Forum:Dumpster hunting

Helen lunged after another rat, barely missing it. She sighed and settled back into the shadow of the dumpster, pushing grimy blond hair out of her eyes. Why was her luck so rotten today? She hadn't caught a single one yet, and the gnawing hunger was getting harder to ignore. {C}IrisAmbrose 16:38, November 11, 2011 (UTC)

Mihai made his shuffling way into the alleyway, eyes mostly on the walls and the words written in the mortar and mineral deposits. His hands were in his pockets and his mind entirely elsewhere, but Machka spotted the interloper and hissed. She was getting to be a big kitten and got his attention quite handily. He tilted his head and fixed her with hooded eyes as she hurled herself at the little creature and fell back. "That isn't how," came his heavily-accented whisper. "Patience."

WiryGypsyBoy 19:32, November 11, 2011 (UTC)

Helen jumped at the voice, scrambling to her feet and hurriedly taking a defensive stance. Awareness of your surroundings... Too late for that. She glared at the stranger. "What do you mean? Who are you?" {C}IrisAmbrose 19:44, November 11, 2011 (UTC)

As though he'd share his name with a stranger! Mihai paused to look straight at her, trying to assess whether a candle flame burnt behind her eyes. He wasn't sure yet, but he didn't really think so. He reached behind him and began to tap his fingers on the wall. "I am someone who knows how to catch rats." Tap. "You can't take a flame from a pretty little creature and move so much." Tap tap. "Let them come to you." Tap tap tap.

WiryGypsyBoy 19:53, November 11, 2011 (UTC)

"Flame? I'm not..." But she should've known to sit still, really, it was just so hard to think right now. She took a breath and pulled her jacket more tightly around herself. "I'm fine, anyway. I don't need help."

IrisAmbrose 15:20, November 12, 2011 (UTC)

Tap tap tap tap tap. "Hush. You won't get anything to eat this way." Mihai extracted a napping Machka from his pocket. "And it's good to have help, anyway." Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap. "Who is my beautiful girl?" he added for Machka's benefit, in his own native tongue. Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap.

WiryGypsyBoy 17:06, November 12, 2011 (UTC)

Helen squinted at the older boy. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but... no, he was definitely breathing. Not a vampire, then, and his cat wasn't freaking out anyway. What else ate rats? And how could he tell she did? (Or would, if she ever managed to catch any.) "Maybe I'm doing a taxidermy project. Would you stop tapping the wall like that?"

IrisAmbrose 22:47, November 12, 2011 (UTC)

Mihai stopped in mid-tap and raised his hand to his face to look it over. He didn't remember deciding to tap, and he didn't like it when the rest of him went and did things without permission. "I suppose you could do taxidermy. You don't need blood for taxidermy. I don't think." He wasn't sure why he knew what taxidermy was. One of those things.

WiryGypsyBoy 08:17, November 13, 2011 (UTC)

Okay, cute cat or no, this was getting weird. He obviously knew what she was, but he didn't seem inclined to run away or attack her. And he was between her and the end of the alley. "Yeah, no, I was kidding. Thanks for the advice, but I can manage by myself."

IrisAmbrose 01:08, November 17, 2011 (UTC)

"You won't feel right if you don't eat. It's more like empty than hungry. I'll catch you one." Mihai knelt and waited for a rat to stray by, wincing a little as he settled in. It was cold. Always cold. Like the wind followed him. It probably did. He'd never been very fond of wind. Perhaps it returned the favor.

WiryGypsyBoy 01:16, November 17, 2011 (UTC)

Helen sighed and settled in as well, a little beyond arm's reach. If Mr. Enigmatic was this determined to help, she might as well accept it. "Thanks, I guess. And I know what you mean, 's like I can't even think straight half the time." {C}IrisAmbrose 20:49, November 18, 2011 (UTC)

Mihai nodded, pleased by the acquiscence, if not their circumstances. "It makes us wrong when we're hungry. All raw and rotten. Hard enough when we're all put together." He was talking a lot, considering this wasn't Graham or Elijah. He focused on catching her dinner for her, clicking his tongue softly, urging the little ones forward, or at least he thought he was. It was mostly practice that let him put his hands on a big, old rat and snap its neck with practiced compassion.

WiryGypsyBoy 20:57, November 18, 2011 (UTC)

Us. Helen froze, finally making the connection. Definitely a vampire, even if he somehow looked human. No wonder he knew what it felt like. "What are you doing here?" she asked finally.

IrisAmbrose 17:35, November 19, 2011 (UTC)

"I was going to eat, too." Mihai extended the rat insistently, He was afraid he might bite into it himself if she didn't take it soon. "Machka doesn't mind eating them once they're empty. She's such a little cat. I hope you don't mind giving what you don't need to her."

WiryGypsyBoy 17:39, November 19, 2011 (UTC)

Helen hesitated for a long moment, but finally snatched the rat from him, quickly retreating several paces before turning aside and biting into it. It helped, a little. She straightened up and carefully tossed the rat back to the other vampire. "Here. Thanks." So he fed the leftover rats to his cat? That... made a strange kind of sense. "Do you... only eat rats, then?"

IrisAmbrose 17:29, November 20, 2011 (UTC)

"Mostly. Sometimes dogs, if they're big ones. I try not to hurt them, and they're big enough to fight me. Putting out little rat candles is bad enough." His fingers found the wall again but he remembered she didn't want him to tap. He began to trace patterns against the rough brick, trying to ignore his own mounting hunger. "You'll need a few of them."

