Description: 'Wwas the night before Christmas, and loving families gathered around sources of warmth, watching retreaded Christmas specials and trying to find presents well before the opening day. Some are not as fortunate, left to fend for themselves out on the colder streets of harsh Southtown. Yet others find warmth in places far removed from what brings such to them, and as such renew their efforts for what is ultimately the most petty and self-serving of reasons.
It's the night before Christmas, for those in these parts who celebrate that thing. In the greater part of Japan, it's not as huge a deal as the Americas put it. Southtown, being about the most Americanized place you can be in Japan, is taking it seriously enough. At least, the retailers are. Southtown's been steadily gaining back its particular brand of pep, and it's not an especially friendly place this time of year unless you have a lot of money and/or are really really strong. Or both. Especially both, in this day and age.
It's become so cold outside that Varvara's had no choice but to take the closest she could find to shelter. Sure, she could have the money to stay in a warm, warm hotel room. But they were all taken. All the places that would have willingly took her, anyway. They have taken to hiring some particularly strong security for the season, so sleeping in kitchens again was unfortunately not an option.
It's hardly any warmer than it is inside this dark, dank, and otherwise completely abandoned corporate building - this may be partially blamed on how Varvara busted open a window to let herself in, and now she has no easy means of keeping warm other than huddling an old, mold-covered and dirty quilt about her body while she remains huddled over a chair and desk, a bright flashlight laid sideways to shine light on a number of items she has collected.
There is a large plastic bag full of (more or less stolen) food laid on a chair nearby, half of which have already been consumed as her cold, numb fingers grasp a pen as she writes on a pilfered piece of looseleaf paper. For all she knows, it's just her, her food, this light, and some things off to her side she looks at every so often from underneath the quilt wrapped around herself.
Which leaves us to how the Red Witch found her way here. Basically.. She followed Varvara. Having nothing better to do and being awfully confused the last few days. Lets, see. To recap there was a strange note, or that a homeless person telling her stuff. She expected something out of the golden child, but instead got a short chinese girl who was really mad about something. Then there was a fight that broke out and the chinese girl just kept shouting and shouting and really Naerose has no idea what any of that was even about.
%TAnyway, fast forward to now and there is one of the people there at the fight. Not the short mad one. . So Naerose follows her. . and.. Now what.
"Ah, hi.. " She says, looking awkward, "Couldn't help but notice you snagged some food." Yep, straight to the treats.
At the awkward voice, the woman wrapped in the old quilt suddenly shoots up from her chair, the loud cracking of a fist echoing through the cold, dark building with a small cloud of air escaping their nose with an aggressive snort, as though a warning to whomever intruded upon her.
'Couldn't help but notice you snagged some food.'
As her eyes adjust a bit more to the darkness behind her from what little light goes through the windows, it seems it's the form of that other lady from the other day. Her. She sits back down.
"They're mine." She says, as she possessively lifts them up onto where she's writing. If Naerose trots over to make her claim regardless, she might catch sight of the fact her shorter, meaner teammate for the King of Fighters seems to be writing something... and has a sizable amount of money! More than should be ever on a person who lives like her.
Or... smells like her, for that matter.
Well she does walk over, but she doesn't really notice much. . This is Naerose we're talking about right? Anyway, there is food here and frankly that's all that she really notices most of the time anyway. Instead she adjusts her shades and scratches her cheek a little, looking confused. Finally she just gets to the point and asks,
%n"So what's going on? I mean who was that mean girl and what is she trying to do and why does it have to do with you and me and for that matter who even are you?" She frowns and leans on her broom, just staring at the food. Staring at it. Just staring. And speaking of the darkness, how come Naerose has her shades on? (Because she never takes them off).
"Teammate." Varvara replies bluntly, scoffing as she re-adjusts the quilt around her... for what little good it does, it's better than nothing. Especially the way she's dressed, the way her body is built. She's not suited for the cold.
She doesn't really think or care much for the eccentric behaviors or the egotism or much of anything, all she knows is that she's a part of the King of Fighters tournament - the biggest name there is in tournaments, alongside the World Warrior - and that countless amounts of money await their success, should they win. For this, she endures.
