deercountry | you can keep on getting better [open]

Entry tags:

you can keep on getting better [open]

Who: Anna Amarande and you!
What: May catchall
When: May
Where: A bar in Cellar Door, other locations to come

Content Warnings: Light alcohol use, conversations about humanity and murder, blood, vampirism

a. if you want, you can buy yourself a drink [at the bar]

[anna's made plans with a couple people to hang out this month. it's not a tense environment at all, and sometimes she can even be seen on the tiny little stage playing some chilled out bass grooves for the patrons. no concrete songs, really, mostly just improv for vibes. when she's not on stage, and most of the time she's not, she's nestled herself down into a booth down near the end. it's quiet, well-lit but not obtrusively so. people around here know her and know that that's basically her seat, so any conversations that happen there are as private as they're gonna get.]

[she's expecting a few people to show up as she nurses a beer that's so weak she might as well not be drinking anything at all. probably for the best that she's sober for these talks, whatever they end up bringing with them.]

Hey. Glad you could make it. [she tilts her drink at her guest.]

b. no you'll never drink like me [for kainé]

[there's always been a few problems with going out and hunting beasts, no matter how confident and comfortable it makes anna feel. no matter how many lives she saves, she's always putting herself at risk of corruption or injury or beasthood or all three, and one of these days it's gonna sneak up on her. all at once, extremely loudly and incredibly close.]

[anyway, when she comes back home this time, it's clear that she's been in better shape. she limps her way into the house, and she's at least cognizant enough to fix her roommate/girlfriend with a sheepish little look as she holds her side. the cloth there isn't dripping yet, but it's clear that it didn't start as red as it is now.]

Motherfucker out there got the best of me. [she's talking like she's not in pain, or like she's trying very hard to pretend she isn't.] I think I stopped most of the bleeding myself. Don't suppose we've got anything here that can help seal it up before I go to the doctor?

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[maybe she'll try to commune with baus this month after all. would never turn down some extra feelings of love and acceptance and kindness in her life. especially not lately, which is part of the reason she's chilling here and having a fun conversation where faith lights her the fuck up for these hypotheticals.]

Well, if there were an outfit... longcoat, sweeps down to the floor, with gloves that stop anyone from seeing my hands unless I need them to. Boots that don't have to be very heavy since I already make some pretty imposing footsteps on wooden planks. Tricorn dipping down over my face, wind blowing the ends of my hair. Katana at my side that I don't draw unless I need to.

You know, the classic look.

Y'know, I have just that outfit actually. Though mine has a plunging neckline and a fishnet mesh, so it's a bit sluttier than this hypothetical outfit, I'd wager. [Probably, anyway. That tends to be how she operates.

She takes a sip of her ginger beer, curious.]

Well, next time you maybe feel like going out in this badass outfit of yours and kicking the shit out of pirates, you know where to find me if you need an extra fighter. [She doesn't exactly want to kill them, but she's also not going to let the people they've captured be sold. So the whole no killing thing can eat a dick if necessary.]

Edited 2022-05-14 23:25 (UTC)

I try not to kill them, you know? I try to rely on notoriety. Intimidation and stuff. When I board them, they know they're in the shit, 'cause it turns out you can spread some real good rumors when you helped take down a leviathan.

[she's a taken woman, but her eye does wander across faith's body, trying to imagine that neckline and the mesh, and it's not even particularly subtle. she likes what she's picturing, but that's not the only reason she's smirking a little.]

I'm borrowing a crew right now, but I could use someone who's not beholden to the whims of our dear Teacher.

That's good. I uh, tried the whole murder dig. Can't say I want to give it another shot, honestly. [A joke, self deprecating, but there's a nervous tint to her smile.

The nervousness fades pretty fast when she sees Anna checking her out, and instead she has the audacity to wink.

Still, her expression sobers a bit at the next statement. She's still not sure where her loyalties lie. But she had a feeling something like this might come up. She's split, between the Clockhouse and Ozpin, who she neither likes nor trusts, and Cobra Kai and Johnny, who is well meaning but ineffectual, and the Doctor, who...

Reminds her of someone she should want to forget but doesn't. Her tone is casual, betraying none of the nerves frazzled by such a simple statement.]

