milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Milliways is up one vampire Slayer, wandering in from the staff wing with her nose buried in a book.

No, this is not as rare a circumstance as you might believe: the book in question is a Watcher's Diary from the 18th Century, and the history of Vampire Slayers happens to be Mel's very personal area of dorkery.

Without once looking up from her book, she swings by Bar, picks up a pint of nog and a plate of fried paradoxes and finds her way to a table in the middle of the bar.

And there she remains.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yeah," she says, emphatically.

Really complicated.

She's not thinking about him. Really. Just tearing a cinnamon roll to pieces.

"I suppose I might as well try and learn more about fighting vampires, whether I decide to throw my lot in with SOF or not. The... group of vampires that one vampire and I saved each other from is still after us."

"Learning's always worth it," Mel agrees. "I'd offer help, but my technique's prob aren't your techniques."

"I have techniques? Run at them with a stainless-steel table knife, hoping that they won't tear my head off before they realize that the stupid human knows something they don't know about the effectiveness of such an otherwise flimsy weapon?"

"Well, you could start with a better weapon."

Now might be the time to notice Mel's portable arsenal.

Sunshine eyes them, pulling her Victorianox from her pocket.

"All I have, usually, is my pocketknife."

In the relatively good light of the bar, it looks completely normal.

"Think about carrying something bigger?"

It's an obvious question, for her.

"Like what?"

She's imagining the looks on the coffeehouse regulars' faces, not to mention the faces of Charlie and Mel, at her walking into the bakery with something like the red weapon at Melaka's side.

Mel's answer is to swing a leg up onto the table and hike up a pants leg.

There's a long knife strapped to her calf, tucked into her sock.

"Oh," she says, vaguely, looking at it.

However did she get from being unable to kill even the spiders she finds in cobwebs in her loft to seriously considering trying to find something like that?

"Do stakes work?" Mel asks. "Wooden ones?"

She nods. "Apple's best, usually, if the tree has mistletoe growing on it."

SOF's orchards are the most well-tended and well-guarded trees in the world.

Mel is completely at a loss for words. She just looks at Sunshine.

They have different woods?

"What?" Sunshine blinks at her, taken aback and wondering if she said something wrong.

Mel shakes her head.

"I never knew different woods had different strengths. That's spun."

"Even before the Wars, SOF had enough funding to pay the best researchers to find out what materials and wards are the most likely to work," she smiles slightly.

Of course, the vampires have their own researchers, to come up with better defenses.

"Watchers never found out anything like that," Mel says thoughtfully. "I guess wood is wood, on my world."

"Watchers?"

Mel scowls in distaste of how useless the entire organisation is.

"This big organisation of men usedta tell the Slayers what to do. Lots of research and books, not a lot of action."

"SOF does... both, in my world. Though if I did help them in the field, I'd have to keep it pretty quiet. If the research side finds out about the sunlight thing - not to mention that I saved a vampire so he could go on being a vampire - I'd probably disappear into one of their research facilities for the rest of my natural life and longer."

And they have developed ways of keeping their pet projects alive longer than they would survive, naturally.

Mel breathes out in wry amusement.

"Yeah, but the Slayer's the only person can do what I do, so everyone wants to pull her strings."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only