undergrounds | A Midnight Ride [Closed]

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A Midnight Ride [Closed]

Daryl stood outside the pub, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned back heavily against the brick just to the right of the door. The place was pretty busy and would be for at least two more hours. He was familiar with The Duchess because it was on his way home every night and he often stopped in for a beer. He'd suggested it thinking a familiar place would calm his nerves. Which he needed even more after Natasha had referred to the whole thing as a 'date'.

Maybe he should just cancel the whole thing. Get her that drink he'd offered when she got there and then call it off. He'd had a long day it could be excused if he played that up. Of course he was so keyed up over his nerves that probably wouldn't work.

Maybe he should just leave before she even got there. Except that would be rude and he didn't actually want to be rude to her. He just wasn't sure he could do this anymore. It'd taken a lot to even send her that text.

"Fuck I need a drink," he muttered to himself, rubbing his face with both hands before crossing them again.

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"Not mostly. You can visit ruins, Roman aqueducts and all that, but mostly it's just hills. Mountains. It's beautiful, though. More... manicured than here, I think." She shakes her head a little. "The worlds a big place. There's a lot of places in it that no one's ever gotten to or built things."

"Yeah, but I'm not likely to see 'em," he said with a slightly rueful edge. Just a little sad, wistful, even. He fell silent after that and turned the bike off so it wasn't idling for too long. After a little while more, he sat up and twisted around to swat backhanded at her knee, "come'on. Get your ass up. If we're staying out here we might as well go for a walk."

"I don't see why not. You made it all the way to England. Italy's just a train ride away." She slides off the motorcycle, glancing down at his backhand. The helmet comes off and gets slung on the back of the bike.

"You could be anywhere you want to be in a few hours. Just takes a little money and a free weekend."

He caught her look over the quick swat and ended up frowning. Daryl looked away from her as he got off and went to stow his helmet. He hadn't meant anything by the action, it was just habit. And now she probaby though he was being an ass. How did he apologize for that? 'Sorry for shooing you off my bike?' That sounded stupid and he was just saying it inside his own head.

"Wasn't really taking about Italy," he murmured, entire demeanor now very subdued as he overthought his error. Kept his head down and his body turned half away from her while he tried to figure the apology out. "More meant the places not touched by people. Wouldn't have the money to go to Italy anyway. Rent already eats into my paycheck enough as it is."

"Doesn't really change the answer much, does it?" She puts her hands in her pockets, giving him a little space as she stretches her legs. "Rent's definitely not cheap, but you could still get away if you wanted. Go up to Scotland, maybe. Get off the trails."

She figures that a shifter would be drawn to that. And have an advantage with it, too. "Get out and explore? Though I guess that's sort of what you're doing here."

"I get out when I can," he agreed. He hovered near his bike for a long moment as his eyes scanned the area. Then he took it by the handles and rolled it off the side of the road into the small ditch right before the taller grass started growing. It wasn't much, but it wouldn't be so noticeable to any other late night traveler. A dark tarp in a grey-green camouflage pattern got pulled from his saddle bag and tossed over the top. Secured merely by tucking it under the weight of the bike.

"Hadn't thought about getting over to Scotland. But it's supposed to even wetter than it is here. Already cold." She wasn't wrong about his preference for getting out off the trails and just wandering and finding his own way. Normally when he came out to park, he'd strip down and go for a proper run. Couldn't really do that with her there.

Daryl gestured for her to follow and started heading into the grass. It only came up to just below the knee on him. It'd be another foot taller in a month. Better for hiding in at that point. For now, it was just nice. "Rabbits hole up around here. Some quail, too. There's a stream about a half mile in that's peaceful. We can head there, if you'd like."

"It's your show," she says easily. "I'd like to see it though." She takes a deep breath, smelling the cool night air. In a way, there's something nice about it. No temptations—Daryl's the only human blood anywhere nearby, and she can distract herself from that.

