33 Apocalypse Ave, Tuesday Afternoon

[not_every_mage]

For Anders the little demon, Halloween was a day full of his usual mischief. Sprinkling a little itching powder in some underwear drawers, sneaking into a few houses to turn the thermostat three degrees too hot, and -- just to cap off the day -- blowing on some mainland traffic lights to turn them red at inconvenient times.

He was still chuckling over the last one as he let himself into the house and sat down on the couch, tail extended along the cushions. He needed to take a TV break before it was time for trick-or-treating and some real fun.

[OOC: Open post.]

Comments

[spin_kick_snap]

Well, if he was gonna give her the choice?

"Maaaaake uuuuup?" she asked, hopefully.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Then okay, fine, there's a Dante showing up in Princess Kathy's tower, and her whole life gets a lot less boring."

Master storyteller, he was not.

[spin_kick_snap]

Okay, when even the zombie was unimpressed that was saying something. She kept looking at him, waiting for him to embellish.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Fine, he breaks her out of the castle," Dante said, rolling his eyes. "They bring tons of lettuce for her on the way. He heard about this dragon or something that could only be killed by a princess."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Braaaaains," Kathy said, nodding smugly. Obviously the princess needed to eat the dragon's brains!

...Or maybe she was suggesting the princess was smart enough to outwit him. But that seemed very unlikely.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante was gonna ignore that.

"So they both picked up swords and ran into the woods," he said, "The princess's parents were mad, but nobody cared what they thought."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy shrugged. Without mementos of her family around to remind her of their existence, they'd slowly faded from her mind, the way that algebra and Korean had. "Swooooords?" She snapped her teeth, her real weapon.

[rebelseekspizza]

"You can't solve every problem by biting it," Dante told her.

[spin_kick_snap]

That sounded fake but okay, storyteller.

"Theeeeeeeeeeeeeeen?" she asked, propping her chin on her hands. Her head had a habit of listing to the side when she wasn't working to keep it upright.

[rebelseekspizza]

"They took the swords and walked out into the forest. But on the way, they were ambushed by a bunch of scumsucking demons," Dante said, improvising on the spot. "Nasty ones, with bigger teeth than yours."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Aaaaaaanderrrs?" Kathy asked, happy their boyfriend was also making an appearance.

[rebelseekspizza]

"... Sure, Anders is one of them," Dante said, after a beat. "He's mauling them from behind when they least expect it."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?" Kathy asked, puzzled. Demons were okay! Sure, sometimes they could be mean and kind of bratty--like Anders' teasing downstairs with the remote--but they were okay. In fact, some of the people she loved best in the world were demons! Again, like Anders. And Dante himself.

[rebelseekspizza]

"...Because they're mean-ass demons killing people, who want to kill us?" Dante asked.

[spin_kick_snap]

That didn't make sense. Well, the mean-ass killing people part did. That was just part of being a demon. But why would they try to kill them?

There was a long silence as Kathy followed that logic to its end and then formulated her best argument. A very long silence. Death and undeath had not been particularly kind to her reasoning skills. "Weeee....noooooot...peeeeeeeeople."

[rebelseekspizza]

Long pause.

"Yeah, we are, Kathy," Dante said slowly. "We're people."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Mooooonsters," she corrected with a bright smile.

[rebelseekspizza]

"People," Dante said sharply.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy looked confused again and clacked her teeth at him in a reminder. "Deeeeeeemon," she said, pointing at him. "Deeeeemon," she repeated, pointing downstairs where Anders was still presumably watching TV. "Zooooombiiiiie."

And Raven was a seamonster, and Eliot a werewolf, and Parker was a ghost...

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante stared at her for a moment.

Then he put down the book, shoved his chair aside, opened the door and stepped out into the hall.

Closed the door behind him and took the key, though.

[spin_kick_snap]

With a noise that was more like a wail than a moan, Kathy slowly hoisted herself off the bed and shambled to the door, every motion like moving underwater. Once she got there, she didn't even try the knob--far too complicated. Instead she just began banging on her door, calling out to Dante. "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa--?" she groaned. "Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?"

Well, we knew how Kathy would be entertaining herself for the next few hours.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante locked the door with a quick twist of the key.

"People," he snapped.

Then he walked away to find a bottle of vodka somewhere. He wasn't putting up with this shit.