A period of time seems to pass where the bit about asking who Varvara herself is might be lost. The wrestler rolls one of her shoulders in an attempt to at least keep some motion and body heat going through her, another sniffle as the pen grinds against paper in the building.
"Varvara," she replies at last.
"Ah.. Team mate.." Naerose scratches her nose, "In What?" Then she gets the introduction and smiles, like nothing else matters and while she doesn't like the cold either, she's at least used to it. "Naerose Delphine." She smiles big and decides to look for a place to settle down,
"I still don't get what is going on, but that's okay, it's not a big deal. I hardly fret the little things." The witch shrugs and adjusts her hat a little on her head,
"So what are you doing here."
This place is abandoned, but there is plenty laying around to sit down on, if not exactly /in/. Maybe other people have been using this place as temporary refuge in the past. Here, on Christmas eve, it's largely their turn. They may as well be spending the holiday together, for lack of having much of anywhere else to go as it is.
Where Naerose's greeting is with smiles and at least a degree of happiness and optimism, Varvara is largely acting as though the world itself is ready to try and take away anything and everything she has, however little it is, at a moment's notice. Jealously, she guards the food she gained by foul means, the money, and whatever it is she's doing.
"Writing." She grunts out, readjusting the quilt on herself once more as it slides down her left shoulder. "To my family at home."
Naerose seems to have forgotten what she had asked, because she's staring at the food Varvara is holding onto so much. At least being paranoid is not completely unfounded.
"So.. ahhh.." She begins and scratches her nose, then comes up with another question. From talking to Nae, you'd never know that she was in the last King of fighters, or perhaps she was pretending. Or was she in some other tournament. Who knows. Naerose doesn't.
"I never thought myself of a .. er.. I don't know, someone who gets into fights? I'm just a witch. That's all." She shrugs, "So what do you mean by we're team mates, are we on a sports team?"
Where Naerose dilly-dallies and scratches her nose, Varvara is focusing all the warmth and energy she has to committing what she's thinking on paper in her native Greek. For someone who speaks so incredibly simply, from the looks of things she's capable of saying a whole lot more in the language of where she's from.
"King of Fighters." She utters, as if someone trying to correct someone else on their lines for some sort of play. "I'm gonna win it." She says this as she transcribes largely the same thing in writing, if slightly more eloquently. "I'm gonna win it and I'll never go hungry again."
Her stomach growls, as if on cue. With a frown, she reaches into that bag of food for something, anything, whatever's left in that mess of empty wrappers she didn't just toss out of the bag that still has something resembling food inside of it.
Maybe she'll just eat the wrappers.
"The King of fighters.." Naerose says, looking really too thoughtful for her own good and then says, "And you say we're on a team..? Together? I didn't even know I was participating.." She frowns just a little then starts to move around you know to get warm. Pace pace pace pace. "So what happens if you win? How do you win?" Come to think of it, "How do you even enter?" She hopes there isn't a fee because she totally doesn't have any money. "Is this like survivor? Does the winner get a life time supply of witch cakes?" Mmmm Witch cakes, cakes made just for witches. She's not sure what they would be, but in her mind it is something akin to a justice fruit cake, only in the shape of a red witches hat. Clearly this is something made just for Naerose Delphine. "Can I win?" She asks.
"Uh huh." Varvara says as she pulls out a twin stick of beef and cheese. She doesn't even use her hands to open the wrapper, she just chews off the plastic top, spits it into the big, and crams the rest of it right into her mouth as Naerose thinks about things left and right.
"Unh hunh." She says with her mouth full so very impolitely while Naerose paces about. Granted, Naerose being on the team is an educated guess given she was of interest to that loud little girl who was associated with another teammate, and that teammate--
It makes her head hurt. To say nothing of the further questions, hunching herself over what she's writing while Naerose sweats all the little things that Varvara ought to sweat herself, were she not certain Shiden had any and all of the hard thinking things taken care of.
"Tch." She growls, clutching the quilt just a bit tighter around herself while Naerose drones on and on and on and on and on and...
"What're witch cakes?" She asks, almost in earnest in spite of the weariness of her voice from fighting the cold evening air. "Those sound kinda good."