"I can see why you like coming out here—this your first time visiting at night, or do you stay out at all hours most of the time?"

She picks her way into the grass, glancing around them. Moving more quietly than most city girls, that's for sure. Vampire thing or spy thing? Hard to say.

Since she said she'd like to, he started off in that direction, taking his time as he picked his way through the grass. He was even more quiet than her. Not only because of the shapeshifter thing, but because he knew how to move in nature even as a human. Came with the whole hunting and tracking thing.

"Mostly afternoons and into the evenings. Sometimes I spend Saturday night here. Well, not here, but in the park. This stretch gets too much traffic to camp properly," he explained as he picked his way along, looking over at her after a moment to make sure she was keeping up. "I have to be at work at 7 during the week. Sometimes on the weekends for rush builds. I like coming out, doing my hunting, maybe a little stalking, then stretching out on a tree branch and sleeping for a few hours. Wake up 'fore dawn and make my way back into the city. Just enough time to get home, shower, change, and get into work. Can't do it every night, but a few times a week."

"Stretching out on a tree branch, huh?" She's not sure just what to picture. Some kind of cat, she got that much. Something American, probably, though it's hard to say for sure. She settles for imagining a wildcat. Maybe it's wrong, but she has a hard time seeing him as a puma or a panther.

"I can think of worse ways to spend the night."

She doesn't have a hard time following him. Part of it's her training, but mostly it's her vision that makes it easy. In the dark, she sees more clearly than humans during the day. It's not hard for her to see the path.

It was as much his bobcat instincts that told him when to rest as it was a hunter's habit. Not a lot of the prey he was interested in moved around in the middle of the night, but were active at dawn or dusk. So he, too was most active then and did his daily grind in between.

"What about you?" He switched the focus back to her, curious. "you sleep the whole day away, or you just have to stay out'a the sun?"

He didn't actually know much about vampires save for the most basic of survival needs: what kills 'em and the like.

Her lips twitch a little at the question. It's not something she's used to talking about. When she'd been living among vampires and their human allies, she hadn't had to talk about it. When she'd dealt with humans who didn't know, it never came up. It was a relatively new thing for her still, being around people who had to ask and who she was free to tell.

This question isn't entirely harmless, but after a brief pause, she answers it.

"We don't have to sleep, as long as we're inside. For some of us, it can be hard to stay awake, but not everyone, and it's not like we can't fight it." She found mostly that she had a hard time waking up if she was disturbed while she was sleeping during the day, but that part she kept to herself. "It's like anyone else, some people need more sleep than others."

Daryl grunted out a soft 'huh', brows raising in mild surprise. It wasn't like he was expecting any particular answer from her, but it was still unexpected all the same. It seemed so normal. And as much as she had answered the question, she had also avoided answering it. He'd meant 'you' as in her in particular. And instead she'd danced around it by giving a 'general you' statement for all vampires. He wondered if she did that on purpose or if it was just her assuming he must mean all vampires.

He fell silent again and started to speed up his walk into a semi-jog as they hit an area of ground where the dirt was both wetter and softer. Bouncing over it in quick strides and hops to leave as little tracks as possible. The closer to the stream they got, the worse it became and eventually he stopped, scowling at the ground, "Shit. Looks like it flooded last time it rained. Won't have no where dry to sit."

It was stupid, but it pissed him off. She'd seemed really interested in seeing the stream and it just wasn't the same when it flooded.

Natasha lets him pull away when he picks up his pace, frowning a little at his concern. She follows after a little more slowly, picking out the drier, higher patches of ground where her boots don't sink so far into the mud. She manages to make the careful steps look smooth and reasonable rather than dainty.

Dainty isn't the word for her.

"Rain happens," Natasha says philosophically. "We can plan all we want, but no one stops a flood."

