InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "asdfjhgfg :D"

poeticmisery (poeticmisery) wrote in manchester_rpg,
@ 2010-06-05 11:00:00

Entry tags:

dannika, desmond

Hello...?
Who: Desmond and Dannika
When: Saturday Morning
Where: Her/Their dorm room?
What: Probably about to embarass himself again
Rating: PG
Status: Complete

Dawn crept across campus, the way that it always did. As the sun sleepily rose over the hillside, it's warm rays turned the topmost leaves of a particular tree to a bright golden hue, a dhampir opened his eyes. Rolling over quietly, maintaining perfect balance, his ice blue eyes looked out at the the dormatory that was not more than 50 yards from where he lay. It was his dorm room, and yet he was not exactly in it at the moment, nor did he have a particular desire to be. Not at night, anyway. Not without being securely locked in whatever room was his own. Having contact with mortals would take some getting used to at night after all this time. It had been a long time since he'd had to smell them, hear the sweet roar of their blood in his ears...

And like a former heroine addict loosed in a drug warehouse, the best thing he could do was to stay as far away from the stuff as possible when the Dark Monster inside of him was awake and... hungry. Close by, he felt the branch shift slightly as a squirrel who thought that this place was it's home came down for a closer look at him, starting to chitter noisily. In less than the span of time it took a hummingbird's wing to flap Desmond had closed the distance the squirrel had kept between them and grabbed it in his hand. He could feel it bite impotently against his steely skin as he sunk his fangs into the side of it's neck and drained it in a single deep sip.

He sighed once it was gone. Like a too small juice box it had been enough to whet his appetite but not really enough to fill him up, and he would need to catch something more substantial here soon, assuming that meals were not... 'provided' by the school. Idly, he wondered what vampires got from the caffeteria, if it was a bag of blood, or something a little more... lively. Looking off in another direction, Desmond concentrated, and then gave the squirrel enough of a hefty lob to send it rocketing to the sky. By his reckoning, his toss would send the squirrel a substantial distance off campus, and thus beyond the point at which the school would care about what happened to it. Little did he realize that someone, somewhere, would be getting a rather rude awakening that involved a dead squirrel and a broken window, but at the moment he had other things on his mind.

Dropping down before the sun's rays hit him, he landed easily, and then leaned up against the tree, letting the sunlight envelop him, a deep full breath coming over him as he felt his power, and his hunger, draining out of him. Yawning a little, he gave himself the once over. His dark hair was a little mussed from lack of taking care of it over the past few days, but there was no particular odor, one of the plusses of being half dead, he supposed. His black duster bore the marks of him having slept in a tree, but they were easily brushed off as he walked towards the dormatories.

Pulling out the information, he read over it for perhaps the hundredth time, going over the information in his head with the natural compulsion of someone who had hunted living creatures for centuries. She was mortal, which meant that he would need to keep his distance from her at night and make certain that he kept to his room. Especially if she had mortal friends over, or something equally awkward like that. A part of him wanted to follow her around for a day, get to know her routine, see what sort of girl she was, so that he could be better prepared. But that was the Hunter inside of him, the one who stalked and enjoyed that sweet rush of a sword piercing flesh and bone, the adrenaline rush of the fight for life and death...

The man, what he was supposed to be here, he needed to learn to do this the normal way. Even if he wasn't exactly.. normal. After some time stalling until the sun was sufficiently high in the sky, he began to walk towards the dorm rooms. He'd already memorized the code he needed to punch to unlock the doors. Stepping through them he noticed that the hallways seemed pretty empty here, even though class would first be starting in an hour or so. Given the fact that this school catered to the super natural, Desmond reasoned that probably not a lot of them were early risers and those that were had probably risen far more early than this.

The school had told him that Dannika would have been notified that he was coming, which made him feel a bit better about this whole mess. Regardless of what era it was, he couldn't imagine that a stranger showing up without proper identification, saying that they belonged there would go over very well. As he walked up the hallway he kept track of the room numbers until he found the one that was hers... or his... or well, both, even though such a concept seemed odd. It would be much easier for him to think of himself as a house guest inside of her apartment, though he was trying not to think of it that way, because it would limit the growth opportunity of this potentially uncomfortable situation.

Putting the key inside of the doorknob, he turned it and unlocked it, and quietly stepped into the entryway, looking left at the kitchen, and right at the living room there, quietly moving into the living room, but not seeing anyone. Quietly he peeked around the corner towards the bedrooms, beginning to wonder if anyone was actually staying in this place at all.

"Uhm... hello? Is anyone there?" he asked softly.

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sincity
2010-06-07 03:58 am UTC (link)

Danni had grown used to not having a roommate. In fact, she wasn't sure she'd ever get one. And that suited her just fine. She liked people, but it was nice to walk around without worrying if someone else might catch her wearing less than was proper. There was a part of her that wanted someone else to be in the dorm with her, especially at night when the trees groaned and the wind blew. It was unnerving being in a school full of supernatural creatures and being a mere human. She couldn't be sure of what was lurking around the corner.

