Don't Get Lost in Heaven [Prp]

[Sabra]

She had been a fool, expecting the North to be more civilized. Geography didn't matter, in the end they were all beasts, whether they wore business suits or lambs' skins. Sabra preferred her wolves to look and act like wolves, hiding among the flock made them harder to pick out.

In the detached office, once home to the Maliks, Sabra again finds herself scrambling for a hold in another crumbling pack. As soon as she thought there was solid ground beneath her feet it broke away. Enforcer seemed like a joke now, with no one to back her, no direction in this empire turned to ruins. Nate had been smart to get out while he could, before someone could put a bullet between his eyes or sink a pair of teeth into his throat. She didn't begrudge the man his flight, only wished that she too had somewhere to escape.

But there was only here and the meager life she had carved out, or home and all that entailed.

Boston was supposed to be the last leg of a long journey, a rest after so long playing solider in bloody territory battles, in the endless shifting of ranks and the greed of man and wolf combined. Somewhere to enjoy her thirties and explore more human notions. There was more to life than sleeping with a knife in your hand and a gun on the nightstand and she wanted something of that sweet simplicity, of security. It was probably too much to ask, being what she was, but a woman could hope, couldn't she?

People who relied on hope died awful quick in her experience. It didn't fill the belly, only the head.

Alas, the Universe did not see fit to let her rest just yet. An order from high up--whatever that was nowadays had called her here, with specifically vague intentions, and Sabra being the good little subordinate that she was, had listened and come in peace.

Which meant no weapons and further making herself helpless.

Sabra shifts uneasily in the cushioned office chair. It was an old game, making someone wait, a power play that she experienced time and time before and used to her own advantage on more than one occasion. Give the person enough time to stew in their own juices, let their imagination run wild until they were reduced to sweating palms and their fingers rapping against their thigh. Sabra thought herself better than that, regardless of who walked through that door, her fate was in her own hands and the orders of whatever curr had clawed to the top of the heap did not effect her.

One scrap of a woman hardly mattered in the scheme of things. Most were either too concerned with watching their own asses, or their head was shoved so far up their ass they didn't notice the comings and goings of the measly folk, those who kept to the side.

There really was no easy way to turn around, checking if the proverbial judge had made his arrival, and so Sabra kept her eyes trained straight ahead, looking out through the window and the jagged horizon of shining office buildings, brick factories and the people in the streets, blissfully unawares.

Sometimes, she wished she was one of them.

[Malakai]

This might come new to Malakai, but not entirely. She'd lived a majority of her mortal life in a carefully structured werewolf hierarchy. It may have never been as intricate as Boston's system. But it had been just as power mad and cut-throat. Her father had been meaner than the three kings entirely. So she knew the law of things. She knew she was a figure-head, a scape-goat, (a heftily paid one, but one nonetheless) and it did not escape her train of thought that when she became useless they'd dispose of her.

Not that they'd survive that long, anyway.

But her choice to move and assume power had been much more out of selfishness and ego than anything that resembled desperation and need. Though her and Lyra's enterprise had gone through it's recent flounder and flop; with Mortimer sitting in the chair still governed by her and her mate, it had risen back to it's reputation. Enough reputation to gain her interest (if her little fiasco hadnt already, that is.) It'd taken some careful wording and long meetings to hash out the details of her employment. They'd taken into consideration her and Lyra's relationship, the fact she was a woman, her bias towards cruel action. But they'd also taken into consideration her efficiency, her cunning, her influence. It'd been enough to raise her normal pay by two figures. If not three.

Enough to have her move into this house with too many ghost wailing and scratching at the walls.

Today, Lyra has gone off to explore the city. Malakai normally may have been against it. She never liked the fae off alone (she always brought home trouble it seemed) but there was business that needed attending too.

Well, business and pleasure. Pleasure, when she'd been told the enforcer and one of the only one's that hadnt deserted rank at the Malik departure -- had been no other then Sabra Kross. Her cousin.

So the waiting is unintentional. It was much easier to point blame at Malakai's indecisiveness on how to utilize Joe who she'd found out a day or so prior had appealed to Lyra's famous ''mother hen'' side and been brought along for the thrills. His subsequent shift is a play to be of use; but mostly a play at her nerves. He follows her around a majority of the day, he rolls on her feet when she sits at her desk to start paperwork. He grinds his tusk into her legs affectionately when she's on the phone --

He follows her into the room and intrudes on her private meeting with the pack enforcer. Mirroring her steps with a pride incline of her head and slight part of his jaws. There is still something comical (because it's Joe) about the way he grunts and pigs next to her. The way he crawls up under her legs when she takes a seat and remains there seemingly fixated.

