03 Amber | Downstream of the Boat

[hairsay]

[For once this lanky young woman does not look like she's trying to win a staring contest with a cockatrice when she activates her amber slice. She does look sweaty and tired, but maybe that's actually helping. Behind her the mist is close, a towering wall, but the chuckle of the stream gives away her location before she can even open her mouth.]

Hey, any of you happen to be strong and willing to lend a hand? Me and Evan, [And indeed, the gawky redhead struggling to roll and heft rocks behind her happens to be in the frame as she talks,] are putting together a fish trap. I don't know about any of you but the thought of real meat that we don't have to bargain for with stone doubloons is so tempting we've been building this thing for the last couple of weeks straight.

It could use refining.

[She swings the slice around to reveal a very crude weir along one side of the stream composed entirely of raised pebbles and smooth rocks; it doesn't block the stream because Jo has noted the boat at dock just upstream of her location, but she's making a fair play at funnelling any minnows into it.]

Once we're done we just need some bait and some lucky catches. I never learned spear fishing but I'll bet some of you super freaks has a leg up on that. Come on down, huh?

Comments

[tosaveyuu]

What the heck is she even going on about? For a moment, her seemingly contradictory statements just now confuse Mika, then he frowns in annoyance.

"What are you talking about?"

His tone pretty clearly implies he thinks she must be nuts or something.

[hairsay]

"Vegan," Jo clarifies, raising both hands at him in consternation. The number of times she's had that thrown at her simply floors her, but then she hasn't stopped to think too hard about how her place of origin seems pretty different from most others'.

"I'm talking about meat-free hippies, is all, and you look like you're a sulky meat deprived asshole, talking at me like that."

[tosaveyuu]

"...haaa?" Mika just gives her that stupefied 'are you some kind of idiot?' look. "I'm a vampire."

He definitely thinks that should have been obvious from the start.

[hairsay]

"You're what?" Jo asked, taken aback. If this had been a few weeks ago, she'd have laughed him off, but now she pulled back and glared, completely willing to believe him with all the baggage that entailed. Now her brain raced ahead and she snapped, "you're fucking not, the sun's out, even if it's cloudy. You should be smoking or some shit."

[tosaveyuu]

And that's really about the reaction Mika's been expecting. If he hadn't been so utterly bewildered at her misunderstanding, he might have been less likely to blurt that out, but... well, he can't exactly take it back now.

And in a way it's easier to be certain that someone knows what he is, even if (he's sure) they inevitably fear and hate him for it, than wondering whether to expect someone to suddenly turn against him later.

"Why should I?" he asks--if she's paying attention, she might notice his fangs as he speaks, as it's not like he's trying to hide it. "Do you just believe every rumor you hear?"

[hairsay]

"I never fucking used to, but that was when the world made sense from day to fucking day!" she shot back. Yeah, she sees the fangs. Yeah, it makes her skin crawl. She's holding her rock a little more carefully as if she's gauging its weight better. She's never had to attack someone before who wasn't out of their mind in a killing rage, but the main difference is that she's had to attack someone at all.

"So what, you're some kind of super vampire?! What are you planning on doing, sucking all our blood? If you think I taste any good, think a-fucking-gain!"

[tosaveyuu]

"No," he says flatly, "just a vampire." It's not like he's one of the nobles, just that there's a reason why vampires tend to be considered terrifying and powerful foes to begin with. "Though I don't have any interest in your blood."

That much is technically a lie; he does crave human blood intensely. He simply continues to refuse to drink it.

[hairsay]

"So what, then, you want to suck on a fish, or are you some other kind of vampire that sucks berry juice or something?" Her attitude had not lightened up whatsoever, though at least she didn't look like she was about to flee by jumping into the stream!

[tosaveyuu]

"That's none of your business." He just doesn't want to talk about it, really. Though at least he hasn't made any remotely aggressive move from the start of the conversation? It's not that he hadn't noticed her tension and the rock in her hand, but that Mika's well aware that a human armed only with a rock can't really hurt him anyway, so why bother getting defensive?

[hairsay]

"It's my business when I know you're slinking around outside the balconies of our homes and I got a few people I don't want to wake up to find have their necks skewered," Jo retorts, noting his eerie calm. It's not the sort she wants to fuck with, but it makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and despite any attempts to think rationally about it, she's born and bred to brandishing pitchforks and flames.

[tosaveyuu]

Normally, Mika would just ignore remarks like that and go on his way. But that's just the problem--he can't leave this place, he's stuck here just like everyone else. With a bunch of people who, as far as he's concerned, have just as much reason to hate and fear him for what he is as he does to try to avoid them.