This morning she rose early, as she was wont to do. It was something she'd grown accustomed to while living at home. Her parents' lived by the adage "early to bed, early to rise" and didn't let any of the children sleep in, except on Saturdays. And even that was only until 8am. It was a habit that made her rise early, even on this Saturday morning, and she was just stepping out of the bathroom, when she heard someone speak.

She paused in the doorway, holding as still as she could, her breathing stopped. She strained to hear, to decide if she was hearing things or not. When the second question came, and in a male voice, she squeaked and then clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle it. Her eyes widened and she backed into the bathroom, her butt bumping against the sink. What was someone doing in her room? Why had they come in at such an early hour? Why was it a boy!? Wasn't her roommate supposed to be a girl?

Ripping the towel out of her long dark hair, she wound it up and held the ends between her hands. She was a gymnast, and she had a way with a towel, able to use it as a whip and aim with deadly accuracy. If nothing else, she could vault herself over or around the person and beat it out of the room to find security.

With brothers in the house, she'd learned to dress in the bathroom before exiting and as such, she was fully clothed. Her damp hair was making dark marks on her violet shirt as she took a few deep breaths and popped out of the bathroom, towel at the ready.

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poeticmisery
2010-06-07 04:27 am UTC (link)

Desmond quietly waited for some semblance of noise to indicate if the roomate he was dreading was even here. Maybe it would wind up being easier if she wasn't. If that was the case, he could just be waiting for her when she came home, sitting on the couch approachably. Or some such thing like that. But then, if she came home after dark he would be long locked in his room and certainly wouldn't want her wrondering why the door was suddenly locked. Thoughts whirling, he strained to listen through the ambient noise to the sounds of the house itself. This would be one time that his vampire powers would come in handy, but there was already light streaming through the windows.

He listened for the sound of shifting in the room, but heard nothing coming from either of the rooms, though he could hear water running. He wondered momentarily if she might be in the shower. If that was the case, then he certainly wanted to vacate himself to the entry way of the premesis, so that she would not potentially come out in a state of undress. Just the idea of it was enough to cause his cheeks to heat slightly, and he didn't even know the girl. Swallowing, he had started to turn around when he heard the softest terrified squeak, along with the sound of a hand slapping over a mouth.

Growling a little he whirled, black duster fanning out around him as he stared at the bathroom door with such intensity that he might have been staring through it, a hardened look taking over his face. The time that he came from, such noises were rarely good things, and rape was less talked about then as it was in this century, and thus a more common, if not more horrific crime. Having dealt with more than a few lowlifes in his day, Desmond knew the best thing to do was to startle them, it would immediately stop any such actions they might be performing, and give him an opportune chance to kick in the door and save his roommate from an unpleasant experience.

"Dannika!" he called out as he started to head towards the door. "Are you alright?" he sounded like a concerned friend, but as he approached the door it suddenly swung open, an angry darker skinned woman emerging from it, holding a towel at the ready to attack him. Desmond's head spun a little for his misconception, but he took it in stride, having naturally good reflexes, even without powers. Backpeddalling almost instantly, he held up his hands in a sign of the fact that he wasn't going to do anything to hurt her, taking a few long strides back towards the living room area with his hands still held sky high.

"Right... not in trouble then." he said, partially to himself. "I'm Desmond... your roommate... The school should have sent word about me... at least they told me that they did." His mussed dark hair hanging down would make him seem alluring at least. After all, if you were going to have someone break into your room, it didn't hurt things any to have it be a tall, dark, sexy half-vampire. Raising his eyebrows, he waited for her reaction, slowly lowering his gloved hands to his sides, not realizing that the fact that he was wearing black leather gloves might seem extra suspicious. After all, he'd missed the whole OJ trial bit.

Pausing, he couldn't help but ask a follow up question, raising an eyebrow at her weapon of choice. "And, pardon me if I seem rude but.... a towel? Really?" he said. After all, it WAS a little insulting to insinuate that she might be able to disable him, a man who had centuries of combat experience, with a towel.

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sincity
2010-06-09 01:49 am UTC (link)

To hear her name, spoken in such a way, as if in alarm, made her pause for just a second before she jumped out into Desmond's path. She was without her talisman because she hadn't yet gone back into her room to finish dressing. She was wearing only a pair of knee shorts and a snug fitting t-shirt. Her body was athletic, muscular and small bosomed from her years of gymnastics. Her calf muscles bunched as she went up on her toes, prepared to spring one way or the other depending upon which way he chose to lunge.

But rather than lunge, he backed up and she faltered and relaxed slightly. Her arms dropped and she too took a step back. She was beyond confused. This man was in her room. He was a handsome man, she noticed that right off, but he was a man nevertheless. And he was in her room. And then as he spoke again she almost choked. As it was she spluttered and coughed. "My roommate?!" She squeaked and shook her head. "That's impossible. I didn't get any notice. And you're a boy!" She let go of one side of the towel and set both fists against her hips.

