[IC] MONSTORY

[Dead Cruiser]

Faster than Izzy realized, the child snatched the donut from her hand and scampered away with it. Another instant later, he was scarfing it down like a starving animal. The pastry was gone in three bites. The child stood a bit further than arm's length from Izzy, chewing rapidly as he wiped the crumbs from his face with the back of his sleeve, still eyeing her warily. Once he gulped it down, he padded back over toward Izzy, once again reaching for the donut box.

Honestly, he seemed little better than an animal in this state. That thought drew an uncomfortable connection to Riley accusing Izzy of having made Cerasus into her pet. Still, if nothing else, she had found a food he liked. Perhaps she could use this to her advantage in some way or another. Izzy deliberately steered clear of the thought of "training" him, not wanting to venture down that road.

[Riven Wight]

One moment, Izzy was holding the donut, and the next the child had hurried just out of her reach with it in hand. She gripped her wrist and moved her fingers as if making sure they were all still there, watching the child ravenously wolf down the donut and wondering if he just had that extreme of a sweet tooth now, or needed more than her blood to sate his hunger.
Either way, he looked more like a caged creature than even a being as simple as a child. The hope that something of Cerasus still remained dwindled, Izzy incapable of imagining him ever acting like this over a donut. But at least the fried dough had made him move from his corner. Maybe there was some way she could use this.
She closed her eyes for a moment and snorted at the thought. She would not treat him like a disobedient pet in need of training. He had to be in there somewhere, suppressed by whatever power had put both of them in their current states. She opened her eyes again as the child reached for another.
“Okay,” she breathed. She reached behind her, glancing away only once as she gripped another. “Can... you even understand me?” she tried as she slowly handed him a second.

[Dead Cruiser]

Again, the child declined to respond in any discernable manner, instead going straight for the donut. Seeing as she wasn't getting anywhere with this, Izzy lifted the pastry out of the child's reach before he could snatch it from her. This left him staring up at it, standing on his tiptoes and feebly trying to reach up and grab it. If he even could understand her, it was clear that his focus was elsewhere currently. A different approach would help if she wanted to gauge how much of his awareness was left.

[Riven Wight]

Izzy sighed in frustration when the child again showed no response besides coming after the donut, leaving her to wonder whether he was choosing to ignore her, or was incapable of comprehending her words.
Raising the donut out of his reach, she watched him for a short moment with a contemplative expression as he stood on tiptoe in his desperation for the sugary confection.
Bribery isn’t training, she thought, the powder sugar coating the donut sticking to her fingers. Right?
“If you want another one,” she began, enunciating each word to avoid any misunderstanding, “then stop, look me in the eye, and ask for it.”
She held her breath, waiting, hoping for any kind of reaction hinting at even the smallest amount of remaining comprehension.

[Dead Cruiser]

With Izzy's stern command, the vampire child stopped jumping for the donut, his shoulders drooping. With the most barely-audible exhalation (a sigh?), he looked back up at Izzy's face, his golden, spiteful eyes locking with hers. Without looking away, he stuck his hand out at her, open palm facing up, in an obvious gesture of request. This was progress, if nothing else. It seemed that he wouldn't speak, but enough of him was left to not only understand her, but be condescending as well.

[Riven Wight]

Izzy inhaled in anticipation when the child stopped trying to get the donut, not daring to hope it was more than a reaction to the tone of her voice. But then, he complied to her demand. When he held out his hand in a wordless request, she felt like she could have laughed in relief despite the malice in his gaze. Instead, the emotion manifested in an exhale and quirk of her lips.
Though he did not speak, something, at least, still remained of him. He may have been filled with hatred and anger, but at least he apparently retained part of himself, and a sense of comprehension.
Realizing she still held the donut, she placed it in his waiting hand. “Well, what do you know. Interaction didn’t kill you, now, did it?”

[Dead Cruiser]

As soon as the donut was in his hand, the child jammed it in his mouth and scurried off to a far corner of the classroom to eat it, huddled over it like someone might steal it from him. Well, even slow progress was still progress. A laugh from the other side of the room broke Izzy from her thoughts. Naturally, it was Riley, watching the scene from the doorframe.

"You know, you shouldn't bully a vampire," He said, his unlit cigarette hanging from his mouth, "It'll come back to bite you."

