dixiechaser (dixiechaser) wrote in after_the_bombs, @ 2011-08-09 21:58:00 |
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Things were going quite well, Valmae thought as she slipped along a fence line behind her uncle's house. She'd brought Lancelot, who was happily as far from the most virtuous knight in the land as possible in all the best ways, home to Soddie Daisy to meet her family. Her granddaddy hadn't actually shot him for being a foreigner and a lawman. She'd not been disinherited for taking up with said foreigner and lawman. Her brothers and cousins hadn't actually managed to kill Lancelot with the liberal application of Uncle Bobby's best corn squeezin's though they did manage to test his Irish constitution to the limit.
Actually, being Irish had been a good thing. There was a good bit of Irish blood in the Appalachians and in her family in addition to the Scottish and English and Cherokee and who knew what else blood. Her females cousins thought his accent was sexy, which it was, and Granny found him charming, which he could be when the mood struck. All in all, the consensus seemed to be that the family would just ignore the lawman part and have fun with the rest.
Valmae could live with that. Especially since it was terribly funny to watch her youngest cousins compete for his attention. She'd not seen so many lizards and snakes and other creepy crawlies being captured for show and tell since Cousin Mark's wedding (his Yankee bride had not been nearly as well received as Lance). And the amount of food that kept showing up at her parents' house had been staggering even by the hollow's normal generous standards as the neighbors came to catch a glimpse of the stranger in town.
She was roused from her musings by a sudden explosion of sound coming from the chicken coups. She lengthened her stride as she headed in that direction. By the light of the gibbous mood and the light pollution coming from Chattanooga, she could see well enough to forgo using a light spell or a flashlight. There, outside the pen where the chickens were going mad, was a tall figure firing off spell after spell to little effect and a much smaller, snarling, red-glowing eyed figure that was intent on getting its fangs into the one who had it cornered against a fence. Valmae calmly shouldered her rifle and fired once, twice, a third time at the creature. All three shots hit and it dropped with a shuddering, gurgling cry. The .22 didn't have a lot of stopping power, but it would work in a pinch.
Casually she strolled up to her boyfriend and drawled, “I told you Chupacabras exist. I guess I forgot to tell you the part where magic doesn't work right on them but cold iron or lead does.” Lancelot rolled his eyes, said something in Gaelic likely less than complimentary, and kissed her grinning mouth.