InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "salt and burn"

sabas rivera vega (sabas) wrote in entrywaythreads,
@ 2021-04-03 01:04:00

Entry tags:

sabas rivera, willa harper

WHO Sabas Rivera & Willa Harper
WHAT A sparring session
WHEN April 2nd, 9:30 PM
WHERE All the Right Moves
RATING Maybe medium? Maybe?

Sabas Rivera gave up the search for peace the first time he fell into Rahul's bed. His wife, more a sister than a lover, smiled and pretended she didn't know, but Sabas could see it in her dark brown eyes. She knew. There was no way she didn't; Jess was too smart to be the jilted lover and be unaware. She just didn't say anything, he thought, because deep down, Jess cared more about Sabas and his happiness than about their marriage.

And anyway, they'd been good together. Still were, actually, except she hadn't made it to Gehenna. She wouldn't, though; what had she done wrong? Other than fight demons, and that was only technically legally wrong by human standards. Then again, they weren't humans, so did it matter? Did that technically break the law? Sabas didn't know. It seemed to, with the white-faced asshole who'd dragged him here.

He stood in the middle of the dojo, staring in a manner that appeared to be blank and empty at the wall. He heard the door swing open and didn't move, eyes still trained on the wall while he paid attention to what he could smell and hear instead of saw. Vision was your least important sense as a Shadowhunter. Scent, hearing, feel: these always mattered more.

It was the girl, he thought, but she was... different. Not human, but not anything he'd ever met, either.

He broke his gaze and turned, arching an eyebrow. "Ey, you showed up," he said, in an accent that sounded thoroughly Americanized, though he'd only spent twenty minutes at the Los Angeles Institute for a meeting with Malcolm Fade. "My name's Sabas. Sabas Rivera. What about you?"

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thinblooded
2021-04-03 05:58 am UTC (link)

Willa's most common nickname back in St. Louis was 'tiny' and it was a fitting one. She was head and shoulders shorter than most, carried herself close like she was trying to make herself smaller, and that day she was wearing her flat tennis shoes. Her tendency to dress head to toe in black didn't make her look any bigger either, especially with her slightly oversized hoodie. Walking in she'd seemed small enough, pushing her hood back and exposing her babyface hadn't helped much.

It was the point, most of the time. When she'd been alive everyone estimated her because of her age and the way she looked. Now that she was undead it made her conscious 'blood bags' less frightened of her, at least until the alchemy came out and she made herself something out of a Victorian horror novel.

"Willa Harper." She said, her own accent more generically mid-western American. She shoved her hands into her hoodie pockets, looking him and the dojo up and down. "Should probably get the fact that I'm undead out of the way. The people I get into fights with, aside from one human loser, are all bigger and older than me. I'm dusk born, lowest of the kindred totem pole," she pointed at the magical crescent brand on the side of her neck that always looked red and angry. "I'm a kill on sight kinda mistake to them. I'd rather not get killed."

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sabas
2021-04-03 04:52 pm UTC (link)

A vampire. Not his kind of vampire, though, which just reinforced to Sabas that this purgatory wasn't just the one for his world. He leaned his head a bit to the side while he listened, his fingers already itching for his axes, but what was the point in killing a vampire in purgatory? First of all, she'd just come back. He'd learned that creeping on the network: apparently death wasn't final here, and Sabas was going to have to be okay with it, whether he liked it or not.

He waited until she'd finished and then he nodded. "Vampire." He tapped his own chest. "Shadowhunter. In my world, my kind kill yours, when they step out of line." He pulled one of his double axes off his back, aware suddenly that to her, it would've been invisible until it was in hand. Shadowhunters hid weapons with both magic and plain showmanship, and his axes were in shoulder holsters, hidden by magic. He propped the ax up against the nearest support beam, then tugged the other one free.

"But it's a little different here, and you aren't like my vampires." He nodded toward her. "But I'd bet I can still kick your ass." He pulled his stele from his pocket, running it over the speed and strength runes, and then fortitude and endurance, for good measure. He grinned, a lop-sided smile. "Come on, fanger Skipper. Bring it."

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thinblooded
2021-04-04 03:21 am UTC (link)

"Don't even have fangs, you ass." She said, rolling her eyes. It was nicer than some of the things Constantine had called her, she really didn't get the older guys and their nicknames. She had to figure it was an age thing. Or maybe it was just a trait assholes tended to pick up. Anyone who killed any race because they didn't follow a certain set of rules had to be an asshole in her book. She'd seen a few of those second inquisition fellas, they looked like him if he started going to BAA meetings and got a job at the FBI. "And if you can't beat me then you're wrong fuckin' line of work."

The magic gave her a little pause.

She had her own alchemy she could reach for. Even as she tossed her hoodie away, her mind drifted to the vials on her belt. It had been some old Hot Topic-style fake bullet belt at some point but she'd pried out all the fake bullets and replaced them with her alchemy vials. Any of them could be helpful really. Becoming mist or controlling it, imposing her will, even telekinesis would have been helpful in that moment but she left them be. Instead she pulled out her balisong, flipping it around and letting it clack a bit before getting it into a proper fighting grip. It was a little showy, sure, but Willa was a lot more skilled with small blades than most realized until too late.

