subject_013 | deerington/deercountry Inbox

"Or maybe Deerington was too much for people sober?"

That sounded like something they might say, and while Luz had never been drunk, NOT being drunk and dealing with Deerington had been pretty rough to begin with.

Luz is still petting the dog, and finally looked up, grinning. "Awesome."

She'll be up in just a minute. She just needs this, despite having an omen who is an actual wolf.

"Fair point. Even I found myself needing a glass of wine at the end of the day in that place, at least until my supply ran out."

"Yer new in Trench, aren't ye?""Been seein' new Sleepers pass through here.

"Got some fresh mushroom steaks, if yer hungry."

"And I'll have chocolate milk to forget the day's usual taxing and possibly traumatic effects!"

With no milk, sadly.

"Ooh, mushroom steaks! Yes, please!"

"Two steaks, comin' up. Ye'll eat here, or ye want a room for the night?" the host says, moving toward the kitchen.

"Your choice: I have a feeling you'd prefer a spot by your furry friend here by the fireside," Wesker muses. The late summer night is cool enough to suggest autumn, and he wouldn't mind dinner by the fireside.

"Do you usually have a room here by yourself, Wesker?"

Luz asked this as she was petting the dog and rubbing his tummy, of course. Luz was not a girl who was going to miss a chance to pet a dog but was still going to have conversation with a good friend while having a hot meal.

"My first time here. I gather we're both strangers in this strange new land," he muses. "A sequel to the story we both lived in Deerington." He takes down his Bag, digging into it and taking out the Journal, removing a cartridge pen from inside it. "I suppose it's a bit soon to make plans for the future, but I've always been one to think at least three moves ahead.

"And I think your canine friend there hopes that one of our plans involves spending some time here with him," he adds, warmly and even indulgently.

"Ah. Just making sure!" Luz said, taking note of him already taking out a pen and logging something into his notes. That actually reminded her of Dipper a bit, though she imagined that was where the similarities ended. Clearly Wesker had his own reasons for writing down whatever he was thinking right now.

"A pretty strange sequel too, what with all the blood and everything," Luz said, still petting the dog who had now designated Luz's lap as his new pillow. "Thinking of a new bunker, in case things get crazy?"

Luz had not forgotten the final weeks of Deerington, where just staying alive was a daily struggle.

She might catch the beginning of an entry albeit viewed upside down, as he pauses while writing. "It's rather like the gothic tales I read as young teenager, only far stranger, since we're living it." The sight of her snuggled with the canine might soften his smirk a bit.

"I'm jotting a few observations, though once I find a house of my own, it will give me a foundation to build from. A roof of my own as well as some private space in which to work and build a library. But also with a bolthole for the times when the place turns stranger than I can handle on my own."

It was a shame that Luz couldn't read it, remaining blissfully as unaware as she was. "You know, I might have even read something like that too, in fanfiction my mom didn't know I had access too. It was just not something I often read."

And now she didn't have to imagine it at all, much to her chagrin.

"That sounds like a good idea! I'd be looking for one myself if I didn't live in an ideal situation. Chances are that we'll have a few ways to hunker down and stay protected ourselves in case things get really dicey."

"Hmmm, if you were a smidge older, I'd recommend a few authors. Sometimes their content can get a bit intense, at least by suggestion. But, a good entry level novel would be the mother-monster of them all, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

"Hopefully, the powers in this place will grant us some clemency and a respite in which to be settled. Though the pirates on the seas weren't precisely a harbinger of hope," he muses.

At that moment, a girl who could be the innkeep's red-haired daughter approaches with a tray with their, keeping her gaze modestly averted, though Wesker might give the girl a bit more than a once-over, not perversely but with a definite appreciation for a Titian-haired damsel. "Your meal should be ready soon," she says, softly before scooting back to the kitchen, peeking over her shoulder, as if making sure there's no trouble.

"I think she's leery of me."

"Luckily everyone in my worlds' heard of Frankenstein, but I haven't gotten to read the book yet. I'll be sure to go pick it up if I find it in the library. I don't mind reading something that's supposed to be out of my age range!"

What did that really mean anyway, when you had seen and heard as much as Luz had this year and a half anyway?

"The pirates were kind of on the low end of danger though, for me. I mean, I robbed them and managed to escape. I'd say that the farm, or those parasites were the really bad part."