Edited 2016-04-24 21:43 (UTC)

"Yeah but you wanted to see it," he argued, starting to pace along a relatively stable line of packed mud and grass. The fact that everything he'd planned for was now screwed over didn't sit well with him. If it was just him, he could deal fine. But he'd agreed to bring her out there and show her around and whatever she wanted to see in the time they had. And now this.

His pacing stopped after a couple rounds and all the fight went out of him for a moment, shoulders slumping. Daryl looked over at her, "We could try further down the road, I guess. Wherever you'd like."

Natasha takes his frustration in stride, refusing to add energy to the situation either by arguing with him or by getting disappointed herself. It's not hard; she's not. She wanted to get out, and she's done that. She can handle a little mud.

"How about if we just walk upstream a little, see how things look up there? It might be less muddy if we hit some higher ground."

Daryl shrugged and started walking. He didn't expect them to get to 'higher ground' any time soon. But the walk would help.

"Most of this is flat land. Gotta go a few miles to get anywhere really high," he explained, moving further out so he could get to dry ground again. "Night's clear, though. Stars are pretty. You know anything about constellations?"

"I learned how to navigate by them," she looks up, tracking a few familiar stars. "Not a skill I have to use often, though."

She walks with him, still keeping away from the squishiest stretches of the bank. "And that is exactly the extent of my knowledge on the subject. You?"

"So none of the stories about them?" He gestured upwards, "You probably know some of the Roman ones. Most people do even if they don't realize it. Take that one, Corona Borealis. Greek and Romans would have you believe Dionysus took his wife's wedding crown and set it among the stars as a gift."

He let his eyes trace it's curving shape, looking much like a broad, close-lipped smile from their current angle, "Shawnee Tribe says different. Says it's related to twelve maidens that came down from the heavens during the day to dance intricate crop circles in the long grass of the summer. They were discovered by White Hawk, a hunter, while tracking game. He was curious about the path worn through the prairie grass because there were no trails leading to it or from it. It was just there. His attention was captivated by the strange mystery of it and he stood watching for a long time. As the night came to an end, a silver basket fell from the sky and the when it touched the earth, the maidens it carried started to dance along the path they'd created in previous days."

Daryl looked over his shoulder at her, smiling softly, almost wistfully, "White Hawk fell in love with the fairest of them almost immediately and did his level best to catch her so he could make her his wife. But the maidens were too fast for him. They lept back into their basket, their dance cut short, and went back to the sky. White Hawk tried again the next day, disguising himself as a rabbit so he'd have the speed to follow them. It didn't work, though. They changed the pattern of their dance, the one he'd memorized from the day before no longer the one he needed to follow. Again, they rose into the sky, away from him."

His attention went back to where he was walking and he spread his arms, "But the third day, White Hawk became a mouse. He was so small they couldn't see him. They didn't know he was there and they went back to the dance they'd been dancing on the first day. It was the pattern he knew and when they were so frenzied and wild and enraptured with their tribute to life, he pounced on the fairest of them. Dragged her back home and married her on the spot. But she was a star, meant to grace the sky with her beauty, not be trapped on earth. Even though White Hawk was a fine warrior and hunter, could provide for her in every way, his home was not hers."

At this point Daryl's voice got quieter, like there was something about the story -beyond the Shapeshifter- that resonated with him. And there was. The wife had been trapped in her house, held against her will, she may not have been beaten, but she wasn't happy and it wasn't a good marriage. Daryl lifted his eyes to the sky, smiling despite the thoughts, the reminders it brought, "One day, when White Hawk was gone hunting, she wove herself a silver basket and chanted her song so it would raise her back into the heavens where she belonged. But she didn't go back to her sisters, the ones that came down in Corona. She knew she couldn't, because they danced every day on the earth and if she went back there, she'd have to come back down to where White Hawk could find her. Instead she settled in the sky, never to dance in the prairie again."

