mogget_cat | Terrible Triad Touring Agency: New Orleans

Yrael grins as she steps out from the bar and into the deserted alleyway and the New Orleans early evening. She glances over her shoulder to see Liz and Nikola follow her through the door, which closes behind them.

"We've got a while before I have to be there for my gig," she grins at them, "so I thought I'd show you around the French Quarter."

Since, and she may be ever so slightly sheepish about this, she hasn't gotten around to doing so before.

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"Martini, dry," she murmurs with a smile. Her eyes are taking in everything in the club, looking for good seats for which they can watch the show later. And possibly thinking on how much fun tonight will be.

The music is good, loud enough when one is on the dance floor, but lessened by distance and the strategic placement of speakers so that conversation is possible around the bars without one having to shout.

Yrael makes her way through the people like a cat weaving through so many human legs, over to a man with a headset and a clipboard, by an inconspicuous door that blends into the dark wall. It's close enough to the DJ and the main speakers to make the conversation difficult, but everything seems to be satisfactory. The other musicians have checked in with their instruments. They have extra seating to be set up before the show, as well, and they know that the sound system is working flawlessly.

"Somewhere near the front?" Nikola asks, turning to Liz as they wait for their drinks. (So sad not to have them instantly appear...) "Or in the back where we can watch the masses?"

Her head tilts a little, thoughtful. Both their hearing and sight is good enough that where they sit won't affect watching Yrael. "Back so we can watch the masses would be fun."

Her gaze goes to him with an almost innocent expression. "So is this venue appropriate to dance in?"

Yrael still isn't exactly enthused about there not being a real piano, but she's been assured that the keyboard on site is one of the best money can buy. And she supposes it would be nigh impossible to get a baby grand in here at such short notice, anyway.

She comes back, eventually, getting her usual from Tony: an Atomic Cat as virulently green as her eyes.

"What do you think, my friends?"

"I think the consensus is somewhere near the back," Nikola says, taking Yrael's appearance as an opportunity to avoid Liz's question.

There's the smallest of frowns/pouts from Liz when her question goes unanswered. Kitty is sad Nikola!

"I like the club," Liz says with a smile for Yrael. It's a place she'd frequent if she lived here.

"Oh, but you won't be able to see the audience's faces from the back," she grins.

The effect of a Bright Shiner's voice on a full array of people is something not to be missed.

"I like it, too," Yrael says. "And the club likes me because every time I play here they have to schedule extra bartenders and bouncers to keep everything under control. They get so many people coming in that I wouldn't be surprised if they're not paying off the fire department to keep them from reporting the fire safety risk."

Tony, behind the bar, is smiling to himself.

"She raises a good point," Nikola says to Liz. "Perhaps we should rethink the plan."

If Nikola's ego were slightly less swollen, he might be put off by her arrogance. As it is, he's fairly certain it's deserved.

"Up front, little to the side so we can see both?" She offers with a sly look.

Just don't think this subject is over. Liz has a good memory. Long. And ways to encourage answers, she hopes.

Yrael would tell him just how deserved, all while staving off the club's manager trying to negotiate an exclusive contract with her.

She wants to have fun, not put down roots.

"I can get you a reserved table wherever you two want."

A sentiment Nikola can fully appreciate.

"Up front and to the side, then," Nikola says, pointing to a booth that meets the criteria. "There?"

He's under no delusions that Liz will forget the question before the concert.

She nods, "Looks perfect to me."

She grins at Yrael, "All the perks for being close to the star. Might get spoiled with this kind of treatment."

It's the work of a moment to ask that that particular booth be reserved for later.

"I live to spoil my friends," she grins, sipping her drink. It's almost the truth, if one forgives that Yrael isn't technically alive.

"Want to go mock tour guides?"

Nikola takes a long drink from his glass. "By all means," he says. "Let's see what fallacies they're spreading to unsuspecting tourists."

Liz takes a decent size drink from her glass, "What they're trying to pass off as scary," she murmurs thoughtfully.

It's not hard to find such a tour; it doesn't take long before the three of them are lingering on the fringes of a group being led around the French Quarter and told the mysteeeeerious history of the place, from witchcraft to voodoo, werewolves to vampires, zombies to ghosts.

Responsibility for most of the 'phenomena,' though, the tour guide seems eager to pin on dangerous, unregistered mutants. Yrael, er, 'Bianca,' as she stands like a pale specter with Nikola and Elizabeth, is the recipient of one or two sideways glances from the tour guide and a couple members of the group.

The young lady dressed in grey standing next to them gets a grin and a wink from the not'cat as she gives Yrael a glance. Slightly flustered, she quickly turns back to continue watching the tour guide.

Nikola finds the whole thing terribly amusing, though the mentions of unregistered mutants earn the tour guide a few annoyed glares.

It's a mix between really funny and really sad what humans will believe and pass off as truth on the whole supernatural front. And both of these thoughts bounce over Liz's features during the tour. She's got a little more patience for ignorant people these days.

Places shown include historical houses where voodoo priestesses and witches (i.e. mutants) were said to have lived, buildings mentioned in various works of vampire fiction that are set in New Orleans and how they were actually about mutants, cemeteries where the undead (or mutants with limited regenerative powers) roam on Halloween, back alleys where fights between supernatural entities (actually mutants of course) supposedly took place...

At the end, the tour guide deftly covers himself with a disclaimer regarding the tour company's stance regarding the personal opinions of its tour guides not necessarily reflecting the views of the company, of course, before suggesting various ways that those taking the tour might contact their congressmen and senators regarding the upcoming mutant registration act, to help make "their fair city safer" for its human inhabitants.

Nikola's opinion of the tour guide is pretty well summed up in his sneer as they leave. "Mutant registration act?"

Liz's features hold a frown as she tilts her head at Yrael because mutants sounded odd to her, let alone that registration act on them. Granted she was a leopard... "Why do these mutants need to register?"

"Oh, because the humans feel threatened, of course," Yrael says, lingering by the doorway.

"The mutants are 'unnatural,' 'abnormal,'" Yrael gives Nikola a glance. "They have 'powers' that make them dangerous, despite it being simple genetics in most cases. The humans don't understand and don't want to, so they fear, and seek to pass sanctions against that which they fear."

"It's stupid, and sad." She watches the other tourists break into smaller groups and leave, but still she waits, leaning against the weather-beaten, age-darkened brick wall.

Nikola's frown deepens. "And rather like looking into a crystal ball," he says. He can easily imagine the Cabal pushing a law like that through any number of parliaments and congresses.

Liz scowls softly. It was stupid and sad and in her opinion completely unnecessary. "Should just leave well enough alone," she murmurs as she shifts to settle next to Yrael against the wall.