Luz paused when the girl came by, and Lus gave her a bright smile and her thanks.

"She was really pretty! You're pretty imposing, to be fair. Maybe she's just shy?"

"You'll find it's quite different from most of the movie versions: the book makes one wonder which the monster and which the human, the doctor or his creation?" He says this with a note of seriousness, as if he's gone down that dark passage and thanks to The Doctor, he's taken a hard look at what came out the other end of the passage.

"Admittedly, my strength has been all over the map. Of course it had to fail me when I was in the middle of dealing with those pirates. Though ...that's when I found that ingesting Blood restored my enhancements," he notes, with a weight to his words suggesting how he discovered that.

"I do have that effect on most people," he adds, taking the cork from the wine bottle and filling his glass, then doing the same with the bottle of milk and it's accompanying cup, holding the latter out to her. "Shall we make a toast?"

"I always kind of thought that the creator was the monster though. Wasn't he the one making a person out of dead body parts? It's not like they can give consent, and usually if you do something like that it's considered grave robbing, right?"

She was a little surprised at how seriously he said that though, as if it was something she should commit to memory. It occurred to her that he might have done some unscrupulous things in his past. She'd ask about that later.

"How exactly did you find that out? I'm assuming you didn't go all full vampire on one, right?"

How WOULD he find out something like that anyway?

"I'm waiting to see if you think that's a good thing or not," Luz said, grinning. She took her cup, and brought it up to his. "To current and good friends?"

"To give my assessment? I saw a little of both, of humanity and monstrosity, in the creator and the creature. I suppose, I've been involved in some at best questionable things done in the name of science," he admits, but there's a chariness in his tone now, as if he's not ready to disclose this.

He smirks at her question, regarding 'going full vampire'. "Almost, though not quite, initially. I was able to fend off several of my captors, but my strength abated and five of them pinned me down, with only my head free. I defended myself in the only way I had left: I bit the nearest one in the arm, hard enough that I drew blood. That taste gave me a boost of strength and I was able to break free and fight them off. I would have consumed it in a civilized way, but I didn't exactly have any syringes on me. One does what one can. I've been warned by some of the Wakers that folk with Vileblood are regarded as the source of inspiration for tales of vampires, and I'd had people in my world of origin say I looked like a 1990s vampire. Leaning into ones clichés isn't such a dire thing."

"We'll say, the people who don't find me so alarming are the ones most adept at getting through the defenses I'd raised about my spirit. That would include you," he says. "To fine company and the strength and cleverness to rise to whatever this town can and will toss our way," he adds, clinking his glass against her cup.

Yup, that was definitely the voice of someone who had been a little bit of Doctor Frankenstein himself and was fully aware of it. It was probably better that Luz didn't ask all about it right now, as that kind of query was bound to lead down toward other directions she might not want to go yet.

"Ohh, now I get it! I should have remembered you were Vileblood. Luca has to consume blood too! I just figured that might be something you got from your world: after all, in Deerington, we had a vampire ourselves, though I guess she wasn't going around draining people whenever she wanted. I just happened to lose the lottery on that one, not helped by the fact that I was pretty, uh, drugged up at the time."

"Drugged out" would have been more appropriate for what was happening to her at the time, but that was neither here nor there.

"It has been said that I can befriend just about anyone!" Not that Luz thought that befriending Wesker was especially hard, just that she wasn't the type to immediately be dissuaded by looks or a prickly demeanor. "I'll drink to that though!"

She clinked her up glass against his and drank, making a satisfied sound afterward.

"Rest assured, I won't be sinking my teeth into any unwilling people's necks any time soon. I'd rather take the scientific route, for one thing. For another, the neck is a bad place to bite into. The arm is more ideal," Wesker replies, matter of factly, as if he's had discussions like this before. "I don't think I recall a vampire in Deerington, but then again, I didn't get out as much as I should have.

A rare, true smile crosses his face, for the second time today. "You do have that ability, something rare, in my experience, though it's probably more likely that people are nervous around me."

The innkeep arrives with a platter bearing their meals. "Ye need anything else? My gurl and I are in ear shot."

"It is? I would never have thought that the arm was an ideal place. Is it because there's more access there somehow?"

Luz was not as keyed into vampire lore as some of her peers might be, other than the vampire that had attacked her, and they hadn't gotten along anyway.

