mossyretro

[mossyretro]

She feels everything too much.

For all the absence of a heartbeat, everything else is dialed up to a number that would make Spinal Tap have an aneurysm. Laure's had centuries to perfect it. Morgan's drowning in one week of it.

The crying is done without the gasping and wheezing sobs a human would have made, emotion flowing freely without the ability to swallow it down. Morgan wipes her chin with the back of her jacket sleeve, looking at the man and then at Aria. "Shut up," she growls ruefully, tone harsher than she would have ever taken with the girl before. Everything, every little thing within her is bigger, stronger, deeper. The grief, the shame, the hunger -- oh, god, the hunger.

The fledgling vampire looks back down at the man and wonders maybe if there was something left worth lapping up -- surely she hadn't gotten every drop. The red stains on her green jacket look black in the moonlight and she wants so badly for her fangs to recede, but they don't, and she doesn't know how to make them. It does occur to her that she just killed someone (if she stops to truly think, she's killed several someones already). She's the very thing, in essence, that killed her husband, and she's furious that she's suddenly been reduced to that same sort of monster. There's a chance if she thinks about it too hard or too long, she'll just hole up in the arcade overnight and wait to leave a pile of ash for whichever of her employees has the morning shift next...

"Yes. Sorry, yes," Morgan stammers, "I'm still hungry and I can't make it stop. I-I don't recognize myself anymore when I look in the mirror, and it makes me so mad that the no reflections thing turned out to be bullshit." She looks up at Aria, eyes shimmering wet.

"What am I supposed to do?"

Morgan had been acting weird lately. She's not really sure how to put a finger on it, but there was distance. In texts, over calls. It's not quite the same. And the last time she'd been by the arcade, she could have sworn there was a distinct lack of heartbeat, but had gotten distracted by the other sights and sounds. One thing going for her.

But.

That had lead to her completely stalking the older woman, now. She'd mentioned to Autumn that she was going out to hunt - which wasn't wrong. Only partially wrong. If Morgan was what she thought she was, then she would have to tell Autumn on her own. She didn't want to force that conversation before either of them were ready.

When she finally happens upon her, she sees Morgan feeding and the sound of her heels against the asphalt must startle her. The hiss barely registers, and she simply approaches to look down at the mess of the person at their feet.

"Well. That could have gone better." She's not exactly skilled at this, with her own bloodlust, but at least she doesn't cry about it. "You still hungry?"

[mossyretro]

✨🌈SEND THIS TO OTHER BLOGGERS YOU THINK ARE WONDERFUL. KEEP THE GAME GOING🌈✨

//heehee thank u my love <3

[mossyretro]

Morgan blushes a little. Eloise makes their work sound so mythic. Most would consider it a waste of time and effort, especially in a modern world where games, while expensive, could provide hundreds of hours of diversion on the most advanced machines. She wonders the proportional cost of effort and entertainment in quarter cabinets, but then decides she doesn't really care, nor does she have the mathematical abilities to calculate the answer.

Is it any different than the rising cost of movie ticket prices versus watching reruns of your favorite shows at home? Or renting a DVD from an ever-shrinking number of Blockbusters and independent stores? Media preservation is part of the process -- age renders things precious, but it also makes them more and more obsolete without proper care and attention.

"Well, we've got fire insurance just in case that passion blows out any of our fuses," she jokes.

Retrocity could easily be a predatory arcade, changing the dip switch settings and difficulty of the crane games to suck in as much spare change as possible before giving satisfactory output. But while frustration temporarily engenders a competitive persistence, largely it leads to unsatisfied feelings. She would rather foster fond memories and a reasonable curiosity to continue -- there's a time and place for challenge, and a time and place for remembering that it's just a game.

"Oh! The three..."

Morgan blushes a little, certain she's only mentioned herself and Bradley. She barely has a bump and surely she's not so 'glowing' that it's obvious she's pregnant. Still, she looks down to check, as if the child inside of her is eager to betray the secret.

"I, uh... wow, it might be a while before we're ready for something like that," she says, not denying the headcount. "We might start with something easy, like Santa Cruz. Old stomping grounds, just dip our toes in. But New York is always an option." She nods, a little thrown by Eloise's casual demeanor.