"Cool cool." Willa said before launching herself forward. She wasn't the fastest among kindred by any means but she was still quick enough that most basic humans had a hard time tracking her. Speed was always key for her. She didn't care about making herself look cool in a fight, she knew the odds turned against her the longer a fight went on so she'd learned to end fights quickly or even before they began. She ran at him but before she was in range enough to properly attack him she dropped and slid, meaning to take out the tendons in his ankle with her knife.

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sabas
2021-04-05 06:33 am UTC (link)

Sabas dodged out of the way in just the nick of time, letting a certain laziness set in for the moment. It wouldn't last long; in a fight, Sabas rarely did anything but his best. It was why he was the best at killing demons, at bringing in vampires and werewolves and warlocks. At fighting. He was pretty sure he could even take on that cocky little Jace Herondale in New York, angel blood or not.

Flipping his stele idly in his hands as he watched her, he considered. No fangs. That was... well, that was new. "No fangs, huh," he said. He tucked the stele back into his pocket, dancing back a few steps as he spoke. "I woulda thought you'd have those. My vampires do."

He laid a hand flat on his chest, twisting the other one this way and that as though seeking to crack it. "My apologies." He tipped his head to the side, nodding as he did.

And then Sabas moved forward, darting in with intent to knock her flat on her back and roll over her, all with brute force rather than skill or talent.

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thinblooded
2021-04-07 02:23 am UTC (link)

"Like I said, I'm a mistake." It really wasn't too terrible being thin-blooded. She still had a pulse, she could still eat a little, could go out in the sun as long as it wasn't direct sunlight, and she had her talent for alchemy. And sometimes she could take on the power of the clans if she drank from one of their older members. It was being considered a sign of the end of the world that sucked. So many wanted to kill her for no other reason than some guy a million years ago said that her kind would overthrow the ancient kindred and rule in their place. And the lack of fangs sucked, if she was really being honest, but mostly the hunted thing.

It wasn't just the asshole Camarilla either. The Anarchs had claimed the thin-bloods but they really just wanted to upset their enemies and likely would get rid of them when they were no longer useful. Such was unlife in vampire society.

Of course, mistake by name, mistake by nature. She thought she could hold him back when he came at her. She was certainly strong enough to break his bones if she wanted to but what he had over her in her position was momentum and angle. There was only a brief resistance before his force was simply too much and he rolled her. She wasn't willing to give up though, even as she rolled she made her knife clack again as she changed her hold on it, making it obvious that she was going to bring the blade down into his shoulder.

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sabas
2021-04-08 04:06 pm UTC (link)

Sabas saw the knife coming, twisting just out of the way. "Whoa, whoa, whoa," he said, dancing back and away. "Maybe not with knives. Maybe we change the rules. I'll give you a two coins a week, and no blood." He tapped his shoulder. "I have a thing about vampires feeding on me."

He crossed the floor, moving at speeds that far surpassed humans, to pick up a pair of wooden sticks. "It's not that I hate vampires." He turned and tossed her one of the sticks, arching an eyebrow. "It's more that vampires in my world can and sometimes do entrap and enslave, and I kinda have a thing about that."

Sabas had only ever killed four vampires. A low number, his mother had always said. Vampires were evil, she'd always said, but vampires... you didn't choose to become a vampire, not always. Sometimes they turned you without you seeing it coming, and if you were a vampire or a werewolf, it wasn't always your choice. Sometimes your choice would have been to stay human, or Shadowhunter. So Sabas didn't think all vampires were inherently evil, which baffled both his parents and made his wife arch her eyebrow.

"Vampire, not bad. Enslaving, very bad." He lifted his stick. "Wanna try again, but with no blood? I'll take the runes off so it's more like you fighting a human, if you want."

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thinblooded
2021-04-08 04:34 pm UTC (link)

Willa pushed herself to sit up but stayed on the floor, making the knife clack again before closing it up and shoving it back into her pocket. She didn't want to hurt him but he'd said to make him bleed if she could so she'd tried. The discount really didn't matter to her, it was more about showing how quick she could be when she had a mind to be. Now that she wasn't focusing on the fight she went back to breathing and blinking as any normal human person might, not that she meant to stop while they were sparring, it was just something she didn't have attention enough to keep going.

"I know you've just got my word to go on, but you don't have to worry about that from me." She said, twirling the stick through her fingers. She didn't have the ease with it that she did her knife but she was clearly trying to find the balance with it. "If I could do that I would have to feed you my blood. But I can't. Side effect of being so removed from Cain. I can't make someone like me and I can't create blood bonds or ghoul someone. That's what kindred call that, ghouling. I used to be a ghoul, I get the not being into it thing."

After a soft sigh she rocked back before using her momentum to hop back up onto her feet. "I know how to fight humans. Not that I do very much anymore. I can handle them. I need to learn how to deal with someone stronger and faster than I am. But yeah, no blood, don't really want to be hungry right now anyway."

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