[meme] test drive

[citycouncil]

A bit late. Sorry, folks!

Tag into this post with characters you're thinking of apping to the game (characters who are not currently in-game or currently reserved by someone else). It can be just a tag, a brief EP, whatever you want. You can be new to the game, or simply want to test out a fresh pup. Tag each other with these characters or those already in game, and have fun.

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[roadside_rose]

Women don't often stop for her. Some combination of stranger-danger paranoia and a fear that whatever put her on the road might be contagious, that they'll end up in the margins by association. They especially don't stop for her in a 1937 Frazer Nash BMW, and Rose forgets herself enough to actually gape for a moment. It's a spectacle so far out of time that she really ought to be looking at a phantom rider, but no — the woman behind the wheel isn't a road ghost. And while the car looks well-loved enough to leave a ghost of her own, her tires sit firmly on the daylight asphalt.

Rose blinks, then looks down at her outfit as if she's only just realized how inappropriate it is, taking the moment to gather herself. "Not here," she replies with a small, sheepish shrug. "I was on my way to..."

She trails off, her smile fading and her gaze going distant. All she'd done was reach for the road, trying to gauge where she was and where she might reasonably be going to, to spin a quick lie about her last ride and why they'd left her here, but this road has next to nothing to tell her, terminates in nothing a few miles in either direction. She stands on a little orphaned tributary cut off from the rivers of asphalt that cross North America, dwindling too quickly into thick-baked mud.

Where the hell is she?

She tries to drop into the twilight, to find the nearest ghostroad and run. She doesn't go anywhere. The woman is staring at her in clear concern.

"I, uh," Rose balls her hands into cold little fists and loosens them, veering unsteadily off-script. "I think I might be lost?"

[auctionofinnocence]

"I should say so," Lari agrees after the girl's verbal stumbling. She gives her a sympathetic smile, then reaches over and opens the car door. "Hop in, won't you? Goodness, you look frigid."

She leans back into her own seat and unbuttons her jacket — a lightweight enough thing to weather the ups and downs of Darrow's uncertain spring without being too overwarm should the sun come out in full force — and offers it over by the collar.

"Put this on," she instructs. "It isn't much but it's more than you've got on now. I'm Larita. And this is Darrow. The city, not the car." She winks; the admiring gape hadn't escaped her notice, but it has done wonders to ingratiate the girl towards her. Anyone that can appreciate a car like Larita's is someone Larita is just fine knowing.

[roadside_rose]

This isn't quite how these scenes are supposed to go. Rose isn't above accepting the living's pity, and she can't deny it now; if the twilight won't have her, then this is what she needs to do. Hell, she's already doing it: sliding into the passenger seat and taking the coat with soft but sincere thanks, feeling mortality settle into her limbs as she pushes her arms through the sleeves. The upholstery is warm beneath her — the car, like its driver, inclined towards sympathy — and it begins to thaw a little of the twilight chill out of her bones.

But she doesn't do lost, is the thing. It sits a little too close to 'pathetic' for her liking. She's supposed to know where she's headed, or seem like she does... but there's no scent of lilies and ashes on the wind, no sense of direction from the ghostroads. And while 'Darrow' sounds like it could be anywhere, she can't say she's heard of it.

"I'm Rose," she says, managing a smile, trying to claw her way back into an approximation of confidence. "Does the car have a name, too? She's pretty enough to deserve one." Loved enough, is what she really means, and she briefly rests her fingertips on the polished wooden window frame.

[auctionofinnocence]

"You know, I haven't thought much about it before now," she admits. Her eyes soften a little. "You like cars, do you? It's not often I meet a like-minded girl." She grins and checks her mirrors before getting them back on the road.

[roadside_rose]

"I do," Rose says, an easy admission. "I used to fix them up after school, or over the summer — when I had the time." Which wasn't always. She'd grown up poor, and tinkering with cars was more of an indulgence than anything anyone in Buckley was prepared to pay her for. She'd had to turn to more appropriately feminine chores if she wanted to earn money.

[auctionofinnocence]

"Hm," Larita agrees, her tone fond. "That's the way of if, isn't it? Finding the time." She has a lot less time to tinker for fun than she used to, but she wouldn't trade a bit of it. The racetrack, Greta, the girls, it's not something Larita saw for herself when she found her feet leaving Surrey and landing in Darrow, but it's all so lovely and domestic.

"Where are you headed, anyway? Or where were you headed before you found yourself in Darrow?"

[roadside_rose]

"Detroit," Rose answers, the lie easy. She's at least gathered that she isn't there now, which should make it plausible enough. "I've got family there."

"Not that I'm asking for such a long haul in this grand dame," she adds, giving the upholstery another fond, light touch. "You can take me as far as is easy for you, and I can make my way from there." There's still no scent of lilies and ashes on the wind, and this ride doesn't feel like anything but a kindness. She'll take whatever distance she can get without complaint, but she also knows she can only expect so much from someone with a car like this. It's the kind of vehicle that gets brought out for shows, polished up for admiration on a Saturday afternoon, not a dedicated long-hauler.

And a little distance is all she intends to ask for, really. But then her stomach lets out an audible rumble.

[auctionofinnocence]

Lari's eyebrows tick up a fraction. It could be the truth. Larita isn't prone to assuming everyone has ulterior motives — especially not underdressed girls hitching on the roadside. But coincidences aren't coincidences in Darrow.

"Unfortunately, 'easy for me' is nowhere near Detroit right now," she starts, and then smiles when she hears Rose's stomach. "And even if it were, I'm certainly not sending you anywhere without some food," she adds with a laugh. "I was on my way to the racetrack. The clubhouses have a nice menu you can pick from, and then I'll tell you the whole kit and caboodle."

[roadside_rose]

"Oh, I couldn't," Rose starts to demur, color rising to her cheeks. "I mean, I'm sure I can't afford clubhouse prices." She can't afford anything, in fact. And even if she pulled a crisp fifty out of the pockets of Larita's coat, spending it would only get her a plate of food that tasted like ashes. It needs to be offered freely.

And 'freely offered' is an easier ask when the prices are low to begin with. That's why she usually tries her luck at truck stops or greasy spoon diners. She's never actually been to a proper racetrack before — a track isn't a road, and it's a guarantee that no one there is going to pick her up — but she knows it's not a cheap hobby, and the clubhouse burgers probably cost four times what they'd go for at a dive.

[auctionofinnocence]

"Oh, stop," Lari says, playfully scolding. "My treat. Really, you'll be doing me a favor if you say yes. I'm testing out some new plates for the menu, shake things up — you know how it is." She gets them down the stretch of road leading from city proper to the countryside. She only speeds up a little.

[roadside_rose]

"Thank you. That's really kind." Rose allows herself a smile. And if a different driver had picked her up, this might be where she coyly suggested that surely they can work out some kind of payment, but she likes to think she's good at reading people, and Larita doesn't seem like the type to press an advantage. Maybe she won't get that far down the road, but she's getting a coat, kindness, and a meal, and that's really all a girl can ask for.

She leans back against the upholstery as they move out of town and farther into the countryside, the rolling landscape as reassuringly familiar as any other stretch of the east coast. Her curiosity piques at Larita's comment, and she looks over at her. "You're making it sound like you own the place."

[auctionofinnocence]

"Am I?" Larita ways with playful coyness. "Hm." Then she laughs, like Rose is an old friend who's always been in on the joke. "Oh, I can't tease you too badly, since you're new and all. I do own the racetrack, in fact. A friend left it to me when she left the city."