WiryGypsyBoy 17:53, November 20, 2011 (UTC)

Rats and dogs didn't sound too bad, but he was still a vampire. She didn't want to spend any more time around him than she had to. "I'll look somewhere else. Don't want to bother you."

IrisAmbrose 14:51, November 21, 2011 (UTC)

"There are enough of them," he said simply. But he understood. She would want to be clear of him. Not to mention the patterns popping out on the wall that he couldn't keep his fingers off. They probably meant nothing good. "Same as every dumpster."

WiryGypsyBoy 15:05, November 21, 2011 (UTC)

"S'okay." She stood up and edged past him. "I might see you around, then, unless you only come here?"

IrisAmbrose 15:26, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

"I don't come out a lot. Usually if I'm up here I'm either in church or somewhere like this. The lights are too bright and they make it hard to see other things." He settled down on the asphalt to wait for the rats to sneak back.

WiryGypsyBoy 15:55, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

That caught Helen's attention. She stopped and slid back down the far wall, staring at him. "In church. You go to church." He had to be messing with her. How could a vampire go to church, even at night?

IrisAmbrose 22:37, November 23, 2011 (UTC)

"The priest there knows me," Mihai explained. For once he was being deliberately obtuse. His fellow vampires were completely unreasonable about his piety, and he preferred not to get into the argument. It seemed to him that it was attracting untoward attention. "He usually doesn't leave until about midnight, so I can stay until then."

WiryGypsyBoy 00:34, November 24, 2011 (UTC)

"Does it matter if you know the priest? It's conscecrated ground, isn't it?" Or maybe it wasn't- Las Vegas was a den of sin and infamy, after all. "Unless it's, like, one of those little fake churches with tinsel and Elvis?"

IrisAmbrose 16:11, November 24, 2011 (UTC)

"Of course it's consecrated. That's how churches work." Mihai was never completely sure how to tell. It seemed to him that all churches ought to be consecrated and he certainly heard the whispers and saw the shadow of wings and the vague sense of feathers against his skin was always there, but he knew some made his fellow undead uncomfortable more than others. He never had worked that out.

WiryGypsyBoy 18:11, November 24, 2011 (UTC)

"Right." There were churches and then there were proper churches, and if he thought there was no difference then clearly his church was the wrong sort. Or he might be lying, but at this point Helen didn't particularly care. "You live off animals and go to church. Sounds like a model citizen."

IrisAmbrose 20:38, November 26, 2011 (UTC)

"Oh, no, I'm Roma." Mihai had yet to adjust to America's race issues, quite as pernicious and awful as the ones he'd left behind, but of a different sort. Usually someone who objected to him mistook him for Middle Eastern, but he didn't really notice. "Most of the people at my church are from South America, and they're very nice to me." Mihai wasn't very good at geography. "And I'm the only one of us who goes. It's nice."

WiryGypsyBoy 20:43, November 26, 2011 (UTC)

"Look, I don't care what religion you are." Helen wasn't especially good at geography either, although she wasn't exactly concentrating on it. "I was leaving anyway."

IrisAmbrose 15:27, November 29, 2011 (UTC)

Oh, now that was irritating. "I am baptized in the Holy Roman Apostolic and Catholic Church," Mihai said, scrambling the letters a bit and keeping it to himself that he wasn't confirmed. "I am also Roma, the same as you are American."

WiryGypsyBoy 17:29, November 29, 2011 (UTC)

Helen glared at him. "Look, can we stop this? You know I'm a-a vampire, I know you're one. Let's just drop the pretending, all right?" She stood up, pushing off the alley wall and slipping back into a defensive posture.

IrisAmbrose 04:41, December 13, 2011 (UTC)

"Well, yes," Mihai said, confused. "We know all that. What are you pretending?" He wasn't pretending anything. He wasn't any good at it, at least on purpose. When his head got away from him and he worried Graham and talked to his books and spent hours reading the scribbling in the pollution-soaked sky, maybe one could call that pretending.

WiryGypsyBoy 04:53, December 13, 2011 (UTC)

"You can't be a vampire and still saved, it just doesn't happen." She still held herself like she expected him to attack her at any moment, but she sounded more like a sulky teenager. "So just stop it, okay?"

IrisAmbrose 23:29, December 13, 2011 (UTC)

Mihai cocked his head to the side a bit. "Why not?" He'd certainly never entertained that possibility. "It isn't as though God doesn't talk to me anymore. More than when I was alive, even." He didn't like having his piety disparaged and the irritation showed in his face. "Fell powers don't work on me and bad things won't get close to me." And to prove it he pulled the cross necklace clear of his collar.

WiryGypsyBoy 02:21, December 14, 2011 (UTC)

As soon as she spotted Mihai's cross, Helen bolted towards the mouth of the alley, knocking into a trash can and sending it crashing to the ground.

IrisAmbrose 02:54, December 15, 2011 (UTC)

That did happen sometimes. He didn't like it at times like this, but when he needed it, he was very glad for the power of God's protection. He kissed the little cross and muttered a prayer for the poor, confused girl before he settled in to find some rats.

WiryGypsyBoy 03:24, December 15, 2011 (UTC)