Post by Khalidah Rahal on Nov 4, 2015 7:13:56 GMT -5
Come down from the altar
Remove your blindfold
What do you see
Nothing left to do here
There's nothing new here
It's all the same
Remove your blindfold
What do you see
Nothing left to do here
There's nothing new here
It's all the same
Elysium – Khalidah Rahal's residence
North Las Vegas, Nevada
North Las Vegas, Nevada
This was the first Hallowe'en she and her brother would be celebrating away from home at their grandmother's house with a new friend named Sharon. Ma had told them both that Sharon wasn't like them and couldn't turn into animals or heal super-fast and that they both had to listen to what aunt Alice told them to do which included not changing shapes until they got back to aunt Alice's house.
Both she and Daro wished that Hallowe'en could have been every night for them because who didn't like getting free candy? The two of them had been looking forward to it for the entire year, and she had the perfect costume picked out. She'd just seen the movie Balto and since she could already turn into a dog and knew what a wolf looked like and had seen pictures of the real Balto, turning into him was easy, and her aunt Lilka was teaching her everything about changing into animals. Her grandma had been teaching Tivodar how to do whatever it was he could do. His power was boring. He couldn't turn into a bird or a dog or a snake or anything. He could just heal his owies really fast, but she could do that too.
“Why do you always get to dress up as an aminal?” He was so jealous that he couldn't turn into a wolf. How cool would that have been?
Ildiko stuck out her tongue at him. “Because that's what Ii do, poopyhead. I'm an aminagus and I get to be a dog. You get to be Harry Potter and make sparkly things come out your wand.” Tivodar groaned and rolled his eyes at her. He wished Hogwarts was real. Then he could go fly on dragons all day and make potions and turn people into frogs.
Tivodar grabbed the wand his mom had made for him pointed it decisively at his twin. “Abbada cadurva!”
“I'm telling mommy you tried to curse me!” And with that, she started wailing for her mother in that high-pitched shriek that was shrill enough to crack glass.
Felicia knew that scream was a “mom, my little brother is annoying me!” scream and not an “I just cut my arm off and I'm bleeding out” scream. She took her time walking across the large house and by the time she came upon them in her old bedroom, Ildiko was already in Balto-form, her clothes completely shredded, and she and Tivodar were locked in a death match on the floor. “Elég!” They immediate stopped their play fighting and rolled away from each other, looking guilty. “Alice will be here soon.” She knelt down to smooth down the front of Tivodar's dress robes. “And don't go waving that wand around like that. You'll put someone's eye out.”
She had a small, dog-sized saddlebag in one hand with the Red Cross logo painted on each pocket. The name BALTO had been painted over the strap that went down over Ildiko's spine in big block letters. “Remember—no using your powers tonight, okay? Alice will tell me if you do, and I'll come pick you up and you won't get any of your candy because I'll share it with grandma and aunt Lilka.”
“I wasn't gonna use my power for reals, but she started it!” He jabbed his finger into Ildiko's black snout. She lifted her paw and in a very human motion, pushed his hand away and rolled her eyes.
“I don't care. You can use them later when you're back at aunt Alice's house, but not outside.” She cinched the saddlebags around Illy's chest and back until they were secure. As a wolf-hybrid like the famous dog from Nome, Alaska, she was tall enough for Daro to ride like a horse. “Érted?”
Tivodar looked down at Ildiko then back at their mom. “Értjük.”
Her costume choices for Ryan had changed several times ever since she and Felicia had dressed him as Ty Lee. Another idea had come to her a few nights before when they'd been watching some X-Men movie or another. She didn't remember which one it was since she was pretty blazed at the time. She'd called her mother the next morning and had her mother set her up with a few well-known Hollywood special effects makeup artists. Ryan would be going as an anatomically correct female version of Hank McCoy. He would hate her for it, but at least this year he was wearing clothes, so there was that.
Khalidah had been gracious enough to accommodate them two days prior to the event, and had set them up in the mother in-law house just to the east of the main house. It had décor similar to their condo, though it was smaller. Each room (aside from the bathrooms) had at least one large floor to ceiling window which allowed sunlight to pour through for the entire day as it travelled across the sky.
