capitalh | Open; i'm the kinda guy who likes to roam around

It's barely daylight when Nessa opens the door to the gym in the Trailblazers base. Training early had been something she'd picked up in rehab--it was usually the only way she could flex her skills without someone freaking out or trying to stop her. Not that she ever shifted during these sessions, but it was easier to train on her own.

She's dressed in loose fitting pants and a black vest, freckles speckling over her shoulders and down her arms, and is in the process of winding tape around her wrists to make sure she didn't do them damage. Though the majority of her fighting style involved shifting--and she was happy to train with the team for that--her love of the martial arts had never really left. And she didn't want her skills to grow rusty. Only a few of the team knew she even came down her to train every morning. There was just something about it that grounded her, almost reminding her that she was still human.

She ties her hair up into a small, scruffy bun as she heads toward a hanging punching bag and stretches her back out, joints clicking as she loosens up. She takes a small glance behind her to make sure the door to the gym shut and then starts her regime off with a bit of kickboxing.

Flame Princess has always been an early riser. It has something to do with the rising of the sun working in tandem with the chemical compounds of her heat core, more than likely, but she’s never questioned the science behind it all. She’s content to wake with sunlight trickling through the window to shine down on her face, Mother Nature serving as her own personal alarm clock, and it’s a warmer welcome to the waking world than a good deal of her teammates tend to experience. (For the ones who are decidedly not morning people, she is kind enough to make coffee. Heating liquids instantly is a valuable skill in regards to beverage brewing.)

This morning, however, she’s ahead of the curve. The funny business going on with the sinkhole debacle has left her itching for action, and she finds herself waking up early with energy to burn and time to kill. Channeling her strength into widespread destruction is frowned upon in most circles and therefore not an option, so finding a positive outlet for her newfound burst of vigor is a necessity. Luckily, she’s in the know that a certain roommate has a certain training regime at a certain time of the day. The gym provides a perfect backdrop for someone wound up like a coil to spring into action. F.P. simply intends to take advantage of it.

All she has to do is don work out gear in various shades of red and yellow, will her hair into the form of a high ponytail, and forgo shoes entirely to be ready to go. It’s an easy enough task, one that she finishes with time to spare, and before long she’s heading off to the training area with a spring in her step. One, two knocks of warning are given before she pushes the door open, her voice carrying into the room as she calls out,

“Hey! Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

Nessa's not even five minutes into her training when she hears the door open and a familiar voice call forward. She gives the punching bag one last kick before pulling away, going for a bottle of water that she'd brought in with her. Instantly the room gets brighter and warmer, and after her eyes adjust the the bright light source, she gives Flame Princess a warm smile.

"Good Meowning, F.P.," she starts, stretching out her arms above her head, eying her clothing.

"Nope! I just got started. You wanna join me?"

True, she did like training on her own, but training with a friend was always more fun.

Edited 2014-02-09 00:37 (UTC)

With training and no immediate missions for the Trailblazers to take up, Nessa decides to spend her afternoon in the city. She has to pick up a few groceries anyway (she's not sure where all the mayonnaise and her sketchbooks keeps disappearing to, but it probably has something to do with the additional Alternian in the building) and the day is nice enough that she wants to get out of the base for a while. Being cooped up was never her thing, so with grocery list in hand and backpack and civvies on (today she's sporting a overly big sweater with cats knitted into the front in some sort of faded glittery wool that she'd found at a thrift store and remains to be her most prized thrift store purchase yet) she ventures out into the city.

Maybe if she stops by the thrift shop, she'll be able to find a companion sweater for this beauty? And she'll have to stop by that one bakery downtown that sells the little cat buns so she can work on some fanfiction over a cup of coffee.

