exsiliumlogs | [OPEN] Fatality Is Like Ghosts In The Snow

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[OPEN] Fatality Is Like Ghosts In The Snow

Date & Time: December 8th onward
Location: Snowsilium
Characters: Kanaya Maryam and you
Summary: A day in the undeath: meandering through the snowy landscape hunting for prey; work at the seamstress's house where she wrangled residence for herself, Mami, and Alice; evening gun lessons in the Mekakushi Dan mansion; and night shift in the Transporter facility.
Warnings: Noon prompt has potential vampirism; closed McGill-Brown prompt will lead to discussion of war, death, and such intersections as erasure phenomena

[Closed to Mami and Alice]
She "gets up" early to "help make breakfast", a convenient reason to never take meals in front of her mistress. Though Kanaya derives a little pleasure from doing chores for the woman that has accommodated herself as well as her two friends, the hologram she has on practically twenty-four/seven is not one of them. Here her short black hair "is cut" more conventionally, her skin is a less sparkly sort of pale, and her teeth are supposed to be flat. She practices expressions in the mirror for a few minutes a day, to make sure that the physical presence of her fangs doesn't interfere too much with the purely visual illusion. Then she turns away and places her empty plate on the countertop, ready to engage in conversation with her coworkers.

[Open: Outdoors]
By noon she's gone out "for lunch". It's an opportunity to explore, the only one she really has during the day... though sometimes as she glares at snow hares or penguins with blood thirst in her eyes, it seems like she wishes her excuse were true. Maybe if she went far enough into the forest nobody would notice. God, though, does she hate the cold. At least she has a practical black coat from Christmas last year. Soon she'll have to go shopping - her midday socializations are a little tainted with this anxiety, whom to give gifts and whom to ignore.

[Closed to Saul, Steph, Ahiru, and Dick]
On the 10th of December she has a destination in mind. A quick phone call has verified for her the location of Saul Goodman's current sanctuary. She knocks on the door and a dusting of snow falls off her black gloves. Who'll answer? Who else will be there? She doubts, upon thinking, that Saul lives alone...

[Open: Clotheshop]
And in the afternoon? She's back to work, of course. The future sewing machine is a different model from what she bought with her first paycheck in Exsilium, and she's never seen a future loom in person at all. The smile on her face as she works behind these machines is a decent approximation of happiness, less artificial than when she's selling clothes from behind the counter.

[Closed to Mekakushi Dan]
When she "goes out for dinner", her dining establishment of choice is the Mekakushi Dan's mansion, and she's glad for it because this is the only place where she keeps the hologram off long-term. In their common area she takes up as much space as she likes on the couch, wearing a T-shirt and loose skirt, and dismantles firearms blindfolded. "This is how Kano should learn," she insists with a good-natured imperiousness, "aren't you part of the blindfold brigade anyway." Part of the pretense is to delay the progression to outdoor practice, when her holographic facade will have to go back up.

[Open: Transporter Central Building]
Only at night, sneaking out of the shop when she's supposed to (need) be asleep, can she log her hours of temporal programming. Inside the complex, too, she retains her supernatural appearance if only for increased recognizability. The terminal where she works is separate from her tablet; both devices see a lot of use, though, as this is the place natives are least likely to look over her shoulder.

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For his part, Christopher seems to glide past the sardonic tone, taking her words at face value. He lifts two fingers to point towards her horns. "Oh, is that what those are for? It's good of you all to agree to mark yourselves out."

He also seems to glide past her meaning entirely.

"You've never met any of the others?" She's mock-devastated. "They've almost all been here even longer than I have."

"That's perfect." He beams at her. "Usually, friends are increased through addition. But because of you, friends can be increased through multiplication. It's like a root that breaks off into rhizomatic structures instead of merely bifurcating! Thank you for promising to introduce me to your friends."

Her entire face twitches at the word multiplication, suggesting it is somehow personally offensive.

"I'm sure they'd be thrilled. You'd think you'd owe me the--" Math isn't her strong point, so she needs a second to find the word. "Reciprocal. Wouldn't you? Or is everyone your friend up to and including that penguin over there."

Christopher glances over to the penguin, then laughs, shaking his head. "No, of course not. I've never introduced myself to that penguin. Why, I don't even know his name. Or his gender! My, I could have upset him or her or an alternative, right now. Should I apologize? Come with me for moral support!"

He turns to walk towards the penguin in question.

She follows his gaze and then finds herself following him. Over to morally support the interview with the penguin.

This is stupid.

"Please don't physically inspect the penguin. He or she might not appreciate being manhandled like that."

Christopher gives her a look of incredulity. "Someone I just met? Never."

Arriving at the penguin, he gives a grand bow, hand to heart. "My sincere apologies, friend. Now that we've met, I can finally say how very sorry I am for any mistakes I've made about your identity. By the way, this is my friend Kanaya. I hope you two can get along very well."