"Sorry, we haven't told many people yet -- how... how did you know?"

In this young woman's eyes she sees that faraway wonder telling of an entertained fantasy, the sight of which brings her lips into an admiring smile. Keeping her momentary peace in resisting the urge to enquire, Eloise lifts a hand and props her chin neatly upon its knuckle-topped reverse— keeping her elbow tucked into her side, she allows herself to wonder what had prompted the sudden daytime reverie in the other woman. She had been admiring her braid just a moment ago, no? Would she like her hair done the same, perhaps?

She will suggest as much.

Her expression continues to warm as she listens to this gaming proprietor speak in the framework of comfortable reference and anecdote. She seems modest in character, even somewhat bashful— it is altogether terribly cute. Confident with her fingers however, one would even venture to say artful. With a downward flick of hazel eyes, Eloise begins to watch that coin flicker back and forth with an occasional twinkling flash of dulled silver. Though this establishment was a recent one, it was clear to her that Morgan had spent much of her life around this manner of machinery.

"Age renders all things precious. It is to the merit of yourself and your husband that these memories will be reborn from one generation on into the next." She muses from the bend of her freckled hand, blinking her gaze back up to meet Morgan's own. Again with that enigmatic smile: the mellifluous words that follow speak to her resulting approbation. "Passion is contagious, but as you have just described, for it to spread like a wildfire it must first be sheltered as a candle."

Dropping her hand again she lifts herself from the console that had been propping her up this whole time, rolling Morgan's preceding remark around within the confines of her mind as she half-turns towards the inactive arcade game. Rolling her palm playfully across its black directing knob, Eloise returns to that other point with a seamlessness that would suggest she believes these two trains of thought to be fundamentally interconnected.

"Perhaps I speak out of turn as one who has traveled too much, but I would venture that you should continue finding reasons to travel. To see and experience the things that you love." Lifting her head once more, she redirects her twinkling expression back to Morgan. "Perhaps, when all three of you are ready, you could start with New York?"

[mossyretro]

Morgan sucks her teeth. "Ugh, hate it when that happens." That's one of the beauties of the arcade though, you always get another try if you've got quarters to spare. Unless this girl just ran out -- entirely possible, given her disappointed look. Though that might just be Morgan reading too much into that wicked scar and the tired eyes. "Thanks, though."

She slips a stick of gum from her purse, which is at this time in her life more form than function. But it holds her quarters, her pager, and a few other essentials, which is all Morgan needs at this point. The girl snaps the gum and then slots a few quarters in and wakes the console, claiming Nightcrawler as her hero. Lacey and Seth eventually wander over when they see she's claimed the most coveted cabinet. Figures. "Yeah, sure, get in here," Morgan shrugs.

Lacey always picks Dazzler and Seth thinks of himself more like a Cyclops guy, always the leader, totally all that. Morgan doesn't really think they'll be a couple -- Lacey and Seth, not the X-Men -- but she knows he likes the attention he gets from her. But he's going to college soon and there's no way he'll leave his heart in Pismo for some high school girl. It's fine. Seth always criticizes Morgan's taste in games anyways, as if he isn't hanging out at the same arcade absolutely bombing at Ghosts 'n Goblins.

The trio play for a while, managing to get a few good levels in, and a dollar or two down each, bartering for extra lives for their mutants without regenerative healing factors. But then Seth suggests that he and Lacey go play Bubble Bobble, and that's just for two players... so Morgan gets the message. "Okay, sure. Whatever, have fun," she shrugs, snapping her gum again. When she turns, she spots the same 'just died' girl from earlier, staring.

"Um..." She pigeon-toes her shoes and then looks around the arcade for a moment before glancing back at the stranger. "Sorry, are you sure you were finished? I didn't, like, step on your toes there, did I? My bad."

Autumn's looking around, a little stunned and a little shaken and a little overwhelmed. Her eyes are brimmed with upset that she quickly lashes away with a plaid sleeve when somebody tries to catch her attention, and her expression darts to the voice that's equal parts familiar and alien, turning more fully on her heel.

