She had been excited at the prospect of going out to catch someone, but the look in Brian's eyes as she showed him the bag told her he wasn't catching anyone. She laughed. “You're fried.” She tossed the bag aside, laughing as Brian tried to stand and fell down again. She lay down and rolled over next to him, propping her face on the backs of her palms. “The elves aren't out yet,” she told Brian, giving him a beneficent smile. “We'll have to wait for night to catch one.” Unable to resist, she reached out a hand, brushing it against Brian's chest. “Yes... we'll sex...” She giggled.

She studied him, not at all sorry she'd made him undress. “So you want an elf for your first? Are you really a virgin?” She laughed; it seemed ridiculous. Who stayed a virgin any longer than they had to?

“I have lots of experience,” she cooed, touching his chest again. “I could teach you. Like I did with the drugs.” Another laugh. She was feeling playful. “Tell me more about what you want your first time to be.”

Brian Harris

She had ordered a White Cuban. She was sure of that, and for a moment she blazed (figuratively) with anger at the woman who made the mistake. Then a smile exploded onto her face, and she seized the proffered real Cuban and drank the entire thing in two gulps.



“Ahhh... so good,” she sighed, setting the glass back down. “Do you want to get drunk? I like getting drunk. Dancing is more fun when you're drunk.” She picked up her game controller, teeth gleaming. “Ready?”



Adri had not played Cuphead much. The biggest reason was that it was difficult, and Adri hated losing. Which, in Cuphead, you did a lot of.



They played, and they died. That was to be expected. Adri, however, grew more and more visibly frustrated with each death, even as they progressed through the levels. Finally as GAME OVER filled the screen yet again she hurled her controller at the wall. “F***! I hate this. Who made this stupid game?” Jumping up from her seat, she turned the TV off and turned to face Taliah, leaning against the stand. Her face carried an expression of childish anger.



“Pick something to do. Not something boring, something fun,” she ordered.



Taliah Dawson

No one had ever asked Adri about her feelings for her sister. Well, almost no one, and that was a good thing, considering how mixed-up they were inside Adri. There was admiration- a bright, burning glee at her sister's power, a wide-eyed wonder at her success. There was the deep-seated desire to see Yennefer happy, to please her. Yennefer dispensed praise so rarely, showed affection so little, that Adri longed for it, panted for it, preening to the slightest sign of her sister's approval. A slightly soften expression, a tone just a little gentler- Adri would run for these things like a dog after the approval of its master. Yet it was no all good between them. With Yennefer's success came a kind of jealousy in Adri, a smoldering frustration as on some level she realized that she would never be able to accomplish what Yennefer had accomplished. Yennefer had always been the smart one. Yennefer had always been the one the teachers praised. Yennefer had always been the one with the plan. That was something Adri never had. Even as a child forcing her to focus on a homework problem for any length of time had always left her nearly in tears. She simply couldn't plan, couldn't think the way Yennefer could. In prison, the psychiatrists had described her as various shades of mentally ill. Intellectually, Adri supposed they were probably right, but it was rare for her to care about their stupid diagnoses. Only in front of Yennefer did the issue rise up in her mind- the nagging feeling that she was a burden to her sister, that she was completely dependent on Yennefer. She had never had a real job in her life, and deep down inside, though she would never have put it in so many words, that she was constitutionally incapable of holding one. A few days in and she would explode at a manager or a customer or do something silly and stupid and she would be fired. That is what would happen. She knew this, though she would never have said it aloud. Knew this, and was powerless in herself to change it. Video games, drug habit, even her occasional murders- these all happened by the grace of Yennefer and not for any other reason. She could not help but love her sister, yet she could also not help but taste an edge of bitterness in every interaction with her. So it was, and so it would be.

Yennefer's voice was flat. It was always was, these days. Adri tried not to let it bring her down. “Oh yeah? This one has-” she flipped the Snickers bar over in her hand, “twenty-eight point seven seven grams.”

She heard Yennefer's breath release, long, slow, and steady. Instantly her gaze shot to her sister, suddenly wary and perhaps a little afraid. She knew that breath, knew it meant something had gone wrong. The words came next. Controlled, perfectly calm, yet each one felt like a knife blade being ripped across her skin. Each one an air horn blaring USELESS, STUPID inside her head. Disappointing Yennefer. Hurting the kingdom. Fear mingled with anger inside Adri. Then the last sentence came and smacked her like a whip, making her look up. Yennefer was angry. Very angry. Adri stared at her, eyes wide. Her jaw hung slack. Her lower lip began to tremble.

“T-t-there wasn't supposed to be a camera there,” she said. “I checked online.” She sniffed. Something made her vision blur. “I d-didn't mean to, I just didn't have anyone and-” she sniffed again. “I wasn't careless,” she said, and now there was something like real anger in her voice. “I wasn't careless! That can happen to anyone! It can happen to you!” Her face twisted, and exploded into tears. “It's your fault! You promised you'd give me toys for my playhouse and you haven't! If you were getting toys for me I wouldn't have to go hunting!”

Tears ran down her cheeks. Her face was the spitting image of an angry, pouting child.

Yennefer Evgeniya

Injecting drugs made them work fast. The shrooms he'd eaten would take a but longer to kick in, but once that started Adri expected Brian would be somewhere besides here, so to speak. She'd had a sliver, enough to give her a bit of a ride but not nearly as much as he'd taken. Hopefully he hadn't OD'd himself just now; Yen would be upset if she made a mess (well, a bigger mess) on her apartment floor.

His words made her glance up.

"Not into girls?" She cooed his words back at him, giggled. "Maybe you haven't tried hard enough." That was inconvenient to discover, though not majorly so, considering how high he was about to get. Also, he was probably lying to himself. Her hand probed, exploring. "Don't worry, I can be into girls for both of us..." An evil smile. "We can catch a boy later."

