milliways_bar | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Tonight, Shufti has taken her vampire hunting outside. There's been no new reports that she knows of, but she wonders whether the culprit feeds in bursts, like a python, then bides its time.

At least one victim was attacked out here, which means two things. Firstly, the vampire has been through the back door at least once or is a teleporter. Secondly, it could strike out here again.

She's well wrapped up, in a proper winter coat, hat and gloves, sitting up in a tree. She has a good view of the surrounding area, and is difficult to see in the early evening night, except for the occasional glint of light off her Security badge.

[tinytag: A Gothic Winters Tale]

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"No, I mean I bet you don't know much about the layout yet here?"

"Why, does it move around too?"

"Well no, but it can be a little confusing."

He blinks.

"What, like... one of those magic eye puzzles?"

"I'm sorry, I don't know what that is."

"It's... ya know." He shrugs non-committally.

"Not really. I don't think my birth world had such things."

He laughs at that. "What, you from Mars or something?"

He's suddenly serious.

"You're not, are you?"

"No, I was born on the Discworld. But I live in America now, with my husband."

"Discworld?" he asks. "Is that the new shop in Highgate?"

"No, it is a flat planet on the back of four elephants on a turtle."

He nods, frighteningly knowingly.

"Right!" he says. "I saw that one! ITV2, I think, wasn't it? The cartoon with the ducks?"

Shufti stares blankly at him.

"No, it's a real world." She says after a moment. "I don't know what an Eye Tee Vee is, but I definitely don't live in a cartoon."

"No, no. I-T-V-two."

As though speaking more loudly will help. After all, people do it to him all the time.

"What is that?"

"Television channel," he says. "Ya know... Do they got that on Mars?"

"Oh, yes, we have those in America but not on the Disc. No electricity there."

"Oh, right. I guess it's kind of hard to run lines between planets, innit?"

"I should have thought so." Shufti says. "I believe they move around, for a start."

"And you look at 'em up in the sky; they're so small!"

"...yes. That's because they're far away."

She's getting the 'Is this guy for real' feeling again.

She then decides he probably can't help it.

"But how do we see them, then, if they're so small?"

"They're not small, they just look small because they're far away. Like the stars out there." She points to the window.

Jools looks out the window at the stars.

"They can't be more than... one... two millimetres across," he observes.

Shufti points at a chair over the other side of the room.

"That chair looks smaller, but when you get there it's the same size as this one."