Adele's costume was slightly subdued, by her standards. She was opting for something classic and simple, and so she elected to attend the party as Lady Macbeth. The only colour in her costume aside from the drab white and grey swathes of cotton cloth were the bright spots of bleeding crimson on both of her hands. This was only her first costume of the evening. Under the thick layers of canvas-like material, she had another costume entirely—but that wouldn't be coming out until much later.
She took out her phone and texted Ryan to let him know that she was heading into the main house now to wait for other guests. Khalidah's mansion sat at the top of a hill which overlooked Las Vegas. As the sun drew closer to the horizon, the lights in the city flickered to life and began to light up the night sky. It was quite lovely, but she preferred her view of the Gulf. Adele walked up the concrete steps at the end of the driveway and opened the large front door.
It was strange how readily Khalidah had opened her doors to them. If the woman had been anyone else, she would have politely declined such an intimate offer of staying in her home, but she felt it would have been the height of rudeness to deprive the immortal of her presence. She was naturally distrustful of anyone with a bottomless bank account and who could never die—at least not by any natural means. There had to be a reason why they were all being gathered here, just like there was always a reason for them to gather at any large get together. Specials—well, herself and Ryan, primarily—liked to keep to themselves. Banding together into special activist groups or whatever this was . . . she'd given up on that long ago. Regardless of the Company's new stance on their kind, she would always feel like she had a target on her back.
The high, acoustic ceilings and the bare stone floor were an incredible conduit for sound. She glanced to her left, hearing footsteps, and saw Khalidah walking toward her from the wall-less room which overlooked the infinity pool in the backyard. “Good afternoon, Miss Rahal. Thank you again for allowing Ryan and I to stay with you. You have a lovely home.”
Khalidah was clothed from the neck down in a red leather catsuit, ribbed up the sides with thick gold rings. The red collar of the outfit was lined with the same gold bands, and the cuffs of her gloves flared out over her wrists, also embellished with the gleaming material. On her head, she wore a pair of weathered old aviator goggles. For a woman of indeterminable age, she looked remarkably good.
“Lady Macbeth?” She examined the doctor's rather simple costume, her eyes immediately drawn to the wounds on her hands. “The bleeding hands are a dead giveaway.”
“I wasn't trying to go for anything obscure.” Adele stared at Khalidah's costume, confused. “I'm sorry—I don't get the reference.”
“It's a little obscure. Retro Girl.” She gestured to the just-shy-of Olympic-sized pool just outside the living room. “Feel free to explore. I own the twenty acres around this property, and over the past few weeks, I've hidden certain items out in the desert that I thought some people might like. Given the time, I'm sure that other guests will be arriving imminently.”
[/font][/div]Both she and Daro wished that Hallowe'en could have been every night for them because who didn't like getting free candy? The two of them had been looking forward to it for the entire year, and she had the perfect costume picked out. She'd just seen the movie Balto and since she could already turn into a dog and knew what a wolf looked like and had seen pictures of the real Balto, turning into him was easy, and her aunt Lilka was teaching her everything about changing into animals. Her grandma had been teaching Tivodar how to do whatever it was he could do. His power was boring. He couldn't turn into a bird or a dog or a snake or anything. He could just heal his owies really fast, but she could do that too.
“Why do you always get to dress up as an aminal?” He was so jealous that he couldn't turn into a wolf. How cool would that have been?
Ildiko stuck out her tongue at him. “Because that's what Ii do, poopyhead. I'm an aminagus and I get to be a dog. You get to be Harry Potter and make sparkly things come out your wand.” Tivodar groaned and rolled his eyes at her. He wished Hogwarts was real. Then he could go fly on dragons all day and make potions and turn people into frogs.
Tivodar grabbed the wand his mom had made for him pointed it decisively at his twin. “Abbada cadurva!”
“I'm telling mommy you tried to curse me!” And with that, she started wailing for her mother in that high-pitched shriek that was shrill enough to crack glass.
Felicia knew that scream was a “mom, my little brother is annoying me!” scream and not an “I just cut my arm off and I'm bleeding out” scream. She took her time walking across the large house and by the time she came upon them in her old bedroom, Ildiko was already in Balto-form, her clothes completely shredded, and she and Tivodar were locked in a death match on the floor. “Elég!” They immediate stopped their play fighting and rolled away from each other, looking guilty. “Alice will be here soon.” She knelt down to smooth down the front of Tivodar's dress robes. “And don't go waving that wand around like that. You'll put someone's eye out.”
