‹‹ 𝙞𝙩'𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙠 𝙞𝙩 𝙞𝙨... ››

[poppyxoxo]

𝑬𝒍𝒊𝒋𝒂𝒉
tag: Maria

“Well, if what I guessed is correct then there are meant to be a lot more people attending the same event. Well, I am not sure about a lot, but I do know for certain that we are not the only ones. I think that our best decision for now is to walk around, maybe come across someone and ask for directions if we cannot figure it out for ourselves. How does that sound?” Elijah asked, earnestly looking over at Maria. Although they had really only just met, Elijah still took into account was the women thought. From what he could tell, she was a very smart, kind women. “No, I… we are definitely on time. I am not sure about your driver but mine definitely would have been waiting outside my house if I was late” Elijah cracked a smile, failing to hold in a small laugh.

“From the email it definitely did sound like I hotel. At least that’s what I would have thought” Elijah shook his head with surprise at the lack of organisation that they had just been left in. Elijah reached n to his pocket to pull out his phone it hopes to reread the email he had received to pull out any helpful information but as Maria had stated before, there was no service at all. If he wasn’t so concentrated on finding their destination this would have disturbed him slightly. Elijah continued to walk, shoving his phone deep within his pocket to hide what he had confirmed.

“Name books I guess are really helpful, in our cases” Elijah laughed along. “Definitely better than technology. Well, for those who cannot find their way around the phone which is fair enough”. Elijah continued on in silence, listening contentedly as Maria explored her family’s business. “Oh wow… that is a very big commitment. Your family is definitely very accomplished” Elijah shot Maria a genuine smile. “Well, if you’re ever in town I can show you around” he offered. “I’ve heard that Manila is beautiful, it’s definitely one of the places I hope to visit as soon as possible because I do enjoy going outside, even taking photos. Not many people know that photography is a pastime of mine. What about you? Is there anything outside of work that you enjoy?”.

[senna_]

♤ 𝐊𝐀𝐙𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐙 𝐁𝐔𝐊𝐎𝐕𝐒𝐊𝐈 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
tags; nova

Kaz turned back around to properly face Nova as she voiced her concerns regarding the town. “I am used to big cities,” he replied, tips of his fingers delicately brushing the top half of his pants pocket as he glanced around. “If I had known we would be staying in a run-down hotel that might not even exist and is probably run by half-dead citizens, I most certainly would not have come here.” In other words, putting his dramatics aside, yes, Kazimeriez found this town particularly unusual. The lack of people he had seen was probably the most off-putting, in all honesty. Perhaps that was simply the way of a small town? Little to no people present? Kaz sought out comfort in over-populated, noisy areas. He had found himself right in the middle of the busy environment of a casino, even before he was legally able to enter without his father’s permission. He lived off of adrenaline, which was why he never stayed in one place for too long. In this town, it seemed everything Kaz both craved and found comfort in was non-existent. It was far too quiet for his own liking.

“A party would do everyone some good,” he decided a moment later, mostly to himself, sealing it off with a firm nod of his head. “People always find parties. The music and the food and all of that. That will draw them in.” Of course, it didn’t seem like there were many materials that he would be able to easily find to throw a party, nor did he know where he would start one, but some sort of light-hearted gathering would not only attract others, but brighten his mood. For now, Kaz would have to settle with a walk through the seemingly deserted town.

He decided not to comment on his family’s situation any further. If only you knew. He did, however, round back to her previous comment. “I am not sure we will be able to find a cart, if we cannot even find the hotel we have been brought to,” he retorted with a raise of his brow. “Do not beg me to carry you if you wound yourself, laleczko ¹. You may be cute, but I do not do the dirty work around here.” With a sarcastically smug look on his face, Kaz took off, brushing past her with enough confidence in his steps to almost look like he knew where he was going. Almost. “If I see one bear,” he grumbled, “I will write a complaint to the company so long it could become their new terms & conditions page. I did not agree to any of this.”

¹ - doll/darling

[senna_]

✽ 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐀 𝐋𝐔𝐓𝐙 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
tags; elijah

Elijah appeared to be on the same page as Maria, given how he spoke a sentence relatively similar to her own voiced predictions. If they agreed to it, there was a good chance anyone else who was here thought the same, as well. It was only common sense, really; anyone who thought they were the only one would be a bit too far off for Maria to even consider it a gentle mistake. At least, given the fact that they were businesspeople. To run a business usually meant the owner had to have a bit of common sense. “Sounds like a plan to me,” she agreed. “I’m not exactly sure anyone is here, though. Maybe they had to evacuate? I wish I had read up on this town a bit more,” she added with a small sigh, shaking her head to herself. “We’re surrounded by mountains, and even though it’s springtime, that doesn’t mean there was a great deal of flooding that happened here. That could explain the few people here. Unless they’re all just further in.” At this rate, Elijah was right. Walking around would give them more answers than standing around and talking.

