Back from her trip, Clove’s helping Elsi at the Henford Farmer’s Market selling fresh eggs and milk, homegrown veggies, and handcrafted jams.
While Elsi chatted with locals, Clove found the fluffiest little stray calico hanging around the stalls. I think Clove is the one that got adopteed.♡
She was always tired these days. Today it wasn't so bad, but then, it was early yet. Give it five hours and she'd be aching to get home, or at the very least, for too much coffee. Of course, her sleepiness always brought the fear that the disease was progressing, that pretty soon she wouldn't be able to work—but mostly, she chalked it up to all the changes around town. This week, even more strange things were occurring. A man she'd had a very nice talk with was now speaking solely in verse, an apparent teenager talking like an old man, and... she'd just visited Roger's blog last night and he'd sounded... chipper?
So today, she was scouring HQ's section on mental magic. She couldn't see the higher-up books in her chair, and hoped she would find something promising on the lower shelves so she wouldn't have to ask an assistant for help. She really, really didn't like doing that. Thankfully, a book entitled “Spells Affecting Speech” caught her eye, and she took it out. Could be perfect. Examining it, she spotted a piece of paper sticking about a quarter-inch out of the spine. She took it out and opened it up; it was a note, so short she couldn't help but read the whole thing:
"Make sure to keep good relationships with everyone at HQ. You never know if you might need them. ~Ashlyn"
Ashlyn. A well-known, well-liked phoenix Scribe--the past life of young Ember. Evidently, she was still around in some form. Kalea wondered how many notes like this had been left around HQ, and how many memories Ember had of her former life. Wisdom and memories. Things Kalea would never grow old enough to have enough of. But she longed most of all for more of her father's wisdom.
“Everyone you meet,” her father had once said, “is a potential friend. See them that way. Offer them kindness. You never know who'll need it.”
She remembered now, herself at ten years old. They'd been out for lunch, at a buffet, watching the world pass by out of the restaurant's big picture windows. The waiter kept pouring them water, glancing at Dad's wheelchair each time. Kalea had felt protective of him, wanted to say he was so much more than first appearances, but she was shy. “But what if they judge me?” she'd asked Dad, trying to keep bitterness out of her voice (she knew what her father thought of bitterness).
“Then you show them how strong you are.”
At ten she'd been nervous; twenty two years later, she still tried every day to not be bitter but instead be emotionally strong, to win people over with all the qualities they might not have expected of her. Like the note said, she kept good relationships. Not so much out of need, though. At least, she tried not to think so.
Shaking her head, she was about to tuck the note back inside—guilty for having read it, thought on it—when she was startled by a noise behind her.
Veronica helps Ember out, then things go a little wrong.
Veronica couldn't help but check in on the Scribe HQ every once in a while. Growing up she remembered stories of her grandfather who had worked closely with them and she had always wanted to work closely with them too. She had never really wanted to be a scribe, but she deeply admired their work. Stepping out of the Scribe HQ where she had just had a brief meeting with an expert on Vampires to double check something, she found that there was someone behind her. As they collided, the box full of books that she was carrying went everywhere. Left right and center. Veronica dropped the long case that she was carrying, there could have been anything in there. As night was coming in, she found that she needed more and more protection over the winter. A tool to look after the community. "Sorry," she said a little irritably. "I obviously wasn't looking where I was going."
If there was anything that Ember had taught herself between working with the Scribes and her many, many trips to the library, was how to carry a lot of books at once. However, this time it seemed like she might have taken a few too many. All of them had looked interesting for some reason, though none of them truly had anything to do with what she was currently working on. Yet, as she focused on not dropping the books, the phoenix managed to run straight into a woman. Ember's eyes widened in shock, instantly covering her mouth for a moment afraid that she was going to hiccup. Taking a few deep breaths she stared at the woman in front of her. "It's not your fault," she quietly answered, her voice barely above a whisper, "I wasn't....I'm sorry."
Raising an eyebrow at the rather timid scribe in front of her, Veronica gave her a brief, gentle smile and shook her head. "Either way, it doesn't matter," she said with a gentle frown. Bending down, she scooped up a handful of books and stayed squatted down as she grabbed some more and added them to her pile. "Do you want some help with, well all of these books?" she asked with a gentle if not slightly awkward chuckle. "I'd be more than happy to help you carry half of them to your car, wouldn't want you to have to spend forever picking them up again...?"