Probably a good idea. Just in case, y'know.

[anna would wink back, but it would just be a blink. but she catches it. doesn't mind it.]

Just in case the blood and bone rituals turn out to be bad news? I know, sometimes I wonder if I'm being too cautious.

[she's oblivious to the various directions faith is torn in and definitely wouldn't want to introduce any more strife if she can avoid it—which is why she's not bringing up the real big elephant in her mental room about Teacher. not yet, at least. save that for much later on, maybe.]

I know this ain't really polite dinner conversation, but I've never actually, like. Taken a human life. I know I make a big deal out of being a tough badass with a sword who's super good at using her sword, but, like... I don't know, dude. I always thought I could, but my old boss talked me out of it and I think that's probably for the best.

[Faith huffs a laugh, like it's a joke. And it is, sort of, but it's true. Doctor Bones is about as obviously evil as they come, but maybe she's evil too. She thinks everyone should be careful around her, and they haven't and she's terrified that one day it's going to bite them hard.

Maybe he's the same. He cares, like the Mayor cares, that much she's sure of. But that doesn't always mean enough.]

...I have. [She presses her lips into something between a grimace and a smile.] I, uh... Went off the rails for a bit. Was an assassin under this guy... an old warlock who'd done something with his soul to keep him alive indefinitely. Before that, I killed monsters, but I killed someone on accident and then I just spiralled and started fucking everything up and he was the only one who'd have me. Only one who still wanted me around.

[She shrugs, like it's just a casual revelation.]

Wouldn't reccomend it. The career prospects weren't all that. Good dental plan, though.

[ah. anna kind of recognizes the tone around it, though. the way the words are coming up, the way faith is mentioning really big things in a very casual way. it's something she does, too, when she doesn't really want to go into the details but still wants to imply that there are some big devils within them.]

[she gives faith the benefit of not prying at her history, but it's not much of one when her own tone grows serious and there's—christ, something like worry in her words.]

Does it get... easier after the first? Like, when you already know it's something you're actually capable of doing.

Everyone's capable of doing it, is the thing. [Willow didn't think so, at the time, and then a few years later she flayed a man alive and burnt him to ashes when she was done.

The thing is, actively killing people didn't feel harder than killing vampires. She'd always thought of herself as something akin to a monster, rather than a hero. There was something primal and hungry in her, because really, it's unnatural how much she enjoys hurting people, and monsters, and anything she can get her filthy little hands on. But the guilt as she became everything she hated? Everything she was supposed to be against as a champion of the people? She felt guilt for that. And when she familiarized herself with the lives of the people she killed, drove herself mad with fixating on what she took away, she felt guilt for that.]

You get better at telling yourself it's easier. Telling yourself you don't have a choice and all that... Actually doing it is easy unless you're overthinking it. It's the living afterwards part that's hard.

I was made to kill anyway. It was sort of only a matter of time.

[mm. a nice, cheerful conversation over drinks. anna considers it, tries to tap into the soul of the combat android inside of her. she wonders whether A2 ever justified it to herself, or if it was easier because of her programming. A2 struggled so very, very much with living afterwards, but for a different reason, one that didn't have anything to do with death wrought by her hands at all. anna wants that to make a difference.]

[she takes a slow drink while faith talks and she thinks.]

The girl inside me was made to kill, too. Built that way from the start. She terrified me for a while, 'cause... I mean, I wasn't built that way. But she made it feel like it would be really easy for me to do. There was this dude, Clarence Vanderweele, he was this... [scoff.] Real eugenicist motherfucker who wanted to make sure that only the strongest souls got reborn. And, like, yo, my grandparents were in Germany in the 40s, like. Obviously I wanna cut that shit off however I can. And the way A2 got into my brain made it seem like it would be the easiest thing in the world to just take my sword and run it right through his chest. [she mimes the motion as she describes it.]

I did have a choice, but... that voice telling me that killing him was the only choice I had got real hard to ignore.

[Faith, in a display of shocking willpower and restraint, resists the urge to make a crack about "the girl inside me." She raises her eyebrows faintly at that, not knowing the ful story behind Anna's whole deal but not wanting to interrupt.

It's a familiar enough concept to her, kind of. She's crawled her way into Buffy's mind more times than she could really count, and Buffy's done the same.]

