Elena's Apartment

[Elena]

“I know, boy, I know… he was a bad, stinky leech, wasn’t he? Yes he was…”

Theo the cat was sprawled on her stomach, head tipped to one side while she scratched his ear, as the growing light spread through her studio apartment brilliantly, blazing beautifully through the large windows to stream across the floor and speckle over the furniture. Elena Torres hadn’t moved much. She had gotten home from her scuffle with the overdressed vampire, taken a hot bath, and hadn’t moved much since.

What better way was there to waste away the early hours of the morning, and beyond, than to sprawl on a cosy couch with your pet cat, whose purr was like music to the ears? Elena smiled. Maybe, come nightfall, she’d take to the streets again and see if she could track the vampire down… maybe teach him a thing or two about the superior race…

[Elena]

Not many women in this day and age were willing to cut their own hair when there were so many overqualified hairdressers and stylists who charged frankly ridiculous prices just to give you a trim and ask about your vacations. Elena was one of the rare few who believed that doing it yourself was the only way to do it right. True, it was harder to cut your own hair than that of someone else, but she had decades of experience under her belt, and besides, hairdressers and stylists always took liberties, even when you told them, flat-out, what you wanted. Idiots.

Trimming the last strands of dark hair, she let them fall, ignored, into the sink and then lowered the scissors from near her face, eyeing her reflection with a critic’s eye, turning her head this way and that, studying what she had done. If she eventually decided she didn’t like the bangs she had cut in, they would just grow out again; it wasn’t a problem that time couldn’t solve, and that was good enough for her. Besides, when you lived, potentially, for an eternity, it was good to change something about your own appearance now and again, if only for the self-satisfaction.

With a small smile of approval, she rinsed the hairs from the sink and shut the scissors away before padding back into the living room and straight through to the kitchen. She was craving a hot chocolate something fierce, and she would be damned if she wasn’t caving to that urge. Theo trotted behind her curiously, and at the sound of his intrigued mew, she smiled.

[Elena]

Having twisted her raven lengths up at the back of her head into a neat but simple ponytail, she had endeavoured to feed Theo before sorting herself that mug of hot chocolate, idly watching the steam spiral up from the rim of the cup while it sat on the bench of her modest kitchen. Her cat purred while he chewed on the canned chunks of meat, and she smiled softly in affection, bowing to briefly flick his tail before collecting the drink and heading back into the lounge.

Elena settled herself, still standing but leaned against the tall, wide frame, by the large windows. They allowed for a lot of natural light, which helped cut down her utility bill, for one thing, and made her feel more content, for another; she was a wolf at heart, and she needed that hint of nature, even while living in a city like Los Angeles.

Her cell phone buzzed lazily nearby, and collecting it from the small table not two feet to her left behind an armchair, she flipped it open, and read the message while she sipped the hot, soothing beverage. It was one of her contacts, and she skimmed the abbreviated details, swiftly committing them to memory to be passed along to the appropriate — not to mention paying — parties. There was one hunter in particular who would no doubt readily cough up the cash in return for the information that had just been slipped her way, and she smiled to herself as Theo trotted up and hopped gracefully to perch beside her at the window.