When she does venture into the nearest thrift shop to the dorms she will find she is not the only Trailblazer there: a familiar figure, hoodie pulled up over his horns but without much else to hide the fact he's an Alternian, is rifling with frankly conspicuous furtiveness through second hand garments on the far side of the store – a few days after Sollux's misadventure and he's finally willing to leave the dorms without him, as long as he knows other people are still around. When she enters, though, he glances over and then quickly away, startled, as if he hopes not to be noticed.

Edited 2014-02-06 03:24 (UTC)

Hoping that she wont notice him isn't one of Karkat's better strategies with the way he's dressed right now, and Nessa pretty much spots him straight away. She hesitates in the doorway of the store, trying to look at what was on the hangers than over to the hooded figure before decided to screw it and walk in. She stays on the opposite side of the store to Karkat, partly because being seen together could jeopardise her secret identity, but mostly because avoiding him had ben the norm as of late. And it wasn't like he looked particularly thrilled to see her.

With a short sigh, she starts to dig around in a bin filled with assorted shirts, not exactly paying attention to what she's looking for as she keeps casting glances over to the hooded figure.

Jean-Michel has an afternoon off from skating practice, and with his police scanner app relatively quiet (at least, as far as superhero stuff), he finds himself with actual free time, for once. He's been wandering downtown without a whole lot of intention--he still doesn't particularly know his way around LA--and chose to go into the thrift shop more or less on a whim.

He doesn't pay much attention to the hooded guy in the corner, he's seen his fair share of weirdos, but when he goes over to the t-shirt bin he nods at the girl who had the same idea.

"Nice sweater. Colourful".

If she looks up, she'll probably be able to tell his admiration is genuine. Apart from the respect in his voice, he is wearing a t-shirt in a really vivid peacock blue, with an abstract green print around the hem and sleeves.

When Nessa doesn't come over and bother him, he's actually kind of surprised. His ears twitch, and he takes a less cursory look over to where she's looking at shirts. Does she really still feel bad about dragging him out to the sinkhole–? Well, maybe she should, he thinks huffily.

He's still watching her when she glances in his direction, and he frowns and looks away. He's sort of grateful for the other guy interrupting, or they'd probably keep awkwardly staring at each other across the store indefinitely... but he can't resist an eye roll and a snort at his enthusiasm for brightly coloured garments. Humans, man.

She's really trying not to pay too much attention to Karkat, focusing on the colourful t-shirts. She's so far got a little collection to try on in her hands, one sports jersey sporting a tiger roaring on the front, and the other a sweater with a majestic unicorn print on the front that she intends on giving to Flourish.

She jumps a little when the voice comes from the man next to her too engrossed in her digging around in the bin to notice him and looks up, blinking. She looks down at her own shirt, holding it out and smiles.

"Thanks! Yours is pretty awesome too," she says, admiring the colours with wide eyes. "Where'd you get it?"

She loves the night as much as she loves the quiet of the morning, especially when it means she can slip out of the base and stretch her feline legs without startling anyone. At least, anyone she doesn't mean to startle. Nessa hasn't been out as a cat like this in a long while. She knows she's not supposed to hunt as it raises a few eyebrows that she needs to remain shut, but it wasn't like she was doing it for sport. She was hungry and didn't really feel up to Chinese take-out again. So she was going to get takeout of her own.

And it's not like anyone would miss a few racoons or rats.

So she finds herself on the outskirts of the city, where the streets and tarmac gave way to brush and undergrowth. She can smell coyotes and foxes, but more importantly, she can smell prey. She'll be hunting into the night, probably only coming back to the base when she's made at least one kill.

Hunting alongside an enormous tiger is not exactly a thing that Katniss is used to, but the experience itself is enough to make her feel a little less anxious and a little more at home. It's not the woods she knows, either - she's never lived in a desert terrain like this. But, well...hunting was hunting.

And Nessa being a tiger helped in-so-much as Katniss would have someone to hand some of her kills off to. She didn't really believe in just hunting for sport, but at the same time, it was hard bringing a dead fox back to the base without getting some weird looks. It wasn't like she needed the food here, anyway.

