it's meant to be, as this is not a one-time occurrence, and it is simply fact that it will happen again. Some of the Titans have gotten used to it. Some haven't, and some never will.

    Once again not answering Argent's question, Raven actively drifts on to the cabinets she had mentioned before. If she's going to be called to the main lounge, she might as well make a cup of coffee, and as a result begins doing just that- fetching exactly what she said she had stowed away. A chemex pot- essentially a very fancy glass piece meant for brewing coffee, that looks just as pointlessly expensive as it is, no matter how good a cup it makes. A glass. A few other accoutrements.

    The water she sets to heat, and it seems to do so swiftly, faster than it ought to. Despite that she's handling glass, she is indeed unhealthily quiet.

Toni Monetti has posed:
Toni Monetti didn't get where she is in life by giving up and going to the mall--

She didn't get where she is in life by giving up. Go with that.

"That's a relief," she says, with a laugh. "I miss tanning, sometimes. Were you, uh, if it's not personal, were you always -" Toni sort of gestures airily in one way, as if to encompass 'were you always like this' but without malice behind it. Maybe she plans to *bond*.

Her eyes turn towards the coffee arrangement as she pauses in her makeup application. A moment later and she gets the other eye. A little smoothing, and she looks about fifty percent more human-adjacent.

"Oh wow! I saw one of those once, in Europe," Toni continues. "Do you grind your own coffee, too?" This continues with a light touch of blush to her cheeks which adroitly disguises the unnatural alien pallor of her face, even if there is only so much it can do.

"I'm not gonna judge you if you teleport. That's actually really cool. I bet it like changes your entire vision of like, how... /things/ are, like it makes the whole world a video game. Just bam, warp zone. But you could hear me, right? So you couldn't have been far, even if you did teleport," Toni continues. After this, her lips purse, and she looks up at Raven again. Back at the mirror. Back at Raven.

She is contemplating darker lip color.

Rachel Roth has posed:
    There is a level of conversation autopilot that Raven tends to turn on when someone nearby is... Chatty. That isn't to say that Argent is someone that Raven would wish to ignore, rather that just about one hundred percent of idle chatter tends to get this autoresponse modality from Raven that borders on the infuriating, for some.

    "Yes." she states, in response to Argent's first question. It is an impersonal, single word response that comes with this level of tonal disregard that calls the veracity of the answer into question. Was it easier to just say yes? Did Raven even hear the question? Was it /really/ a yes or no question, after all?

    Either way, she continues preparing her coffee, idly wishing that she could put up a tube through which sound could not pass, without having to use magic. Happy place or not, the conversation reaches a portion that demands a response from Raven, and she manages another single-word answer. "Yes."

    To be fair, this one is less of a mystery, as she then proceeds to grind her own dark-roasted coffee beans. The bag that she gets them from is jet black, and has the stereotypical Poison symbol on it, a skull and crossbones. There is no other markings to tell from whence it came. It might as well be a timid, vanilla-flavored bean that is just disguised as such that it offers only the message that anyone other than Raven who consumes the resultant coffee will meet a swift end. It doesn't /smell/ that way, but that Raven would kill for such an offense is a good message to take.

    "Is there a... Point, to these questions?"

    Now that the water is heating, Raven is seeking to have her coffee in peace. This requires questioning the whole of Toni's being, and it will begin with the questioning.

    For the record, the shade of black Raven uses is not one that is sold. Such is the wonder of magically conjured cosmetics. Nobody can /really/ ape your style, but they can still come close.

Toni Monetti has posed:
Yes.

Yes!

Argent's eyes drink in the exact hue of Raven's lip color as she prepares the coffee. The grinding is a firm sound in this low-intensity soundscape. She smiles, faintly, at the label of the coffee. And when a question comes in return, she raises her attention a degree or two, from lips to eyes.

"I dunno," she says. "You're all mysterious and everything. I was just surprised. You seemed all uncomfortable on the plane and all that shit. I get it, though, some people are just made that way, right? But I want to tell you, AND I KNOW THIS SOUNDS CHEESY,"

She screws the lid on her eye goop and snaps shut the blusher. "If you ARE in deep shit and you need help, just ask, okay? Cuz like, you *can* be alone, but you don't *have* to be alone."

A second or two passes. Perhaps even Toni smells the awkwardness.

She grins again. "Enjoy the coffee. LA-TERRRR," and with this she twirls and walks back towards the women's section, carrying each small cosmetic item in one hand, as if they were treasures.

Once she is back in the bathroom, carefully placing her stuff down, Toni mutters to herself, "Rachel Rachel Rachel Rachel Rachel." Then she glances in the mirror, in case. IN CASE.