She Invited Him In, Of Course. He Asked For Her Help, And This Is One Indulgence Her Boss Allows Her.
She invited him in, of course. He asked for her help, and this is one indulgence her boss allows her. Where people are nice and polite - all too rarely she must admit - she can help them if he deems her methods fit. Sometimes they dine at the small table in the kitchen with her. Usually, they are unsettled enough by both the house and her way of acting that they make excuses, and borrow a room for a few nights while she helps in whatever way she can.
It rewards good manners, and the supply of unmissed blood and bodies it gives her boss is a bonus.
There’s a third kind of person, she thinks. Someone who can put up a facade well enough to appear polite, but not enough self control to keep acting in the proper manner.
This man, for she will not grant him the perceived innocence the word ‘boy’ would bring, talks to her. He tells her he needs their help to eradicate evil from this world. Surely the owner of such a large building could spare some funds to ensure that the deviants and monsters and unnatural abominations are kept far from polite society. Surely he, her boss, - for no woman could have a role in the ownership of this beautiful structure - is a man of god, and wishes to uphold his holy words. He recites some scripture, bits she recognises from her time as a mortal in the 80s.
For the first time in a while, she thinks back to those years. She remembers some of the boys and girls and in-betweens and boths and neithers and more she used to know and hang around with when off work. She remembers some of the posters and slogans and verses that said the same things as this man. She remembers seeing it on TV, hearing it yelled at her on the street, reading it on the front page of the papers.
There were people who taught her about herself, who made her realise the things she felt and the things she most definitely didn’t feel, then held her as she cried and made her see that none of this made her any less human, any less worthy of being alive.
She remembers how some of these people cracked under the near-constant pressure. Some of them moved across the country. Some of them found twisted ideals to believe in. A couple paid lump sums to a programme that promised to make them normal, to make them normal and banal and regular at the same time and as soon as possible.
She never saw any of those people again.
Now, stuck in this room with a man full of nothing but hate and false pretenses and bad manners, she feels lonely. If there is a god, he abandoned her at birth and at her rebirth in a basement in Bath. There are indeed monsters and abominations in this world and she is one of them, but this is not because of who she is, it is because of what she is - Kindred. She will never again have that community or that love.
Now she feels angry.
She asks if he will join her in her room. She knows how he will see this, and she knows he will take the bait, and she knows she can make a mess there with no repercussions.
She could never make him hurt enough. How much hurt was doled out on the people she loved by ignorant fools like him? How much hurt was doled out not just to them but to people like them and like her?
He has been a bad guest.
He has been so much else, but this is the very last straw.
The screams last for hours.
The pain lasts for days.
The stains last for weeks.
When she meets her boss downstairs the next evening, he seems proud of her.
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She wraps the leash around her hand and pulls me up to her.
"you know, it's really amazing how easy it is to mistake you for a human. From a distance, I mean. Once you're up close *she pulls me closer* the illusion is shattered, and it's obvious what you really are."
It all starts rather abruptly.
She’s going about her day - well, her night - doing all of her usual jobs. She’s found and served a meal for her boss. She’s told the others she works with the tasks they have to do, then she’s gone to do her fair share of those tasks.
As things stand, she’s in the hallway, about an hour before sunrise, checking over all the decorations and improvements and fixes she’s made to the house.
In her time here, she’s turned a building on the edge of collapse into one that is not only structurally sound, but one that is beautiful and that she can be proud of.
Not to mention, her methods mean that all the waste from her and her boss’ meals gets put to use. She’s tidy and efficient like that, never wasting something that can be put to use.
She spent decades working on this place. She painted and repainted the door. She fixed the knocker on the front of it. She found and installed the locks that keep it closed. She has lavished that same amount of love and attention and care on every little detail of the place.
This is why it’s so upsetting when the door caves in.
A sharp tearing of metal rings out as the door flies off its hinges and backwards into the hallway.
She’s angry, but she isn’t stupid. She’s also quite quick, dashing upstairs before she can be seen.
Four people stride into the house, looking rather pleased with the damage they’ve caused.
What other details of these people matter? Neither their appearance nor their clothes nor their gear change a single thing about their fate.
The door she’s cared for for decades lies splintered and broken across a floor she’s cared for for decades, in a room she’s maintained and cared for for decades, in a building she’s cared for for decades.
She made that floor herself, taking out rotten planks of wood and replacing them with her usual materials. She made those flowers lining the hall. She made those books on the shelves. She made these walls.
The floor under the hunters erupts, sharp slivers of bone and teeth appearing from it as though out of thin air.
One hunter is caught in their leg. They stumble. They fall.
The floor yawns open to let them fall through. They’re in the void between the floor and the foundations now. She can deal with them later.
One hunter stands, leaning against the wall, recovering from their sudden exertion.
This one is fast.
A long, thin, and sharpened bone - maybe a femur, she thinks - slides swiftly out of the wall and impales them through their heart. Their life drains from them as they struggle powerlessly to lift themselves off the spike that rests in their torso.
One hunter is brave. They climb the stairs, taking the steps two or three at a time, intending doubtlessly to kill her.
Claws grow from the fingers of her right hand. She dashes forwards with a swift, controlled movement.
Their face a bloody, pulped ruin, she discards their corpse over the banister.
She has made rather a mess of herself. It is not proper for her to have so much blood in her hair, or on her hands, or on her dress. It will take hours of scrubbing for her to clean herself and her clothes.
The last one stands, frozen still, eyes fixed on hers. They can do nothing but uselessly open and close their mouth as she descends, and rests her hands on their arms.
Their eyes beg for mercy.
Their form distends and stretches. Muscles and bones snap and reform. She needs more material for this, so she fetches the corpses of their comrades. The three are joined and remade.
At the end of this, she has something to replace the door they so rudely destroyed.
The first hunter to fall is kept a while longer. She has exerted herself oh so much, and is rather in need of a drink before she goes to clean herself and lay herself to bed.
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She/her, LARP doer, Warhammer and Gundam fan, that one reveal with Zane from Ninjago changed the trajectory of my life,Certified Scribblehub Eggfic Protagonist.
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