Peace and Unity March

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It's a glorious hot and sunny evening in London when a ragtag group of supernatural misfits turn up at Leicester Square to wave their placards and begin their march for peace and unity among the city's supernatural communities.

Organised by students at the Redbright Institute, the march begins at 6.30pm and ends at 8.30pm outside the Night Council Headquarters in Whitehall. While the march is open to all, the timing is not vampire-friendly which is not a coincidence; there's a noticeable anti-vampire sentiment amongst the crowd.

The human media pay no attention: they've had the far larger Pride march earlier in the day to report on and this event has been billed as a marine environmental awareness campaign to the outside world. No one cares. But the Night Council do, of course, and accordingly the march is policed by Guardians who are dressed as police community officers. They will intervene if the protest appears to get out of hand and stop anyone who attempts to enter the Night Council HQ.

What's the march about?
The official objective of the Peace and Unity March as posted by the Redbright student organiser is to demonstrate support for a unified supernatural community. Despite the name, it attracts a variety of protesters who all want different things. Those attending or observing the march will see and hear support for the following, in rough order of prominence:

• PEACE AND LOVE. We just want everyone to get along.
• STOP THE FIGHTING. Not just pacifism, there's also a general sense of being sick of losing loved ones and driven out of parts of the city due to fights between factions. Some of the more extreme stances also blame the "monstrous" species for inciting violence i.e. vampires, werewolves, fae.
• WE STAND TOGETHER. A stronger message of solidarity and defiance against the Night Council and its perceived biases.
• REPRESENTATION FOR ALL. Also anti-Night Council. This bleeds into discontent against both vampires and witches.
• VAMPIRES SUCK. The vampires are taking over! This is a disaster for everyone and should be stopped.
• WITCHES SUCK. The witches have been controlling London for years! Down with the witches.

There are likely to be some rather heated debates between the protesters themselves as these varying sentiments contradict each other. Some protesters feel that Sylvia Redbright was unfairly ousted from the Night Council and are vocal in supporting her. Others are just cynical about the Night Council in general.

Route
6.30-6.45pm: Leicester Square
The crowd gathers at Leicester Square where the first fifteen minutes are spent gathering everyone together, waving some placards and generally getting everyone ready to begin the march. At this point the Guardian presence is hardly noticeable, though they are watching as soon as the march begins.

6.45-7.15pm: Victoria Embankment via Trafalgar Square
The crowd walks from Leicester Square to Trafalgar Square, then takes a diversion along the Strand before crossing over to Victoria Embankment. They pause at the Hungerford Bridge and Golden Jubilee Bridges to look out across the Thames to Waterloo, which is in Lambeth, a territory controlled by the Islington Nest. A few protesters spit in the river.

7.15-7.30pm: March from Victoria Embankment to Whitehall
From Victoria Embankment it's only a short walk to Whitehall, where the protesters march along the street before eventually coming to a halt outside the Night Council Headquarters.

7.30-8.30pm: Outside Night Council HQ
The remaining hour is spent as a sit-in protest outside the Night Council HQ. There are chants about standing together as one community, about the perceived lack of representation in the Night Council, and about peace not war. A few use loudspeakers to make speeches which are received with varying levels of enthusiasm. A small group even attempt to enter the Night Council HQ but are quickly rebuffed by Guardians who look increasingly menacing as the evening draws on.

At 8.30pm the protesters are ordered to disperse. Anyone who refuses to leave will be swiftly marched off, or even arrested, though for the most part the Guardians are trying to keep the peace.

Late evening: Off to the pub
There's no official gathering after the protest is over, but various groups do disperse to pubs around the central London area to continue the debate and generally have a good time and/or cause trouble. Some of these – the ones that are identified as potential political troublemakers – are quietly followed by undercover Guardians.

Comments

[bellbound]

Ah, the smell of rebellious spirit in the evening. It is rather refreshing. Granted, many of the scruffy protesters here are students who know nothing about anything, but there are some older faces in the crowd too.

The only problem is, he's on the wrong side of this particular fence. Mogget slinks along Whitehall following a hostile encounter with Larry the Downing Street cat and he suspects his evening is only going to get worse from here. As ever, he's Samantha's eyes and ears in a dangerous environment, hoping to find a quiet corner to observe the spectacle without being noticed.

"The last election was a sham!" Someone with a loudspeaker is getting very passionate. "Vampire and vampire is not a choice. We the people demand a real choice!"

He manages ten minutes hunched on a step opposite the Night Council HQ before someone hurls a bottle at him. "Fucking spy!"

Mogget leaps aside with a yowl as the bottle (thankfully plastic, not glass) bounces off the step and tears off, but it's a big crowd and an awful lot of legs to get through. He has to find somewhere to hide, and quickly.