She thought back to her own driver, as Elijah made mention of his. The man who had taken her over had been in an unusually fancy outfit, in black from head to toe. Maria had certainly been a bit surprised upon first laying eyes on him, but she also hadn’t ever taken a taxi, let alone one in America. She remembered her tiya telling her about her Uber driver who looked as though he had been dressed in pajamas, though. She supposed it was just preference. The vehicle itself looked like a normal taxi car, anyway, so it wasn’t like she had gotten into the wrong car. Elijah’s presence and desired destination confirmed it, too. She was in the right spot, or at least, had taken the right steps to get to where she was supposed to be. She just wasn’t sure if that place was here.

“I thought it was a hotel, too,” she mused, pulling her jacket in a bit closer to her body as she walked. “Which I guess it could be. I just wouldn’t exactly expect to see one here. And with it just opening, I thought there would have been a bit more attention drawn to it. But, then again, if nobody is here, then I guess there wouldn’t really be a point.”

It was so quiet as they walked that the snap of a twig beneath Maria’s heeled boot practically echoed along the sides of the buildings. Strange. “I’m surprised you’ve heard of it!” she spoke again, speaking of her hometown. “It’s nothing like New York, I’m sure, but it is pretty built-up. Honestly, I kind of like the change of scenery, even if there’s nobody else here. The mountains are beautiful and the air is so clean. If you’re from the city, then I’m sure you know what I mean. I like the quietness.” She paused for a moment, mind switching back and forth from his comment on New York to the mention of a hobby of his. “I’d love to visit the MET sometime. That’s like New York’s 'thing' for art. I’m sure it’s spectacular.” A fleeting smile was brought to her lips, distant, before vanishing. She wasn’t, however, uninterested in the topic. In fact, Elijah’s comment on photography sparked interest within her. “Did you bring your camera?” she asked, glancing over at his bags. “I’d love to see what you’ve done some time. I’m also an arts person, but visual. I paint and stuff. Not exactly what my parents wanted ━ ” she hummed a slight laugh ━ “but they got over it.”

[poppyxoxo]

𝑵𝒐𝒗𝒂
tags: Kazimeriez

Nova did agree around Kaz's preference of big cities as a personal preference for herself as well. At least in bigger cities she knew where she was going and if she didn't there was almost always at least one person or one bar of reception to help her out which was the opposite for this town but also the reason why she felt so out of place. "I think that I would have reevaluated my excitement in coming here if I had known it was going to be so... anticlimactic. Well, maybe not that dramatic. It's just not as exciting or largely scaled as what I had pictured" Nova agreed, her lips pulling into a thin line to show her dissatisfaction. "Even if there had been a handful of people sitting around going about their daily lives would have been helpful or comforting but we don't even get that luxury" Nova added to her earlier sentence after a few moments of chewing on her lip while looking around for people that may or may not have magically appeared. Nova was more of an extrovert so she preferred to be around happy energy that she could bounce off of and this town was not very fitting to that but what could she do? Now that she thought about it, there wasn't any way that they could get a cab back down here so the hotel really was their last and only option.

"I wonder if they would have an open bar or not but based off of what I've seen so far, I'm not hopeful. As in their menu probably consists of average drinks and not cute drinks accustomed to their town". Nova walked in silence, turning her head to look over at Kaz with a cheeky smile. She didn't like to drink overly heaps but she did have this weird tradition where everywhere she went, she would try their traditional cocktails. Oh well, maybe this town had its own ways of breaking habits.

"Yeah I guess you are right even though it's a pain in the rear" Nova answered quickly, rolling her eyes. Her eyes followed Kaz as he strolled past with a fake look of bewilderment on her face. She did however raise her eyebrows at the 'cute' comment. "Well, since you don't feel the need to carry me then I don't feel the need to warn you of bears. Well, I say that but I probably will anyways" Nova played along with the humor Kaz had set.

[poppyxoxo]

𝑬𝒍𝒊𝒋𝒂𝒉
tag: Maria

Elijah reached his hand into his pocket to pull out his phone so that he could turn in off to save battery but he decided it was probably smarter if he kept it on, just in case of any emergency. The thought made him casually look behind them just in case anyone else had decided to follow after them. "I guess an evacuation would make sense although depending how long that took them, don't you think they would send out a warning to us? Or maybe they even tried to put something happened to their service?". The second option made more sense to him given that neither of them was able to use their phone for anything that required internet. Knowing him, he would probably ask any staff member up at the hotel what that was about. Elijah squinted his eyes so that he could see what lay ahead of them a bit better. "Do you see that larger building just up there? Maybe we could try that? It looks fairly new, it HAS to be" Elijah suggested, trying to sound as sure of what he was saying although he didn't feel completely confident.