"Oh, only if you want to," Ember slowly said, her eyes a little wide as she picked up a few of the books. She focused more than she should have on breathing deeply, knowing that now wasn't a good time for her nerves to get the best of her. Fire hiccups in front of strangers would definitely lead to too many questions, even if the fact the woman was in the Scribe HQ meant she knew of the supernatural. It still would have brought up a lot of things that Ember didn't want to talk about. "I don't want to be an inconvenience. I'm sure you have something important to do. Or plans, or something."
Just accept the offer to help instead of being annoying enough to pretend like you don't want my help, if it happens to be inconvenient for you! Veronica had to stop herself from actually saying it out loud, and was slightly surprised by the irritation that she was displaying at this matter. This wasn't her. She wasn't usually like this at all. In fact, normally she was the picture of calm composure. "It would be my pleasure," she said, finally, after managing to get her apparently short temper under control. "You're not being an inconvenience at all, I've not got plans for this evening and I would be more than happy to help." That wasn't true. She planned to kill some vampires this evening, but this would only delay it by a few minutes. Leaving her with plenty of night to kill the bad guys in. Standing up straight, she grasped the books more firmly, keeping her package under one arm. "Shall we?"
Ember nodded as she grabbed the remaining books, her arms practically sighing in relief from the lighter weight. "Thank you, it's really nice of you," the girl said as she nodded and started leading towards her car. Or really it wasn't just her car, she had to share it with her brother. And only in the colder months when the weather decided it wasn't phoenix-friendly. "I'm Ember. By the way. I probably should have started with that."
Giving her a gentle, yet polite smile, Veronica tried to remain peaceful and contented. breath. That was what she reminded herself that she had to keep doing. Just breathe and don't snap at this random stranger with the ridiculously annoying voice and mannerisms who you have only just learnt the name of. "Ember, pleasure to meet you," she said, following after her towards the car, "I am Veronica, I do some work with the Scribes occasionally, I'm kind of like a consultant or contractor for certain things I guess." This was all just polite conversation, at least to her. Her work with the Scribes wasn't exactly a secret. "I'm assuming you're a scribe yourself?"
"Not yet," Ember answered, though really she knew that the correct answer was not exactly. Technically she was, or she used to be, but now wasn't the time to get into the Ashlyn saga. Not to mention that if she was just counting this life, then she was telling the truth. Which was all that really mattered at the moment. "I'm still in training. But I will be. Eventually."
Smiling gently, Veronica moved towards her car. "Ah, well that is really cool!" she admitted, not that she was being untruthful or anything, but regardless she was still finding Ember's demeanor incredibly annoying. She was having a very very strong urge just to punch something but that wasn't something that she was going to act on. She had no idea what the hell was going on with her. But she was planning on taking a few minutes out to calm herself down after that moment was over. Shifting her package up into her armpit where it would be much more secure, she smiled gently to Ember. "Right, lets get this all in the car so you can get back to whatever you were doing before I knocked you over."
Ember wasn't really sure if Veronica meant the words or not, or if she was still just nervous in general for running into the woman. Ember nodded, figuring that it was best not to continue to argue the point of who ran into who. Not to mention she also was pretty sure that she wasn't the greatest at small talk, even though that easily could have been the case. "What do you do?" she finally asked, even though she had debated whether or not to continue talking.
Why the hell did she want to know what Veronica did? That was so fucking weird. Veronica frowned gently but tried to keep herself calm and stop herself from making any extreme assumptions or beliefs about this person that she knew so little about. "I am a personal trainer and martial artist, I'm also a certified instructor and I used to own a gym but it has recently been replaced by a ... uh well it has been replaced by a church so I can't really go to the gym anymore." That thought in itself was beyond annoying and Veronica had to try really hard not to punch her square in the mouth.
"Oh that's interesting," Ember replied, trying to process the information. She was aware that there were plenty of things going on around town that were strange, or well stranger than normal. Even though within the town normal was already a completely different definition than it was with the rest of the world. "Though I guess that would make it hard to work," she added as an afterthought, her mind still going through all of the information.