It's like, clearly Morgan - except that Morgan's dead; she'd just watched her—no, felt her die. Except its some sort of weird, ancient Morgan Moss that's pre anything. Before her, before her friends, before the city, before her husband... before anything, or so it seems.

"Uh, yeah, no." She says. "No, you can." A smile that's more nervous than nice. "All yours, just died."

She steps aside, averting her stare, eyes scanning around this Arcade which is now, more clearly the wrong Arcade, her mind doing somersaults as it tries to figure out what the hell is going on.

She can't figure out, because its kind of obvious, but the obvious answer is somehow more insane than any other option she might have considered, so she goes back to staring dumbly at what she can only assume is Biblically Accurate Morgan Pruitt and her friends shoving quarters into a brawler, boring a hole through the truth of the matter like that might fix it.

[mossyretro]

closed starter for @victoriautmorse when/where: retrocity, late at night

It's getting close to quitting time, and Morgan's already given the few remaining diehards their last call. Final quarters. She knows it's risky -- a skilled enough player can make twenty-five cents into the better half of an hour, and she's never actually pulled any plugs when she's threatened to, but...

The woman stifles a yawn, running through the last of the midnight checklist on a Saturday so that when Kevin takes the opening shift, there isn't as much to prepare. Coin hoppers on Cabinet Alley A are emptied, the claw machine is restocked, refluffed, and recalibrated, and Morgan's making one final sweep for trash. There's just two young men left in Retrocity -- the one who'd introduced himself as Jason, and the one who'd been pretty tight-lipped since he slipped in after sundown. It's fine, she's used to poorly socialized gamers.

"Listen, Jay, you don't have to go home but you can't stay here," she jokes, swinging by the game he's wrapping up. Morgan is balancing a hamper of small plushes on her hip - some Squishmallows, some Sanrio characters they'd licensed without having to pay through the nose. "Hate to turn you out on the street, but I've gotta get home before the sun comes back up."

The stranger, the other gamer, hisses at this. Morgan frowns, looking over. "Sorry, bud, you need to wrap it up too. Closing time."

"You won't be leaving here before the sun rises -- in fact, you won't be leaving here at all!"

Morgan notices all too late that this man's pasty complexion isn't in fact because he spends too long inside looking at screens. Suddenly, there's a flash of white fangs and darkened eyes, and the woman drops the basket of plushes.

"Holy shit! What's this guy's deal?"

[mossyretro]

"Ehh, cynicism is overrated. Frowns are too expensive for my tastes."

Morgan looks at the woman's long hair and thinks about her child and whether she'll have to learn to be good at braiding for a daughter (or a very carefree son). Will the nimbleness of her gaming fingers translate to all the little gentle touches a mother should have?

She blushes a little at the comparison, lacking any special sort of magic except that of a mostly-tireless whimsy. Mo wonders if Eloise is talking about Morgan le Fay and those old knight tales -- she was never the most fantasy minded, but found those stories a little easier in school than the more accurate world histories. That's another thing, she wonders, will she have to be good at helping her child with homework? Will she be able to present a motherly font of knowledge and stay at least two workbook steps ahead of her curious kid? That is, if she's lucky to have a child who cares about learning. Morgan isn't sure how she and Bradley would react to the alternative.

"Only magic here is that a quarter buys you an extra life. It's like a coin-operated time machine," she says, fishing a quarter out of her pocket and rolling it between her fingers. Morgan's eyes sparkle with a bit of reflected game light as the woman describes the place south of Paris. "Wow. It sounds beautiful." Mostly by virtue of being French, and foreign. She doubts Portland is comparable.

"Brad and I are actually from California originally, and we haven't really traveled much. But New York, I bet that place has some great arcades. And the best part of visiting them over the years is there's always something new, or some old classic they've restored. We try to find as many games with original hardware as we can instead of all the new emulators, but it's difficult when people don't take care of what they have."

A smile from a stranger begets one's own, and in this petite woman's pretty visage she sees as genuine a form of one as if it were sprung from fresh from the years of her youth. How appropriate to encounter such a personality within the walls of this temple to idle comforts and joy, where all could gather and celebrate reason to smile as such.