"Maybe it is a bit more of a personal or private event so only a select few people attend? That's probably one of the only explanations I can think of. Perhaps that would lead to them sending out more private drivers to collect us? I just really hope the clothes my driver was wearing weren't his pajamas or he would get no sleep" Elijah chuckled at the thought.

"Alright well then that's settled. When you reach New York let me know because I'll go to the MET with you, if you don't mind me inviting myself along. I've never been, so..." his voice trailed off as he pulled along his bag, having to tug at it a bit over a weirdly large stone in the middle of the road. "I did luckily bring my camera so I'd be happy to show you! I'm glad you asked because not many people do. I'd be even more obliged if you showed me anything you've worked on? I'm almost certain your parents would eb proud of what you've become now" Elijah offered.

[senna_]

♤ 𝐊𝐀𝐙𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐙 𝐁𝐔𝐊𝐎𝐕𝐒𝐊𝐈 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
tags; nova

As someone who had learned English after two other languages, Kaz found Nova's use of words thrilling. He had never been big on school, always doing the bare minimum, just enough to scrape by. That didn't mean he didn't find interest in certain topics, though. He had a friend who was always going above and beyond in his classes, and even though Kaz hadn't ever been on his level, there were many times where the two of them would hang out and his friend would read off whatever sort of homework he had while they were together. Kaz liked hearing him read out his language homework. He had always struggled with Greek, and while he very rarely knew what was being read aloud, the flow of words was always quite satisfying. Even though he did know English, it didn't mean he used every single word in the dictionary. He saved complexity for his preferred language. "Anticlimactic," he echoed, speaking the word slowly, practically tasting each letter as it rolled off of his tongue. "I like it."

It was on that note that he realized he was going to be surrounded by many high-end businesspeople. Kaz's family business worked slyly; they were gamblers, and took everything like a game found in their very casinos. They did business, but it was never fair. Was business ever fair? One could get far with the proper sweetness sprinkled into their convincing methods. "Well, lucky for you, there is a lovely road just a few miles away," he drawled, hands in his pockets, walking rather lazily alongside her. "If you are so keen on walking around the town, surely a trip to the main road wouldn't kill you." That wasn't something he had considered until just now, truth be told. He had only been joking, going along with Nova's enthusiasm to wander around the empty town, but if worst came to worst, heading back probably wasn't that bad of an idea. It wasn't exactly something Kaz would be thrilled about, but he supposed it would be an option.

But he was surely just jumping the gun. They had only just arrived, after all.

" 'Cute drinks accustomed to their town,' " Kaz echoed, his pace still idle as he went about. "That would consist of bear claws and pigeon features. Maybe some weeds from the mountains, and a slice of wood to top it off. Give me a bottle of vodka and happy, I am." He sighed, then dug further into his pockets, pulling out an unlit cigarette. Smoking was a bad habit of his, he had heard it plenty of times from his friend back home, but having grown up with a heavy smoker as a father, Kaz hadn't seen the downside until recently. He did nothing more than fidget with it, something to keep his attention focused. "What are you looking for, anyway? Other than the hotel, of course."

[senna_]

✽ 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐀 𝐋𝐔𝐓𝐙 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
tags; elijah

Maria's hazel eyes flickered over to Elijah upon sensing new movement, watching as he pulled out his phone. At first, she was slightly hopeful that maybe he would have more luck than she had with the cellular service, but the look on his face made her retreat back to stage one. "I'm not sure," she responded honestly, feeling slightly guilty for not knowing the right answer, even though it was barely possible for her to know such a thing. "I'd assume a notice would just go out to the citizens in the town. And even if the hotel owners had gotten it, maybe they forgot to send it out? That would be pretty irresponsible, but I guess it happens." She was running out of ideas. It was a bad habit, assuming before at least getting accustomed to more details, but it was exactly what she was doing. "I think the service situation is something completely different. We're bordered by mountains, it's not surprising that we aren't getting anything. Still, though, if that's the case, then why would someone put a hotel here? They're supposed to draw in passing travellers, and especially since this get-together was for a bunch of people with businesses. You would think they would choose a location that's a bit more..." she shrugged slightly and swept both of her arms outward as she gestured to the towering mountains in the distance. "Open."

