What the eyes see..

[Ash Leone]

Ash didn't need to feel the nausea rise up in her, since he suffered the same once she released him from her touch and went to the bar.  More than anything, he felt humiliated.  This was Dani, his Dani, and he knew what she thought of this.  That was the reason he wouldn't even consider telling her that he still slept in his tiger form.  She'd feel sick just thinking about it.  No need to let her know the extent of the damage if he could help it.

He straightened in his seat while Dani was gone, actually considering getting up and leaving, but he'd never been one to run away.  That's what it would be if he left now, and he wouldn't run away from Dani.  One of them had to stand strong, and since he certainly hadn't done that with Morfeus, he could at least do it with Dani.  Stand strong, deal with her disgust, work to prove to her that he wasn't some vampire's pathetic little pet.  After all, if he couldn't do that, then what was the point in having even left Morfeus?  He would overcome this.

[Danielle Vida]

Danielle reapproached the table and sat back down, her demeanor somewhat more placid than before. She was working on attaining a level of icy calm at all times. She had set a goal for herself, too. In one month you wouldn't be able to read her from a hole in the wall. She was giddy to see how it went.

"So what else have I missed?" she asked, her tone slightly... bored. Whether she realized it or not, she was playing some sort of mind game with Ash.  

[Ash Leone]

At her change in demeanor, he lost some of that hard-won self-confidence.  Stand strong?  Why?  Look at the way she'd turned cold on him.  Look at the way he made her feel, that she could just shut it all down like that.  He bored her, disappointed her.  If he didn't, she wouldn't act this way.

But how could he snap her out of it?  If he acted like he used to, it would just be two cold fronts swirling around each other and doing no good.  Meeting her ice with heat was an option, but it wasn't the sort of option that was all that 'proper', and it was therefore a more unusual action on his part.  That may or may not upset her more.  How was he to know?

"Nothing, Danielle.  You haven't missed anything," he finally just told her, sounding more weary than anything.  Everyone had their game, and he was tired of playing them.

[Danielle Vida]

"Mmm? Nothing at all?" she sounded surprised. She downed the second glass rather quickly, though she didn't even know why she tried because Witches couldn't get drunk. They couldn't anything. In fact, by her bloodlines particular mythos, some of them didn't even feel anymore. She felt sort of robbed. She couldn't drink her problems away. She'd just... have to kill them.

She smiled at him, a lazy, catlike, sort of sleepy smile. A smile that meant nothing and something all at once. Danielle had always been hard to read, but in recent times she had become downright cryptic. She made no sense. She perhaps mirrored vampires more than a Witch these days, in fact.

Now there was a thought.

[Ash Leone]

"Was there something in particular you were getting at, or are you genuinely curious?" he asked, though he wasn't betting on curiosity, not with the way she was acting.  She seemed downright bored, or something.  He couldn't quite place it, and her aura was flitting around in a rather odd manner, though he attributed some of that to the general atmosphere of this place.  Her body language and words hardly matched it, that was for sure.  How was he supposed to deal with her if she wouldn't allow him to?

"Dani, is everything alright with you?" he finally asked, looking worried.  "I may have been out of sorts for a time, but you're not acting like yourself, either."

[Danielle Vida]

She shrugged. Fickle thing. "No, I was just surprised. Usually you're quite busy, but I guess the Hollow is a busying sort of place on its own, is it not?" She stared at him across the table, not liking where his tone was heading with her.

Am I okay? Am I ever okay? Come off it, why would you even ask something like that to me?

"I'm fine. Why, does something look wrong?" Asking if Danielle was okay, to her, basically had implications that she had a problem - she didn't. Danielle didn't have problems. She had loaded guns and lots of thoughts, but openly, no problems - none she cared to discuss with anyone, least of all the man who she'd made herself hate because it was plain out just easier than love at the moment.

[Ash Leone]

When she responded in that manner, his face closed up completely.  It was like a face carved out of marble, pale and perfect and oh like his old self.  Nobody had a poker face like Ash Leone.  Then, one slight change to show just a touch of unimpressed emotion, and it was absolutely like normal.  He raised an eyebrow to show his disbelief, Dani being the reckless young witch again and he the 'wise mentor'.  Or at least, he wished.  Things had gotten so horribly complicated.

"I didn't ask if you were okay, Dani.  That would be rather foolish of me, since we both know that you're never really 'okay'.  I asked if everything else was alright, and what looks wrong is everything about you.  You're not acting like yourself.  Will you talk to me about it, ma petite?" he asked, his tone remaining as smooth as silk, like it used to be.  Some of it was an act, while the rest was sheer attitude.  For Dani, he could be nobody else, it seemed.  She didn't react to anything else, so this was all he had, wasn't it?  If he could shove his newer insecurities and issues aside, he still was the same person.  Just a little frayed around the edges.

