three ☀ video / optional action

[deshabille]

Who: Mal
Broadcast: Fleetwide!
Action: On the Caprine if anyone desires it! I'm flexible.
When: 6/20.

[As in her first broadcast, Mal can be found tinkering around in the engine room, elbows-deep in something interesting and greasy. This time, though, she seems pensive, deep in thought, perhaps about Deep Subjects and Philosophies.]

[She is, in fact, thinking about something entirely different.]

[When she speaks, it's in tones of airy contemplation, meant to disguise the fact that part of her thinks this is a terrible idea.]

Here is an interesting thing: vampires, for all their reputation for seduction, really aren't that good at it, at least where I come from. When you're always hungry, you mostly rely on people leaving windows open at the right time and then being a bit woozy from blood loss. For the really old ones, the ones who can barely stand without crumbling to dust and really hate sunshine, that's the only way they can eat, and if they tried to seduce anyone their arm would probably fall off.

[She twists at a mysterious innard of the ship with a wrench, tongue in her cheek.]

We've had enough excitement for a while, I think, so why not something boring instead: tell me about romance in your world. Describe the sorts of flowers you like to kill for love. Rate yourself on a scale of one to ten, complete dunce to Casanunda, if you like.

Actually, everyone should have to do that. That's compulsory. I will genteelly admit that I am a nine. [Liar.]

Comments

[deshabille]

Crossbows, though.

[Why are they competing over this.]

[forgetyourusedtobe]

Most vampires I know, as long as they're paying attention, can catch a crossbow bolt. Their reflexes are fast enough.

[Because...! Actually, no, that's a good reason. Elena shakes her head.]

You're not worried people are going to react like that here?

[deshabille]

They might. But if they do, they would have anyway, once word got out one way or another. And I'm not going to live my life in secret. I've been what I am in the open too long for that.

[forgetyourusedtobe]

[Elena isn't sure if it's jealousy she feels or something else, but she certainly feels something. True, she's able to be open about what she is with her friends and she knows how incredibly lucky she is to have them in the first place, but that's a select group of people. She still feels isolated from the rest of the world in little ways because she can't simply be open and honest about herself to other people.]

Better that it comes from you than someone else?

[deshabille]

Exactly. And better that I have warning about what might happen.

[It's an integrity thing, and a safety thing, and sort of just a Mal thing.]

[forgetyourusedtobe]

Does the whole pitchforks thing ever not happen?

[deshabille]

Sometimes. When people are too scared of what I am to try to hurt me, or when they're clever enough to look past first impressions.

The former more than the latter, obviously. [Because people are idiots.]

[forgetyourusedtobe]

Well, my first impression isn't someone that's trying to hurt me or anyone else, so I can't say I see a reason for anyone to want to try and hurt you.

But I know that doesn't always make a difference. [She sighs a little.] My parents were vampire hunters. I didn't find out about that until after they died, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have been all that pleased about my choice in boyfriends.

[Or proud of what she's become either. It's not something she thinks about quite as much since she became a vampire, but every so often it rises back up to the surface. Especially whenever she thinks about the things she said and did with her humanity off. Those are days where she can barely look at herself in the mirror, so the idea that her parents would somehow be accepting of that? They probably would have staked her themselves.]

[She doesn't want to think of how she wouldn't have let them do it during the worst of it.]

[deshabille]

[Now that's interesting. Mal cocks her head curiously, leaning closer to the screen as she looks Elena up and down.]

Is there anything in particular that kept you from following in their footsteps?

[forgetyourusedtobe]

By the time I found out what they were and what they did, I was already in love with a vampire. [She flashes Mal a brief, wry smile. That's not the whole of it, of course, but it's a good piece of it.] I know vampires are dangerous. They're manipulative and people get hurt because of them. And I'm not saying I wouldn't be afraid of or kill a vampire that was trying to hurt me. I would.

But there's a lot of them that are just trying to live their lives, too. They have friends and families. They have dreams and wants things for themselves that doesn't involve hurting other people.

What my parents did to vampires was... [Elena draws a shaky breath and shakes her head.] Not every vampire deserved what happened to them. And I don't think even the worst of vampires deserved the worst of what my parents did to them. I love my parents. And no matter what, they're always going to be the good people that raised me to be kind and put others before myself. [She pauses again, wondering if she should explain how she can even reconcile knowing what she knows about her parents now to the memory of them. It seems impossible, however, to put that into coherent words or to say it succinctly. It's simply something she does and she can only hope Mal can understand since she had to have had parents at some point in her life, too. She licks her lips briefly before continuing.] I-I just don't...I just don't agree with them when it comes to vampires.

