The Three and the Ace (Playhouse open SL)

Nadia gripped the counter of the bar with both hands. This wasn't what the Playhouse was supposed to look like. She preferred the heroic lair that Callie saw. Instead, she was standing at the bar in a dark room, smoke seemed to cling to the corners and the ceiling. The aroma of cigars that only she could smell.

Her breathing picked up, and suddenly the environment was heavy around her. Oppressive, as if the very air was solidifying like concrete around her. It was dark and she was alone. She wasn't supposed to feel like this here. Not in the playhouse. She thought of Gabe, and how he had faithfully shown her around the playhouse, how he had delivered some very precious advice to her at a time when she didn't even know she had needed it. And now, he was gone. And it was empty. There was no one. She was all alone. She stumbled back away from the counter, toppling a bar stool as she did. The sharp sound that reverberated through the room as the metal rim of the stool struck the tiled floor rang out, cutting through her thoughts.

Everything seemed to snap back into focus. Whatever the oppressive, panicked feeling she had just experienced was, it was fading now. She drew in breath, exhaled, breathed in again. Still there was no one. She thought about calling Cecil or Tomomi. She was supposed to talk to them when she felt this sort of thing, wasn't she? But she didn't want to bother them with something she couldn't explain. A moment of weakness, that's all it was.

Her eyes fell on the bar again, and she quickly set the bar stool back up. Quietly, she made her way around the bar, running an absent finger along the tops of bottles and corked stoppers...

After all, why not? Why shouldn't she indulge herself? She was the only one here, after all. Leaning against the bar, and pulling from a stack beneath it a small cocktail glass, Nadia poured herself a drink, and waited. For what? She couldn't say. But she'd be here when it came.

So... this was it, the Platinum Playhouse? She couldn't say if it was what she'd expected. Not that she could say with any certainty what she'd been expecting from the start. How long had it been since she'd been in a club? Years, she'd stopped counting. Stopped counting since one of the main draws in places like this was forever denied to her.

Well, not forever. She could indulge if she wanted to, but after the last time she'd tried? She'd rather not. Having to be hospitalized due to getting a cold on a bad week was annoying enough without her putting herself in the hospital due to stupidity.

For the most part, she just walked, the metal on her heels clicking sharply against the floor, the golden-orange heat sinks poking from her back making gentle flapping noises with every step as she scanned the world from behind the half-green-half-orange visor. But there was a sound. A ringing. Metal on tile. At first the woman simply thought to ignore it. Some drunk probably just knocking something over.

But instead... She didn't. Veritas stepped to a door, her left hand pressing against it briefly, before she pushed, looking into the dark room behind. What she saw was probably the last she would have expected. "Nightingale?" She would call out the name. She then moved in to step closer, wondering what the younger female was doing here. Then her eyes fell upon the cocktail glass, and the fluid within it. "Have you... Have you been drinking?" The voice, even distorted by the unmoving mask covering her mouth, carried a clear tone of both surprise and concern.

Her initial reaction was to take several steps forward, her right hand reaching forward in an attempt to take the glass away, but the woman was still several fet from the other when she stopped. In that initial moment, she'd never stopped to consider why the the girl might have been drinking, only focusing on the "if". But now? She stopped to consider that possiblity, and... "Actually..." Veritas started, her tone much more quiet, apologetic.

She stepped forward, slower, more cautious. "Forget I even asked. Not like it's any of my business anyways." She walked up to the bar, reaching for one of the more... Out of place bar stools, and pulling it over, before sitting.

"Though if you'll allow a woman who hasn't had a drink in closer to ten years to sate her curiosity, what would drive a cute girl like you to alcohol?" Veritas would also lean over toward the counter, her elbows coming to rest on the edge of the counter, arms crossed. She would look at the other, but not seeking direct eye-contact.