[Danielle Vida]

The reaction was so utterly reflexive that it was one of the times Danielle could pinpoint actually losing control in an environment she was somewhat comfortable in. She stood and swung in one graceful sweeping motion, one that was so beautifully inhuman, displaying that above all else she was still a Vida, and slapped Ash across the face so hard that it hurt her hand.

"DON'T" she said, though not quite a yell but sound caught in her throat so loudly that it effectively called attention to them, and though Danielle had every ability to make a scene when she wanted, this was not one of those times. For her to have even risen a hand against Ash - not her friend, but Ash the Triste - no matter what the occasion, meant that she was really too overcome by her emotions to control anything else at the moment.

"You haven't been around me enough to know what I act like or who I am, and I am NOT your petite. You think a handful of years spent with me as a child means a damn thing now?"

There was an eerie silence falling around the entire Lounge, and despite the fact that she felt the power of others present creeping up around her, Danielle's own aura glowed with a white-hot rage that would not be tempered by a mere gesture of release.

"You were a poor substitute for Marcus then, and now I see that it was a mistake to ever fall in lo-"

Her grey eyes were electric as she spoke, and she literally stopped in mid-word, something Danielle rarely did. Perhaps she had overdone it this time, said too much. The anger, sheer rage, really, was rolling off of her in waves - it was awfully stifling, and she took a sharp breath, finding it.. hard to breathe. Or was that the room?

She turned on one foot, intending to make a wicked break for the door. The witch was on the literal edge of destruction. She was going to maim anything in her path that she could get her hands on, and she very well wanted to at the moment.

[Ash Leone]

He saw her movements and between his own triste speed and the added 'enhancements' that came with being a shifter, he could have avoided it.  Why didn't he?  Honestly, he was at a loss as to WHY she would attempt to strike him, and he didn't fear the blow.  It was nothing in comparison to the mental agony Morfeus put him through, and though she busted his lip wide open and even jerked his head to the side with the blow, he wiped the blood away and the cut healed itself up.

He would meet Dani's fire with his own ice, as always.

Her aura was indeed white hot as she raged at him and then made an attempt to bolt, but she seemed to have forgotten who, and most importantly what he was.  He leapt to his own feet to grab her arm in an iron grip, refusing to let her run as his own power washed over her in an icy wave to combat the searing flames of her own anger.  He HAD to keep the ice up, or he might actually crumble somewhere at the things she said.  A poor substitute for Marcus?  Surely that wasn't all that he'd been?  And she'd fallen in lo--?  Love?  With him?  Hardly.  How could he believe that she'd actually cared as much for him as he had for her?  Could she have?  Could she have loved him?

If she had, surely she didn't any longer.  That didn't mean he didn't, though.

"Don't," he repeated quietly, using her own manner against her, only frozen solid instead of burning.  "Ever allow yourself to entirely forget that I am NOT one of your relatives, nor am I some piece of vampire scum that you look down upon.  I am your friend and I would give everything I have to keep you safe, but I am also a triste, Danielle Vida.  You would do well to watch whose blood you spill."

And that right there was the reason that Papa Aristide merely watched from his table in the corner.  There was no mistaking the pulse of power coming from that direction, but he hadn't moved yet.  This was a triste who had been struck without provocation, and he wasn't jumping into the middle of it just yet.  

"I also know more about you than anyone you've ever been in contact with, whether you know it or not.  I watched you become the woman you are today, for better or worse."  Just how much Ash DID know was up for debate, especially considering his vast resources.  Had he known what she was up to before he was taken into Midnight?  Had he merely pretended not to, or had he really been in the dark?  Either way, he'd accepted her for who she was and loved her in spite of everything.  This hurt more than he'd let on.

[Danielle Vida]

For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction... sort of. Whatever Danielle had just done or said was nothing compared to the shock she got when her entire body was snapped back like a beautifully excecuted throw of the yo-yo, and she spun around to stand mere inches from Ash as he bled anger back at her.

She gasped so much so she'd almost choked, actually, and for a moment was again rendered absolutely speechless as Ash ripped back into her twice as hard as she'd done to him. His words were so entirely maddening, she felt as though she might collapse under the weight of her own blind rage, folding in upon herself like a neutron star.

She could only respond with a very feral and clearly primal growl as he established himself as stronger, and she was met with the stifling sensation of cold as she struggled to fight him off of her, away from her, out of her mind (figuratively).

It became increasingly harder, and the Vida training began to slip from beneath her, the slightest sensation of accelerated heart rate the first sign that Danielle was actually beginning to fear - something she hadn't felt in a long, long time. There was this amazing pressure on her, covering her skin, stealing all of the heat from her until she felt a small bead of sweat roll down the side of her face.

If she tried to fight him any longer, she was going to lose. But how far was Danielle going to be able to go before he literally put her on the floor? Even now she could feel her body losing, the electrical, burning of her own energy waning.