Now there is a subject Naerose can speak on in earnest. She turns to Varvara, and oh you could see how hungry the notion is to her. "Well okay, so they come in a box, like a cereal box, except a little bigger, they have like a picture on the side of a witch and she's winking and giving a thumbs up, because oooh man are you in for a treat!" There is no box.
"So the cakes. They're kind of small, smaller than your hand, but you can't really munch on more than one at once, I mean, I did try to shove two into my mouth once, but it was hard. But anyway, they're these cakes, a little hard, cause I think you can dip them in something like hot chocolate... " Naerose licks her lips.
"Anyway, they're covered in frosting on one side and just colored on the other, yeah, they look like witches hats and they have different flavors, but I just like plain old cake flavored, they're like eating little cakes with every bite. The best treat ever."
Editors note: Witch cakes don't actually exist.
The talk of cakes brings back what little holiday nostalgia there is for Varvara, whom grew up exceedingly poor and had trouble even getting enough food to get by. She loved the few times she could have had some of that cake. There was also the matter of finding the coin, something she never did manage to get first.
Of course, she thinks that part of the tradition is exceedingly stupid now, but it nonetheless pushes her on through the cold to write what she feels, from that little poor overworked heart that has to deal with her heightened metabolism in the face of things that are (and in several cases, aren't) digestible.
She sighs out loud at all the tasty descriptors Naerose gives of it, something that sounds absolutely wonderful compared to the mostly stock gas station fare (some of which is probably expired). She digs around the bag for something that resembles a cake, something that might give her that fleeting feeling of holiday warmth and goodness that has long since eluded her.
She eyes the money Shiden gave her. The remainder of it, plus whatever else she could cobble from jumping people and participating in small illicit tournaments. She (very foolishly) lowers her guard from the bag and looks at the money, counting it up in her head as if to reminisce about the entire time she has been trying to make it through and make it happen in Southtown.
"This money is gonna buy my family a lot of witch cakes." She says out loud.
LUCKY for Varvara, Naerose is totally and completely engrossed in her own description to even for a moment notice that there is food possibly available to her for theft. She's totally side tracked by it. Her eyes are like stars over the top rims of her shades and then when Varvara shows her the money, that will buy them witch cakes (she imagines herself getting witch cakes too). It's like "Treasure." She says.
Naerose didn't grow up in poverty, she grew up in the lap of luxury, everyone given to her by a silver spoon. She never wanted for anything, she ate and ate and ate her family couldn't with their billions keep up and therefore they got rid of her. She was about two by then. At least this is how Naerose remembers it sometimes. Of course she remembers it other ways too.
"Yeah!" she exclaims and then says, "We should totally get those life time supplies of witch cakes! Oh and that angry girl, I'll bet we could get some from her.."
"All I coulda gotten." Varvara continues as she puts the money on the paper, folds up the paper, and stuffs it haphazardly into an envelope. It's kind of a wonder that, given the brutish way she does just about everything, she doesn't just completely destroy the envelope simply trying to get it in there.
"They need it 'cause I'm the only one who can get them money," Varvara explains, if not particularly warmly as she somehow musters up the willpower to merely lick the top part of an envelope and not just eat it outright.
Southtown is a harsh place, and that chill outside is a rather strong reminder of this. What money she's gotten together is the only warmth she'll be able to send back, but it is warmth that will have to do - the very first sign they would have had that the eldest child arrived more or less safely in Southtown after several months.
"So I'm gonna get a lot with the King of Fighters," she says, as though she actually /is/ confident of winning despite so much evidence to the contrary. She is a small-time thug in a very, very big cesspool.
Naerose stares and listens and finally she seems to decide something,
"Alright, Varvara.. I am totally going to help you.. I mean I was thinking of walking on that little mean chinese girl, but I think this is a totally good cause. So we'll do this to help your family and get us both life time supplies of witch cakes." Naerose grins, thinking she totally is got the right idea here. "You know I bet we could fine some along the way too. Someone has got to have witch cakes.. ."
Log created on 19:15:36 12/24/2010 by Varvara, and last modified on 22:03:36 12/24/2010.