Malakai refuses to show irritation or discomfort. Instead opting to angle her head a little higher, lean back in her desk a little more. Cross her fingers under her chin and plant them on other side of her chair. Later on, removing one hand to lay it at the nape of her boar's head.

"Sabra," she says. A glint of pride in her voice. "Loyal to the bone. Good." But the affection in her voice wouldn't fool anyone; this is not entirely a social call. It will track into business, but first -- "How are you? Considering the mess you've stuck your nose into."

The mess she's here to clean up.

[Sabra]

It's the last person she dreams would walk through the door. It'd been damn near five years since she had seen the woman, a hitchhiker picked up on a dark country road in the middle of winter and now, here she stands. A boar, tusks and tail, the whole nine yards, at her side. Sabra blinks in bewilderment, twisting around to cast a glance over her shoulder and make sure this wasn't some practical joke being played on her.

Granted, she had seen plenty of strange things in her life time, but this was an odd ball if there ever was one.

"Malakai?" She ventures cautiously, leaning out of the chair. Her eyes aren't lying to her, although Mal is far from the puffed up son of a bitch she expected to sit himself behind that desk. The pig is a nice touch really, throwing her attention off, and likely others' as well. She draws a whiff of air through her nose, and it becomes clear that it isn't merely a well trained pig, but a shifter. That (somewhat) explained how her prim and proper cousin was being caught in the sight of such a foul critter.

Sabra absently wonders where Malakai considered werewolves to be on the 'foul creatures' scale.

The boar fills the silence with a little snort and the enforcer finally manages an answer, throat clearly awkwardly. "Good. Considerin' and all." She had never been quite sure with Malakai, what her intentions were and what exactly the woman was in the first place. But for all her efforts, Mal remained an enigma. Somewhere along the line Sabra had consigned it to be one of those great mysteries she'd never solve, the existence of the Loch Ness Monster and a true hangover cure being among them.

"It's been a long while since I seen ya last, cuz. Appropriate that you're here." A black dog was a friend to destruction, and Boston had it in spades. The Three Kings had dissolved and the pack was in an uproar without the guiding of the Maliks, a sturdy if not wholly effective presence that had before kept the hounds on their chains. If anyone could bind them again and make sense of this chaos, it was Malakai, with the icy demeanor and a look in her eyes that could cow even the bravest. Sabra certainty dropped her gaze when she entered a room, mostly because she knew how to appease her sort and it was the easier thing to do in the long run.

For the most part. Occasionally, her rebellious side bubbled up and it caused problems. Enough problems to make her flee to the opposite side of the Mason Dixon line as fast as the road could take her.

"You come to listen to Nero play the fiddle while Rome burns, " Exaggerating, just a tad, but it felt an apt comparison in these times. Everything seemed like Rome, if the fire was spectacular enough. "Or do you got a mind to stop him?" She crosses her arms and leans back in her seat expectantly, a smile wavering at the corners of her mouth. Malakai's vists were always interesting and her nervousness vanishes. Boston may have found its savior, or not.

Age came with fickleness and Sabra knows better than most what it is to take on this kind of endeavor, the financial and mental obligations. What did Boston have to offer her dear cousin, and where and how, did she fit into that plan?

[Malakai]

Sabra's surprise and formalities are responded to with a brisk and short nod and twitch of lip. Had it been anyone else sitting on the other side of the desk, she may have been colder. She may have skipped all the how-de-do's and gone straight to business. Given, it still doesn't take very long for her friendly demeanor to evaporate as if it'd never existed in the first place.

"You come to listen to Nero play the fiddle while Rome burns, Or do you got a mind to stop him?"

The shuck considers the brindle from a tilt of her eye. There is a long silence as she crosses both of her fingers. Playing what seems to be thoughtfully with the webbing between before she fixes up the enforcer an answer. Always one to let the silence bleed out -- to see what it's dying breath might consist of."Neither, actually."

And rather that had been the answer Sabra was expecting or not, Malakai struggles between letting the werewolf know she is a tool or keeping it a well guarded secret. In the end the former is better than the latter and it's a rouse she's always been able to play well enough. She chooses her words carefully.

"I did not come here to play martyr in place of the canon fodder prior. And --" She shifts in her chair, crossing her legs. "I certainly did not come here to eat anyone's sloppy seconds."

What she did come here for remains a mystery. After all, Malakai was shrouded in her clandestine charm. That had never necessarily been a bad thing. Not when she was now the head of large werewolf secret society: If she could not keep her own secrets how might she theirs?

