river_meimei | (no subject)

(no subject)

This city's never fully dark. There's no star-spangled black in this sky, not even the close second-best that a clear atmosphere sometimes arches overhead; here the light pollution is ubiquitous, and the sky's a hazy humid grey under sulfurous street-lamps.

But it's night. Night, and growing later.

When there's nowhere else to go, you keep

(flying)

running. One step behind, one step ahead.

River's looking for something. A key, a rose, a door.

But here, in the city that (as they proudly say) never sleeps, it's anyone's guess what she might find. And what she won't.

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He's not.

An empty garbage can is, and it's a simple motion -- easy as breathing, easy as dreaming -- to continue the spin and grab and hurl.

He catches it, tosses it aside like an empty beer can.

And in a continuation of the same movement, he closes with her, aiming a blow at her neck.

River drops fast, ducking under the blow and between his legs in a roll that carries her into a stake-strike towards the back.

No quarter. No prisoners.

There are two kinds of predators in this alley. One is grinning; one is silent and intent.

He spins away, his arm coming up to block her strike.

Two kinds. More than two predators.

The homeless woman gives a despairing cry and makes a shambling run for the mouth of the alley. The two other vampires draw aside to let her pass, lips drawing back from fangs in distase, and close in again.

There are no convenient wooden crates in this alley.

No convenient wooden furniture, either.

(An hour or so back, another crate got sacrificed to making as many makeshift stakes as River could fit in her coat pockets without impeding motion.

That's still a limited number.)

River's no Slayer, and these vampires have strength even the most adrenaline-charged human can't match. But she has speed to rival theirs, and she has skill, and she can fight.

And she fights hard.

This time, she needs to.

The vampire she saw before isn't playing now; he's in earnest. And he's faster than a Reaver, and much stronger. And he knows she'll kill him if she can.

The other two vampires are just watching, for now.

Oh, wait. No they're not.

River gasps as the blow slams into her shoulderblades, but she was already ducking away from it; she turns a stagger into a roll, and comes up stabbing.

One unwary stooge is dust -- but there's still another, and the leader who's the toughest of the three by far.

He's also, thanks to the brief distraction, close enough to bring his fangs to bear.

There's a strange zip-thud sound, and his expression freezes in momentary surprise. And then dissolves into ashes.

Behind him, at the mouth of the alley, is a blonde young woman with a crossbow.

Now there's a pile of dust at (and on top of) River's feet, with a crossbow quarrel lying in it.

It's sturdier than River's stick of splintered pine; she ducks, dropping her stake in a puff of vampire-dust and grabbing the quarrel in its place, and whirls back upright to slam it into the chest of the last vampire. His reaction was still in the oh crap stage of indecision between attack and flight; his face changes to a slightly different and more urgent shade of the same expression just before he explodes into nothingness.

And River is left, covered in dust and sweat and alley grime, weapon clenched in her fist, staring fiercely at the blond woman facing her.

"Hey."

The blonde's lowering the crossbow.

"You all right?"

Low, "Are you?"

It doesn't sound, somehow, quite like a polite inquiry into her health; the blonde may be standing down, but River hasn't yet, and what's in her eyes is a killer's cold scrutiny.

It's possible she recognizes that.

A pause, and she bends slowly (not taking her eyes off River's) and sets her crossbow down on the pavement.

"I'm Brianna," she says, straightening, her hands held up open and empty.

Silence.

And then, "Okay."

One breath, another, and then the killing edge eases back very slightly, and River's fingers loosen fractionally on the crossbow quarrel. Her wariness, though, doesn't lessen in the least.

Brianna doesn't move.

"Are you all right?" she repeats. "I saw them heading this way and thought maybe you could use a hand dealing with them."

"You follow."

"Trace the trail."

She looks a little ... startled. Taken aback.

"Yeah," she says carefully. "It's part of what I do."

"And the rest?"

River's tone makes it as much statement as question, but the syntax is probably clear.

Brianna lowers her voice. "Look, we're still in a pretty bad part of town. You want to maybe continue this conversation somewhere safer?"

River's head tilts slowly.

"Not worried," she says softly, and distantly.

Her eyes are fixed on something just beyond Brianna; the focus shifts now, just slightly, so that her gaze holds the other woman's instead.

"Bring her in. Tea and dumplings for the little lost doll. Lock out the world and say it's for her good. We'll teach you how to think."

-- and at that Brianna looks downright alarmed. And suspicious.

"Who's been trying to do that?"

"Isn't what you think."

River's voice is obscurely gentle; she's smiling again, small and sweet and savage.

"What have they been telling you?"

Brianna's dealt a few times with the zhirelin who've been coopted by the Council. The self-styled Slayers. Fanatics, to a woman.

This one, though, this one ...

"You are."

The thought's clear in Brianna's eyes, even to one who only sees the surface: something here is not right. Something here is very not right.

"You're not making any sense," she says, and it's a little sharp, but mostly uneasy.

River is silent for the space of a few slow breaths, watching the other woman.

Her eye contact lingers too long, unwavering; it may be disconcerting.

Softly, unblinking: "Why are you here?"

There's a weight to the words. As though the answer will decide a great deal, or as if the question has more layers than the immediately apparent.