The penguin looks at them the way video game penguins look before sliding in front of your kart and ruining your chances at first place.

Unsure of what to do, Kanaya gives the penguin a mechanical wave. She does not entirely understand the mannerisms of this alien animal. Even humans are still a mystery to her and she has kept their company almost exclusively for the past two years.

"And this is Christopher." She feels obligated to verbally contribute somehow. "We are... part of the secret Transport community that has descended upon your town like a fog."

"What is your name?"

The penguin stares.

And then it goes for the run-and-tackle.

"Nature turns Her back on me once again. I forgive you anyway!" It is time to run away, and Christopher does just that, waving for Kanaya to run with him. "It's a race to the finish line, and if it finishes first, what ends is our lives!"

(Christopher is pretty sure that he could kill the penguin, and he wouldn't be surprised if Kanaya could too. But today, he decides to not fight.)

"If our lives are at risk right now I have seriously underestimated the belligerence of Earth fauna in general," Kanaya gripes as she keeps pace with Christopher, more annoyed by the absurd situation than believing herself to be in any real danger. She runs almost too easily; her innate speed is supernatural, and making it look otherwise to the outside eye is harder than actually going so fast.

"Never underestimate the creations of Nature! Even if it's fun to surpass them, you have to give them the respect they're due for their survival in this competitive environment!"

As he comes over the crest of a snowbank, he drops straight down to hide in the curve of the snow. If Kanaya drops down beside him, she will see him pressing a finger to his lips, insisting she not alert the penguin to their location.

"The competition seems to be dying down given how desolate this landscape is..."

When they reach the snowbank, she doesn't jump below; however, she does more calmly walk around and back over next to Christopher. Still standing, she says sotto voce: "Are you sure it will catch up?"

He gives her a big, friendly grin. And answers without whispering. "If it does, we'll just have to kill it!"

Her eyebrows stay exactly where they were before as she asks, "You're not thirsty, are you? A man with so many friends couldn't be."

Attempt at affable vampire-to-vampire relations.

Christopher chuckles and shakes his head. "Of course. Having friends around is like living at a watering hole and having all sorts of different animals join you there! Even if they may be competition for resources, just having that company means you can go days without water."

It is complete, utter nonsense. Of course it is.

What the actual hell is he talking about? Kanaya stares at him for a few seconds before hearing what she wants to hear and says, "Okay."

Then in a smooth supernatural motion she hops back over the snowbank, runs to pick up the penguin, and returns. She would look like she's cradling a small child if she weren't also puncturing the poor thing's neck.

Christopher doesn't bat an eye as she returns with her mouth in a penguin's neck. Of course, if, as Kanaya thought, he were a vampire, that wouldn't be surprising at all. Nor would the open, friendly way he asks, "Oh, are you having a snack?" come as any kind of surprise.

Yes, Christopher, she is having a snack. Of course, her mouth is preoccupied with the snack consumption process. She can only make a brief affirmative noise at him.

Eventually the penguin's wings stop pinwheeling. That's an earlier stage of blood loss than complete emptiness, however.

Edited 2013-12-20 11:51 (UTC)

Christopher waits quite patiently, humming softly and swaying his head back and forth.

"Erythrocytes! Leukocytes! Thrombocytes!
An aqueous solution of all the nutrients you need!
Nature's gift bursts and flows like her abundant waters!
Stain it with the pain of innocents!"

Eventually the supply of penguin blood is exhausted, leaving Kanaya with one (1) penguin corpse and looking up at Christopher a little more baffled than she'd like to admit.

"...I'm going to have to pass this on to Kano somehow later. What do you know about preparing meat."

He flashes her a grin. "I always do Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners for my family, and in this economy? Why, sometimes, you just can't get the turkey from a local store."

So you have to steal it from someone's farm. And then kill the farmer. And use their farmhouse as the place for your family dinner.

That aside, he extends a hand for her to hand over the penguin. He'll prepare it right there on the spot, watch if he doesn't.

"Thanksgiving still escapes me... not the appeal, just the execution."

She's stalling for time as she considers whether to hand the poor bird over but then obliges.

Christopher starts plucking away at the feathers with the efficacy of a trained farmhand. "It's really very simple. All you have to do is gather all of your family together in one place, feed them, and watch the arguments break out."

"How do you do that when you don't have family, though?" The word she spits out as she watches him work indicates the concept was at one point entirely foreign to her.

"Oh, that's no trouble at all. You simply have to make one up." Christopher smiles at her with a childish innocence. He has never had a family, not really, so for him, it is a problem he has been ignoring for decades now. A problem like that is only a problem if you accept what it's premised on, and Christopher never does.

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speakveryclearly - 2013-12-26 23:18 (UTC) - Expand

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inhumanity - 2013-12-28 05:33 (UTC) - Expand

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