"But, what you came here for is to be informative." The tone in her voice is clear as day. -- Not here to make silly analogies. Cousin or not. There is still a hierachy and Malakai has always had a thin string of patience. She changes the subject with relative ease. Dropping the attempt at jest and friendliness and switching to all seriousness like the puree button on a blender.

Though Malakai would never go into a situation like this blind-folded with a tazer, she doubted she had been wholly informed on what exactly she was temporarily fixing. "What all do you know about the recent power vacuum in Boston?" It was nice to know specifics - and if not them then just where she stood in general. Where the public eye stood and their knowing of the delicate government they thought so easy to devour and overthrow.

Might they be surprised when the goldfish was found to have never been flushed and still swimming around the toilet bowl with vigor.

[Sabra]

How many times had she been here before? At the behest and mercy of those more powerful than her. It was a position Sabra would never get use to and she feared she would never be free of completely. There were ways around it, ways to break free of the cycle of violence, but it came with risk and detachment. She had killed more than a few rogues for intruding on pack territory, could she really put herself in their place? Subject herself to that life, knowing just how often it ended bloodily.

Malakai gives her impassioned mini-speech and Sabra nods in the correct places and tries to look the part of the obedient and loyal subordinate. Lucky for Mal she was stuck here, otherwise the old dog might have had to go sniffing elsewhere for her information.

It leaves an unpleasant prickling sensation at the back of her neck, and she is quickly reminded of her worth. Not much, is on the tip of her tongue, but Sabra thinks better of it and clams up. There wasn't any point to devaluing herself. Malakai may be family, but believing blood protected her was just as foolish as believing Boston was impervious to the power struggles that had plagued her previous homes.

"I've been through a few of these, but nothing on the scale of Boston." She leaves out the bit about arriving only a few months prior, before everything went to hell in a hand basket. Most of what she had been through were territory scuffles, debts unpaid and dues owed--although even simple things tended to turn bloody with wolves. It was just the nature of the beast, she supposed. "Same principal applies, more or less." Sabra shrugs her one good shoulder, trying to dress up bare bones when Malakai wanted the whole roast. "All I know is that the Maliks were in power for a long time, kapeesh? And it seems damn strange for the whole thing to come crashin' down all sudden like."

In a city like Boston tradition prevailed and the collapse that was going on was hardly a revolution. There wasn't anyone trying to take the pack into the modern age or some bullshit, and for no other reason could Sabra see the purpose in breaking that lineage. "Something, someone had to trigger it. You just gotta figure out the why." At first, she had suspected Nathan Hart, but fleeing so quickly after he had gotten his throne didn't make sense, and excused him, at least in her mind, of the crime. There were the two sons of course, but then they had fled as well, disappearing off the map as if they had never mattered. That struck Romulus and Remus off the list of suspects and left Sabra with no leads.

She sinks back into the chair, cracking her knuckles one at a time and flexing them accordingly. "You can say what ya want, but Boston is sloppy seconds at this point." Quiet prevails in the wake of her contradiction and Sabra spreads calloused hands over her knees, watching the flex of muscle and the little white scars over them. The pig snuffles and chortles, totally at odds in the neat little office. It makes her smile in spite of things and she turns a palm over, wiggling her fingers invitingly,

"Here, piggy, pig."

[Malakai]

"I've been through a few of these, but nothing on the scale of Boston."

Malakai leans back in her chair. The last thing she wants to do - atleast right now - is hear her cousin's sob story. Any other time her persona may switch. She'd jump drastically from business to family. Because despite what Sabra suspected the brindle wolf was the last of her own and she'd been rather fond (over the past five years) of keeping tabs and pulling strings to keep her alive. If Sabra had thought she'd done everything on her own Malakai would let her. Let her keep her pride and her ego. But it hadnt been.

"Same principal applies, more or less.""All I know is that the Maliks were in power for a long time, kapeesh? And it seems damn strange for the whole thing to come crashin' down all sudden like."

"You think it was foul play?" She says. A little more interested in the direction of the conversation. Although Malakai had come to her own conclusion of such things (and though she wasnt one hundred percent certain who it might be - she had competent suspects).

"Something, someone had to trigger it. You just gotta figure out the why."

Malakai laughs. It's abrupt and rude. "You think I'm next?" She interrupts. A crude smile curling her lips. "No no no" She laughs, "dont answer that. I'm more concerned about the message this zealot is sending." And hidden in plain view is the ego that comes with living more than two hundred years. Had she truly been worried about ''assassination'' attempts she would not have taken the job. But given black shucks arent exactly ants in the supernatural universe; it's much more of a welcomed challenge - a easy way out - then the former.

"You can say what ya want, but Boston is sloppy seconds at this point.""Here, piggy, pig."