She pulled herself along his body, on top of him now. "It's my house," she said in her sweetest voice. Her eyes were glittering, intense. Burning. "And my drugs. Seems like you owe me something. Let the shrooms have you. It won't be so bad..."



Brian Harris

She could see Brian's excitement building as she described the platter of drugs. It made her grin wider and giggle as she finished the explanation. He was like a puppy in his eagerness. Before she was even finished speaking he was grabbing at the bag of shrooms. "Whoa, hey there, big guy," she laughed, yanking the bag out of reach. "Pace yourself on your first time." But she let him eat the chunk he had taken, breaking off a much smaller piece for herself. Adri might be a psychopath, but she knew perfectly well that not everybody needed to get high out of their minds. Somebody had to stay on earth.

He asked about the heroin next, voice eager with excitement. She laughed. "Sure! Not too much with the punch you're about to feel with the shrooms, but I'll give you something." She picked up tbe syringe and opened a new needle. "Always use a fresh needle when shooting up for the first time," she said in a sing-song voice as she lifted the container of drugs. She put a bit into the needle, eyeing the mixture with as much professionalism as any nurse. "Always make sure there's no air in your needle- that will mess you up real good!" Satisfied, she turned to Brian, holding the needle and studying him. An evil grin spread over her features.

"Take off your shirt so I can find a vein."

Brian Harris

Brian's excitement was palpable; Adri giggled. Having someone to share excitement with was lovely. "Yeah we'll play games! Let's get high first though, huh?"

She flopped down on her stomach next to Brian, bringing her feet up and crossing her ankles. "Right," she said. She had a new joint in hand, having grabbed one while getting the other drugs. "So the most important thing is," she raised a finger and shook it at him. "Never ever ever EVER use MJ with a depressant. Seriously! Not even booze. You'll kill yourself. Also don't use tobacco with it, that's just nasty. Actually I guess heroin's technically a depressant and it's okay? Anyway!" She smiled brightly. "Fortunately nothing here's a depressant! We'll be good. Now," she indicated the tray. "We got a lot of choices here! I don't have a ton of some of this stuff, but just try whatever you want. Okay, so!" She slid a little closer to him. "The stuff that goes best with MJ is shrooms, LSD, ecstasy, heroin, and ketamine. Obviously not all at once. MJ works really well with any kind of hallucinogen, actually. You get a smoother trip and sometimes you get a more intense peak. Quick question, are you on something for the voices? Maybe don't use ketamine then.

"Let's see... Heroin is a nice high that goes well with MJ, but to be honest the MJ doesn't add much there, more of the same. So I like it better with on of the others. Honestly, I haven't used Heroin since getting out of prison. Anyway!"

She held up a plastic bag containing a dried, fibrous substance. "You want my recommendation, I like MJ and mushrooms the best. You get a real good peak and the come-down isn't as hard. Plus these are real good mushrooms, I got a real good supplier. The only problem is that if you don't know what to expect shrooms can be pretty weird. You ever tried LSD? It's like that, but not quite as out there. Anyway!" She flashed him a brilliant smile.

"What's your pleasure?"

Brian Harris

Adri was hunting. What she was hunting, she was not sure yet. It might be a partner for the evening, or it might be a new guest for her playhouse. All she knew was the urge that had struck her, the urge to go out into the wide world and, in some way, conquer.

She wore high-heeled boots, adding to her already substantial height, black leather-look leggings, a red top she'd found at the mall recently and had been wanting to try out that held on with a ring-style halterneck and a clasp in the middle of her back so that it left her décolletage and midriff and most of her back bare (gotta show off the tattoos there), elbow-length, fingerless gloves, hair half up half down, nails painted black, a ring in her lip and another in her eyebrow. A spiked metal choker, black jade dangle earrings and very dark lipstick completed her outfit. Her colors were black and red and a bit of purple in some of her jewellery abd makeup. Inspecting herself in the mirror she was overall pleased, though she kept troubling the lip ring with her tongue, barely aware she was doing it.

She had no deep plan, just a goal to find targets of opportunity. The name of the bar she told her taxi driver was almost at random. She almost lit a cigarette in the cab but he gave her a dirty look and pointed at the sign. "No smoking."

She let out a longsuffering sigh. "It's impossible to smoke comfortably anywhere in this town..."

The bar was doing a brisk business but not uncomfortably crowded. Adri had brought a jacket against the fall cool but kept it slung over her shoulder as soon as she was inside. She slid up to the bar and pushed her card across it.

"Keep it open," she said. "Gimme an Aftershock for starters." She could take more alcohol then her body size would indicate; the same fast-burning effect that kept her skinny despite her atrocious diet of junk food meant she had to drink quite a lot to get really slammed. Which she had absolutely no problem with.

Her drink came out, flames dancing on top, which made her laugh and clap her hands before scooping it up to her mouth for a big gulp.

"Hey, watch it!" said the bartender. "That's still on-" The fire went out. Adri grinned at him, swallowed. "Did I scare you?"

He shook his head. "Sorry. Just didn't want you burned is all. That's a neat trick."

"It's the alcohol fumes that burn," said Adri. "You just gotta scatter them."

"I know, I know," said the bartender. "Still kind of freaky seeing you get it that close."

"Maybe I'll teach you later," said Adri. "Thimble of whiskey?"

"You got it." The bartender turned away. Adri grinned. Little did he know the flames wouldn't have harmed her no matter how close they got, and she had a much more effective method of putting them out then scattering the fumes.

Glass in hand, she rested an elbow on the bar, turning around to survey the other patrons of the bar.

Adam Cooper