"Yes, I agree." Eloise is quick to affirm her new friend's opinion, nodding with firm conviction as she shifted her weight upon the cabinet supporting her wiry frame. "Though I find many tempted to think otherwise, under the influence of perhaps an ever-beckoning cynicism."

She casts her mind back to prominent figures in her memory who she had found cause to argue with. Frequently. A prevailing quality among them was perhaps this most bitter fruit, nurtured in an acrid and dry foundation that could only bear such a sharpened sting of produce. Equally stubborn as herself, they had more often than not unfortunately proven.

"Morgan? Ah, like the witch. Morgane." Eloise beams with glowing appreciation as she repeats the name with a Gallic twist more familiar to her tongue, head at once swirling with the chivalric stories of her adolescence. She all but forgets the information that had followed, a name less familiar to her ear and further context that might had proved illuminating for their course of conversation.

"A beautiful and powerful enchantress, most befitting for one who dazzles with many color screens and the far reaches of imagination." She compliments effortlessly with the confidence of a courtier, lips hiked deep into her cheeks with natural effusion.

In the wake of her taken diversion, Eloise is perhaps grateful that the new mother offers new questions rather than relying upon her certain recollection as to what else she had said back there. The father? Yes, a 'Bradley.' And a recent establishment as to this venue.

"Mm? Ah oui, Auvergne. South of Paris. It is mountainous and verdant, not unlike your Portland. Though not so much the face of cities or 'arcades' such as these." She lifts a hand from the fold at her abdomen and likewise waves generally to their surroundings, before tucking it back in.

"The first time a place like this was in New York, some years ago. It was smaller, but no less charming to the searching eye."

[mossyretro]

Pismo Beach, CA, 1996

A Saturday with time to kill takes her down to CoinLand Video Arcade, her friend Lacey at her hip, needling the same question she asks, like, every week.

"Seriously, Mo, when's your mom gonna let us sneak into the bar before it opens and try, like, one drink?"

"Never, duh! She could totally get fired for that," Morgan says, shaking her head. Her hair, naturally straight, is coiled with a bounce held up with hairspray and her general disregard for physics class metrics -- that is to say, it defies gravity. There's a modest amount of blush on her face and a tinted gloss on her lips, but she doesn't exactly go to the arcade to pick up boys, so there's no need for the full facial. She turns to Lacey with a conspiratorial smirk. "Besides, she let me try a bit of whiskey at home the other night."

A gasp, of both awe and betrayal. "And?"

"It was... fine. I dunno, it tasted really, um, mature. Probably be better mixed with a Coke, I think."

The vapid chatter continues as Morgan slips a $10 into the change machine -- that's two week's allowance, without the extra she's been saving washing neighbors' cars and stuff. Lacey's dad will pick them up in a few hours, which is plenty of time to get some serious gametime in.

"Oh! Did you watch X-Files last night? Totally trippy -- I mean, a mind control device? That amplifies your anxiety? No thanks--" But before Morgan can continue her thought, there's a clatter and a thud. She and her friend round the corner to see an older girl -- not someone they've ever seen here before -- looking stumbled and confused. She's got a nasty scar, and honestly looks a little intimidating standing right in front of Ninja Turtles and the shockingly empty X-Men game. Lacey's lost interest in the whole affair, though, catching sight of her senior crush, Seth, across the arcade. Whateverrr.

"Um, 'scuse me," Morgan steps forward, looking around the girl. "Sorry, are you playing X-Men or can I get in there?"

Her hightops scuff to a stop under the neon strings that spell out Retrocity, and she can already smell blood in the air as she bursts through the door.

She'd finished her shift at the Arcade earlier in the day (Morgan had really done her a solid, hiring her in despite her uh, wolfish indiscretion when this New Moon that huge red wolf had made of her life had all kicked off), but she'd forgotten her her journal in the backroom, which she'd only remembered when a stroke of genius had hit and she'd nowhere to write it, sending her back to work and skipping over the verse in her mind so she didn't forget it.

But forget it she does as she follows her nose only to find a shape draped over Morgan, pulling draws of blood from her neck. A flash of gold eyes and a toothy snarl had frightened it off, the threat of a werewolf's venomous bite doing a lot of the work, but as Morgan stumbles forward and Autumn catches her, shaking her head as she feels the life slip out of her.