Joe shifts closer to her. Disturbed by the werewolf's attempt at friendliness. He makes some threatening grind with his teeth and angles his tusk defensively. Malakai's eyes shift to the shifter and then to the werewolf. "I wouldnt." She says simply. The smile falling from her mouth.

And there is a hunkering silence. Only disturbed by the harsh breaths of the pig against her leg. Malakai watches Sabra with a sharp gaze. She absently runs her fingers along the veins of her hand - around the ring on her middle finger. A mirror of the ring Sabra had revealed so long ago.

After thought, she clears her throat. "Perhaps this zealot will attempt to destroy Boston's loyalist if he cannot directly destroy the regime. An attempt to leave me vulnerable." She settles Sabra a strange and thoughtful look. The warning of -- be careful -- at the tip of her tongue but never making it past the first syllable. But using Sabra as a lure could prove beneficial. (If it truly was a rebel and not the three kings being cunning). And in retrospection, if it was them, then Malakai had no problem pointing the blame at someone who was digging beneath her nails.

The whole goal after-all, was to give the illusion she was the protagonist. The hero of the turncoat Nathan, the two failed sons, the arrogant king.

But admittedly, either way she was a tad uncomfortable with Sabra being caught in the crossfire.

The hellhound leans forward on her elbows. Leaning her chin on the back of her wrist. Eyes wide and ears perked. "I want the names of anyone you've met who's been questionable in their loyalty. Anyone I should keep a.. eye.. on."

[Malakai]

you butt

[Sabra]

Malakai's narration is a maze through a scrambled mind that Sabra has no intention of navigating. She jumps from one assumption to the next, giving the enforcer little space for thought, and leaving her with the distinct feeling of being knocked to the ground and run over. "I ain't sayin' he died of old age, that's for sure." She replies with a snort of derision. Who among them ever died in their beds, surrounded by grandchildren? She certainly wouldn't and Nikolai Malik had more enemies than she could ever accumulate in a lifetime. Old business tycoons, and old wolves had that habit.

Her patience is thinning and having missed breakfast for this little soiree, hunger makes it's self known with a loud growl from her stomach. The piggy by Malakai's side was looking awful appealing at the moment and before Sabra knew it, she is thinking more of hushpuppies and pit smoked barbeque than the politic jibber jabber falling from Mal's lips. Call her a simple woman with simple needs, but it was true.

At the very least, the black dog owed her lunch after this was all said and done.

Tusks glint in the morning sun that shines through the office windows and Sabra draws back her hand with a contemplative sound. Her eyes fall to the ring and she smiles, tight lipped. It was a brother to the ring that was hidden away in the Plymouth's glovebox, along with spare cartridges to her pistol and a few hundred bucks in cash. It unsettled her to think she was related to this vulture of a woman, merciless and cold. This was what the Queens of old must have been like, holding onto the throne all more tightly on account of their weaker sex.

Boston could use a woman's touch, but Sabra suspected Malakai's strenuous grip might crush it to smithereens. She would crack open their bones, searching for marrow, for the last sweet pieces of sustenance and upon finding none, hell would reign down.

"There's no organization that I've seen that would suggest a...zealot existin'." Sabra speaks carefully, weighing the words on her tongue before allowing them into the harsh air between her and Malakai. "This is just sheer chaos, Mal." And in a way, all the more terrifying for it. Perhaps a smarter person would placate her with detailed suspicions, a traitorous plot brewing beneath their feet and above their heads, but her imagination was not so elaborate and Sabra didn't dare lie to someone like her cousin.

For all she knew, she had a third eye that could glimpse into the future and tell when your heart skipped a beat with a fib. In a world of wolves and Siberian tiger shifters, Sabra had little reason to doubt the possibility of such a thing.

What she does doubt is Malakai's ability to keep her safe while playing rat for her. The wolf twists reflexively and Sabra leans forward to meet her, her mouth settling into a hard line. She would tolerate Mal, and even play the submissive and obedient part when it came down to it, but she refused to become someone's plaything; a puppy trailing at her heels for scraps. "Ya want me to be a spy then?" Her voice is rich with rebellion and there is a prickling along her spine, a subdued need to show teeth--the strength that had allowed her to survive debacles such as this. "That's not who I am. I'm an enforcer, not some..."

The chair scrapes harshly against the hardwood floors and Sabra stands, shoulders tense under her thin jacket. "Get someone else for the job, Malakai."

Sabra had her lines. It was all well and fine for Boston to use her to take out it's dirty laundry, to bury those who couldn't blend in and play nicely with the humans, but she wasn't about to become the very thing she had seen kill so many in the past.