Sounds fucked up.

Why didn't you?

[Faith would have. Even before she bloodied her hands, she was still... violently unstable. She didn't have to be evil to try to kill Buffy's boyfriend, after-all.]

[she still remembers that conversation with her boss, later in her own personal timeline than his. pacing around the office, figuring out what clarence had done to turn himself into an inevitability. she offers a shrug.]

Easy answer is that my boss said I couldn't, and I trusted him more than I trusted my own sense of vengeance. More complicated one is that... man, dude, I don't know how much you know about time travel, but this bastard was jumping through time and cementing his place in the city's history wherever he landed.

[as she describes it, she at least lays to rest within her own mind any fears of clarence secretly having been teacher all along. teacher is powerful, but time travel seems even beyond him. that's one load off.]

My boss described it like a hydra. Killing Clarence in the wrong point in history would just make him sprout back up again like nothing had happened, and none of us knew what the right point was. He made himself immortal by being everywhen at once.

[Her boss told her not to kill him, huh. Faith's boss did nothing but encourage her to kill and maim her rotten little heart away, he bribed her with a playstation, an apartment, security, all the things she'd wanted all her life and all she had to do was murder people for him.

Funny how that works.]

I don't know shit about time travel. [It's the truth. Although...] My childhood imaginary friend turned out to be a time warping vengeance demon, though.

[Just some fun trivia.]

Sounds like my old boss, honestly. He didn't time travel but... well, he found other schemes to make himself immortal. Sold his soul, made a spell to make it so he sticks around even without a body and then made another spell that'd regenerate his body even if it'd been cut into pieces.

They ended up luring him into the school, letting him do his ritual to turn into a full demon, and then blowing him up with plastic explosives.

[faith has a fuckin' lot going on, huh. anna appreciates it, though. she knows she's a complicated person herself, and this story that she's hearing about... well, uh, everything. is equally a lot.]

Never considered using plastique to solve my problems. So that's the kind of world you're from, huh? Demons and magic and the classical occult shit. Haven't seen a lot of that in my life, except one Halloween in Recollé—back home. We had people turning into werewolves and vampires and fuckin' crossroads demons and all of that.

[probably normal stuff for faith, but it was a little strange for anna. not by much, though; transformations were already par for the course.]

So what do you mean by made to kill? Destined to do that kind of shit or something, or are you, like, artificial like me?

Yeah, my world is like this place except on crack. Still take this one over that shithole. At least I'm free here.

[She smiles, raising her drink and sipping it. She sits back in the chair, appearing more relaxed than she actually is (When is she ever relaxed) and she considers the question with something close to amusement.

A robot... they would have loved it if she were a robot. Malleable, controllable, something they could design to need human hands to guide it.]

Destined is closer. Some circle of old men millenia ago created my ancestor to combat the forces of evil and to conquer the world for the human race. It used to be just another Hell, before they made us. Now the same circle of men wants to keep us leashed and under their control, even though we never really needed them in the first place.

Fuckin' british people.

Hey, three cheers for the forever warriors. [she raises her glass in a mock toast, but her lips stay as dry as her tone.] And to snapping your leash.

Nothing tastes as good as freedom feels. Been about ten years since I cut myself loose and I never looked back. [she's lying, but faith doesn't have to know that.] And now the world's opened up to you in a way that you definitely had no idea what to do with, like, six months ago.

[she leans in. it's maybe a little flirtatious, but she doesn't mean anything by it.]

You doing anything else interesting with your newfound freedom around here?

[Faith doesn't know what that means, but she smiles and raises her drink anyway. She wishes she could say she never looked back, never felt like she should go back between the chains like the uncontrollable beast that she is.

She wishes she didn't feel like the bond she severed meant she'd lost a limb. She wishes she could enjoy being the one girl in all the world here, without walking the shores and waiting for B to come crawling up the bank.]

Nothin's sweeter. [She smiles. Faith is likewise used to being casually flirtatious in just about every interaction she's in. It only sometimes means something.]

