Tayne Peregrine (hunterperegrine) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2009-07-22 20:54:00 |
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Entry tags: | #group scene, 2009-06-09 |
Peregrine Family Meeting
Who: Tayne, Vanessa, Torshael, Jeff and Jenna (NPCs)
Where: Jeff and Jenna's house
When: 6ish in the evening
As Tayne pulled up to his mother's house, Vanessa in the passenger side of the truck, he was really pretty nervous. Not to mention wishing, for perhaps the first time, that it was winter so it would be dark by now and he wouldn't be squinting behind his sunglasses. He parked, climbed out, landing lightly on his remarkably, fully-healed leg-- he owed Justin a hell of a lot of that, and for the charm that dulled his senses-- and locking the truck up once Vanessa was out.
"Time to face the fire," he muttered, still half-certain this was about him, somehow. He had too many secrets now to not worry. "Let's go, then," he told Vanessa, and started up the walk to the house.
Vanessa wrapped her arm around him and gave him a small hug once they got to the door. "Don't worry." She told him. "They'll love you no matter what- we'll love you..." She said before reaching up and knocking as she opened the door. "Ma? We're here..."
Torshael pulled up behind Tayne's truck, smiling as he caught sight of his brother and sister. He hopped out of the car, not bothering to lock it--who would steal a rust bucket like his old car--and hurried up the path behind them. "Hey, how's it going you two?" He hadn't been home in a while, and felt a little guilty for it. Torshael put it on his to do list to get home more often.
His arm around Vanessa's shoulders, right back-- not that he needed the support anymore, not after Justin, but he would never turn down the opportunity to be affectionate with his sister-- as they walked up the sidewalk, Tayne let her go inside first, lagging enough to toss a tired sort of grin over his shoulder at Torshael. "Hey, man. Will be goin' a lot better once I've got it straight just what this little get-together's about." He held the door open for his brother. "With you?"
Inside, Jeff was on his way to answer the door, even if they'd already opened it. Their mother was back in the kitchen, and she ducked a little to see them under a hanging cupboard and smile. "Hello, Nessa! Hello, boys!"
Nessa hurried over to her grandfather and gave him a big hug and a kiss on the cheek in greeting before going over to her mother to do the same. "Smells good." She told her mother.
"Not much, too busy to get into any kind of trouble." He said to his brother. Torshael beamed at seeing his mother and grandfather. He gave Jeff a gentle, but firm hug and then moved to his mother and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Glad to smell food that wasn't cooked in the microwave. Bachelors get a little lazy." He chuckled. Torshael's weak point was definitely in the cooking department.
"Maybe some bachelors get a little lazy, not me," Tayne chuckled, letting their granddad shut the door, since he was looking glowerly as if they should have let him open it to begin with. Jeff got another brief hug from the second son for his troubles.
"You should come over more often, Tor," Jenna said, leaning into first Vanessa's affections, then Torshael's. "You know you can always get good food here. Dinner's almost ready, if you'd all like to get yourselves something to drink and sit down at the table."
Said table was already set, with five table settings and six chairs. Jenna still hadn't moved their father's extra chair to the garage, though she kept saying she would, and it'd been almost a year.
Vanessa smiled. "Need any help mom?" She asked, moving into the kitchen- though she was offering it was probably Tayne who should help. Nessa pulled out the fridge and grabbed out the milk after a moments look.
He smiled at his mother. If his congregation didn't need him so often, he would be here, but his mother and grandfather would get along just fine without him. Still, he probably show his face around his mother's house once a week. Torshael knew better than to go anywhere near the kitchen, so he grabbed a glass and took the milk gently from Nessa, pouring himself some and handing it back to her with a smile. He then sat down at the table, to the left of dad's old chair. That brought back memories. Torshael touched the chair with a small prayer, then turned his attention back to the living.
"What is for dinner then? I'm sure whatever it is, is better than the frozen pizza I had at home." He laughed.
"Your mother's famous lasagna," Jeff grated, following the rest of the family in, slipping past Vanessa to get at the fridge and get a beer. Tayne, despite his ascertaining that he wasn't actually a housecat from his reaction to Justin's dogs, still thought the milk sounded like a damn good idea, and got himself a glass, too.
"Sit, sit," Jenna said, bustling around the kitchen and shooing them out. "I'm just getting it out of the oven now. And yes, Tayne, I made garlic bread."
"I wasn't going to ask!" he protested with a little laugh.
"But you were thinking it." And since he was, he didn't even protest.
Nessa poured herself and Tayne a glass, noticing him eying the carton and stuck it back in the fridge before heading out to the table. "My mouth is watering already." She laughed as she set down her glass and took her seat. Her fingers slightly ran over the charm of a key on her bracelet.
"So what has everyone been up to?" Torshael asked, taking a sip of his milk after speaking. "Since you all know what I've been doing." He visited his congregation, spoke on Sundays, and ran events during the week for people to get together in a safe environment. Torshael was glad that the Baptist church, at least the one he was a pastor at, was okay with all kinds of people, including weres and witches.
