Sweet Meetings

[Wreckage]

OOC: Month 6 Week 3 Day 7. Downtown area, open.

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It is a wonder the surreally pale woman doesn't burn to a fine strawberry red under the bright, warm Saturday sun. Rachael sometimes marvels at this fact herself, given how soft and weak her skin seems. But she is accustomed to unforgiving armour plate, wires and cables, and dense framework, not the softness of flesh and bone. More the marvel, she thinks as she strides with purpose down the walk, oblivious to whatever stares may come her way – and with her stature, there are several – is that she somehow knew which of the many assorted lotions and creams in the cabinet back at her residence was the appropriate one to apply against the sun trying to bake her too-fair skin.

She is not on the town simply for its own sake, however; memories that are not her own and the meticulously kept appointment book on her desk tell her she has a meeting with a potential client today. The notes indicate a favourable impression of the job offer thus far, and she simply knows without quite understanding how that the only reason this meeting will take place is that initial overture.

Momentarily, as she enters the café and approaches the counter, she blends into the airy décor, cream and white ensemble fading into white tiles. The girl behind the counter stares speechlessly, eyebrows high, while Rachael orders a white chocolate mint sundae that she thinks she has looked forward to trying for some time. She ignores the waiter's awed gaze – something tells her she garners this reaction frequently, especially from younger males – as he follows her to her table of choice on the patio.

Once seated, legs crossed despite her preference to sit in a more ready posture should trouble arise, she removes her sunglasses and dismisses the waiter with a cool look as she tucks them into her purse. She checks her watch; fifteen minutes to spare. More than enough time to enjoy her treat and decide if her would-be client is doing well enough for negotiations. She takes her first dainty spoonful of ice cream and, in spite of herself, smiles at the texture and flavour, and the shiver it sends through her skin.

Things are looking better for this fellow every minute.

[Skystrike/Skylar Stringers]

It was a bright sunny day in Detroit and the streets were teeming with people. Skylar makes her way through the throngs of people with familiar ease, a skill does not recall particularly having nor ever needing to develop it. Cybertron wasn’t very populated when she was created, and it proceeded to get progressively less crowded since.

Regardless, the woman finds herself in the middle of what should have been an alien miasma of colors and sounds with an emotional range only a little more above ‘apathetic’ as she strides purposefully down the streets to go buy food and supplies. Her work shift had just ended, a long and uneventful shift of watching over boxes and she needed to grab a few things before heading home. All in all, a disconcertingly normal day by every definition of the word.

It was all rather unfortunate as Skylar’s mundane plans become quite... fantastically derailed a mere moment later. It begins when she catches of glimpse of something very, very pale out of the corner of her eyes. Her brain half registers it as a woman which was peculiar since she doesn’t recall having seen such a pale specimen of a human before and...

The dark woman stops in her steps, turning to properly take in the sight of an unbelievably pale being sitting innocuously just across the street. It was probably unfortunate what she does next because it’s something Rachel was probably quite familiar with by now: She stares.

[Wreckage]

Rachael is accustomed to the stares, yes, but she still looks around carefully when she gets the ineffable sensation that she is being watched. She has no powers of premonition, but in her line of work, something like a sixth sense for prying eyes develops over time, and she would be stupid to ignore it. It takes her a moment to search out the one person standing stock-still on the otherwise bustling street. Her expression hardly changes, only the slightest lift of one end of one eyebrow, but her cool grey gaze turns questioning.

She has no idea who the other woman is and has never seen her before. She returns the stare and takes another spoonful of her sundae.

[Skystrike/Skylar Stringers]

A weirdly colored human was far from the strangest thing Skylar had seen since her awakening in this flesh form. She’s just as perplexed about finding herself staring at the other the moment she realizes she’s been doing so.

The sound of the crowds fade back into existence and the woman glances around in momentary distraction before looking back in puzzlement. She then shakes her head shifts the frayed black strap of her weathered saddlebag and that would have marked the end of the peculiar digression. The stranger has seen her now and the dark woman inclines her head briefly in apology before turning to go.

How strange; Skylar could have sworn she’d seen that expression somewhere before...

The realization hits a few minutes later in front of the grocery store and Skylar nearly trips. She doesn’t quite run back, but she is a bit winded after arriving at the steps of the cafe’s terrace. The only thing stopping her from going straight to the table is the equally sudden realization that she’d just assumed a human was Wreckage because they were pale and made similar expressions.

After another moment of internal struggling she finally steps tentatively onto the terrace and walks over to the table.

“... Greetings,” she says stiffly as she comes to a stop opposite of the pale human a respectable distance away. Whatever other skills the new human life had given her, the ability to navigate the nuances of polite informal socializing was decidedly not one of them.

[Wreckage]

When the stranger goes on her way, Rachael mulls over that odd moment. She is certain they have never met; still, it nags at her. If she has been seen in the wrong places, at the wrong times, and that woman remembers her, it could prove problematic. She may have to hunt down and eliminate the risk personally.

Half the sundae later and the question of the hunt is answered for her. She peers up through her eyelashes, expression neutral, and takes in the stranger from head to toe. If it comes to a fight, she thinks, she can dispatch the other woman with little trouble.

"Greetings," she returns coolly. And then her mind blanks on the next step in this stilted dance of small talk and empty niceties. She knows she knows what should come next, but it slips away from her the harder she tries to recall it. A frown tugs at her brow and it takes effort to will it away. At a loss for words but unwilling to let a potential threat simply walk away before she can learn more about this stranger, she flicks her eyes to the other chair at her two-top in a wordless invitation.