Pity though, that Danielle had already proven you'd have to break her legs if you wanted her to stay down. Danielle took a secong swing, using whatever source of energy she'd had tapped from GODDESS only knows where. She aimed to hit him in the face again, something frenzied in her eyes the more he affirmed himself as dominant.

That was fine. She'd get one good hit in before all Hell broke loose.

[Ash Leone]

Now, he had a choice.  He could dodge her swing, which was entirely possible, or he could take it.  If he took it, he also had a decision on his hands.  He could let her get her hit in like he had before, or he could freeze up and cause her to hurt her own hand with the blow.  Normally, he wouldn't have done the latter, but he was pissed off just as much as she was.  Let her hurt her hand, and see if she tried that one again on him.  

That decision being made, he didn't move as she swung at him, nor did he after she'd hit.  She might as well have struck a block of marble for all of the reaction she got (and how solid her target was without the give), with the only difference being that he did indeed bleed.  The damage healed up once more within a few moments, and he swallowed the blood, but it had still hurt.  It had to have hurt her just as much though, if not more.

"I already tried telling you, so now I'll ask you as nicely as I can right now NOT to hit me again," he growled out, his voice still the same, but there was nothing human about the growl that accompanied it and continued on afterwards.  His control was no longer as perfect as it had been, and that was his weakness, the feline.  It had ruled him while he was with Morfeus, and now he had to in turn rule it.

[Danielle Vida]

The pain shot through her hand, and though it wasn't the worst thing she'd felt, it was pretty realistic to the moment, and caused her to lose hold of some of that finely guarded energy, an audible crackle heard in the air around her as she forced herself not to favour her hand.

It wasn't a matter of simply bruising her hand, she had actually split her knuckles and broken a finger on that hit, but right now she was so far left that even death looked right.


"Or what, Ash?" she asked, voice... somehow taking that bored tone it had from before. Oh, she knew how to do that, all right. There was - yes, a small laugh. She could practically feel ice crystals on her skin, his aura utterly overwhelming her, and she kept pushing him. Any and all who witnessed this would have deemed her insane or suicidal. What was one without the other, though?

[Ash Leone]

Did she see his eyes close for just an instant as the scent of her blood reached his nostrils?  Could she ever know the force of will it took to force that cat down and strike out as a man, as a witch?  He had to strike, though.  Walking away would be an open invitation for anyone in their audience to attack him the moment he left the Mojo Lounge, and she needed it.  She needed anything that might snap her back into reality, because not everyone she treated in this manner would be a friend.

The growl grew more feral, but the blow he struck was entirely not physical.  It was the mental equivalent of a sledgehammer to the face, and he fully intended to knock her sprawling with it.  She wouldn't lose consciousness, he wouldn't allow it, but she needed the pain and the knowledge that she was outmatched.  She needed to go back to being his Dani just as much as he needed to cling to the man she'd reminded him of with his anger.

[Danielle Vida]

She didn't even get to cry out that time - there was another, much smaller gasp, as blood began to make its way in a thin line from her nose. Her eyes went wide again, but this time it was something quite else that dwelled within them as she trailed along the levels of consciousness - he wasn't letting her fall out, wasn't letting the comfortable inky black hole to take over.

She released all of the power she'd been holding to shield herself with, and suddenly the pain became much more clear than it had before, though it was a silent sort of event, and that was when she began to slowly slide towards the ground.

Still in his grip or no, Danielle fell to her knees, defeated. If he didn't let go of her arm, judging from how he had it, it could easily be broken, or dislocated, simply from the sheer force of her body weight as she suddenly and quite definitely dropped like a ton of bricks.

[Ash Leone]

He released her arm, well aware of the damage it would do to her physically if she simply fell with him holding her up in that manner.  He wasn't going to keep her from falling, though.  Let her hit the floor, let her know that she couldn't stop herself or pick herself up, and then he would help her.  He'd always tried so hard to ensure that she didn't ever truly fall when he could prevent it, but had he really done any good with that?  Would they still be here?  Probably, in all honesty.  He was worried that this encounter was a result of her reaction to his situation, or this new friend of hers.  Either way, it needed to be stopped.

No, he refused to allow her to lose consciousness.  He held onto her with the very same mental 'fist' that had struck her, his icy blue eyes watching her where she lay on the floor for a moment before he dropped gracefully to one knee, a napkin from the table in his hand.  He wiped at her nose delicately, almost lovingly removing the blood there, and to look into his eyes right then would be to see that he hated what was happening.  It was as though a portion of his fury had been overtaken by the fact that he did in fact love her, and he didn't want to hurt her, but only after he'd struck out at her finally.  It was once she'd grown quiet and been beaten, after she was no longer challenging everything he was that he was allowed to calm himself again.

"Or that, Dani," he said softly, sighing.