As Ember opened her car and Veronica put the stack of books down, she couldn't help but notice a rustling in the bushes by the edge of the car park. Sliding the books down, she placed it on the seat and adjusted her grip on the package that she was holding. Sliding the top off of the end of it, she reached inside and was ready to pull the sword that she kept in it out if there was anything out there. She had found that they couldn't be too careful about what they did. "Stay behind me Ember," she grunted with a shake of her head. Her sense for vampires was going off and she knew that there would be a vampire near here. Probably in the bushes. "Don't move." Drawing the sword out of her package she moved forwards towards the rustling in the bushes, she had to be honest and say that she was annoying her, but she wasn't going to let her die.
Ember didn't need to hear the words to know not to move. Though everything seemed to be happening at once. The sword, the way that Veronica was about to attack. The fact that she was ready to fight was probably more startling to the phoenix than the fact that there was a something nearby. Even though Ember knew that she was probably safe right now, considering that she assumed that Veronica thought her human, it still was enough to make her tense up. "Um..." she started, though her eyes widened, "I probably shouldn't..." her sentence was interrupted by a hiccup, on that she unfortunately didn't cover in time to hide the accompanying flame. Which was definitely enough to silence the girl considering that she wasn't sure if Veronica saw it or not.
Dropping the package to the ground, Veronica held the sword in her hand. She noticed the sudden light behind her, but she didn't risk looking away from the bush for a second. Not wanting to risk it. That could mean death for her and for Ember if she wasn't careful. Her senses were driving her crazy and she knew that there was either a very powerful vampire or a lot of them coming after her. But that was ok. She was used to it. For a second everything was calm and then a type I vampire burst from the leaves and had half of its head chopped off. Veronica stepped backwards as several more type I vampires poured from the under brush. Often, she had to be honest and say that she wasn't sure where the hell they came from. But they weren't a problem for her and as she spun her sword through her hand she beheaded them one by one. Each stroke of her sword was more vicious than the last. Each attack more violent.
Ember 's hiccups were only getting worse the more that she watched. Her eyes wide, really the girl knew it was probably better for her to look away but apparently this was like a bad train wreck - she just couldn't stop. Part of her wanted Veronica to, partially because she didn't think that the vampires necessarily deserved it. But that definitely wasn't remaining neutral, and neither was trying to get the vampires to run away. Ember knew that this was how things worked: Slayers and Vampires were always locked in an eternal battle together, and she wasn't supposed to interfere. But it didn't stop her from thinking that all of this violence just wasn't right. Her hiccups increased the longer that it went on, her hand clenched over her mouth in hopes that nobody would be able to tell.
The occasional bursts of light that popped up behind her were more than enough to tell Veronica that something weird was happening. But in real life -- unlike in the movies -- you never looked away and you never showed your opponents your back. So she couldn't exactly look at whatever it was that Ember was doing. Spinning her sword through her hands once more, she brought the blade down and cut through the head of the final type I vampire. There had only been five of them in total, a relatively small nest but still dangerous and still five less vampires for her to deal with later on. "Sorry about that," she said, kicking her boots through the pile of ash that had been left behind, "but those blood sucking scum definitely were going to try and kill us, so I didn't really have a choice." She was angry, so angry. She couldn't explain why she was so angry, but she just was.
Part of Ember wanted to argue that there always was a choice, but maybe that was just a Slayer way of thinking. And it definitely was not her job to disagree with that. "Well....thank you," Ember said between hiccups, her hand plastered over her mouth to keep anymore flames from getting through. "I appreciate it." Well that was a lie, however it was probably the right one to tell. Or maybe it wasn't. The girl really wasn't sure considering the situation.
Frowning at Ember, Veronica had to stop herself from snapping at her. "God this is ridiculous," she said with a roll of her eyes, "I'm going home, just make sure that you don't get hurt and if you have anymore problems with vampires then just call me or something." She sighed gently and shook her head, rage and fury radiating out of her. This was so fucking annoying.
Ember was sure that she did something wrong, but she wasn't entirely sure what. Other than having a very annoying hiccup attack that she could do absolutely nothing about. All that the girl did was nod as Veronica left, figuring that she probably wasn't going to have any vampire problems. For a moment Ember debated mentioning that she didn't have the girl's number, but she decided against it. That was probably for the best in the long run.
