redstringed | ✿6 [Accidental Voice / Action]

[Voice]

*The journal starts picking up the sounds of a fight in progress, as if someone had dropped their journal accidentally.* Noel, get back!

*Then, odd whooshes of air and the sound of metal striking metal - but they're interrupted by a crack of thunder. There's silence for a few moments, and then a second, louder clap of thunder, followed shortly by the sound of furniture breaking and another voice - some might recognize it as Noel Vermillion - shouting.* Rachel! Ahh...

*Silence, interrupted only by the sound of metal footsteps. But then the first voice speaks again, though it seems slightly weaker.* You dare...?! Do... not turn your backs... on me...!

Baden Baden Lil--

*The speaker is suddenly cut off, and the journal is splattered by little crimson droplets, as though someone was writing in it. There's a thump and the sound of something - or someone - being dragged away, and then silence. The feed cuts out.*

[Action]

*Where are you? What are you doing? It doesn't matter, because there's a young girl dressed in a frilly gothic lolita dress teleporting near to you with a shower of roses. She looks rather beaten-up, and is clutching a bleeding wound at her stomach.

Needless to say, Rachel does not look happy. This wasn't where she wanted to end up.*

***

((OOC: So, Rachel tried to get some revenge on the Malnosso by attacking the droids coming to kidnap Noel. She failed spectacularly. So she's wounded, unable to focus on her teleportation, and she's taken a heavy blow to her pride. This won't end well.))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

consultmybooks

It does, yes. The vampires we have back home are traditionally active at night, but most other demons seem to prefer it as well.

From:

redstringed

Naturally. What better time to catch one's prey unawares?

From:

consultmybooks

Granted, Sunnydale is particularly easy pickings at the best of times.

From:

redstringed

Oh?

I have learned to never underestimate the stupidity of humans. *She takes a sip, and winces again*

From:

consultmybooks

When it comes to Sunnydale, I'm afraid I have to agree with you. Must be at least a hundred cases of death by exsanguination every year, and no one ever catches on.

You know, if you're that proud, I could just crush up some painkillers and hide them in your next cup of tea.

From:

redstringed

Have you not considered simply telling them? Or do you fear the mass panic that would result once thousands of small-minded simpletons learned that they were not the highest on the food chain?

*She frowns* I would prefer if you did no such thing. It is healing. That is enough for me.

From:

consultmybooks

Mostly that, actually. At this point, the strength of their mass denial is almost to be admired. That, and they could have the four of us locked us up as for insanity.

From:

redstringed

If your legal system would lock a man up simply for bizarre beliefs, I can hardly believe every single citizen would not be shackled in a straitjacket.

From:

consultmybooks

You'd be amazed.

The fact that those..."in charge", I suppose you might say...were actively conspiring to keep things a secret didn't help matters.

To be fair, Sunnydale's asylums are still very overcrowded. More so when a hellgoddess came to town and started feeding on people's sanity.

From:

redstringed

For what reason were they continuing to cover up matters? Was it out of naive foolishness, or was there some benefit to them?

...my, that sounds quite troublesome.

From:

consultmybooks

The benefit, at least at first, was that they were in the pay of the city Mayor. And the city Mayor was in the employ of several powerful demonic patrons that he allowed to have free reign of Sunnydale, in exchange for one day becoming a True Demon himself.

From:

redstringed

Troublesome indeed.

Given that you have knowledge of this, I can only surmise he did not succeed.

From:

consultmybooks

Did I ever tell you I used to be a school librarian?

From:

redstringed

*She takes a long sip of the tea.* You did not. Was it by choice, or by circumstance?

From:

consultmybooks

Bit of both. Buffy being a high school student, it was a decent enough cover and let me keep my books nearby.

This is relevant to the fate of the Mayor, you understand.

From:

redstringed

Books do make for rather pleasant companions.

Oh? Now I am intrigued.

From:

consultmybooks

The Mayor was due to, um, "Ascend" on the day of Buffy's high school graduation, and devour the entire graduating class in order to cement his power.

In a stunt that we'd never managed before and probably never will again, Buffy and the others successfully rallied the class to fight back. The vampires he brought with him were distracted, the Mayor was wounded, when Buffy got his attention and led him away, inside the school.

Inside the library, in fact. Which I had spent the last day packing with explosives. "No weapon forged" can kill a True Demon, but a hundred pounds of dynamite managed it handily.

...we got the books out first, you understand. I insisted.

From:

redstringed

Naturally. It would have been quite the pity had you not. Though I would imagine the contents of one high school library are rather similar to the next.

Perhaps I ought to be impressed that you managed to coerce a measure of cohesion and responsibility out of human teenagers, of all things.

From:

consultmybooks

Not this library. Most of what we were concerned with in this library were my books. And they're certainly not found normally in any school I've ever heard of.

And, yes, you should. I certainly was.

From:

redstringed

So I see. How fortuitous that none of the students ever tried to borrow any of those tomes, then.

They are a lot of fools one and all, living in a false reality where they are the blazing centerpoint of the universe.

From:

consultmybooks

[He winces, theatrically] For a vampire, you have a depressingly good grasp on the average human condition.

From:

redstringed

An audience member who fails to comprehend the play on the stage is a very poor observer indeed.

And unlike the vampires you may be familiar with, I do not waste my life hunting and consuming.

From:

consultmybooks

No, it seems you've don't. And I appreciate that, you understand.

...that's the second time you've done that, though. Referred to things, to life, to my life in particular, as a "show". [He seems curious more than anything]