[cabins]

It's the yowl that gets Laura's attention. She swings around, in time to see a bottle and a dart of something white. "That's no excuse to throw a bottle at an animal!" Laura scolds the general area where the bottle came from.

Carefully, she makes her way towards where she'd seen the cat start to walk.

"Are you alright?"

[thelastjoy]

She jumps when she feels something brush against her legs, knocking into the person beside her and earning a few dirty looks. She whirls around with a muttered apology, thinking it must be nothing more than someone's coat. She sees white fur and she follows. Girl has always loved animals, especially cats. That's why she tries to pick Mogget up, thinking he's just some sweet little stray about to be trampled.

"Don't run! I'm not dangerous," Girl coos. "But you'll get hurt 'round here."

[falsify]

It's hard not to be entertained at seeing Samantha's little friend get driven off, and Eames watches Mogget scamper away with a faintly entertained smile on his face.

It's about time Eames departs before anyone openly starts questioning who he is, and he doesn't need to hang around the Council HQ and have some civil servant spot him, so he leaves. Following Mogget's magic away from the crowd to wherever he intends to hide. And clears his throat along the way to draw the cat's attention.

"Tough life for a cat out there, hm?"

[trickofthelight]

1. On the Sidelines
Desmond has no real plans of participating in the march at all, but he's showed up the way one does when one sees a large group of people in one place, trying to figure out what's going on -- something that doesn't take him very long, once people start shouting at the Night Council. It's loud, to his ears, and naturally he can't help but wince at the anti-witch invectives hurled, but more than that? What's impressive to him is the magic it's got to be taking to keep this hidden from normal human eyes. He can't even figure out how something like that works. The best he can do is convince people not to notice him when he's in a crowd.

As soon as the Guardians start to disperse the crowd, though, he spends too much time dithering about where to go next -- meaning one of the departing protestors shoulders him aside roughly, sending him reeling right into someone else.

"Sorry!" he grunts, trying to pull himself away, steady his feet. Hopefully he hasn't knocked them down or anything.

2. Evening
Finally escaping the crowd, Desmond decides the best course of action after that is to grab a drink. Unfortunately for him, he happens to pick a place where some of the rowdier, anti-Night Council protestors trickle into later in the night. Unwilling to see things turn into an outright brawl, he considers just leaving his drink unfinished, but dammit, he paid for that.

So he'll keep nursing it at the bar, shoulders steadily rising to his ears as he hunches and the voices behind him grow louder.

1- hope this is okay!

[stauncherhearted]

It's not a random departing protestor that shoulders Desmond- rather, one of the taller of Fagin's boys. The shove is planned, Nancy stepping into Desmond's way just slightly so that he's colliding with her. Nancy plays at getting her balance, and in the process manages to go for Desmond's wallet.

With any luck and quite a lot of skill, she'll be able to slip it back into her pocket without him even knowing.

"No, no, I'm sorry," she says, hands on his rather impressive biceps to steady herself needlessly. "I should have been watching where I was going." Over Desmond's shoulder, her partner in crime disappears. She'll meet up with Georgie later.

[ghoulaid]

Speaking of rowdy anti-Night Council protestors, one of them shoulders through the noisy crowd at Desmond's back and climbs up on to a bar stool immediately beside him. Literally climbs, too- because high bar stools are rude.

"Well, shit." Does Desmond recognize that voice? Probably not. But he will soon. "If it ain't my favorite new friend. How the fuck are you?" Ghoul rests his elbows on the bar as he leans forward, eyes fixed on Desmond and grinning in a mildly menacing way. He hasn't even had a drop of alcohol in him yet. He's just naturally this obnoxious.

[hurtcomfort]

One of the pubs is close to Cole's alleyway. Good. He can still visit this, he can still come to see, he's not too far gone, pulled in too many directions that he can't visit (but man, does he need a new anchor. Every day he's reminded of that). So, there's a pub, filled with a bunch of happy drunk protesters and some angry drunk protesters and Cole. Cole looks a bit out of place compared to everybody else. He flits among the crowd, mostly unseen, as he whispers thoughts into the ears of people.

"You're drunk enough, you shouldn't be drinking that," he whispers to a particularly intoxicated were. "Let her talk," he whispers to a male witch who's been dominating the conversation with a female witch. "It's okay. You made a difference," he whispers to a student, and so on and so forth. Some of his whispers are to ordinary humans who can't even hear him entirely, but some are to members of the supernatural community, too drunk to realize what whispered in their ear but sober enough to actually consider it.

Sometimes though, he does manifest, and there's a skinny blonde boy in the far corner of the pub just watching.