"Working. Both jobs," Tayne answered, pausing to give Vanessa a little kiss on the cheek at the sight of her playing with their dad's charm. They all knew he would have been out the night of the full moon, checking for loose weres.
"The same here," Jenna put in, her back to them as she opened the oven door. "I got to stop in at Annie from the diner's house and help her heal up some nasty scratches." Tayne, sitting down, had to try not to laugh-- it wasn't funny, but it was definitely ironic that she called them scratches.
"I," Jeff said himself, with the air of someone saying something important, "have been trying to find my father."
"Do we have to get into that already, Dad?" Jenna sighed, turning away from the oven with a large pan of lasagna in hand.
"Getting settled into my new apartment and new job." Vanessa said, running her fingers along all the charms before placing her hands folded on the table. She then looked to their grandfather and furrowed her brow. "Your father?" She, and her brothers as well probably, had been under the impression that all that was left of their family was in this house.
Torshael frowned. He'd also been under the impression that all of his family was here. He didn't think he'd ever even heard mention of their grandfather's father. Torshael was just as confused and curious as Vanessa. "I don't think you've ever talked about him before, have you?" He glanced at Tayne to see if his brother knew any more than he did.
Tayne shook his head at Torshael's glance, as mystified as the rest of them. Jenna sighed as she brought the lasagna in and set it on a counter-saver in the middle of the table. She busied herself with serving them all for them as Jeff explained.
"You all met him once. Tor was twelve at the time. I introduced him as a hunting partner, which I suppose he was. You wouldn't have made the connection. He didn't look any older than your father, at the time. We didn't think it was a good time to tell you about him, anyway. It was too potentially dangerous."
They'd met many hunters over the years so a specific time like that when Vanessa was eight wasn't something that stood up. "So, no time in the last fifteen years was a good time to tell us either?" Like when their father had passed away and they needed as much family support as they could get? Vanessa wasn't quite upset as she was hurt that their granddad had kept knowledge of another family member from them.
"I don't remember him at all," Torshael murmured, thanking his mom for serving him the lasagna. "Potentially dangerous? What's going on with him?" He asked, frowning. He hated to see any member of the family, or anyone really, in danger. If he could help at all, he wanted to. Family was family. "Wait, and how would he still be alive?" Torshael was confused as he thought of that. He knew there were plenty of kinds of people out there who could live longer--vampires being one of them--but he couldn't see his grandfather's father being a vampire. Vampires were easily corrupted, by time, if nothing else.
After bolting down a bite of lasagna, Jeff answered gruffly, "Because he was an angel. He's part of where you get your blessings from, and your powers. Was going to get him to come and tell you himself, when my boy died last year--" He paused to swallow, and then eat another bite of lasagna as if to force a lump in his throat down. Jeff had blamed himself for that death. "Well, I couldn't find him. I've spent all this time trying to track him down, him and my other angel contacts." Because yes, he had them.
"Angel. Like, a real, honest-to-g-goodness angel," Tayne repeated blankly. "I thought they had disappeared a long time ago."
"Not that long ago, apparently," Jeff grunted.
Vanessa poked at her lasagna, she blamed herself as well- after all she drew the attack, if she'd've been faster she could have let someone know and... "So, we're like... part-angel?" She asked, glancing up briefly before finally taking a bite of lasagna.
"I guess," Torshael said, staring down at his plate. He knew he had some angel blood in him, otherwise he couldn't cast the spells he cast. The one thing he'd never been able to fully deal with was Dad's death. He pushed the thought away, and tried to focus on this whole angelic thing. "So what does being part angel mean?"
"Well, you already knew about angel-blooded," Jeff shrugged at them both. "That's how you can bless things."
"I... never thought that actually meant we were related to angels," Tayne admitted. Now that it was settling in that this was what his grandfather had wanted to talk about, he felt nearly giddy with relief. It wasn't about him. His secrets were still safe.
"You are. And not that far back, either, after all," Jeff said. "Most angel-blooded families haven't had an ancestor in a hundred years or more-- you kids are lucky. Or maybe not so lucky," he added darkly, glowering at the lasagna.
"Now, Dad," Jenna put in, sitting down herself finally. "I don't think that's as likely as you think it is."
"All of them are dead, aren't they?" Jeff growled. "Why not start going after the half-bloods next?"
Vanessa took in a quick breath at her grandfathers snap, not because she was afraid of him but of the point he'd made. She wasn't the strongest one of the bunch and overly emotional wasn't an extreme characteristic to give her, especially when the entire family was gathered, but the pure thought that there might be someone out there killing -angels-, that was... well it wasn't good. "Are they dying," Nessa asked, running her thub along the length of her spoon. "Or being killed?"
