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Kiva can certainly hold her own in a fight, but if someone's going to try to beat up a mutant who looks like her they're going to try to outnumber her...So, maybe Kiva's out in the evening and some guys decide to 'put the freak in her place' and the sound of the ruckus draws in the others? A pissed-off dragon makes a lot of noise.

Kiva chuckled a little at Paige's comment. She was pretty sure if that lone angry idiot had had any friends, they would have showed up already, but she had no desire to stick around anyway. "Yeah, good idea. Catch." She gave her extra helmet a light underhand toss in her friend's direction, then waited for her to put it on and get on the bike.

"Hang on," she warned. The Manticore's engine roared to life, and another of its owner's rumbling chuckles joined the sound as she sped off. Nothing over the speed limit, of course, but definitely trail-blazing velocity. If anyone stopped to stare at the big black motorcycle with its scaly rider and blonde passenger, she officially did not notice or give a single care.

Now, to find the nearest little patch of green and relax. Though, the feeling of just riding her motorcycle was effective on that front, too, even with a passenger. She smiled. "So," she hollered over the engine. "You ever take self-defense, or are you just naturally that good at throwing a punch?"

Kiva chuckled a bit over Paige's response to her job, mentally logging away the comment about coming to see her. She looked forward to it if that did happen.

"See you then," she echoed right before Paige hung up, and then she put the phone down and looked at the black cat rubbing against her arm. She gently scratched Clover under the chin. "Sorry, kitty, but I have plans today..."

---

Some days, there was nothing more relaxing than the roar of that engine, and The Manticore was a big bike with a big engine. Every inch of it was solid, jet black, a custom paint job that may not have been very original or flashy, but that she adored and found more than worth the money.

It didn't take long for her to find the alleyway, and she pulled over by it to stop and wait. She didn't bother getting off the bike, just sitting there with the pack slung over her shoulder that held her art supplies. She glanced around, remembering what direction Paige had gone in while heading home and focusing her attention there.

For a while, it was just her and her motorcycle, and she found herself lightly humming to herself to pass the time, tapping her claws on her handlebars. She wasn't looking for anything to make the wait more exciting...but it seemed like she was going to get it anyway.

"Hey, freak!" Kiva heard the shout, and decided that, unless there was another visible outside of her peripherial vision, it was being aimed at her. She ignored it entirely. "Mutie!" Also ignored; her tapping claws went from subconscious response to the music in her head to impatient habit in record time. Lord have mercy, she hoped Paige showed up soon.

Those two slurs, along with some rather inept and repetitive streams of profanity, continued to be hurled in her direction, but she largely tuned it out. After a while of this, however, she was aware of movement in her direction out of the corner of her eye.

"You f****** deaf, you fre--" Kiva whipped her head around and glared daggers at scrawny, pathetic excuse for a young man who had gotten too close to The Manticore for her liking. She was human in her facial shape save for her jaw spikes; no snout, no fangs, no inhuman eyes, but her features were naturally harsh and she'd long perfected a glare that made one surprised no holes were left behind in their target.

"One, I have a g****** name, you a******," she snarled, "Two, get the h*** away from my bike. This is a custom paint job and stupid is corrosive."

Her growling, baritone voice and expression clearly caused a bit of caution to flicker to life between his ears, but, unfortunately, self-preservation seemed in no hurry to come back from its coffee break regardless and the flicker extinguished nearly instantly. "Go back to whatever hole you crawled out of, freak!"

Oh, joy, he was increasing in volume. People were no doubt staring at them, now. At least none of them were cheering him on. "Your mother know you're out here being harassing people twice your size?" she asked.

The response she got was more profanity; there were other words mixed in there, but at this point she really didn't give a care what he was saying, even less so than she had before. Which was an accomplishment. This would normally be the point where she'd just ride away, but, well, she was here for a reason.

Kiva 'Drake' Augillard, a visible mutant with a dragon-like appearance, works as a tattoo artist and spends most of her free time painting, sketching, working out at a boxing gym, and riding her motorcycle. She has both a strong independent streak and protective instinct, loves mythology, and has an adorable black cat for a pet.

And she needs her world shook up a little via interacting with people, so I figured I'd post this up to see if anyone's interested in plotting. She's not one to actively seek out new people to meet, but she's very friendly to folks who aren't instantly afraid of or hostile toward her, regardless of whether they're mutant or not (and she will be very tempted to ask other visible mutants if they'll let her paint their portrait).

So yeah. Open to pretty much anything in the way of ideas.

Kiva kept her mouth shut regarding the topic of getting hit on, mostly because nothing that sprung to mind to say seemed like a good idea. Mostly because a lot of it was akin to 'I wouldn't know.' The last thing she wanted to do was sound like she was fishing for pity. The rest...was also under the category of 'not helping,' since pointing out that Paige was very pretty could be taken as something other than her 'big sister' instinct kicking in. And she'd already found herself backpedaling once in this conversation.

"Talk to you later, then." She waved as Paige turned and left, lingering for a moment of two before she, too, started to head for home.

The walk to her building was fairly quiet, and the ascent to her floor was as well. She offered a wave to one of her neighbours as she opened her door, and the man seemed to shrink down a little before tentatively waving back. Kiva snorted once she was inside; you'd think after the first few months in the building they'd get over the fact that there was a dragon down the hall.

A sleek, black cat bounding over and rearing up to paw at her leg chased away those thoughts, and Kiva grinned as she knelt down to scoop Clover up into her arms. "Well, hello there, bestest friend! Are you hungry?" The tone of the meow she received seemed to say 'heck yeah,' and she chuckled deeply. "Okay, okay. One bowl full of cat food coming up."