"Trust me, she was there. Claudia was her name. She came and went too, even during the time I'd been kidnapped, but I didn't see her after that so I'm assuming she woke up back in her world."

Luz scoffed. "I like the Sleepers. We all have our own stories and wants and likes, and they're all just thrown together and we try to live as best as we can with whatever this world throws at us. I just happen to be the kind of person who likes to know as much about us as I can."

Ooh, more hospitality! "I'd just like a hot chocolate, please."

"The neck has too many 'fiddly bits', as a friend and colleague of mine used to put it: too many tendons, muscles, nerves. I suppose vampires wouldn't care much about injuring their victims and potentially damage their ability to turn their head. But I'd rather not risk it with a donor," he notes.

A flicker of recognition crosses his face as she mentions that name. "I think I met her briefly, at the Hotel, in the winter. We woke up in the same small room that kept growing smaller till we found a way out. I didn't see her after that, but I warned her not to bite me, as there's something in my blood, even then, which she didn't need in her mouth. I'm not sure I'd want to imagine what it could have done to someone like her." He looks away into the fire, wincing a bit.

"We're a lot alike that way, in that wanting to know as much as we can about us. I suppose I go a little deeper, in trying to understand our physical natures," he notes. Looking at her, his weird eyes softened slight, he adds, "Something The Doctor said to me, when his younger-looking face followed me to my world of origin: 'We're all stories in the end: make it a better one'. Perhaps that's why we're here now. To keep bettering ours and each other's stories, however we define that."

The inn keep's interloping comes as a welcome break. "Have it for ye in a few. 'Tis a good night for it," he says, going on his way.

Edited 2022-02-01 23:41 (UTC)

"Oh. I guess they always depict vampires going for the neck because it's vulnerable and exposed. But I guess if you were going for practicality, you would want to go for a place where the vein is much easier to get to."

Why did Luz sound like she was making a plan for when she became a vampire anyway?

"Oh, so you did meet her! We met later after that, though she pretty much loathed me afterward, even slapped me for good measure. Last time we met, I was still planning on stopping those cave guys. She had me pause my plan to get the drop on one, and that wound up being for the better, it gave me more of an idea of how to surround them."

Not that Luz was advocating what she did, far from it. It was just a better way to go about it than trying to catch them all half-cocked. That would have probably gotten her killed.

She'd ask about his blood later though, that was something to keep in mind.

"I think that'd have to be it. There are lots of people here, with lots of stories. I tend to want to know all of theirs, so that's why you might see me poking my nose here and there, getting into something. I know I want to keep finding out about people myself!"

She gave the inn keeper a grateful smile, then looked over at Wesker. "It's really cozy here though. I should come by more often."

"I always took it as symbolic, but I started studying medicine very young, which admittedly wrecked a few stories for, till I grew up and stopped taking it so seriously," he says, drily, clearly amused by his teenaged self.

"Keep doing that. Keep learning people's stories and helping them to write them better." A thought ticks through his mind, to consider her a potential source of information, a second pair of eyes. But no. This isn't the place for that, and somehow, even in his dark heart, he knows that would damage something valuable, this connection between them. Whatever schemes he might concoct, he knows better than to pull her into them.

"If I'm ever down by the shore, I'll make it a point to stay here as well," he muses, his eyes warm in the firelight, as he tucks into his meal. "If there
are more places like this in it, think I could call this world a home."

((OOC: Shall we leave them there??))

"I'm sure it would! Fantasy is pretty fun, but once you start seeing the stuff happen in real life, what actually goes down is actually pretty different. In those instances, you either get to survive, or your luck runs out."

She knew that she was specifically relating that to fighting actual monsters, which was probably not the best comparison, but it made the most sense for her in relation to fantasy and what was actually happening.

"Oh, I try. People actually do have better stories than you'd think though, especially here!"

There were far too many stories of dystopia and sadness and struggle than Luz had ever thought she'd be ready for, and the worst was when they came from kids that were her age, maybe a little older.

"I think that was what Cynthia had hoped for in the first place, that we would find ourselves comfortable here. I was starting to feel that way at first, but. There are just some things you find you won't leave behind, no matter what happens."

((OOC: That's fine))!

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[CW: Fictional pathogens mentioned]

Re: [CW: Fictional pathogens mentioned]

Re: [CW: Fictional pathogens mentioned]

Re: [CW: Fictional pathogens mentioned]