we are invariably pleased to welcome tourism

[cross_and_bow]

Sherlock is usually very puncutal. He's only one minute late, but that's still not quite as punctual as usual. Bella peers out the window, not yet allowing herself outright concern.

Comments

[cross_and_bow]

"Mr. Giles, when he was young and stupid, used to indulge in demon-summoning for recreational psychological effects, and this left him with something on his arm that let him see partway through Amariah's notice-me-not and also a dead friend," reports Juliet, handing over the blood and bending her head to breathe through the fabric of her t-shirt sleeve. "So we had to explain her, but at least he didn't curse first and ask questions later. He wanted to know who or what he, she, or it was and whether we were on good terms."

[eversomuchfun]

"Well, that's more life than I expected out of him," says Sherlock.

Slurp!

[cross_and_bow]

"What, a history of recreational demon-summoning? I suppose it's lively except insofar as it wound up being anti-lively," says Juliet. "I promised him never to use magic primarily for recreational psychological effects. I half-suspect I couldn't even obtain same, actually, but even if I could it'd be a trivial promise, I am apparently less reckless than Mr. Giles was at my age."

[dark_light]

"And tomorrow after school we're going to his house and I'm going to load him up with some of the same protections Juliet got. Oh, and we managed to explain my presence without reference to you, Sherlock - he's not supposed to know about you, I take it?"

[eversomuchfun]

"I am a vampire. He is part of an organization dedicated to exterminating us. It would probably be unwise to mention me around him."

[cross_and_bow]

"I'm not sure if that will be long-term viable," says Juliet, hefting her messenger bag and starting down the sidewalk. "Is there some set of criteria he could meet such that it'd be okay to reveal you, or are we just going with he-can-never-know! until that falls apart or I stop interacting with him for some reason? Or I could introduce you to him and react to any suspicion by rolling my eyes and suggesting offering you a glass of water with a drop of blood in it. Hide you in plain sight, like."

[eversomuchfun]

"Let's say that he can know about me only after he knows you're the Slayer, and only if he seems sufficiently reasonable under those circumstances to deal with the revelation without throwing a fit."

[cross_and_bow]

"Okay. I'm hanging on to the Slayer stuff until I learn about his - well, not his day job, librarian is his day job, but until he tells me about his side project, so to speak."

[dark_light]

"He was very reasonable about me," says Amariah optimistically. "Took the explanation pretty much at face value, let me cast a divination on him to see why he could see me, wasn't hostile or anything. Even though I'm pretty far-out. Am I less far-out than a non-asshole vampire?"

[eversomuchfun]

"Much less."

[cross_and_bow]

"To be more exact, he has fewer prejudices about extradimensional witch alts than he does about local vampires," says Juliet. "I think that he could tell that you were there, and that was enough for him to tell that I could tell you were there, but he didn't know what you were, just that I was not alarmed - and there are more nasty things than benign things to explain any given weirdness, but benign explanations aren't as unheard of as nice vampires."

[eversomuchfun]

"As the lady says," Sherlock agrees.

[dark_light]

"I wonder what it would look like if someone with a daemon was turned into the local vampire sort," muses Amariah. "Not enough to try it, not near enough, but I wonder."

[eversomuchfun]

"Yes, I advise you to continue wondering," says Sherlock.

[dark_light]

"Believe me, even apart from my basic interest in preserving my personality, I'm especially sensitive to the possibility that it'd hurt Path," says Amariah soberly.

[cross_and_bow]

Juliet's heard this story - Amariah's been following her around all day, inaudible to everyone around them, she has all the highlights by now. She nods.

[eversomuchfun]

"I expect that it would," he says softly.

[cross_and_bow]

There's the crypt! Combat practice time. Juliet ramps up to two-minute sequences, bolstered by all her new blessings, but sometimes they don't last that long due to repeated enactments of Sherlock, Meet Wall, or sometimes Sherlock, Meet Floor With The Slayer Sitting On You Bending Your Arms In Ways They Are Not Supposed To Bend.

[dark_light]

Amariah has nothing to contribute tonight; she works on movement-based spells, dancing around experimentally in another section of the crypt.

[eversomuchfun]

It is all great fun.

[dark_light]

The next day, Amariah brings her "groceries" to school with Juliet, and after school they go to Mr. Giles's house - the modification Amariah invented to the notice-me-not applies to him as well as to Sherlock. She casts blessings and a slightly different combination of less compatible charms and, after he accepts with great trepidation, a line of protective tattoos on his previously unmarked arm.

[pythbox]

It helps that he's seen her cast quite a lot by then. Her magic and the magic of this world are fundamentally unalike.

[dark_light]

"You're all set," says Amariah. "Don't be reckless with these. They'd help if you got hit by a car or something, but you shouldn't go lie on the railroad tracks."

[cross_and_bow]

"I shouldn't? Gosh, thanks for warning me," says Juliet.

[pythbox]

"Thank you," says Giles. "And I have no intention of putting myself in harm's way just because it's now slightly less likely to run me over."