[Riven Wight]

Izzy watched the child hurry off, once more very much like an animal. But that did little to dampen the sense of alleviation that had settled lightly over her.
She shouted in surprise when a laugh sounded from the doorway, and she turned and jumped away from it. Realizing it was only Riley, she tilted her head back with an exasperated moan, and placed a hand over her heart.
“Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” She exhaled heavily.
Izzy shifted her weight awkwardly at being accused of bullying the child, but still rolled her eyes at his pun. “I wasn’t bullying him. Just pointing out that it didn’t do any harm.” She took a deep breath, and glanced toward the child, her voice slightly softer as she continued. “And I had to know, Riley. It’s been two months, and he hasn’t so much as acknowledged a word I’ve said.” She sighed, and looked to the box of remaining donuts. She picked it up, and held it out toward Riley. “Donut?”

[Dead Cruiser]

Riley smiled widely at being offered a pastry by Izzy, and looked into the box to very carefully make his selection. Perhaps that was his attempt at giving Izzy a warm expression, but the overall sleazy quality to his face didn't help the effort.

"Ah, don't mind if I do. I haven't told you this, but I do love sweets. My favorite is the 'Old Fashioned,' because I'm an old fashioned guy." Content with his weak joke, he pulled up a seat and sat facing Izzy as he ate.

By now the vampire child had finished his second donut and was once again huddling in the corner, clutching his knees. He apparently was trying to keep up appearances in front of Riley. Despite that, he forgot to wipe the crumbs from around his mouth. Riley, finishing his own donut, eyed the child coolly, glancing between him and Izzy.

"Sorry I wasn't here to greet you as you came in, get you a drink or anything. I was out working. The reason I came here to begin with was to study aberrations and their legends, but now cleaning up after you has become my most important task. It's quite demanding."

[Riven Wight]

Izzy returned Riley’s smile halfheartedly, though she had to debate whether it was supposed to be a friendly gesture or not as he took his time choosing his sugary poison.
“It doesn’t get much more old fashioned than donuts.” When he turned to sit, she returned the box to the desk, then picked up the part of her scarf still hanging over the edge. “Oh, I don’t know what you do all day, but I also brought a box of playing cards if you’d like them.” She sat on another of the desks shoved together beside her pack, and reached over to pull out a pack of playing cards from a side pocket. She tossed them beside the donut box.
She looked to the child, who had since returned to his corner, and sighed. Noticing Riley’s gaze shifting between him and her, Izzy cocked her head.
“What’s up?” she asked slowly, leaning her hands back on the desk.
“Uh huh,” she said to his apology. “Wait, what?” Her brows furrowed at him as she tried to think of what there was to ‘clean up after’ that would take longer than two months. “What is there to do for that after all this time?”

[Dead Cruiser]

"Vampires are troublesome," Riley answered quite plainly, "And not only that, this was the King of Aberrations we were dealing with, here. Just by being here, they can cause various phenomena. They keep stimulating and influencing their surroundings. It's a lot like weather; where the high pressure goes, the storm follows. Taking care of all of those loose ends is the skill-intensive work you entrusted to me."

[Riven Wight]

“Really?” Izzy had seen some of how Cerasus had influenced the weather itself, but she had thought it was simply because it was, well, Cerasus. Which came to show, once more, how little she knew about the thing she was--rather, that she was somewhere between "being" and "had been."
“That reminds me,” she added as her conversation with Trevor earlier that day came to mind. “I meant to ask what you know about vampires. I mean, Trevor knows more than me, and he’s a hundred-percent human. So...” she reached behind her to grab the box and offer it once more to Riley, “what kind of ‘loose ends’ were there, and are left from us being here? And it’s stopped now, right, with us...” she glanced toward the child, “like this?”

[Dead Cruiser]

Double post
//sudoku

[Dead Cruiser]

Riley helped himself to another donut, and answered Izzy between bites, "That's a difficult question. Partly because vampires can be very different between themselves, and partly because no two people will see the same vampire the same way. That goes for all aberrations, not just vampires. They're created and shaped by human beliefs." With his free hand, he gestured to the child in the corner, "Take Lil' Vampire there for example. He acts very childishly, no? Even if his appearance was reduced to that of a child, he's still five-hundred years old, and you'd expect him to behave as such. But now take into consideration that the only people that know about him-- you, me, and Trevor --see him as a little boy. As a result, he behaves more like the child we perceive him to be."

He finished his donut, licking the chocolate still left on his fingers as he continued, "The King of Aberrations brings a considerable amount of spiritual pressure wherever he goes. Such is the gravity of his legend. All that it needs added to it is human belief, and an aberration can form. Doesn't take much; a local legend, a ghost story, some native myths, it can be anything. To put it in another analogy, he brought a whole mess of kindling, so all you need is a spark and," Riley snapped his fingers for dramatic effect, "You've got a fire on your hands. All we can do about it is wait for the pressure to dissipate, and clean up any resulting aberrations."

