milliways_bar | (no subject)

"I have not faced such a creature," Boromir admits. "The last dragon was slain a few generations ago."

Mel shakes her head. "S'not a dragon. Just a demon. Ha... This vampire wanted to bring the demons back into the world. So I hadta take it out."

"Is a vampire a kind of conjurer?"

She stares. She'd been so good at not calling them lurks, too.

"No, not like a warlock. A vampire's like... well they're dead people, infected with this type of demon, so they can walk and talk, and look human, but they're completely evil and feed by drinking blood.

"Well, mostly evil," she admits. "The ones here are OK."

"Feed by . . . drinking blood." He shudders in revulsion. "They sound like orcs--they feed on man-flesh whenever they get the chance."

She nods. "Well, vamps need blood. Can't live without it."

"They sound like vile creatures nonetheless."

She nods, agreeing heartily.

"They really, really are."

"If they are so dangerous, why are you not paid to hunt them? Surely they must be worth some sort of bounty."

There's a sort of snort and a grin.

"You can't really charge people for saving their life, can you? It's sort of a sacred duty thing. I'm the only one with the power to stop them, I'm the one who has to stop them." She shrugs. "Chosen One, not employed."

"Oh." He frowns. "There is little thanks in following a calling, that is true."

She shrugs. "Thanks I get. People know who I am, and if they can afford it, they might give me free stuff, but usualyl they just can't, which is fine.

"It's not like the Slayers before me, who had to keep a secret identity."

"Hm," Boromir says, for as a noble he has rarely had to worry about provisions--only where they can be acquired while travelling. "I suppose it would be wise to hide one's identity if to be discovered would endanger them further."

"The lurks already know. Their leader... he knows me."

"Lurks." He is about ready to throw up his hands and declare himself done with this place. Nothing makes sense.

Ooops.

"Sorry. Slang in my time for vampire."

"Oh.

"Are there other kinds of monsters in your world, or only vampires?"

"No, we have other demons," she says. "Vamps are just the most common, and even they're part demon.

"And then there's primals: werewolves and the like. But they're not so bad. Just animals, really, only very dangerous ones."

"Hm," Boromir muses. "We have many kinds of monsters, some of which are older than memory. That is what I fight, mostly, driving them out of my homeland."

"Into someone else's?" she asks, frowning.

"Back into their own."

"Right, that'll work," she says. "Demons in our world don't really have a homeland as such, they're from different worlds altogether. We either kill them or send them back there. A couple of centuries ago, a Slayer sent all demons back into one of the Hell dimensions. But just recently, they've started coming back. "

"The orcs--the creatures that are trying to invade my homeland--they are from a neighboring country called Mordor. There is little there to sustain life, but that, I think, is mostly because orcs neither sow nor till, but only ravage and steal."

"What's sow and till?" Mel asks, still eating her waffle, and mentally making note of the tone of voice he used for 'steal'.

"Sowing seeds and tilling soil. Farming." He looks at her curiously. "Does your world not have farms?"