4. Loss

[hismasterpiece]

[Action -- After Nightfall on the 11th]

[A pale young woman wanders into the village, twisting her hair round her fingers compulsively. She's hungry.


She's STARVING.

A whimper escapes her lips as she collapses by the fountain, and she calls out weakly:]

Spikey? Love sundae? The jaws can't bite; the claws can't catch.

[/Action]


[Drusilla has returned from death. Her DP is that she has lost the ability to go gameface and, therefore, to feed on victims using her fangs.]

Comments

[greenjacketed]

[ the pub wasn't so enjoyable, tonight. not with a troubled mind and no kindred spirit to share his troubles with. harper still hasn't shown up and dresden...ah, well. he worries over whether that bridge has been burned.

but as sharpe leaves the building and shrugs back into his uniform jacket -- it'd been too hot to keep on inside good spirits on this hot summer night -- he spots a creature wandering in the darkness.

aye, well. hogan had once accused him of being the knightly sort, hadn't he? ]

Ma'am? [ he questions, half-buttoning the green jacket before striding across the plaza. ]

[bloodwaif]

"Lord?"

Drusilla wasn't wandering any longer; Drusilla was down on the ground, too weak to do much more than lift her head.

"It's empty, now. All spilled over."

[greenjacketed]

He kneeled next to her -- whoever she was -- but hesitated before daring to put hands on her. Not even to help her up. A strange electric lamp at the edge of the plaza did manage to cast a little light and he was relieved to see no obvious injuries.

But the woman didn't look well.

"No lords here," he cautioned. Then for a moment the only sound was that which was produced by his sword's sheath scraping clumsily on the cobblestones. "Just a soldier, looking to lend a hand."

And so he did finally reach out for one of the downed woman's arms. It would be nothing, he thought, to lift her up to her feet.

[bloodwaif]

It was nothing. She was light as a feather made of dust and web.

"You have strength in your arms, m'lord." Dizzy, the woman tried to find her own feet. It felt like a dance.

[greenjacketed]

"Major," he corrected -- more forcefully, this time. He didn't care for the priveleged in the great houses and he cared even less to be mistaken for one of them.

But his grip remained only as strong as it needed to be and he tried directing her back towards one of the plaza benches. "You're cold, ma'am. Uncommon cold for a night as warm as this."

Christ, those Malnosso bastards. What had they done to this woman?

[hismasterpiece]

And that was more her way of speaking than any deference to a title. Drusilla liked lords and ladies and anyone she could gather into a macabre court of the night.

"I am a dead woman, Major, and lack the heat of life."

With him she walked.

"And I have died again."

[greenjacketed]

Died? Bloody hell. Death was everywhere in the army -- and not just on the field. Death had even marked his life before he'd taken the King's shilling; death had been the reason he'd taken it in the first place. But coming back was a notion he'd only truly encountered here in Luceti. Perhaps he'd escaped a hanging or two in his time but it had all been trickery. It had been letting some other criminal hang in in place.

This, though -- and what he assumed she was suggesting -- was more of the impossible. It ground at him and reignited that same indignation he'd felt over Dresden's magic. Sharpe didn't care for impossible things. He struggled hard enough to find order in the possible.

"No, miss," he gently sat her down. "You're amongst the living again."

[hismasterpiece]

"You smell alive." She kept her hand on his arm, gripping insistently, though her strength was nearly gone. "Major...she destroyed me. The girl. Buffy Summers.

You ought to punish her."

[greenjacketed]

"Miss Summers?" There's a hint of potential disappointment in his voice. He'd admired the woman from a distance but -- ah, well. Spoken for. And spoken for quite highly, in the end. The Captain was a bit beyond smitten. So smitten that Sharpe could only really remember his high praises for the barmaid instead of any incidental chatter about her other job.

"That teeny thing? I..." Of course, this lady didn't look much more formidable in her own right. And it wasn't as though he didn't have his own fill of experiences with dangerous women.