'Frustrating' is quite a bit of an understatement to describe the situation.

"I didn't ask to be brought here," he snaps back, irritation finally starting to show. "Besides, do you really think you could stop me?" After all, if he'd been out for blood, there's no reason why he would have needed to leave her be before.

"I'm not interested in human blood, that's all."

[hairsay]

"Do I really think your punk ass is lying?" Jolene retorted, "no, actually, I fucking don't, but I didn't ask to be brought here either, and the only reason I can see any of us having to sulk through all our fucking days or nights here is because that trunk of kindling waiting to happen needs us for some fucked up reason."

She huffed so hard that the long strands of lanky hair falling to either side of her bony face billowed away from her vitriol. "And you're a part of that help, whatever the fuck that might be. You wouldn't be here if you didn't have a purpose, so you better figure out what it is. That doesn't include fucking threatening the rest of us with your 'maybe I'll eat you maybe I won't' bullshit!"

[tosaveyuu]

"You're the one who asked if I was planning on sucking your blood," Mika retorts sharply. "I don't really care if you don't believe me, but you brought it up to start with."

He expects humans to assume the worst, really, he's just annoyed at how she's acting as though he'd somehow started the whole thing. Perhaps fortunately, though, "annoyed" for him almost never translated into "violent", so for all his irritation the thought of lashing out physically hasn't even crossed his mind.

[hairsay]

"You're the fuck who turned his god damned nose up at my hard fucking work before even that!" Jo snapped back. "If you can't help getting pissed off when people take your shit the wrong way, then maybe you should go hang yourself upside down in whatever fucking batcave you came from, smartass!"

[tosaveyuu]

"What are you even talking about?" Mika's genuinely not following where she's going with the conversation, though it comes across as just more annoyance. Which, of course, makes him all the more prone to responding in kind. "Or do you always babble on about nonsense that has nothing to do with anything?"

[hairsay]

"It's got everything to do with this fucking second," Jo snarled. She'd been questioned one too many times in the last few weeks and it was all boiling over now; the mannerisms, the colloquialisms... when she was confused and upset she fell back on old, familiar language. Where she came from it earned her upper ground. Here it just eroded her confidence and left her prone to snapping.

"You, you little shit, you came up to me and asked what the fuck I was doing, and the answer is I'm building a fish trap because unlike some hypothetical fucking blood-suckers, some of us need to eat around here and nuts and berries aren't fucking cutting it. I tried to fucking joke with you, but you're such a sullen little asshole all you can do is turn your nose up like a little fucking aristocratic shit-stain over me and my sacrifices because you're somehow fucking better than me."

"Fuck you, fuck off before I throw this rock at your fucking snaggle-toothed face!"

[tosaveyuu]

Truthfully, Mika had asked because he'd been genuinely curious, as he hadn't seen anything like it before. Living in the vampires' underground city for the past eight years tends to limit one's exposure to things, after all. But when he hadn't caught the joke initially--how could he? he is a vampire and is used to being treated as such, after all--the resulting confusion had simply spiraled out of control.

The true irony is that he might have even considered helping. It's not like he has much better to do around here, anyway.

"Then maybe you shouldn't try to make fun of someone who just asks a question," he says, looking at her coldly. He's unfazed by her threat; it's not like a rock is going to hurt him, after all. Well, it would hurt, but something like that isn't nearly enough to truly injure a vampire. He's tempted, briefly, to simply dash in and knock it from her hand before she can react, just to make a point, but even that doesn't seem worth the effort.

[hairsay]

"Are you fucking shitting me?!" Jolene snarled. This little shit had the gall to stand there with a stick shoved so far up his ass she could see foliage sprouting out his ears. "It was a fucking joke! It's not like I was gonna fucking burn you at the stake or anything?! Calm your fucking tits!"

[tosaveyuu]

"It sounded like you were thinking of trying something like that just now, too," Mika points out. He wasn't oblivious to her defensive posture even without her overt threat a moment ago, he just knows there's nothing she could do that could truly harm him. Besides, she's the one getting the most worked up over it, not him, as far as he's concerned.

"Whatever. There's no point in talking to you."

And with that he turns to go.

[hairsay]

Jolene, worked up to a high foam, throws her rock on the ground with an unsatisfying thud, then caterwauls like a banshee as she stomps in the opposite direction. Any work she was planning on getting done today is over with, at least until she can pull her head out of her own ass. DAMNED FOOL MAGICAL KID ASSHOLES WHAT IS EVEN WITH THE TEENAGERS HERE WHY IS LIFE SUDDENLY SO DAMNED HARD?!