She stopped walking when Elijah mentioned a building that seemed to be a bit different than the rest, standing on the tips of her toes to see past the bundles of flowers ten or so feet in front of them. "I do," she confirmed, quickly pressing her lips together to avoid getting her hopes up. "You're probably right. There probably just isn't a way to exit the town down there, and that's why we were dropped off at the gates." Again, she wasn't entirely possible, but it seemed both were trying hard to put the puzzle pieces together. An attempt, no matter how weak it was, was better than nothing.

She took off yet again, her steps a bit quicker, eager to conclude whether or not Elijah's prediction was correct or not. Thankful yet again that she had packed light, Maria found herself relatively struggle-free as she carried about. Hopefully the same went for her new companion. "Sounds like a date," she agreed, taking her lower lip between her teeth to bite back a smile. It made her think back to home. Her last boyfriend was never too thrilled about attending events and visiting places Maria wished to be at ━ not that she was about to start comparing Elijah to him. Or to anything related to the term "boyfriend". She had only just met him, after all. "At this rate, it seems like I'll be in America longer than expected, anyway." She cringed at her weak attempt of a joke. Stop overthinking this.

After what seemed like forever, Maria put her hand up, silently requesting to take a quick break. "It's been a minute since I've walked like this," she told him, motioning to her bags. It felt easy at first, but the weight seemed to double the more she walked. "Photography is an interesting thing," she continued a moment later, thoughtfulness lingering in her tone. "It's easy to make it you; everyone has such a different style. Are you here for that, then? Photography?" She paused for another few seconds, then collected her bags once again. "I didn't bring anything of mine with me, but I did buy a sketchpad on my way over. It's nothing exciting, I just like to do it for fun. My parents eventually got over it. I'm still connected to their company ━ they are partnered with my workplace ━ so it's not the end of the world. They've got other kids, too. One of them will eventually step up to the job."

[poppyxoxo]

𝑵𝒐𝒗𝒂
tags: Kazimeriez

Nova's dark eyes settled on the large mountains just outside of the town and suddenly she didn't fell as bored. Although she was very much accustomed to the city, being out in the fresh air despite whatever the circumstances were. She took out her phone, her fingers working over the screen for a few seconds before she took a photo of what was in front of her eyes before lowering it again, investigating the quality. Satisfied, Nova placed her phone back into her jacket pocket feeling a little less disgusted. Not much though. Nova hadn't exactly asked Kaz what business he had dealt in that earnt him a spot in the, for now, seemingly nonexistent hotel but as they worked, curiosity got the better of her. "If you don't mind me asking, how did you end up here? As in, what sort of business?" Nova asked, her eyes settling on Kaz's features as if trying to find the answer for herself. She smiled to herself before returning her attention to the front in case she had in fact doomed herself to roll an ankle.

"Lovely? Have you already familiarized yourself with the town?" Nova asked innocently, masking the gentle teasing manner that she had asked the question in. Her mind thought back to the business she had temporarily left behind and her smile faltered. Surely her efforts getting here hadn't been wasted because if so, her parents expectations would drop. 'Look at you Nova, caring what people think' she thought to herself, lowering her gaze with a shake of her head. Although she would probably never tell anyone, Nova liked the idea that she had made enough of herself to be able to genuinely know what she was talking about in conversation.

"Oh so you're familiar with using wood for a garnish? Hmm, I didn't think many were" the women grinned, her mind turning over the many drinks that she had tried. "it does get very tiring to try and find a favorite drink in different cities so I applaud you for sticking to vodka. Do you ever mix it or just have it as is?". Nova hid her chilled fingers in her pockets, wiggling them every once in a while to make sure that they didn't go all tingly. "I... hadn't really thought that far ahead. Off of the top of my head though? Change of scenery. What about you?".

[poppyxoxo]

𝑬𝒍𝒊𝒋𝒂𝒉
tag: Maria

Given that his muscles were complaining, Elijah quickly discovered that they had been walking for a length of time. His brow creased with worry before he stopped, turning to look over at Maria. "Do you think we should maybe have a look in one of these shops, maybe ask for directions or maybe even a map, if places like these even still need them. I know it's a small town but we are better off having a solid plan. Well, knowing my luck" Elijah ended off his sentence with a slightly nervous laugh. He listened in silence because although he agreed with what Maria was saying, he seriously wished that he was able to have more faith in the town. Surely it was easier for them to have a fault proof plan but he supposed he agreed that it happens. "I'm guessing that if anything did happen, they were in too much of a rush to warn anyone else which I guess is a fair assumption" Elijah agreed after a few moments. He had to admit that it was really unnerving to have no clue what he was doing or where he was even headed considering that he was known for his organization, whether out of worry or not. His eyes widened as he had another thought. "Maybe this town is secretly known for its serenity. Or maybe they pitched the idea to travelers that they would be able to escape reality or maybe even their phones, for a little bit. It would be a pretty good pitch" Elijah shrugged, swiveling his head to look over at Maria as they walked.

