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

[hurtcomfort]

Well. That's old. Cole knows he shouldn't say so because that's rude, but he can't help but think it. Eighty...

"So that means there are older vampires? Do you know how old the oldest is?"

[outstandingbalance]

"Oh, much older." Natasha's brows rise at that. "As vampires go, I'm young. There are plenty who live to be ten times my age."

[hurtcomfort]

Cole obviously doesn't know what to do with that sort of information. They could live to be that old? That...wow. It's something. He didn't know how old vampires could get but eighty being young was something he was not expecting in the slightest.

"How do you do it? Being so old but so young, never changing, never moving."

He's dead now. It's set in. Until he moves on, he'll be the same as he was when he died, just like these vampires except he's even less.

[outstandingbalance]

"It's not quite the same for us." She snorts, glancing away. Some of what he says, the word choice in particular, leaves her unsure. "We can move, at least. But I'm still figuring out the rest of it. How to change when you don't really."

That's the best way she can put it, and even that feels too keenly personal.

"But it's not so bad. I'd have been really dead a long time ago if not for this."

[hurtcomfort]

"I'm figuring it out as well," Cole admits, with a little shrug. Because he does change. He knows he's changed, he's not the Cole he used to be and he's not going to be that Cole again. But how he got from point A to point B he's not all that sure of.

"Our types of dead are different, but if you want to talk about things...." He trails off, looking down at the ground. It's far too obvious that Cole himself wants to talk about things as well.

[outstandingbalance]

"I don't mind." Though Natasha thinks more of listening than talking. "This might not be the best place, though. Are you tethered here?"

[hurtcomfort]

"No. It's an alleyway, not too far from here. I used to be able to go further but I can't now."

Not without Rhys. Not without his anchor, something that desperately worries Cole and terrifies him.

"I'll be more if we go over there."

[outstandingbalance]

"In that case, seems like a nice night for a little walk. You think?" She offers a little smile, encouraging. She finishes her drink in a motion, setting the glass aside. "I could use the fresh air."

[hurtcomfort]

Cole...doesn't really get it. So he pauses for a moment, stares at Natasha, and acquiesces. Okay! It's weird that Natasha wants to go for a walk now, but Cole's not going to say no to that!

"Where will we walk to?"

[outstandingbalance]

Natasha smiles a little at his confusion. He's not the one having a one sided conversation in public. "No where in particular—no where too far away, clearly. Just around."

[hurtcomfort]

"Alright," Cole continues, still a bit confused. The confusion is far too apparent in his voice, but he'll follow Natasha as they leave the building.

[outstandingbalance]

Natasha shoves her hands in her pockets despite the heat of the summer night, and picks a direction. She doesn't walk quickly, just sort of ambling along, keeping an eye on him. "So I'm your first vampire?"

[hurtcomfort]

"I think so." She most likely is, though considering the shoddy state of Cole's memory, who knows. He keeps pace fairly well, though Cole occasionally looks back at the street or up at street signs in a nervous manner, checking to see where they were.

"I don't know a lot, but I think I'd know if I'd met a vampire before."

[outstandingbalance]

"You might, or you might not." Natasha shrugs at that. She stays close to the bar, not trying to find the limit of his abilities. "You'd probably know if you met one after dying, but before that... Well, we're good at blending in."

[hurtcomfort]

At least for now, Cole's doing just fine. He's as intangible as always, but there's no sign that this distance hurts him or is causing any problems.

Still though, he nods at Natasha's statement. "Normal people have trouble seeing. Walking, watching, existing in a fog, not sure who or what is besides them. Dying changed that for me."

[outstandingbalance]

"When you put it that way, it sounds like a good thing." She lifts her brows, not for a moment believing that. "But I can't disagree. There's nothing to wake you up quite like dying."

It had been different for her, of course. But in a way, he was still right. At least as far as being aware of ghosts went, being less than alive herself had made things a lot easier, a lot clearer.

[hurtcomfort]

"For some people, it is a good thing." Cole doesn't remember much about his life alive. But some of the things he does remember make him all the more happy that he's actually dead. He's useful now. He can help. He's a new Cole, a different Cole, a Cole that can actually help people.

"Hurt, pain, all the problems of the world vanished like smoke." Of course, there are new problems. That much is obvious. But it's all a matter of which problems someone thinks is worse.

[outstandingbalance]

"You'd be surprised how often the problems are actually the same problems. Could be that's just me, though." Vampires, or Natasha specifically. "The older I get, the more it seems like the problems never really change."

[hurtcomfort]

"I think it is just you." Cole doesn't realize how blunt that statement is. Sorry, Natasha!

"My dead problems are a different. New thoughts, new feelings, new ways to deal with something and someone."

[outstandingbalance]

"Well." She takes the dissent gracefully not inclined to argue it. Different situations. Along with the fact that she has reasonably clear memories running throughout, give or take some experiences with mind control. Maybe more experiences with mind control than she realizes. "That could be. Ghosts have other challenges. Being intangible only the first one."

[hurtcomfort]

Cole nods, making a small 'mmhmm' of acknowledgement. Natasha was right. He had...plenty of challenges, more than he realized when he first died.

"What are some vampire challenges? Blood and daylight, but is there anything else?"

[outstandingbalance]

"Silver. Making sure no one notices you're not getting older." She smiles a self-deprecating smile and shrugs. "And the fact just about everyone else tends to hate us."

[hurtcomfort]

"Don't worry," Cole can't help but remark, with a small smile of his own. "I wouldn't know why to hate you in the first place."

[outstandingbalance]

"In your case, there's not much to hate me for." She shakes her head. "At least you don't have any reason to be afraid of me. Vampires can't do much to people who are already dead."

[hurtcomfort]

"You all drink blood, don't you?" It's again, asked as a question. Cole's not entirely sure how vampires work but he remembers various stories about vampires, various bits of fact and fiction and folklore all mixed up in his head.

"Can you drink anything else?"