Missing

[Danielle Vida]

Flashbacks for Danielle were like seizures. She was a very audiovisual person, and with her various bloodline talents with energy, it was no surprise that sometimes a sound or a random glance could trigger a series of memories that hit her like a freight train.

Often the visual was in high contrast, yellows and reds, blurred and with a beat behind it - she suspected it was her own heartbeat from time to time but she could never focus enough on it to know for certain. She was having one such flashback right then and there, and in her languid stroll home, suddenly had jerked back against the cold brick of a building.

There was a street, a sign, people walking in and out. A man, a smile, a brush of fingertips.
"If you ever drop by the city, this is where I can be found." A male's voice - hushed, gaze flitting quickly from their hands to her eyes.
A flick of a white card with red lettering on it.
"An entrepeneur amongst your supernatural battle? How do you find the time?" her voice had been icy, but in jest. Time was something she never had.

Her lashes fluttered rapidly like hummingbird wings and she stumbled, feeling disoriented and nauseated. Grey eyes remained dialated for a few seconds as she attempted to regain her composure, and once her breathing had returned to it's normal silent pace as opposed to the heavy panting associated with heavy petting, she spun 'round on her heel and started in the general direction of Hellcat's Hollow.

Upon approach of the building, she began to feel a heavy weight pressing on her, and drew up her shields. She was in unfamiliar territory and just prayed she was far enough across the world to skip over the whole "You killed my so and so" speech tonight.

In she went - hunting for a familiar face.  

[Leander Moreaux]

It was the slow hour of the day-shift, after the midday rush and before the first people started dropping in for the evening. In a way it was almost like a pulse, the ebb and flow of people. This late in the day it was never completely empty, but it was calm enough that Leander had time to think. And worry.

(I know he only said he'd show me around the first day, but still, I didn't think he's be gone this long,) he thought to himself as he strolled over to look out the dim window at the street. He didn't know Ash too well yet, but since Dave had expressed his concern as well, he figured being gone like this wasn't what his new employer usually did. (Surely he didn't hire me becaus he had to go away...? You don't usually hire a new person and leave before making sure they know what they're doing... Right?)

Lost in thought he turned from the window to head back towards the bardisk, when he bumped into someone just entering through the door.
"Oh, sorry miss!" he quickly said, holding out his hands in case he'd made her stumble. "You alright?"

[Danielle Vida]

She stumbled back, surprised. Pay attention, Dani.

"Sorry, no, I... " she paused. "Actually, yes. Yes, you can. Do you know where I can find Ash? I'm an.." she hesitated. Old friend? Friend at all? She'd been rotten not to bother contacting him all this time.. but then again she figured if something really extreme had happened, he'd already know. He was.. good like that. "a friend," she finished finally.

She leaned against the bar casually, though she was just too damn stiff at the moment to feel very casual. She hoped this man would just tell her what she wanted to know. She was starting to have a bad taste in her mouth about this whole 'return to the city' but and she couldn't figure out why just yet.

[Leander Moreaux]

Certain he hadn't done any damage, Leander backed off slightly as he took in this new arrival. Well, one thing he could say for sure about his workplace was that it seemed to attract quite some stunning clientel, even if this one seemed a little distressed.
"I wish I could help you," he said while rounding the counter and taking his station behind the bar again, "but I'm not quite sure where to find him."
Leander didn't outright say that he didn't have any clue at all as to where Ash had gotten to, or that the straying bar-owner hadn't shown his face there for days. Maybe not the best information to spill to a stranger, even if they said they knew the man. He figured it better they think he was just clueless about where the guy was at the moment.
"Is he expecting you?"

[Danielle Vida]

She sat down at the bar, eyes still ever-attentive to the man, and everything else around her, as though she was trying to direct all of her attention in 100 different directions at once.

"Expecting.." she repeated. She didn't know how to answer that honestly. She didn't lie often, and she supposed it wouldn't be wise to now if the man was likely to withhold information from her if he suspected she was. She smoothed her hair down and leaned forward slightly, voice dropping an octive.

"Look, I haven't talked to him in a long time. He probably thinks I'm dead at this point, but I assure you I have nothing but good intentions, here." She didn't expect he'd have ever mentioned her, but.. it was worth a shot. She held out her hand. "I'm Danielle. Vida - you know the name, I hope?"

She didn't like dropping her name, but perhaps the man would be more inclined to help her if he knew she wasn't some uber ick demon from the 7th level of Hell.

[Leander Moreaux]

Leander didn't react at all to the name, except for wondering slightly at the pause between first and surname. He was a rare occurance in this bar - a human unaware of the existance on Nyeusi, and was supposed to be under the protection of the missing Ash Leone. Not that Leander himself knew anything about this intended protection.
"No, I don't recognise it, I'm sorry," he answered with a shake of his head. "I've only been here for a few days, and since I only just met Ash, I don't know many of his friends."

(What the hell... Sure, I work for him, but I didn't sign up for providing some sort of cover, especially since he split without warning.)
He let out a sigh, having changed his mind on how to handle this. Looking at it selfishly, which he had good reason to do considering his current financial situation, he wouldn't be getting payed if his employer didn't show up.

"I really have no idea where he is" he said with a trace of something inbetween worry and annoyance. "He was here on my first day, but I haven't seen him since."
If she was someone who actually knew the guy, she should know if this was anything that happened now and then. Then again, if they hadn't seen each other in a long time, like she said... All he could do was hope for the best.

[Danielle Vida]

She let out a quick breath, brows furrowed as her eyes flitted around again.

"Wait, you haven't even heard from him? No messages, nothing?" Danielle put her hand on her jaw and pressed against her shoulder as she tended to do when she thought, eyes wide and serious but staring at the countertop rather than the man she was speaking with.

