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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"Well you two should go find it again," Yrael grins, leaning up to kiss them both on the cheek. "Get some drinks, if you want. Just tell the bartender you're my friends. I need to go get ready."

"Free drinks too?" Nikola teases. "It really does pay to have connections."

Liz chuckles softly, "Come on you." There's an ever gentle tug to Nikola's arm. "Drinks and our seats," she pauses to look at Nikola from under lashes, "and maybe some dancing?"

Least she's asking this time instead of just tugging him into it?

"You two are my guests and my friends," Yrael says after them, smirking. "I'm allowed to spoil you."

Then she heads over to the band, to let them know she's here, and then to the back, to get changed.

Nikola smiles after Yrael as she goes and then escorts Liz to the bar.

"Possibly dancing," he answers her. "Maybe."

There's a bright smile, even though it's a maybe. There's also a lean in to kiss his cheek when they get to the bar. "I can take a maybe," she says cheerfully, before ordering an amaretto sour.

The band continues to warm up, the wide and unusual array of instruments being tuned very precisely.

They've worked with Bianca before.

The place is getting full, but the bartender noticed them coming in with Bianca and makes sure to give them his full attention as they order.

Nikola orders himself the most expensive red wine they have, and once they're served, he turns to Liz with a smile, raising his glass.

"To...Bianca?"

Liz can't help but grin as she raises her glass and lets it tink lightly against Nikola's.

"To Bianca."

The band eventually quietens, letting the recorded music (techno with a driving beat, some of the club's usual fare) play as people mill about, get drinks and find their seats.

Bianca comes out from the back halls to meet with the band. She's wearing a slinky, shimmery dress of iridescent mother-of-pearl, with a pair of strappy, opalescent high-heels. Her white hair is up, piled artfully with silver clips. It's not just the shoes, which would normally require hours of bribing to get Yrael to wear. Bianca the musician moves differently than Yrael does, even when wearing the same form. She's more business-like to her band and the stage manager who comes to talk with her regarding the lighting.

Less coy.

For now.

Nikola takes a sip of his wine once they've toasted, and settles back in his seat next to Liz to enjoy the show. He's interested in the differences he can see between Bianca and Yrael, and he watches the set up curiously.

Liz settles in, eyes watching Bianca. She can see the difference between both Yrael and Bianca already, but she can also see the differences between the woman that went shopping with them verses the woman on stage. Body language is something she reads naturally because of her feline side.

She's ever so curious now.

Bianca nods, pointing out to the manager a light that need to be moved, or little, last minute tweaks of the stage layout to the band, for acoustics' sake. Everything is finally to her approval.

She dismisses the stage manager, and looks out at the crowd: a performer sizing up her audience, watching with more than just her eyes and listening with more than just her ears. Deciding on the line-up of songs, based on the audience. The couples at the tables, the loud groups of friends in the booths, the people at the bar and standing along the back walls. The young, the middle-aged, the middle-aged-and-hiding-it-to-look-young. The humans, the mutants passing as humans, the single were and vampire.

As her gaze passes them, she stops and grins at her friends. That toothy, almost feral grin, out of nowhere, is pure Yrael. But it only there a moment, before Bianca comes down again like a mask. Just long enough for her to see them and smile, before resuming the role and turning back to her band to let them know the final order for the night.

Nikola returns the grin, pleased at being included in what seems like an intricate con. The hand not occupied with holding his wine slides around Liz's waist, and he makes himself comfortable for the concert.

Liz returns the grin as well, liking that flicker of Yrael through the mask. It's also so very interesting to watch just how fast and easily she can go from Yrael to Bianca. She leans into the touch comfortably with the softest cheerful purr.

The stage manager gets a nod and the lights of the club dim, leaving the stage area lit. The drummer starts the beat, something upbeat but not too fast, driving but not harrying. Bianca turns from giving her musicians a last smile, swaying to the microphone. The lights make her dress shimmer like an oil slick on ivory, following the shifting music of drums and guitar and keyboard.

She takes the mic in her hands, smiling out at the crowd. Her voice is sweet, warm, drawing, cast out to the crowd like a net.

"Oh, my god, what have I done?
Chasing some mirage in my Mojave sun."
A pale hand is held out to the audience, quietening.
"Don't say every chance is lost-
Please, don't say anything at all."