He reclined in his seat, leaning back and kicking his feet up on a nearby desk. "Speaking of him, I was meaning to ask, how is Trevor? Have you seen him lately? I worry about that boy."

[Riven Wight]

((Dx I feel your pain with double posts...))

[Riven Wight]

((Only, you know. My computer managed a triple...))

[Riven Wight]

As Riley began his answer, Izzy took a donut for herself, then returned the box to the desk. She tore off a piece of the frosted bread, and used her leg near her knee as a plate. She popped the torn piece in her mouth, and looked to Riley, brows furrowed, just before he gestured to the child, making her glance to him.
“So, if we all started to think of him less as that child, and more like who he was, his behavior would change to adapt to that?” she asked as Riley finished his second donut, her own still only with a small chunk missing. “But, if everyone in the world of aberrations still thinks he’s a powerful vampire, why would he be acting like that? Because we’re the only ones who know about his current condition? And does that mean our weaknesses and strengths shift, too, depending on what the majority of people believe, or just when it comes to interacting with individuals?”
She picked off another piece of her donut as Riley continued, licking his fingers.
“Aberrations are formed by belief mixed with ‘spiritual pressure,’” she echoed slowly. “Anything can pop up here randomly? Oh boy,” she drew out the last. “This is a small town. People get bored. It’s chock-full of all of those, and then some.” She took a deep breath, and looked Riley in the eye. “What can I do to help?”
She glanced distantly to the door when he asked about Trevor. “You and me both.” She sighed. “I saw him earlier today. He’s as much like himself as usual, as far as I could tell.”

[Dead Cruiser]

Responding to Izzy's speculation, Riley hummed, "Hmm, it's possible. Though if I'm being honest, I rather prefer him like this. Far less of a troublemaker." To Izzy's further questions, he held out an objecting finger, "Correction: as far as the wider world knows, Cerasus Orion Damocles is dead. I made sure of that myself, to keep any opportunistic hunters from making this situation any worse. We're the only ones that know he's still alive. For now, at least." Riley rolled his neck as he continued to answer Izzy, "It all depends on the strength of the aberration. Weaker ones are more changeable based on individual perception. Something as powerful as a vampire will change more as public perception changes. Say you see some curtains blowing in a dark window and think it's a ghost, but when you look closely they're just curtains. But between the time you saw them and looked closely, there really was a ghost. Kind of like that. In theory at least, there's really no way to prove any of this, so it's all hypothetical."

Riley laughed as Izzy expressed amazement at the likelihood of aberrations cropping up in her town. "Yeah, so now you have an idea of what's been keeping me so busy. As far as helping out goes... I might have a task for you here and there. And I don't believe in unpaid labor, so I'll probably knock a few bucks off your debt whenever you lend a hand."

When they got back around to talking about Trevor, Riley quirked an eyebrow. "You're worried? That's funny, usually you're the one telling me that he's got his head screwed on real tight. What did you guys get up to today? Indulge my curiosity; I'm a lonely old man, after all." He chuckled again as he asked, still leaning back in his chair and playing with his cigarette.

[Riven Wight]

Izzy looked at Riley in surprise at the revelation about this side of the world believing Cerasus dead. She inhaled, and nodded. Avoiding hunters sounded like a fantastic idea. She listened to his further explanations, chewing on the inside of her cheek as she tried to put it all together. She sighed at it being all hypothetical, but nodded again, all the same.
“Just let me know. You know how to find me.” That her help would eliminate some of her debt was just an added bonus.
She exhaled in irritation at herself for commenting about being worried. “It’s a different kind of worry,” she grumbled, picking once more at the remainder of her donut, crumbs dusting the knee of her pants. She shook her head as he chuckled. “Nothing, really. Well, we buried a random dog that got ran over. I have to admit, that was a bit odd. But what in my life hasn’t fallen under that description lately? And at least he has a heart for animals.” She smiled lightly.

[Dead Cruiser]

As soon as Izzy mentioned the dog, Riley stopped smiling. He leaned forward in his seat, looking at her intensely, and asked, "You buried a dog? Was the dog white? With no tail?" At first Izzy may have thought he was joking, perhaps trying to spook her like he sometimes did. But after a moment, she realized he was dead serious. What could a dead dog have to do with anything? It was a real dog, not an aberration. Trevor had seen it, not her, and he was a completely normal person.