[falsify]

Didn't pub ghosts go out of fashion last century? Eames watches the little thing zip around, offering his friendly advice. And the people who take it without even knowing someone suggested anything to them at all.

What an incredible skill wasted on a bleeding heart.

When there's a lull in his latest conversation, Eames excuses himself to go to the bathroom. Not because he needs to go, but the walk takes him past where Cole's watching the room, and Eames stops beside him with a sigh.

"So is this what you do every night, Casper?"

[outstandingbalance]

Natasha had to give the march itself a pass for logistical reasons—the timing wasn't friendly to her. Summer was always a difficult time for vampires, the challenge was exacerbated working across communities. But she is here for the students, even if many of them aren't here for here, and she does hit the bars in the area after the fact to keep an eye on things.

She stops in at the pubs and bars, having a drink here and there before moving on, sparing a few moments to check in on anyone she knows.

[hurtcomfort]

It's at one of the pubs, the pub closest to his alleyway, that Cole spots Natasha. He doesn't really know what she is, having never actually met a vampire before (at least, he thinks he's never met a vampire before). But Cole knows that it's easier to show himself when he's around this woman than when he tries to manifest among other people. That's weird. Isn't it? Maybe it's normal and he just doesn't know.

So, Cole walks over towards Natasha, regarding her with a confused look. It's pretty apparent just what sort of being he is as he walks through a table and some people to get near her.

"Are you dead too?"

He's a bit blunt.

[stauncherhearted]

Hello, yes, large crowd means that there are pickpockets on the loose. Most of them, young boys running amok through the crowd, but Nancy is there amongst them, too. She likes to keep her skills sharp, despite her legitimate job. Her touch is light, practiced. But she doesn't let her guard down.

Wandering amongst the crowds, Nancy tries to keep a low profile, large sunglasses. She didn't want anyone that shouldn't to recognize her for her relationship to Cooper. There had been photos of them together in the papers and on the internet. And given the large anti-vampire and anti-witch sentiment in the crowd tonight, in addition to the pile of wallets in her purse, it was best to lay low.

After the march, though, she'll be stopping in at one of the pubs. Who was she to turn down a pint or two?

[bellbound]

Big sunglasses. Who does she think she's kidding? Mogget knows Nancy's face, for a variety of reasons. One, he has met her. Two, she's on several watch lists given her association with a member of the Night Council amongst other things. Three, she's a traitor in Samantha's eyes and that's another list Mogget knows rather well.

"Hiding from someone?" he asks, appearing rather suddenly on a wall behind her. Would Cooper approve if he knew his girlfriend was out here committing petty robbery?

[dredefulchilde]

There are a few things one notices when one isn't very tall, and a pretty girl stealing wallets is one of them. Joss's size puts him in a perfect angle to see Nancy's hand disappear into a woman's handbag. Not that he cares overly much, but the pickpocketing is a fairly interesting development from a pure entertainment perspective. Does Cooper know?

Seven hundred years of being a creature of the night means Joscelin is also fairly good at being stealthy when he needs to be. He sidles up close to Nancy and gives her his sweetest, most innocent smile.

"Goodness, what an interesting turn of events. How properly Victorian of you."

[cabins]

WHAT DO WE WANT?

Werewolf Representation on the Night Council!

WHEN DO WE WANT IT?
RIGHT NOW.

Of course, Laura had yet to actually join in any of the chants, but she was behind the sentiment 100%. It's a good idea to keep an ear to the ground, see where others seemed to stand on similar subjects.

Besides, someone's got to watch out for the younger members of the pack around here, right?

[ghoulaid]

Ghoul's actually standing at the moment, but he's still scrolling through that fucking phone.

To his credit, he is paying attention. Sort of. He's listening, and after a round or two of chants, he's come up with his own version. Each time what do we want? rolls around, he's taken to murmuring, "To overthrow the Night Council," in response.

That's just as good as werewolf representation, isn't it?

[thelastjoy]

It's not that she's surprised to see Laura here, except-no that's exactly it. The protesting has been peaceful enough and she gets why any of their kind would get into the sentiment, but Laura seems so together to be out here.

"Didn't think you'd be in to this kinda thing." When in doubt, go with honesty.

[ghoulaid]

Marching, peacefully chanting, holding clever signs- none of these are any of Ghoul's favorite things, although he is here. At least for the sit-in part. He's parked his butt on a curb, looking about as enthused as a kid at Antiques Roadshow.

He's all about rebellion, sure, but this method is so tedious. Where's the shoving? The angry yelling? The riot police?

Ghoul sighs dramatically. With his focus on the phone in his hands instead of his surroundings, he hasn't noticed Party is no longer four inches away from him. As a result, his next loudly-asked question seems to be directed at no one in particular. "Can I break stuff yet?"