"In sand and thorns, I'm walking forth.
Bare and blinking as the day that I was born."

There is the barest upturn at the corner of Bianca's mouth, a hint of amusement to her tone as she lets the audience follow that image a moment.

"Bells in spires of china white-
Ring for an Augustine tonight."

Called by her voice, the music rises with a quickening crescendo, breaking like a wave over the rapt listeners, engulfing them in the sound and rhythm and voice, wreathed with the cascading sounds of bells.

"Oh no, I'm breaking down, breaking down-
Oh no, Breaking down, breaking down-
Oh no, I'm breaking down.
Oh let me be - let me be your Augustine."

Bianca smiles, lifting a hand almost in supplication to the captive audience as the wave of sound rushes past, the music calming once again.

"Believe me now. I understand.
Faith is both the prison and the open hand."

Yet it is not the religious kind of faith she is referring to.

Or perhaps it is.

"Bells on low - on high
Will you ring for Augustine tonight?"

Again, the music rises in an almost palpable wave, pulled by her voice, carrying the audience along in its bell-wreathed current as inexorable as the tide.

"Oh no, I'm breaking down, breaking down-
Oh no, Breaking down, breaking down-
Oh no, I'm breaking down.
Every illusion in-between
All the lies that I have seen
Oh let me be - let me be your Augustine."

The song, like a spent wave, fades to just the drums and the ringing after-echoes of the final notes. Until even those stop, leaving that moment of silence between the end of the music and the audience recovering its wits enough to applaud.

Yrael loves that moment.

Nikola finds himself watching the audience more than Yrael. Seeing their reaction to her singing is intriguing, and he smirks in amusement.

Liz is caught not knowing who she really wants to watch more, Yrael or the audience so at times there's a very cat-like bounce between the two. She's is definitely loving the show though.

Bianca laughs as the applause dwindles into attentive quiet. Not silence, of course, not with a gathering this large, but relative quiet.

"Hello, New Orleans! It's good to see you again!" She calls, grinning toothily as the band behind her starts up an up-beat, driving intro, more of a song you can dance to. "So glad you decided to join us, tonight - I'll make sure you won't regret it."

The crowd gets a wink before the musician launches into the next song. One can see the audience get pulled in quickly, as certainly as if Bianca was pulling on a rope around their necks. The beat is driving, the words entrancing, sung sweetly as honey but with all the irresistible force of gravity. She had insinuated her way into their minds with the first song, breaking down their defenses - now she takes full advantage, pulling them into desire, into the ache in one's heart and one's throat to move in the world and feel the world move with you.

It doesn't take long before people are getting up to dance.

"I have sent you my invitation, darling-
A note inscribed by the fire of living.
Don't stand quietly-
I don't want you to leap up and shout,
"Yes, this is what I want! Let's do it!"
But don't just stand quietly - get up and dance with me.

Show me how you follow your deepest desires,
Spiralling down into the ache within the ache.
And I will show you how I reach inward
and open outward
to feel the kiss of the Mystery, sweet lips on my own.

Don't tell me you want to hold
the whole world in your heart.
Show me how you can stand up and abandon yourself
When you are hurt and afraid of being unloved.

Don't tell me a story of who you are,
See who I am in the stories I am living.
Don't tell me how wonderful things will be...
...some day.
Show me you can risk being completely at peace,
moving in yourself and in me and in the world,
each moment and into the next-
and the next and the next and the next..

Take me to the places that pull you to your feet,
the places where you can risk letting the world break your heart.
And I will take you to the places where the earth beneath my feet
and the stars overhead
make my heart sing again and again.

Dance with me, darling, in the infinite pause before
the next great inhale of the breath
that is breathing us all into twisting, turning being,
not filling the emptiness from the outside but from within.

No need to shout, "Yes!" you idiot,
Just take my hand and dance with me."

He can feel her voice working, well familiar with it by now, though that doesn't stop it having the intended effect on him. He resists for the moment though, simply smirking at Liz as he watches the rest of the audience pulled into Yrael's song without even realizing what's happening.

Liz too feels that tug all too well, but like Nikola, knows what it is and where it stems from. She smirks back, raising a brow at him that reads 'when you're ready'. She doesn't need to be pulled by a Yrael to dance, she likes to even without the pull, so she's just watching the audience and waiting until Nikola is ready to dance.