Torshael couldn't even..imagine who would kill angels. Angels. Why..Torshael shook his head again, his brain unable to even comprehend someone killing angels. "That many dying? It seems..strange, to say the least. I'm guessing there has to be some killing in the equation..right, Grandpa?" That thought made him nearly sick. His family killed, yes, but they killed the bad guys. He put a forkful of lasagna to his mouth, not thinking, paused, and set it back down on his plate.
"I can't get anything definite on most of them," Jeff admitted reluctantly. "But Tor's thinking is my thinking. So many of them, all gone at once, or in the past few years at least... it smacks of conspiracy."
Jenna made a tutting noise.
"I know your opinion," Jeff grumbled. "But I still think there's a danger."
"A danger?" Tayne asked. "To... who?"
"To us," Jeff said.
"Because we're part angel, or..." Vanessa asked, having worried for a long time that what some of them could do and what they did for a living could put them on opposing sides to many different groups- it was also something she didn't like to think about.
Even though Torshael wasn't in the exact same line as the rest of his family, religious figures had never really been on the good side of every group. He prayed nightly for his family to come home safe from hunts. "So what should we do?" He said, glancing up at Jeff and then at Jenna. "I know you don't think it's that big of a deal, Mom, but it's better to be safe than sorry."
Their mother looked a bit put out, but she didn't scold anyone this time, at least. Jeff sighed and set down his fork. "I haven't figured that out yet. Be careful, that's the first thing I can offer. Keep an eye out for anyone who might be paying you more attention than they should, who makes you feel off."
"You think it's demon-bloodeds?" Tayne asked quickly, focusing on the part about making them feel off. Demon-bloods and demons got automatic dislike from angel-bloodeds, after all, usually without realizing why.
"Could be." Jeff hitched a shoulder. "Could not be. Just... pay attention. I'm trying to find out more, but it's slow going, and I wanted to tell you now just in case."
Vanessa nodded and put her fork down. She'd kinda lost her appetite. "So you really don't know anything yet." She said, not meaning to sound condescending, she was just tired of having yet another thing she didn't know anything about except that it was something and it wasn't good.
Torshael forced himself to take a bite of lasagna, even though he didn't taste it. He still needed to eat. He felt about the same as Vanessa, truthfully--it was hard to be on the lookout all the time. His shoulders hurt, thinking about it. "So it's the norm, then?" Torshael always tried to keep an eye out for people who were too interested in him, but it was hard to not get close to new people to his congregation, which would be the easiest way to get to him.
"Actually," Jeff said, pointedly ignoring Vanessa's grumble-- though Tayne reached over to give her hand a little squeeze-- "I've got some charms for you that'll hopefully help. Give you a warning when you come anywhere near someone demon-blooded, or if there's danger nearby. And I want you to keep in touch with each other-- check in every few days. All right?"
Vanessa looked over at Tayne and returned the squeeze. "Ok." She said softly, only comforted a little by the idea of a charm. "What kind of warning do they give?"
"Not too hard to check in every few days," Torshael said, glancing at his sister. She looked worried. He was also curious about these charms. Usually all he wore was the cross he had underneath his shirt, but if it was protective, he didn't mind wearing it.
"They just make you tingle and get alert," Jeff explained. "Your mother made them."
Jenna snorted again.
"Reluctantly," Jeff clarified, as if it was necessary. "They're here." He shifted to dig into a pocket, pulling out and holding out three heavy-looking rings that rested on his palm, made out of-- of course-- silver. What else did Jeff ever use? Something that was as much weapon as warning, at least when it came to vampires and weres.
Didn't help Tayne much, though, and he fought to keep a straight face.
It was Vanessa's turn to give her brother's hand a squeeze as she reached out and took hers, and his. She made a move to put it in his hand but didn't drop it, she cast him a small look that seemed to me an attempt to telepathically tell him to pretend he had it. "Thank you mom." She said, looking over at Jenna, hoping for the extra distraction. "And thank you for dinner as well."
Torshael took his and slid it onto his finger, looking down at it curiously. Silver. He caught Vanessa's look at Tayne and mentally filed that away as something to ask about later. "Yes, Mom, thank you. I'm sure it will be helpful, and dinner was great." Though he'd only eaten about half his plate full--knowing that someone was possibly out to kill him didn't help his appetite.
Tayne caught the look, and exchanged it back to Vanessa with something guardedly grateful, and closed his fingers over nothing. God, he loved his sister.
"Let's talk about something else, now," Jenna said firmly. "Something happy. And do finish your dinner, Torshael, you've hardly touched it." Well, in mother-vision, anyway, he'd barely touched it.
Vanessa slipped the rings into her pocket and looked up at their mother. "My job at the library is going good... Really like my boss." She said, figuring it best to start up with the attention on her before things were brought to Tayne.
"Oh, you work at the library? I met a girl there a few days ago, nice girl..and yes, Mom, I'm working on it," he said with a smile to Vanessa, and then to Jenna. Torshael's stomach turned to think of the danger they were all in, and said a small prayer in his mind for all of them. They needed all the protection they could get.