Hate to disappoint, but I'm still sort've getting used to it. I spent the past two years in prison. It's a weird adjustment. [Not that she didn't have six different escape routes mapped out on her first day there. They're not built to hold Slayers. All she'd have to do is go up to the Warden and punch her and then she could just grab the keys and go. What the fuck are the others going to do? Shoot her?] Though I dunno, might see if that mysterious captain you were on about is hiring.

Edited 2022-06-05 05:11 (UTC)

She always is.

[okay, though. she's listening. faith is meeting all the bad girl standards in anna's head, and for a moment she understands why lillian always thought that anna herself was so hot.]

Shame she's in a committed relationship or she might be interested in helping you get a little more used to things around here. [she's reminded, briefly, of how terribly she had bombed with kassandra back last autumn. how things have changed so quickly. how it still doesn't matter because she actually found what she was looking for. still, her fingers trail a little closer to the middle of the table, and her eye follows them.]

Wouldn't want to sic a hot angry woman with two huge-ass swords on you or anything like that. I like your company, and people are usually way more fun to be around when they're not chick filets.

[She laughs a little, eyebrows raised.]

Well, that's not where I was going. [She takes a sip of her drink.] Head out of the gutter, captain.

I'd prefer to leave the whole screwing taken people back in my teens, honestly. [She says like she didn't make out with Gideon, fuck Jessica Ushiromiya, make out with Sayo Yasuda. Technically none of them were taken!]

I meant actually hiring. Like, sailing n' vigilante shit.

I know exactly what you were talking about and meant nothing beyond it. [she's slipping the affectation of an old sea salt into her voice just barely, just enough to sound different. and dryly amused.] A captain's not allowed to call her crewmate hot? Suppose women can't do much of anything these days.

[she nearly takes a drink, but decides better of it at the last second.]

I can't pay you, but if you're in it for the adventure, I won't turn you away. Just recall we're a peaceful crew, sailing on the strength of my reputation and the shadow of our prow. Too much death in the waves already. [the affected voice drops.] Plus the people you're rescuing tend not to like it if you show up covered in pirate blood.

[now's a good time for that drink.]

[She's smiling and huffing a small laugh at Anna saying that women can't do anything these days. God, ain't that the truth. You kill one person and suddenly everyone gets on your ass about it.

But her smile fades a bit as Anna reminds her not to kill, and she feels a little self conscious and insulted despite herself. It's... fair, probably, that she's reminding her of that considering what she just said, but... It hits too close to home.

(Anna probably meant nothing by it. It's a joke. It still hurts.)

There's an affronted look in her eyes as she speaks up.]

...Yeah well. I don't kill people. Not anymore. I didn't tell you that so you could act like I do, alright?

[She's reminded of why she felt comforted by the Doctor - by the Mayor - in the first place. There's no judgement in the eyes of a monster.]

Edited 2022-07-06 16:11 (UTC)

Whoa, whoa, hey.

[she puts her drink down hastily, not even giving herself time to savor it with how quickly she gulps down what's in her mouth. she's trying to be measured no matter how surprised she is by that reaction.]

Standard disclaimer for everyone. Your captain included. Because there's a lot of things that can happen around here that make it harder to hold to your morals, and none of them are very fun. We're at the whims of the gods out here, and we never know what's going to come for us next.

[Well. That makes her feel bad. She deflates, feeling frustrated at herself for being unable to just be normal.]

...Yeah. Sorry. I know that you didn't mean anything by it.

[She stares at the table between them, her finger scratching the wood as a nervous tick as she thinks on whether to explain.]

It's weird over here. They'll forgive you for anything. Back home... well, the stain tends to follow you a bit more.

[this is some surprise information that will help anna later, but she doesn't know it yet. instead, she tries her best to combat the awkwardness by just... talking, person to person.]

Well, lots of people around here who've done a lot of shady shit, I guess, you know? You poke around in my past, you'll find some things that people back home will think are unforgivable.

[but her problems have always been less serious than others. she's always had an easier life than the people she knows. she tries not to dwell on it by shrugging casually instead.]

But take a look around here. We're up to our necks in blood and beasts. We have creatures rising from the sea to try to take out our lives. People die a lot more often than I'm used to. [that's a bit of a grim realization; she shakes it off.] I don't think any of us have the time to hold grudges for stuff that might not have even happened here.

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you can keep on getting better [open]

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cw for mention of flaying, suicidal ideation

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