Roughly an hour later, the dragon mutant was on her coach flipping through a sketchbook full of trees, flowers, and the occasional humanoid as Clover lay contently sprawled across her lap. Her head snapped up when the phone started ringing, and she gently shifted her feline friend aside--to only a token mew of protest--so that she could answer it. She picked up the cordless phone, noting that she didn't recognize the number on the display, and hit the 'talk' button.

She smiled at the voice on the other end. "Hey." As for the question, she thought about it for a second, and suddenly an idea came to her. "Well...that depends." A hint of almost-mischief entered her tone. "...Are you opposed to a motorcycle ride to the park? I don't use the thing for work, but, well, I've got an extra helmet..."

She wouldn't be bothered much by a 'no,' but it had been a while since she'd broken out The Manticore.

Kiva frowned at the mention of money. Her own job paid decently, and she wasn't one to treat herself too much, so she generally wasn't too short to do something when the mood did strike her. In fact, the idea came to her to treat her new acquaintance, but she found herself unsure of voicing it. Offers like that didn't always tend to be received very well.

So, she went with the next idea. "Well, a walk in the park doesn't cost anything," she commented. She had mentioned 'green spaces' in there, after all. "And it can be pretty relaxing. I sometimes like to take my sketchbook out there and draw the trees. Or the people..."

Trees and people. Kiva suddenly found herself tilting her head to one side and looking at Paige. Studying her. The artist in her had suddenly taken the driver's seat of her brain, and while her subjects of her artwork tended to be mythical figures, she often used real life for inspiration. "Huh," she murmured quietly, then realized she must look ridiculous and hastily glanced away; the dragon mutant wasn't capable of visibly blushing, but she still felt a bit of heat rush to her face in embarrassment.

"Sorry. I've been working on this painting of these forest sprites and I realized you look like how I wanted one of them to look and sometimes that part of my brain sorta hijacks my train of thought and I'm rambling now..." She coughed a little into a bronze fist. "But, yeah, nature's good for unwinding, and I know some nice spots."

Come around, and I'll tell you a story. A story of a woman, and of a beast.

Twenty-three, almost twenty-four, years ago, a young couple in Canada had a baby daughter. They named her Kiva.

Kiva is an Irish name, meaning 'kind, gentle, and beautiful'...

Her fists struck out at the punching bag in front of her, ignoring the stares from the others in the gym. She knew she was pushing her luck with how long she'd been at it, but she officially didn't care. It was all she could do not to let herself just start clawing at the bag, as she'd long found out that that was a much more effective way of venting her frustrations. She reminded herself that this wasn't her property.

The bronze-scaled woman was wearing about as little as she could get away with to keep cool as she viciously attacked the punching bag, the wings open behind her whipping left and right in reaction to her dancing around the immobile 'opponent.'

Ten, almost eleven, years ago, Kiva was growing fast, taking her first steps toward becoming a young woman.

Instead, she became something else.

There were old, loose scales on the floor. Not many, but anyone who knew to look would see the bronze-coloured bits of skin that she'd shed with every impact. Her hands were starting to hurt, but she didn't stop. Pain rarely stopped her. Rarely even registered.

Ten, almost eleven, years ago, a beast was born in a moment of unimaginable pain.

That beast named itself Drake.

She wanted to wear herself out, wanted to break herself down, so that she could spend the rest of the day too exhausted to remember what today was. She could deal with physical pain. Physical pain was easy. It was the rest that she wanted to burn away.

She freaking hated Valentine's Day.

Because Drake means 'dragon.'

The whole concept was loathsome. If you needed a day to tell you get off your fat butt and do something considerate for someone you loved, you were missing the point. If you felt obligated to do something elaborate and expensive for fear of consequences, you were missing the point.

And if you made someone feel obligated to do something for you because the number on the calendar made you feel entitled to it, you could just go die as far as she cared.

Drake was a terrifying beast, massive and covered in scales that shone like bronze. It had black spikes on its face and sharp, black claws, along with scaly wings.

It would have been easy for everyone who had loved Kiva to run in fear of Drake.

Finally, she stopped, letting her arms drop to her sides as she gasped for breath. She needed water...

"Here." A water bottle in a distinctly human hand was extended, and she took it and drank it down without looking to see who had given it to her. Mostly because she already knew from his voice.

Half the bottle gone in a few gulps, and she wiped off her mouth with her wrist and looked up. "Thanks, Hawk."

The man standing there chuckled faintly. He was dressed in his usual attire of ripped-up jeans, dark T-shirt, leather jacket, and a single earring. She knew he was here to pick up his sister, who was off in the nearby boxing ring showing the woman she was sparring with a thing or two.

"Well, somebody's got to make sure you don't give yourself hyperthermia, Drake," he commented, "And I doubt Raven's going to notice while she's trying to win by knockout over there."

She snorted a little laugh and drained another quarter of the bottle before shooting a glance at the pale, dark-haired woman chasing her opponent around the ring. "Yeah, teeny bit competitive, that one..."

But they didn't. Gradually, they saw the Kiva in Drake, and they knew they were one and the same.

However...

Hawk chuckled too. "Maybe I better go let her know I'm here. At this rate she's probably forgotten our double date." He lightly patted her bare, scaled arm in a friendly manner as he passed. "See you at work tomorrow, Drake."

"Yeah...see ya." She watched his back for a moment as he made his way over to the ring, then looked back at the punching bag, and the hand not holding the water bottle suddenly whipped out and struck it.

Even when people weren't missing the point...she really freaking hated Valentine's Day.

...Even if Drake was Kiva, Kiva was still Drake.

And while one could love a beast, it was much, much harder to fall in love with a beast...