"Well," she said, "That depends on how 'someone' you think a vampire is." An incredibly awkward question for her; the answer for almost any other human from her world would have been that vampires were the opposite of people: inimical to life and everything good. Sunshine had actually always been a bit of a liberal in respect to the rights of the Others: thought the treatment of weres and peris and humans with demon blood in her society was unjust. But even partbloods abhorred vampires, more so even than many humans, because their persecution was directly linked to their being associated with those Darkest Others, who held so much power even now after the Wars, and saw all the other species only as prey.
How, exactly, did you square that with having a vampire friend? There wasn't even a word in human language for someone so sick as to let a vampire escape and go on to kill - because all vampires killed, that was what they were...
None of which she really felt like explaining. Instead, she picked the easier story to tell, which wouldn't have been easier compared to, well, anything else.
"It was about a month after I was taken, and escaped," she said, and was almost surprised to find her voice mostly steady. "I was in the kitchen, doing the last of the dessert orders, and I heard this...laugh, this goblin giggle, outside." She shouldn't have been able to hear it from that distance down the street, of course, but that was just the tip of the iceberg for things she shouldn't have been able to do.
"The suckers who'd grabbed me, one of them had had a...sense of humor. And I recognized that damn giggle. So I went just..." and this was the funny part, really, she had to shake her head at herself, "just charging out through the coffeehouse, grabbed something off one of the tables as I went. A stainless steel butterknife."
Realizing the absurdity of this might be partly lost on Fett, she clarified, "You can't use unenchanted metal on vampires, they've got this sort of field around their skin. Blades and bullets just skitter right off it. If it's consecrated silver, maybe, but for the most part it takes a wooden stake through the heart. So obviously stainless steel is a no-hoper."
"Anyway. I ran out there and...that's another thing, there's no way a human should be able to take a vampire by surprise, they're so much quicker. But. He had his back to me and he had hold of a girl and he was...he was putting her under. So I guess that's what he was concentrating on, and I came charging up probably sounding like an arthritic rhino to him. He probably didn't bother to move because, duh, what did I even think I was doing. And I...used the knife."
"And then," she felt she had to add, "I threw up. Repeatedly. Which was worse even it would have been anyway because I was all covered...the whole alley was covered in...rotten blood and horrible stuff...vampires, um. Explode. When you stake them."
...why had any of this seemed like something for comforting friendly story-sharing time?
"I was out of my head for a few minutes there. I guess...I guess the way to look at it is that I saved a girl's life," (said almost as if this aspect hadn't occurred to her in the wake of realizing how phenomenally impossible what she'd just done was, and how much attention she'd just drawn to herself from all the wrong places). "Pat said she was okay, afterwards. Mostly, when people are more than half under the dark, their minds sort of...well, they're not okay. So."
...she should really stop talking about all of this. Right about now. Sunshine looked over at the window at the front of the Gallery, growing pale with dawn, and said, apparently inconsequentially, "I miss real sunrises. Birds singing."
At some point, she found, she'd drawn her knees up to her chest, though her hand was still touching Fett's. She wondered if he was just too polite to pull away, after a story like that. "I'm. Glad you had someone. That's important for kids."
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-10-21 07:03 am (UTC)How, exactly, did you square that with having a vampire friend? There wasn't even a word in human language for someone so sick as to let a vampire escape and go on to kill - because all vampires killed, that was what they were...
None of which she really felt like explaining. Instead, she picked the easier story to tell, which wouldn't have been easier compared to, well, anything else.
"It was about a month after I was taken, and escaped," she said, and was almost surprised to find her voice mostly steady. "I was in the kitchen, doing the last of the dessert orders, and I heard this...laugh, this goblin giggle, outside." She shouldn't have been able to hear it from that distance down the street, of course, but that was just the tip of the iceberg for things she shouldn't have been able to do.
"The suckers who'd grabbed me, one of them had had a...sense of humor. And I recognized that damn giggle. So I went just..." and this was the funny part, really, she had to shake her head at herself, "just charging out through the coffeehouse, grabbed something off one of the tables as I went. A stainless steel butterknife."
Realizing the absurdity of this might be partly lost on Fett, she clarified, "You can't use unenchanted metal on vampires, they've got this sort of field around their skin. Blades and bullets just skitter right off it. If it's consecrated silver, maybe, but for the most part it takes a wooden stake through the heart. So obviously stainless steel is a no-hoper."
"Anyway. I ran out there and...that's another thing, there's no way a human should be able to take a vampire by surprise, they're so much quicker. But. He had his back to me and he had hold of a girl and he was...he was putting her under. So I guess that's what he was concentrating on, and I came charging up probably sounding like an arthritic rhino to him. He probably didn't bother to move because, duh, what did I even think I was doing. And I...used the knife."
"And then," she felt she had to add, "I threw up. Repeatedly. Which was worse even it would have been anyway because I was all covered...the whole alley was covered in...rotten blood and horrible stuff...vampires, um. Explode. When you stake them."
...why had any of this seemed like something for comforting friendly story-sharing time?
"I was out of my head for a few minutes there. I guess...I guess the way to look at it is that I saved a girl's life," (said almost as if this aspect hadn't occurred to her in the wake of realizing how phenomenally impossible what she'd just done was, and how much attention she'd just drawn to herself from all the wrong places). "Pat said she was okay, afterwards. Mostly, when people are more than half under the dark, their minds sort of...well, they're not okay. So."
...she should really stop talking about all of this. Right about now. Sunshine looked over at the window at the front of the Gallery, growing pale with dawn, and said, apparently inconsequentially, "I miss real sunrises. Birds singing."
At some point, she found, she'd drawn her knees up to her chest, though her hand was still touching Fett's. She wondered if he was just too polite to pull away, after a story like that. "I'm. Glad you had someone. That's important for kids."