[Skystrike/Skylar Stringers]

Skylar hesitates for a moment before pulling the chair back and awkwardly settling on it. The next steps of the dance escape her as well and she simply sits there. After a moment, she realizes she’s still panting slightly from the earlier jaunt, the sound of her breath loud in the silence between them. The woman swallows the next breath, glancing quietly down at the table for a moment, considering her words.

“... Skylar Stringers,” she says at last by way of rather belated introduction.

[Wreckage]

Instantly, a sense of warning tells Rachael she can't give her "real" name. The same corner of her mind supplies an alias, one she feels she has used before.

"Giselle Roche," she murmurs, poised with a spoonful of ice cream only an inch from her lips and her other hand curled around the base of the sundae glass, manicured fingernails resting against the glass. "Now… can I help you?" She watches Skylar closely to measure the reaction.

[Skystrike/Skylar Stringers]

Now that she was closer, Skylar begins to notice the odd little details of the human before her that didn’t entirely match up. Would Wreckage get a manicure? Her human memories supply her with the image of people sitting and getting their nails done in energon colored rooms. She tries to imagine Wreckage doing that, draped imperiously over a squishy red chair with a human attending to her nails.

A particularly ridiculous expression make it onto her face before Skylar could stop it and she clears her throat to cover it up.

“... I am looking for a friend,” she says carefully after a moment, watching Giselle just as intently. “We served together on a Ship a while back.”

[Wreckage]

"And… you think I can be of assistance?" Rachael wonders coolly, giving Skylar and her odd facial contortions that barely-there curious perk of one eyebrow. She has never met anyone, Decepticon or human, who assumed she would be all that helpful with anything. Anything other than death and destruction, at least. She glances up when the waiter appears, staring him down until he retreats, then turns her gaze back on this peculiar woman.

She does give the matter of serving on a ship more than a moment's serious thought. However, more than one human nation has a naval force, she recalls; she occasionally pried into US Naval meteorological streams often enough for entertainment when there was nothing better to do. Ship is a very generic word.

[Skystrike/Skylar Stringers]

Well, Skystrike would argue that she has found Wreckage to be plenty helpful outside of either subjects, but it is probably prudent to not mention that.

“Perhaps.” She also finds subtlety of any manner to not be her particular strong point. Uttering a low sound of bemusement, Skylar shifts in her seat and leans forwards to rest her elbows on the table and peer very, very carefully at Giselle.

[Wreckage]

Though Rachael returns that stare with an adamantly expressionless face, inwardly, she is vaguely annoyed by the attention. She knows no-one in this life who looks at her with that much intent and nary a hint of unsurety. Most humans have found her direct, unblinking manner and her stature intimidating; it proves useful more often than not. It did well enough when she was Wreckage. So why does it fail her now with this stranger? Could Skylar be the relative of a target? Is she contracted by a former client who has grown uncomfortable with Rachael knowing his face? And where, follows the idle thought, are her wings?

Only the immense self-control gained through centuries of work keeps Rachael from giving herself a look of bemusement and dismay. She blinks in spite of herself and, stiffly, returns her spoon to the sundae glass.

"You are mistaken," she says bluntly. And you are making me hallucinate. The odds that this human, of the hundreds she has seen in her time since waking to a small, frail, fleshy form for reasons unknown, could be Skystrike are laughably abysmal. She will not permit herself to do something as ridiculous as hope. Hope is a waste of time.

That hardly stops her from wanting.

[Skystrike/Skylar Stringers]

There it was again, the fleeting, unbearable sense of familiarity. It was like watching Wreckage’s movements overlaid by an alien form. It was utterly bizarre and Skylar is left speechless for a moment, heart pounding in her chest.

But there were still the discrepancies. Still the chance that Skylar was merely seeing things, an unfortunate side-effect of the strange human mind. Or whatever it was that caused delusions in humans. Maybe it was just missing Wreckage in the chaotic maisma of a strange alien world. Regardless, this body was unreliable and her senses even moreso. It was dangerous basing her actions on intuition alone... but this was proving too much.

She narrows her eyes at Giselle’s answer, considering what to say next. When nothing else comes forth, Skylar slowly leans back in her chair with a quiet exhale of frustration. After a moment, the woman straightens back up and pulls a pen out of her bag, grabbing a nearby napkin. When she is done, she slides it over to Giselle; on it was her phone number.

Standing up from her seat, Skylar gives the other woman one last lingering look before turning to go.

[Wreckage]

For a long moment, Rachael stares at the note as though she has never seen such a thing before and cannot even name it. Then, slowly, her gaze creeps up from the phone number to its owner, and she fixes Skylar with that same look of aloof curiosity.

"Hm," is all she says, making no move to take the note. At least the breeze is calm.

[Skystrike/Skylar Stringers]

Skylar casts the woman one last glance before shrugging slightly and walking away, making her way down the steps. If Giselle never accepts the number, that would be... one less problem to deal with for the time being.

She may miss Wreckage, but at the moment, Skylar couldn’t afford to go after potential wild goose chases out of whatever misleading impressions she gets from some random human. She didn’t know what was going on to begin with or even if anyone else had been turned human at all. Spending anymore time on assuaging personal problems with what are likely delusions wouldn’t get her anywhere.

[Wreckage]

Some days later…

Another day, another meeting. It went relatively well, thinks Rachael as she again changes the angle at which this abominable wide-brimmed hat sits on her head. She loathes it and the way it blocks her peripheral vision, but the part of her that isn't Wreckage seemed to seize control of her limbs as she had dressed this morning, and on went the hat. She vows to render it piecemeal as soon as she returns to her flat and once more adjusts it.

The wind takes the problem off her mind, literally, catching under the brim and whipping the hat away down the street. Stubbornly, she turns to pursue it; she will not be robbed of her chance for catharsis.