"No, something's not right here. This place is important to him - or, it was last we spoke." Her eyes darkened and she glanced back up, now aware of the fact that the man was NOT aware of some of the business underfoot.

"Do you know anywhere he could be, or anyone who could tell me that?" she asked. Her voice was firm, but real, lacking the usual frost that laced it during her usual intimidation interrogation.

Upon waiting for a response, she closed her eyes and in the briefest of moments, opened herself, trying to hear something - anything. One single thought pounded in her head, loud enough for anyone who listened to hear: Ash, what have you gotten yourself into now?

[Leander Moreaux]

"No, nothing," Leander confirmed, beginning to become worried himself from her concern. Seemed this wasn't normal behaviour after all, and in that case... Whatever could have happened? If Ash had been arrested, surely the police would have been by, or if he'd gone to ground, then someone would have come asking questions. Well... This lady did, but it didn't seem like she was someone his employer would be hiding from. Could he have been in an accident and lying hurt at a hospital? Without ID? Imagination raced through the musician's head as he answered.

"Like I said, I'm new here, so I don't know..."
He tailed of as a memory came to mind. His first night here - hadn't that woman said she knew Ash?
"Actually... There was someone here a few nights ago who said she was an old aquaintance of his. She called him by this really weird name. The trouble is that I don't know how to find her."

[Danielle Vida]

She noticed the man's internal distress, and leaned back a little, to give him some room.

"What name did she call him by?" she asked. She knew he went by different things, but perhaps it was something that would stand out to her. She scratched at her arm lightly. "Do you think perhaps she would have any information I could use? I just... need to find him."

She sat back in her seat, trying to play this out in her mind. She hoped he wasn't in some sort of trouble, but.. knowing the way her life was going, this would be something to put on the totem of 'crap she did not want to deal with'.

[Leander Moreaux]

"His full name, I believe," Leander said vaguely and waved the question away as he thought hard to try and remember all the details from that evening. Had Aurashka said anything more? Anything about how to find her? Could Dave know?

"I think Aurashka is a regular here - that's the woman I was talking about," he clarified unecessarily, distracted by his search of memory. "I haven't seen her since that night, but I've been busy working so I might not have noticed her in the crowd. Or she could have been busy. It's barely been a week, after all."

He shook his head out of that circle of thought, trying to come up with something more useful.
"If she's a regular here, maybe she lives in the neighbourhood... He might be sleeping, but I could try calling Dave, the other bartender, and ask if he knows where she might live."
Having no clue as to Aurashka's true nature, Leander also had no idea that a vampire hardly had to live nearby to be a regular anwhere.

[Danielle Vida]

"Aurashka.." she said softly. It sounded somewhat familiar but Danielle had little dealings on this part of the world - she preferred the West coast to the Eastern seaboard. She frowned again - she'd done a lot of that lately - and sat forward again.

"I don't mean to be pushy, but the longer I sit and wait, the more I'd like to know where he got himself off to, so if you could call your friend, I just need to be pointed in the right direction." Danielle's facial expression had changed, eyes darker, almost desperate. Desperation wasn't something she wore well, and it looked as though the woman were about to fall apart (she wasn't).

[Leander Moreaux]

Leander didn't mind being rushed and nodded to her in agreement. If Ash was holed up somewhere... Well, maybe he wanted to stay that way, but he couldn't have expected to do that without saying anything and not have people look for him.
"Right," he said determinedly. "Just give me a moment to find his phone-number."
He reached over to pick up the little book lying half-way behind the cash-register and started flipping the pages for Dave's number. It would have been a lot easier if only he'd ever learned his fellow bartender's surname...


~~*~~
I'm going to ask Rhi next time we're online at the same time if she'd like Aurashka to join the thread =D

[Danielle Vida]

Danielle waits as the tender wanders off to find the number, and jumps as her cellular phone buzzes against her side. She looks down at the screen, and, not recognizing the number, hits 'ignore' on the options given. She sighs and rocks back for a moment, looking around the room. She didn't recognize anyone - did she ever? It was usually bad for her if she did.

The phone chirped, alerting her to a voicemail, and she pressed 'ignore' again. It was a pill of a device, but sometimes handy in a bind.

"Did you find anything?" she called over to him, standing from her position to stretch her legs.

[Aurashka]

She would have liked to have claimed that she'd heard Leander's thoughts all the way in Mayhem, and that she'd been intrigued enough to drop by and see what was happening, but that was hardly the truth.  To be honest, Aura was unaware that Ashtaroth had vanished, and she'd been on her way to the Hellcat's Hollow anyway when she heard her name flip through both the air and a few minds.  So, what was going on?

She slipped in the door quietly, listening to what was being said, finding it uninteresting on its own, and scanned Leander's mind.  It was then that she frowned, and didn't want to fake humanity.  Leander was talking to a Vida witch about Ashtaroth's disappearance.  Not good, either part.

"What's going on?"

[Danielle Vida]

Before Danielle could turn to answer the woman, the power rolled into her and hit her like she was thrown into a wall. She breathed it in, a sweet scent, and breathed it out, an old memory.

Blinking rapidly, she realized why the name had sounded so familiar. "Wow," was all she uttered. Even though she was a Vida, Danielle still allowed herself small things - one of them was appreciation of beauty. She had never seen Aurashka before, only read. She had seen ugly vampires before, some of them no matter how they tried to turn themselves by illusion, but some of them still shown like diamonds no matter the tarnish of the years.

Before she said anything about her business, she shook herself of her thoughts. "I'm here on personal affairs. I have no quarrel, nor am I really interested in one, with anyone in the city - well so far, anyways. Been pretty good about keeping to myself. Not really diggin' the family tree right now." Danielle, sometimes, could be eloquent - at other times she sounded like Buffy.