[bellbound]

"Please do." Hi, Ghoul. It's your favourite cat. "I'm sure the Guardians will be quick to arrest you."

And Mogget will happily watch. He's down at pavement level now, trying to stick with the peaceful protesters rather than the awful ones who threw stuff at him. Always difficult to tell which is which.

[outofthemanor]

"What particular thing do you wish to break?"

Wednesday had spotted Ghoul among the crowd as she had joined the march after making sure Cousin What was safely back at the flat and suitably entertained for the evening. (While she was not adverse to introducing her young cousin to political rallies, she had promised their parents to not introduce What to the London supernatural community until they were in high school. A promise was a promise.)

It was still warm, in the evening, and the heat of the day had made her a little sour.

"I can recommend easily breakable bones."

[thelastjoy]

She's sitting underneath some red-faced man shouting about representation, watching the chanting crowd just as much as their loud leader. Girl looks confused, unconvinced, like she can't quite grasp why the people are agreeing so fervently. Still, when he stops, she's up and cheering as loud as anyone else. The words are pretty enough, even she can admit that.

"You think he's right?" Girl asks the person next to her once she catches her breath. "Really, I mean. Does anyone think this will really make the council change anything? Isn't just as likely they'll get pissed and blame people for tryin'?"

[ghoulaid]

Ghoul makes a noncommittal sound. Will the Night Council change anything because of this? He's putting his money on a hard no. It's nice to see Girl getting in to the spirit of things, though, even if it he personally believes a peace-march won't amount to much in the end.

But if he tells her that this is all useless, then it might discourage her from trying again, and that's, like, shitty.

Instead of raining on her parade, he gently bumps her with an elbow and engages her defiant side. "You sayin' you'd do somethin' different?"

[falsify]

It's curiosity more than any actual belief in what's going on that has Eames along. Historically protests don't do a whole lot, especially when the people being protested don't care, but he's not going to come along and crush that rebellious spirit.

The march itself he spends deep in the crowds, dressed out of his usual fare in jeans and a plain t-shirt (and no product in his hair!) and a 'light' glamour to divert attention. Make him uninteresting rather than hidden. The sit-in, he doesn't participate in, but he is at one of the pubs later. There, he actually engages in a few conversations. "What do you think this is going to do?" "What's next?" "So what made you protest?" Not too pushy, but leading the conversation before they get a chance to lead him.

He's also very free with paying for drinks. Really helps stop people asking questions.

[trickofthelight]

The first round or so, Desmond doesn't notice but by the fifth or so time he sees Eames paying for someone else's drink? Even he can't miss that, and his paranoia kicks in, eying the unfamiliar stranger warily. A generous spender, or someone with an agenda? It's none of his business, and he knows he probably ought to just leave it be, but...

At least, perhaps, he could find out what he is? After a moment of debating it with himself, chewing at his lip, he figures he's got nothing to lose. Under the edge of the bar, one of his hand moves, using a finger to trace a small pattern before the world washes out in smudges of gray, humans fading into the background as the supernatural entities light up in different colors in his vision alone.

[outofthemanor]

Wednesday is able to join the march from Trafalgar Square, having made sure Cousin What was safely locked in the apartment and unlikely to wander too far without their phone as a means of contact. (They could attempt telepathic communication, but What did suffer terrible headaches with them.) She does not spit in the river - she doesn't want to offend any unknown water spirits, it's much more fun to offend when you know them - but she does join the middle of the crowd.

The sit in is ... desperately mind-numbingly dull. It's almost impressive, really, how mind numbing it is. She watches with dark eyes, wondering if letting loose some of the vials What had brought her from Pubert would be worth it. She wasn't particularly scared of the Guardians - but then again, she wasn't particularly scared of anything.

She lingers. Long enough to be noticed, before going to the pub. A pint of hot water, with a red substance added, and she sits in the corner to enjoy her solitude and her drink.

[hurtcomfort]

"Do you like being alone?" asks the soft voice next to Wednesday, as Cole materializes right next to her. Some people liked being alone. He could tell that much, he knew that much. But some people were alone by circumstance, things beyond their control keeping them alone, keeping them by themselves. Those people didn't deserve to be lonely.

He didn't know which Wednesday was, sitting in the corner of the pub by herself. But he could at least ask.

"I can tell you what they're talking about, if you want."

[knowntohisfriends]

What does he care about the politics of it all? The Dodger is far enough down the totem pole that it doesn't really make a blind bit of different what's decided, it's not going to change his life in any significant way for good or for ill.

Still, marches are great places for anyone with the right talents, and the Dodger moves between people with light feet and even lighter fingers. People never seem to notice when something important - valuable - is missing until well after these events. Even with his hat, he's still blending in too well.

It was one of his talents, after all.