"She's there now. She's moved on with her life, shining brightly from Bootes. The biggest, brightest star there. Arcturus," Daryl pointed towards the constellation before glancing at Natasha again, smiling softly, "I think it's a better story than some asshole showing off a crown for all eternity. Lot more interesting than just another star to follow, too."

Natasha listens quietly. It wasn't just the most she'd heard Daryl speak at one time, it was probably more than he'd talked the entire rest of the evening combined. If she couldn't repay that by being a good audience, she didn't deserve to hear the story. She looks from him to the sky, with occasional glances at the park around them, enjoying his engagement.

She's smiling faintly as he finishes. She's not sure she could call it a happy story, but in some ways that makes it more familiar to her than fairy that ended without a little bit of sorrow or sacrifice. The few stories she remembered from her childhood tended to sound more like that.

"A lot more interesting than just another star to follow," she agrees. "That is definitely not a story I've heard before. I like it though."

She catches his eyes briefly, gauging his confidence. "Where did you learn it?"

He was in a pretty good place by that point, feeling very confident and more in control of the situation. Half the time he told stories, it was for himself as much as it was for anyone listening. But at her question, he just shrugged, "Here and there. Wasn't exactly any First Nations folks around my neck of the woods, but there were books I found sometimes. Things I heard from others who'd traveled further afield than me."

A guilty pleasure of his, one his father and brother hadn't known about. Daryl's fascination with stories and fables, particularly the ones dealing with shapeshifters, had led to a general fascination with folk lore that might explain what he was and what he could do. He found most of those stories not in European Myth, but in what stories were recorded and attributed to the First Nations Tribes. Their struggles weren't his, but he held sympathy for what had happened to them. Had learned as much as he could about them and would avidly read any non-fiction written by a Native American if the opportunity presented itself. And he didn't consider their fables and folk lore fictional. They were real to the tribes, and with his soul shared with that of a bobcat, they were real to him.

"That's a surprise," she says, then smoothly explains. "It seems like a lot of us don't pay much attention to stories. Or if we do, it's to throw shade. We're already supernatural, why pay attention to stories."

She shrugs then. Maybe that was just her experience. Vampires liked looking down on humans a lot considering that every single one of them once was one.

"But the stories aren't really about that, are they?"

"The stories are about us," Daryl countered. "The folk tales and legends, they're the history those who aren't quite human have left for us to learn from. Oral traditions that became written ones, passed down as much by the humans who couldn't explain what they saw as they were by those of us hiding within their numbers. There's a quote, goes something like 'those who don't pay attention to history are doomed to repeat it'. If the only histories we have are in the stories, then it's worth paying attention to."

"You think so?" Her brows go up a little at his reading of it. She doesn't pretend not to be a little skeptical of his explanation, but she doesn't dismiss it outright.

"It always seems to me more like humans telling the stories they need, and they use monsters and magic to fill the gaps. A vampire or a werewolf is a pretty powerful symbol. But stories about children being born with a caul being more likely to be vampires or people who had lived immoral lives didn't tell vampires much about themselves.

"On the other hand, I suppose we usually have a nest and elders around for that."

She inclines her head a little at the end of her statement, accepting the fact that shapeshifters and vampires might not have a lot in common other than being supernatural.

"Humans had to get the monsters from somewhere," he said, not at all offended by her skepticism. He was used to that. "I'm not saying all of them are about us, but I'm not saying they ain't, neither. They old stories hold more truth in 'em than fiction if you listen right. The newer ones are inspired by those ones and the lessons in 'em can be just as meaningful, hopeful, cautionary, to us as they can be to the humans that use 'em as metaphors. More so, because they teach us how humans see us. And from that, we can learn to walk among them by being what they don't expect."

That gets a surprised laugh out of Natasha. At this point, that might just mean not sparkling, or working as a brooding private investigator. Perceptions could change so much in a few decades.

"I wouldn't say there's nothing there for us to learn from. Like you said, it's good to know how we're seen... and we're not that far from human in most ways."

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