[She shrugs.]

It's not as simple as all vampires are evil and need to be destroyed.

[deshabille]

[Mal is quiet for a moment, digesting this. Her own relationship with her family is tenuous at best, but she understands family bonds at least in principle. The fact that Elena is willing to, if not defy them, then at least push back against them, gives Mal pause. She wonders who exactly Elena is standing up for, who she has learned from.]

It's never as simple as that. Any sort of person has the potential for good and evil in them. Or neutral, at least.

What do you think they'd think of you now?

[A cruel question, perhaps, but an important one.]

[forgetyourusedtobe]

I don't know.

[It's not an inherently cruel question, but it's not one that Elena was necessarily prepared to answer as evidenced by such an automatic and quick answer. She's not being defensive or intentionally evading answering altogether with a non-answer. It's still an honest answer even if it doesn't lean any particular one way and Elena's jaw still works a little to push out more words without anything coming out of here. She stops it once she realizes she's doing it though. At least long enough to give her some space to really think about it how to explain her answer.]

[Because she feels like she owes an explanation for it to be acceptable. Not really to Mal, but to herself.]

I want to say they'd be proud of me. [What kid doesn't want their parents' approval? No matter how much they might rebel against them, approval and acceptance is what everyone needs and kids need it most of all from their parents.] But I honestly don't know if they would be or if they'd be disappointed.

I don't think they'd love me any less though. No matter what. I don't think-- [She stops short.] They weren't my birth parents, but they never treated me like I was anything less than their daughter. And I don't think it's possible for that love to go anywhere, no matter what you might disagree about or if you're disappointed in them or not.

I know I didn't love them any less even after I found out the truth about them. I was confused and I still have a lot of questions that will never be answered, but I still love them.

[deshabille]

[This is entirely foreign territory to Mal. She never had a particularly close relationship with her parents, and she hasn't spoken to her mother since she went cold bat. She is, in her own way, a disgrace. It doesn't bother her, doesn't eat at her conscience. She has reformed herself in the crucible of transformation and war, and who she is now is someone she likes quite a lot.]

[Still, she can understand what Elena is talking about, even if only in principle. She can respect it.]

Some people have remarkably strong family bonds. [Some people - some vampires, even - but not her.]

[A small smile forms on her lips, showing a hint of teeth.] It's funny. Your family would have hunted mine, once upon a time.

[forgetyourusedtobe]

They probably would have. [Elena reflects back a wry smile.] It's a little Shakespearean with hopefully less bad decisions involved.

[But that is likely a very slim hope given the Gilbert family's ability to leave well enough alone and their propensity for eliminating themselves one by one. That's a little bit too morbid of a thought for Elena to think though. So, instead, she presses on to ask,]

You weren't close with anyone in your family?

[deshabille]

[There is a thin smile here, a shake of her head.]

Not really. We had a few differences of opinion.

[Namely, that they absolutely loved snacking on necks, and Mal had other ideas. About self-preservation, and morality, but mostly the former.]

[forgetyourusedtobe]

Do you ever miss any of them then?

[Even in a detached way would be a better answer than not at all. And it's the latter that Elena is expecting, she just still has to ask.]

[deshabille]

[She shrugs, a fluid motion.]

Not really. I miss the idea of family, I suppose. But I have a new family now.

[forgetyourusedtobe]

[Her smile is a little softer now at that.]

One you've made for yourself?

[deshabille]

Mmhm. Exactly.

It's better that way. [In her opinion.]

[forgetyourusedtobe]

Do I get to know anything about them?

[She talked an awful lot about her parents, after all. It seems only fair that Mal cough up a little bit about the family she does care about.]

[deshabille]

Have you met Polly Perks? She's here.

[forgetyourusedtobe]

No, I haven't. Have you known each other a long time?

[deshabille]

Oh - not so long in the grand scheme of things. A year, a little more. She's my sergeant.

[This extremely proud. She will always be proud of her sergeant.]

[forgetyourusedtobe]

[The pride would be an incredibly hard thing for Elena to miss.]

I guess a lot of things happened for the two of you then?

[How else could you explain having that close an attachment to one another?]

[deshabille]

Oh, you know. Hijinks, close calls, high-speed chases. That sort of thing.

[Her tone is flippant, but her eyes are soft, as they so rarely are. There's real love there, the kind that doesn't die.]

We fought together. Fight together. I don't think we're quite done fighting.