meadowlarklogs | the miles are way too long

[He had heard tell of the underground fighting rings, meaning that his newfound curiosity would drag him down in that direction, too. And what he sees is about what he expects — raw, vicious altercation, fists gone flying and knocking into skulls. Split lips, black eyes, adrenaline coursing and the area filled with the stretch of sweat. Big blocky letters scrolling across their implants, plastered against the walls and above the ring itself, the names of the competitors not meant to be forgotten.

V manages to keep balance with the majority of his weight pressed into his cane against the floor, even as the audience is constant movement, knocking into his shoulders as they jeer with life after every strike is exchanged. He’s managed to find a spot close enough to where he doesn’t need the heads-up display in his implant to view what’s happening — close enough to where he’s sure he can scent the copper tang of blood in the air.

One man is taking a beating. His moves are easy to see, telegraphing them from miles away. His opponent is calmer, more patient, reading the other like a book, and V thinks that it was a mismatched round from the start. Not that anyone cares, when it comes to fighting that isn’t strictly by the books.

Another hook across the jawline, blood spraying in a fan and spotting against ring’s floor. V shakes his head, making peanut gallery commentary to someone standing next to him.]

He should’ve yielded five minutes ago. He’s already lost.

Edited 2019-06-09 16:58 (UTC)

[ of all caroline's many ideas for how to spend her errant evenings in new amsterdam, this is probably one of the worst. if not the worst, certainly the least thought through. blood sprays out across the ring, the scent of it thick in the air, and though her attentions are meant to be focused on the audience itself — listening for conversations about her friend, for name drops of one high-powered woman in charge, for anything that might give a little bit of a clue — she finds herself instead entirely focused on not lunging forward to sink her teeth into the weak neck of the losing fighter in the ring.

calm, caroline. keep it together. you can do this. there should only be a few more minutes, and then you can bolt outside and claim you got queasy watching the fight.

for now, though, you've got to answer the person standing to your left, because they've asked you something and it would be outright rude not to answer. or said something to you. either way. ]

Yeah. [ so eloquent. she swallows, tongue darting forward only to note the sharp tick of canines forming a point behind her lips. goddamnit. ] It's not usually this bad.

[ does she mean to sound almost wistful? no, but the near longing colors her tone all the same. ]

[V takes a strange sort of pleasure in the display, though. Not because he is cruel (though he certainly used to be; a cold, distant cruelty) but because he is curious. Those who think they are a match for others that outclass them are a strange lot, their logic not always aligning with how V perceives the world. Vivacious stubbornness only goes so far — the truth of the reality is that sometimes you are the hammer, and sometimes you are the nail. Those who think otherwise are quick to learn their lesson.

Such is the case now.

Another thrown punch, another spray of blood, crimson on the floor.]

No? So most people aren’t that foolish, you mean?

[A rhetorical question. He would’ve kept his eyes trained on the show, but the response he receives sound… distant. Perturbed? Hard to say, and V finally casts a glance at the woman next to him.]

Too much blood for you?

Something like that.

[ it's not fear. it's hunger, desire; it's the unavoidable animal instinct that thrums under her skin, louder by the second with each echo of fists making contact with flesh in the ring. caroline might wince as one fighter staggers backwards, but it's not from sympathy — at least not for him. ]

Either somebody goes down fast, or the fight goes on a lot longer and nobody bleeds this badly.

[ mismatched fights tend to feel forced. someone who obviously should never have gotten in the ring, going up against someone well outside of their skill level. those fights are over almost before they begin. ]

[In the ring, another crack of knuckles across the face and the crowd explodes in an uproar. Cheers and jeers, excitement and frustration crashing into each other when money is on the line. How many people have credits riding on these fights? How much of it exchanges hands in just a single night?

The sight is magnetic, even pulling V's attention back into the ring. But her discomfort -- at least, he believes it to be discomfort, he has no reason to think otherwise -- is noted.]

The audience feeds on this. This is really what they came to see. Even if some won’t admit it.

[A morbid or violent curiosity. Like watching a car crash or a train wreck.

Also potentially a bad choice of words.]

[ even as caroline wishes things would calm down, she's drawn in; her attentions and her feet both drag her closer, closing the gap between herself and the edge of the ring inch by inch.

oh, but she'd love to just jump in, to vault over the cage and pin down the bloody, beaten fighter, to dig her teeth into the crook of their neck and savor the taste of their spent energy pulsing through their blood. the desire of it screams in the back of her mind, only encouraged by the human feeding she's done since arriving, but she can't.

held back only by pure self-serving fear, caroline lets her hands curl into fists, nails digging half-moons into her palms. ]

Did you bet?

[ any topic of conversation is better than what people feed on. ]

[At first, her wandering receives an arched brow. Now, she inches closer as if the fight possessed its own gravitational pull, a contraction to what he had perceived just moments earlier.

V actually has to close the gap with a step or two, continuing the conversation as the underdog staggers close to the edge of the ring. Everything is the scent of sweat and blood; the rest is just the impossible noise of a crowd going rabid with nearing victory.

Or defeat, depending on where one's bets were placed.]

No. I'm just here to watch.

[Only a half-step behind her, he spots how her nails bite into skin.]

...Why are you here?

To watch.

[ to learn, to observe, to try and be useful for once in a way that isn't pure violence and power. she's struggling to learn that aspect of things; in retrospect, perhaps the fighting rings with its bloodshed wasn't exactly the best place to practice those kind of skills.

her voice is taut, overly so, like a string on a bow tightened past its stretching point, her shoulders ramrod straight as she stiffens in place. the temptation is stronger here, but she manages to hold herself back. only just — and only as the fight comes to a messy end with the collapse of the losing opponent onto the mat of the ring. ]

This is a mess.

[He watches as the body crumples to the ground, wondering if the man is conscious at all. He looks like he's been through a meat grinder and back, and medical attention will likely be needed.

Caroline's voice, however, is somehow more poignantly striking -- gone so taut and tense -- than the sight before him. (V's seen plenty of violence in his time, or at least, in the memories he still harbors of another life.)]

To watch. [A question implied at the end of that, a question mark rather than a period. But then V turns, waving a path that they could weave through the crowd to leave, if they wanted.] To what end?

I don't know.

[ if leaving is an option, it's one she takes without much hesitation. there's an urgency to it — easy to assume, given the literal everything about her, that it's from fear — though she doesn't bother to elaborate. just books it outside as fast as her long legs will carry her, past the crowd and the air thick with the scent of blood and sweat and drink and into the outer alleyway, where brick untouched by the day's sun is cool against her skin as she leans up against it.

there's a measured purpose to caroline's breathing now, in and held and then released between pursed lips, reminiscent of a woman in a lamaze class cramming the material a week before her due date. ]

This was a bad idea.

[ to him, not to him; it's said out loud out of habit more so than striking conversation. ]

the miles are way too long

V & CAROLINE;

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