She can' say much besides No in a hundred different tones and timbres, and when Morgan drifts off she sinks more fully back onto her legs, kneeling there, but that's when she feels cold hands dig into the contours of her jaw, trying to twist her own neck around and get rid of their only witness.

She's faster than a human though, and her bones are stronger, and she slams the assailant into the ground. They move in a blur though, faster than the young werewolf can truly content with. Autumn staggers and falls backwards into a cabinet, the Turtles In Time's attract screen ringing out about flying saucers and tadpoles as another vampiric fist slams through the screen, and in a bright flash something is triggered - something that doesn't feel normal, and that's concerning because how much in Port Leiry ever feels normal?

Then Autumn's on the floor, eyes adjusting, and everything's gone, or different; there's blood, and there's no... death. It's all, people and... not Port Leiry either, because she can smell salt but it smells different. She picks herself up, looking around, confused - it IS an Arcade but... what the hell?

[mossyretro]

The stranger is tall and elegant, though her outfit is something of a more fun and casual demeanor. All in all, not anything you'd do a double take over in Portland. Wow, she's gorgeous. Morgan's own easy smile rises to meet hers, charmed by the accent that sounds something in the realm of fancy and French.

"Well, everything old is new again. Except when it's still old, like this place," she jokes. "But even then, it's new to someone who hasn't played before. I don't believe there's an expiration date on things that bring you joy."

Morgan wonders how old the woman is -- she can't quite place it with just a look, but as she herself has gotten older, the numbers have started to matter a little less and less. The outfit looks to err on the younger side of things, but then again, the fashion in Portland always kind of existed within its own bubble. When she reaches out to extend a hand, Morgan warmly takes it in her own.

"Eloise, wow. That's such a pretty name," she murmurs appreciatively. She's trying to take note of pretty names these days, wondering and hoping and praying she and her husband will find themselves at such a fortunate point soon. Until then, she's too afraid to get attached to any names, dreams, notions of the future -- the past, she's decided, is so much safer.

"I'm Morgan," she offers in exchange. "My husband Bradley and I own the place. Just opened a few months ago, actually, so we're hoping to be here a long time while folks like you pass through and then pass back through."

Morgan gestures vaguely around the arcade, bright enough on its own without the daytime light filtering in through the slightly tinted window glass. "You said you haven't seen these games in a while -- did you go to another arcade when you were younger? And if you don't mind my asking, where are you in from?"

Oh, what's this?

A flurry of freckled cheeks and a springtime bright smile turn to greet the voice that sounds from her immediate periphery, promptly catching sight of the carrying woman Eloise had seen patrolling one of the aisles of this arcade upon her entry to the establishment about an hour ago. A proprietor, if she had to guess by the ease of her approach, her manner and— well, the very words she begins to speak next.

The news that her favored iteration of cabinet game might be arriving here in the near future pleases her as much as the promise of conversation does, and it's with amicable welcome that she thus leans her slim thighs back against the game's control panel to better rest and fold her arms loosely across her stomach. A position from which she could, reliably, hold discourse for a good little while.

"A new one? How delightful that they still make them." Her red lips stretch into a charmed beam, before she breaks eye contact to cant her head in the direction of the remainder of the technicolor aisle, indicating the continuation of their cabinet selection. "You can certainly count upon my return— without or with. I have not seen so many of these games in quite some time, and even longer in one place."

It was remarkable, really. Especially as she had spoken of attempting to acquire such goods from lands as far-flung as Japan; a testimony to the ever borderless business of demand, supply and cargo. A most enterprising woman in such times, evidently.

"Though I cannot say exactly when that return would be: I am, after all, only passing through." She confesses with a brief nod to the windows lining the street-facing wall of the building, attempting to indicate some manner of thoroughfare-relating trajectory. Regardless she extends an open hand to shake, wishing to know more of this ambitious madame of the arcade.

"Eloise."

[mossyretro]

They need every quarter they can get if this is going to work out.