"Well, maybe I gave them a bit too much credit but given this location I'm trying my best to brainstorm". Elijah walked along in silence, unable to stop a smile from creeping on to his face. Maria seemed like a very smart women which made it all the more comforting that she probably had better ideas on how they should go about themselves. He could even say that he was able to put trust in her and given that, his brain had slowly backed away from panic mode which rarely ever happened so he would have to thank her for that. "I agree, a date" Elijah replied and as if to confirm his words, he added a small but definite nod.

"I can help you carry some if you'd like? I didn't know what to pack so I kind of barely did, so I've got the free hand. Not that I doubt your ability, but I feel kind of lopsided anyways". He placed his one bag down, massaging his hand as he scanned their surrounding for clues but again, nothing immediately jumped out to grab his attention which he half didn't expect, giving his slightly dying hopes. "Well, I saw some pictures of this place and thought that maybe I should but then again, I take my camera or phone everywhere. I like to take photos of things I find beautiful but I've been informed by a few... uncreative souls that my photography are just pictures. Which they are, but for others it's different. That's why I think that whatever your muse is, no one should have opinions. Unless good of course. Are you close with your siblings?".

[senna_]

♤ 𝐊𝐀𝐙𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐙 𝐁𝐔𝐊𝐎𝐕𝐒𝐊𝐈 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
tags; nova

Nova was surprisingly full of questions, although Kaz supposed that was to be expected. He was never big on Q-and-A sessions, quite frankly because he never cared much about those he found himself in a room with, but the more Nova talked, the more he realized he could actually see himself getting along with her. He hadn't known what to expect, accepting this invitation. It had been addressed to his father, after all; that right there was enough for him to cringe at the idea of coming. Along with that, Kaz had managed to convince himself that he would be stuck in a hotel with dozens of other stuck-up old men who cared only about themselves. It was a pitiful sight, but at the same time, it was people like those that Kaz grew up around. He was pleasantly surprised to note that Nova was not that. She was young, potentially even younger than himself, and lively. He supposed openly showing more interest would be best; who knew how long it would take before he unintentionally drove her away? With that, he fell back a step, allowing himself to fall into step with her. He didn't remove his hands from his pockets, and while that caused an occasional bump of the arm, physical touch didn't bother him. He had yet to realize it was very possibly an invasion of personal space, though.

"Gambling, darling," he responded with a grin so big it was undoubtedly fake. "My father got the invite, his son was forced to do the dirty work. True story, and terribly tragic. And, get a load of this, this son was stuck with this awful girl! He was set up for disaster. It was why his father did not come home." His act dropped immediately at that last sentence, and while he waited for the usual bitterness to come about, it never did. Kaz was used to not seeing his father. It had been months since he had set eyes on him last. Hell, once he had even believed he was dead, but he showed up again. He always came back.

Keeping it serious this time around, Kaz answered; "Casino work. My family owns half a dozen of them. It is a nasty business, you would not even know. We are all... snakes, I believe the American term is. Cannot trust any of us. Especially not a Bukovski. And you, koteczek, have fallen right into the dragon's den." He swivelled on his heels and began walking backwards as he spoke to her, seeing how even without trying, he was speeding up. "What about you? What is your reason for this?" He gestured around, then faced the front again.

It seemed to be a game with her, one he found quite entertaining. "Never mix it," he answered. "Between Russia and Poland, we have the finest tasting drinks. I brought some, for business, but seeing how we are alone..." He shook his head. "More for ourselves."

It had hit him early on that he had revealed more about himself than she had about her life, which is why he decided then to keep his answers shorter. He was most curious about her reasoning to come here, though. "If you are from big city, whereabouts?" It certainly didn't help that both of them were city people. What did one do out here, anyway? Kaz refused to set up a tent; he'd gladly bust down a door before any of that could happen.

Keeping quiet, Kaz focused more on his pace, allowing Nova to ponder over his questions. His dark eyes skimmed the loose gravel, then looked up, and he nearly toppled over at the sight way ahead. He tapped Nova's shoulder with one hand, pointing with the other. "Do you see that?" he asked in a rushed tone. "Are those people?" They were far away, so far they were like shadows, but surely he couldn't be mistaken. Those were definitely the figures of real people. Two of them. This gave him hope.