She had a small, dog-sized saddlebag in one hand with the Red Cross logo painted on each pocket. The name BALTO had been painted over the strap that went down over Ildiko's spine in big block letters. “Remember—no using your powers tonight, okay? Alice will tell me if you do, and I'll come pick you up and you won't get any of your candy because I'll share it with grandma and aunt Lilka.”
“I wasn't gonna use my power for reals, but she started it!” He jabbed his finger into Ildiko's black snout. She lifted her paw and in a very human motion, pushed his hand away and rolled her eyes.
“I don't care. You can use them later when you're back at aunt Alice's house, but not outside.” She cinched the saddlebags around Illy's chest and back until they were secure. As a wolf-hybrid like the famous dog from Nome, Alaska, she was tall enough for Daro to ride like a horse. “Érted?”
Tivodar looked down at Ildiko then back at their mom. “Értjük.”
*****
Her costume choices for Ryan had changed several times ever since she and Felicia had dressed him as Ty Lee. Another idea had come to her a few nights before when they'd been watching some X-Men movie or another. She didn't remember which one it was since she was pretty blazed at the time. She'd called her mother the next morning and had her mother set her up with a few well-known Hollywood special effects makeup artists. Ryan would be going as an anatomically correct female version of Hank McCoy. He would hate her for it, but at least this year he was wearing clothes, so there was that.
Khalidah had been gracious enough to accommodate them two days prior to the event, and had set them up in the mother in-law house just to the east of the main house. It had décor similar to their condo, though it was smaller. Each room (aside from the bathrooms) had at least one large floor to ceiling window which allowed sunlight to pour through for the entire day as it travelled across the sky.
Adele's costume was slightly subdued, by her standards. She was opting for something classic and simple, and so she elected to attend the party as Lady Macbeth. The only colour in her costume aside from the drab white and grey swathes of cotton cloth were the bright spots of bleeding crimson on both of her hands. This was only her first costume of the evening. Under the thick layers of canvas-like material, she had another costume entirely—but that wouldn't be coming out until much later.
She took out her phone and texted Ryan to let him know that she was heading into the main house now to wait for other guests. Khalidah's mansion sat at the top of a hill which overlooked Las Vegas. As the sun drew closer to the horizon, the lights in the city flickered to life and began to light up the night sky. It was quite lovely, but she preferred her view of the Gulf. Adele walked up the concrete steps at the end of the driveway and opened the large front door.
It was strange how readily Khalidah had opened her doors to them. If the woman had been anyone else, she would have politely declined such an intimate offer of staying in her home, but she felt it would have been the height of rudeness to deprive the immortal of her presence. She was naturally distrustful of anyone with a bottomless bank account and who could never die—at least not by any natural means. There had to be a reason why they were all being gathered here, just like there was always a reason for them to gather at any large get together. Specials—well, herself and Ryan, primarily—liked to keep to themselves. Banding together into special activist groups or whatever this was . . . she'd given up on that long ago. Regardless of the Company's new stance on their kind, she would always feel like she had a target on her back.
The high, acoustic ceilings and the bare stone floor were an incredible conduit for sound. She glanced to her left, hearing footsteps, and saw Khalidah walking toward her from the wall-less room which overlooked the infinity pool in the backyard. “Good afternoon, Miss Rahal. Thank you again for allowing Ryan and I to stay with you. You have a lovely home.”
*****
Khalidah was clothed from the neck down in a red leather catsuit, ribbed up the sides with thick gold rings. The red collar of the outfit was lined with the same gold bands, and the cuffs of her gloves flared out over her wrists, also embellished with the gleaming material. On her head, she wore a pair of weathered old aviator goggles. For a woman of indeterminable age, she looked remarkably good.
“Lady Macbeth?” She examined the doctor's rather simple costume, her eyes immediately drawn to the wounds on her hands. “The bleeding hands are a dead giveaway.”
“I wasn't trying to go for anything obscure.” Adele stared at Khalidah's costume, confused. “I'm sorry—I don't get the reference.”
“It's a little obscure. Retro Girl.” She gestured to the just-shy-of Olympic-sized pool just outside the living room. “Feel free to explore. I own the twenty acres around this property, and over the past few weeks, I've hidden certain items out in the desert that I thought some people might like. Given the time, I'm sure that other guests will be arriving imminently.”