The arcade thing, of course, but the newness of Retrocity suddenly pales to the reality that she's pregnant. And has been for a few months now -- the shortest and longest months of her life, ever. Morgan and Bradley had poured everything they had left into opening the arcade, finally giving up the thought they'd ever have a family of their own. So they made this place for families; a place where children and parents can bridge those divides both generational and graphical. Where adults can reconnect with their inner child.

Morgan is way too aware of the child inside of her right now, even though it doesn't really look like much or feel like much except for the fact she's spent weeks alternating between being sick and being asleep, and always being scared that this isn't going to work out. The baby thing, of course, but the arcade thing too -- she's barely been a help while Brad works the late nights.

Morgan wonders if they could offer summer jobs to some of the teenaged regulars (they have regulars already). Like Kevin, who is practically glued to the Galaga cabinet a few times a week. He's a sweetheart, but maybe he doesn't want to work behind the scenes if that means he spends a little less time playing than he does cleaning and helping folks out. But that's a conversation for another day -- they need to make enough money to actually hire someone else first.

Still, there's a newness to everything that will eventually, God willing, become comfortable. Worn-in. A pristine arcade is nice to begin with, but nothing stays the same when it's well-loved and used. Otherwise, they might as well call it a museum. As Morgan makes the rounds, she's quietly checking to make sure no one's giving the machines a dose of tough love, though. Emotions can run high in an energetic, competitive space such as this. But as she happens across a woman playing Donkey Kong (or rather, being bested by Donkey Kong), she finds a moment to just calm down and be in the 8bit moment.

"Oh, we really wanted to try to get one of those Mario Kart GP 2 machines, but they're hard to get outside of Japan," Morgan shares, gently brushing her fingers over the still-pristine classic cabinet artwork, an oddly beautiful juxtaposition of something very old in a state of newness. "They're releasing the new version next year, though, and maybe by then we'll have enough saved up to get one or two. You'll have to come by again, if we do. If you can stand to wait that long."

A lot can change in a year, of course.

@mossyretro

— A very certain retro-style arcade. Portland, USA. 2012.

A colorful, bubbling trill of laughter erupts from her lungs as Eloise watches this funny little man perform his jumping maneuvers despite the pixelated ape's best attempts to thwart his efforts to advance. There is a comforting familiarity she struggles to name in witnessing once more this famed plumber's very original hopping antics, a fond recognition in particular for his buttoned overalls and old-fashioned moustache.

Is it nostalgia, perhaps? She is certain it would be, were she to feel herself privy to such a definition. So recent were the memories of this in the long reach of her life however, that she felt it perhaps more appropriate to describe the feeling as that of meeting a friend one has simply not seen in a while. Not so long as to fade the memory entirely, but just enough to stoke the heart with longing in absence, a dash of joy upon an unexpected return.

Such is, she understands, the purpose of such a place. A temple to childhood engagements, tantalizing to the delights of older hearts and younger temperaments alike. Arcades such as these had populated urban spaces for some decades now, however the model of this new establishment evidently sought foremost to emulate those of the first era— with such spiritual conviction that she could not help but admire the ambition in recreation.

"—Ah, well." Eloise exhales with an amused shrug of her shoulders as she leans up from the machine upon the loss of the last of her valiant adventurer's limited lives, resting her hands defiantly upon her hips and regarding the game with almost scrutinizing estimation. Her waist-long plait sways with the subsequent tilt of her fiery-haired head, scraping softly against the scuffed surface of her powder blue dungarees as she remarks with challenging rebellion.

"I was always better at those with the karts."

[mossyretro]

starter for @abjectdiscordance (autumn) totally not totally killer time travel au

Living in Port Leiry, it was only a matter of time before she'd be dying in Port Leiry. All the damn vampires -- no matter how fiercely she protected herself, it could only delay the inevitable.

Morgan never wanted to live forever. She just didn't think she'd have to die so soon.

She'd stopped by Retrocity after reports of a faulty transformer on Baliol Street had her worried for the state of the electronics -- one bad spark and the whole place could be blown fuses and electrical fires. So she had been meticulously unplugging and powering off fixtures when she was attacked by a vampire whose face she didn't recognize, whose bite held no tenderness for her. He got a mouthful of the verbena in her veins, but persisted anyways.