Now that was a phenomenon she was unaccustomed to.

She's stopped using the wings once they are actually in the outskirts. This is easier on food. Instead she crouches in the dust with her tiger friend somewhere near by, waiting for the sounds of a potential kill.

Nessa loved hunting alongside Katniss. It helped keep her grounded to what she was actually doing and who she actually was. Not that killing and eating prey would be enough to awaken any animalistic urges within her, but she knows the government doesn't want to take that chance. And if she's hunting with someone, Nessa knows she's less likely to go off into the wilds and never come back. And it wasn't like hunting didn't help Katniss too. Nessa knows it was something she did back in her own timeline and if she could help Katniss feel more at ease, she would. And of course, it meant she got a meal out of it, and some time with her friend.

Her eyes are wide and locked onto the brush, scanning for any movements. She's next to Katniss, ears flicking thisway and that to the noises of the LA nightscape. She could faintly hear the highway in the distance. Her tail flicks lightly against Katniss' leg before she slinks off into the darkness, using a ploy they'd used several times before.

Nessa would spook the prey and Katniss would shoot it down. Better for her to practise with moving targets than Nessa to tear something alive apart.

She's only gone for a few minutes before there's a snarl and the sound of claws skidding against the sand and then a flurry of birds erupts from a bush ten feet away, only the noise and the light of the moon to give Katniss any help.

The arrow flies without hesitation, the bolt of light sinking through the neck of one of the birds for an instant kill. Before the flock can disperse, she's loaded and shot a second, pegging it between the wings.

She doesn't both shooting at the others as she slowly stands from her waiting place. Her glowing arrows have the handy trick of making it obvious where the corpses are in the dark.

"Got them," she says softly and without much point. She's felt strange and contextless lately.

Nessa looks up at the night sky with anticipating, giving an approving chirp when the bodies drop. She waits for Katniss to stop shooting before loping forward and picking both bird up softly in her mouth before moving over to where Katniss was, the birds and glowing bolts hanging from her maw. The tigress then deposits them on the floor in front of Katniss and sits, shifting as she does so, to start working the bolt out of the birds with nimble fingers.

"Nice shot, Kat," she purrs, yanking the bolt out of the first bird with a crunch and offering it back up to her with a smile, flecks of blood where she'd been carrying them still on her face.

"Wanna help me pluck them?"

"Alright. I'll take this one," she says, offering a slim smile and kneeling down next to the one Nessa hasn't started on while sliding her bolt back into the quiver. She's more than familiar with this whole process, and is content with the distraction.

"Do you want to keep going after this?" she asks, plucking out the other arrow and putting it away.

Nessa sets to plucking the bird as soon as Katniss kneels next to her, being surprisingly good at it considering the low lighting. She hums merrily as she rips out feathers and sends clouds of down and feather behind, and blinks up at Katniss when she speaks.

"Hmm, well this will do for dinner! I don't like catching too much," she says, trailing off as she pulls out some more difficult feathers. "But if you need to let off some steam that's cool too! I can paw-ways put them in the freezer." She offers Katniss a smile.

"You kinda seem like you need to let off some steam."

Edited 2014-02-24 21:08 (UTC)

Katniss starts plucking the bird with quiet efficiency, until Nessa speaks up. She shifts awkwardly, and doesn't look up from her work.

"...It's okay," she says, after a moment of hesitation. "We should probably head back soon."

Nessa looks up from the half naked bird, wholly unconvinced. She knows what Katniss is like, and straight up asking her what was wrong was probably not the best course of action. So she'd mention her own stuff, in the hope Katniss would open up a little.

"I know I needed to let off some steam," she starts, plucking some wing feathers out, stroking them carefully.

"Did you want some of these for your arrows?"

Ignoring that bit about going back.

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In the City (Civvies); Midday-Afternoon

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Outskirts (tiger form); Midnight

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i lost this notification ;[

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