Sharpe hemmed and hawed and idled and finally sat next to her. "Tell us what happened, then."

[bloodwaif]

The Major smelled delicious. It was difficult to concentrate on things like the story of one's death. Drusilla did try, though, even as she leaned against his side a little.

"She swept her scythe at me, sire. She turned me straight to dust."

[greenjacketed]

Now that the initial separation had been broken, the gallant but gutter-born Major was entirely willing to wrap an arm around her shoulders. Just to help keep her warm, he told himself. Just because she was already leaning.

Oh, he was a chump for ever damsel he met.

"What'd be your name, miss?" He'd need it, he suspected, for when he eventually confronted the pirate. Best not to confront Miss Summers directly, lest the accusation be truly false. That would just be embarassing for all involved.

[hismasterpiece]

"Genevieve," came the silvery-voiced reply. Oh, he was a lovely cuddle. "Miss Genevieve Moncrief. I've always loved that name. Like something from a storybook, and she climbed the garden wall and lived like a gypsy on the leavings of the quality."

[greenjacketed]

"Miss Moncrief," he repeated -- and her first name was spared the roughhousing it would recieve from being stretched through his Yorkshire vowels. He wasn't sure about what she had to say about her own name -- it sounded either like a lie or like a very sad child. But he supposed the buggers would've put the poor thing through the wringer before delivering her back to the village. Her wits weren't about her. Simple as that.

"...There a place I can take you, Miss Moncrief? A home where I can deliver you safely?"

[hismasterpiece]

"Drink," she said faintly, leaning her cheek against his shoulder and just grazing his shirt with her perfectly human teeth. "I need a drink."


Good Spirits wasn't far.

[greenjacketed]

He tilted his chin and got a better look at the damsel. In the lamplight, he couldn't quite ascertain just how pallid she was.

"A drink?" He repeated -- allowing doubt to fill his voice. Perhaps that was the problem, in the end. He'd spent a chunk of his early life with Maggie Joyce, back in St. Giles, as she worked hard to establish her gin palace. Before fleeing the rookery, he'd managed to see his fair share of sots and drunkards. Was this really Miss Moncrief's problem?

"Ah. I see. Chucked you out, did she?" The barmaid. It made sense, he supposed, that the occasionally hard-faced blonde would exercise her right to run inebriates off her turf. In a fit of care and concern, he brushed a loose wave of dark hair off her pale face.

"In the end? Perhaps it's best you slept it off, miss. I've seen bigger beasts than you ruined by thirst." And she was such a wisp of a thing.

[hismasterpiece]

Oh he was wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. She had to make him understand. Sharp-nailed fingers dug into his shirt, just over his chest, as she tried to pull herself up. "No, sire -- I am not a drunkard. Momma would disapprove of that. I am a beast ruined by thirst. Please. Escort me. Defend me from the slayer."

[greenjacketed]

A quiet curse. That hurt, it did. He covered her offending fingers with one wide palm of his own before pushing up off the bench. He took her with him.

"There's another watering hole, eh? Over that, uh..." Sharpe squinted across the square. Seventh Heaven. "Over that restaurant, I suppose. Miss Summers cannot stop you there."

Evidently, he didn't believe her when she told him she wasn't a drunk. Too many drunks had tried to tell him they weren't drunks; he wasn't going to fall easily for that ploy. No siree.

[hismasterpiece]

"Heaven?" In spite of her condition, Dru laughed. "You wish to bring me to Heaven? Very well then, soldier."

[greenjacketed]

Arm in arm, then. They walked.

"Just a name, miss. And a general upwards direction. I suppose that's the point of the name in the first place."

[hismasterpiece]

Drusilla was barely able to appreciate the lovely brawny arm she was clinging to. She looked up at him, imagining what it might be like to take him in her arms -- to drink of him. To feed herself to him and have him for eternity.

"That's alright then, I suppose."