It was a clean attack, save for the blood she's now trailed across the floor -- what little was left in Morgan after the vampire fled, scared off by the familiar shape of someone... Autumn. The woman can hear her voice, but the words are soft around the edges, Morgan's senses growing dark. "Heyyy," she manages groggily, feeling heavy as she's pulled into the girl's arms. Her breathing is labored and the arcade is feeling colder and dimmer by the moment. "T-tell K-Kev... doesn't h-haf... come in T-Tuesd..."

It's all she can manage, her strength completely sapped and her throat torn and raw. There's a darkness -- then a light, a pop of harsh sound from the agitated electronics, and Morgan's breathed her last.

[mossyretro]

starter for @royalharmony (aria) vampire morgan au

Since the incident, she hasn't spoken to Laure.

Morgan thought she could manage at first, but a fledgling vampire's emotions are too volatile for much reason, much rational behavior. Her sire dutifully understood and has been giving her space, but without a heartbeat, without breath, she's suddenly aware of how she doesn't belong in her own world anymore.

The arcade has been closed for repairs, mostly, but also because Morgan can't bring herself to tell Kevin she died. She misses the thump of music in her chest, and the way she could almost feel the tingling of electronics on her skin when Retrocity was all lit up. Now, if she says and does nothing, there is utter stillness. The heart of this place is missing.

Still, she wants to keep her morality -- keep her humanity -- as long as she can. And that means no killing arcade customers. But, god, she's hungry. Morgan wants to keep a perimeter if she can. No customers, and no kills within three blocks in any direction. It isn't difficult, with her speed and quietness that take over when she's truly feverish -- and what she lacks in vampiric finesse, she can get away with in the modicum of innocence she still possesses.

And that's how a quick, "I'm so sorry, my car won't start and my phone is dead. Can you help?" becomes the small woman hunched over in an alleyway, having pulled down a man almost a foot taller than her so she could feed. At the sound of footsteps behind her, though, she drops him, her face a mess of silvered tears streaking down her cheeks and cutting tracks through the red mess of her chin. Morgan turns to the intruder, hissing in anger before all but turning away in shame at the sight of the girl.

"Aria... please, don't look at me like this."

[mossyretro]

"It's Wednesday," Morgan says as Van walks out of the back. "Sorry, Wednesday Addams -- the trivia question out front. Had to say that before I forgot."

It's been new, adjusting to a new city, a new state, a new life -- well, it's not new. It's the life she's always had, but it's different now. Her husband's urn is on the mantel, their life's investment in quarters now sold off and turned into something more stable, more mature. Or maturing, as it sits in the bank. (That doesn't mean Morgan didn't keep a few of her favorite games for herself.) Finding When You Were Streaming has been a nice anchor of nostalgic familiarity in a sea of New, Big, Scary.

Morgan sets a tape down on the counter, not that Van needs any more clutter, and smiles at the redhead. "Oh, movie night was great. Vampires seriously never get old," she says with a chuckle. The Lost Boys was a staple, of course. A 'comfort film' as she'd heard it called in modern lingo. She had to see if a retro rental store was worth its salt with the seminal classics, and what better way than with a 'comfort film' to soothe the sting of the anniversary of her husband's passing.

"It was nice seeing a little slice of home -- and you just can't beat that tactile feeling with the tapes. Wish I'd kept mine in better shape over the years..." Her eyes trail down the counter and off around the store for a moment before Morgan turns back to Van. "I was actually wondering... anything you can recommend for my next movie night?"

She's in the back, sorting through some tapes that had been returned over the past few days, checking to make sure people knew that "be kind, rewind" wasn't just a nostalgic slogan. The bell on the front door chimes, a familiar jingle that never fails to put a smile on her face, because it means that people are interested in the corner she's created for herself. "Be right out in a second!" she calls out as she starts stacking a few tapes together to carry out. "Feel free to look around and see what catches your eye."

Van passes through the beaded curtain that separates the back office from the main store and a warm grin stretches across her face as she recognizes her latest customer. "Hey you," she greets as she sets the contents in her hands down on the corner. "How was your movie night?" / @mossyretro

[mossyretro]

//if you are here you already know the drill with me, let's rock and roll