She was still trying to work out how she'd come to have a male roommate when he mentioned the towel. She glanced down at it, having forgotten she was even holding it. "They hurt worse than you think." She looked a bit indignant. "Besides, it was just to distract you enough to get out of here." She stood her ground and squared her shoulders, giving him a calculating look. "Are you sure you have the right room? You didn't walk into the wrong one by accident?"

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poeticmisery
2010-06-10 12:19 am UTC (link)

Now that Dannika had been somewhat pacified, Desmond crossed his gloved hands across his chest and watched her as she spoke, no longer feeling the need to hold his hands up or keep them at his sides as a gesture of non-aggression. Now that she was in front of him, Desmond took a moment to slowly glance up and down her body, taking in the curves of her form, in an appraising fashion. It was not a sexual action, but rather one that was simply sizing her up, watching the way that her muscles tensed as she had been prepared to leap one way or another. It was clear from her form that she was well muscled, and did some form of activity that required all around muscle tone, rather than something that focused on a particular discipline.

Swordsmen, especially Japanese ones, for example, were far more developed in upper body than they were in the rest of their form. It came from the fact that kendo and iaido were very much concentrated on arm movements and calf movements. But the thighs did not get worked very strongly, nor did the core. Whatever this one did, she practiced an art that was more rounded, and thusly somewhat impressive. Though the fact that she had tried to attack him with a towel betrayed the fact that she was not a fighter, that, or she wasn't a very experienced one.

Sighing a little he wanted to let out a groan at the fact that she hadn't gotten any particular notice about the fact that he was going to be her roommate. He'd even given it a full evening after they'd said that they were going to notify her, and still here he was, apparently making a fool out of himself. He wondered if instead of a school for mythical creatures it wasn't some giant trap to embarass old dhampirs. Egoism aside, however, he recognized that there had been some form of clerical error, which was not entirely unexpected, just... very... poorly timed.

Pausing for a moment, he considered what to do. He could simply walk out of the room, but then, he wasn't sure what that might do for his eligibility for classes. He also actually had no form of income at the moment and had been waiting to figure out the best way to visit one of his stashes, which meant that if he spurned the housing that was offered to him, he might need to get used to some nights spent out in trees. It was a less than ideal, but not completely unsatisfactory outcome. As he waited a moment more, he finally reached down and pulled out a manilla envelope from his coat, neatly sliding it open, and flipping through it in a fashion that betrayed he was used to the black gloves that he wore, and being able to do intricate tasks in them.

Finding the paper, he handed it to her, letting her see her name and picture on it, as his "assigned roommate, temporarily."

"I was assured when I was handed this out, temporarily, that it was the 'twenty first century' though it appears that I'm not the only one who views such a pairing as potentially improper. I don't particulary want to rock the boat, as I'm new here, however, and have no idea what channels to go through to file a complaint with them. So I'll leave that to you. In the mean time I suppose I'll manage out in the woods well enough... sorry if I startled you." Desmond said softly, turning on his heel as he headed towards the door.

Glancing towards the bathroom, he paused and noted the mirror inside of it. "Next time, though, you should wrap your hand in the towel, break the mirror, and then grab a shard of it. A towel snap won't do much against baggy clothing like my coat, and a sharp edge of glass is far more lethal..." he advised quietly as he turned back to head for the door again.

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sincity
2010-06-10 02:55 am UTC (link)

She watched him, he seemed to do a lot of internal thinking before fishing for a manila envelope and finding the assignment of the room. She scowled and reached for it. She scanned the paper and her scowl deepened. "Man, they royally fudged up." She shook her head and then folded the paper and handed it back to him. "Why temporarily? Aren't you planning to stay through the school year?"

She leaned against the wall and crossed her ankles and her arms, towel dangling in front of her. "It might be the twenty-first century, but some of us still have parents who would freak out about me having a male roommate. But I guess they don't have to know, as long as it's only going to be temporary, anyway." She took a deep breath and glanced down at her crossed arms. She glanced back up sharply when he mentioned sleeping in the woods. "The woods? Are you nuts? You can't sleep in the woods!"

She shook her head, pushed off the wall and headed for the room that was not hers, though they shared a hall. "As long as you promise not to go snooping or come into my room, ever, then I'm okay with you staying here until the situation gets rectified." She turned the knob on his door and pushed it open, moving backward while simultaneously gesturing him toward his room.

She smirked and shook her head. "Breaking a mirror is seven years bad luck. And I'm pretty wily. I'd have gotten away." She sounded more confident than she felt, but she didn't want him to know that. "But I'll keep that in mind." Of course, the good thing about having a male roommate was that she felt a little safer should someone else break in for some reason.

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poeticmisery
2010-06-10 11:52 pm UTC (link)

The faintest smile appeared on Desmond's lips as Dannika proclaimed that they had royally 'fudged up'. He wasn't exactly sure of what that meant, but he had a pretty close idea. She wasn't bashful about what she thought, which would be helpful in his learning. In addition, it was good to see that the ages had not crushed a woman's ability to speak out, as he had feared that it might. He nodded quietly in agreement with her sentiment that something had gone wrong with the whole process of him getting a room. As she asked why it was a temporary arrangement, however, his eyebrows raised very quietly, looking at her. First she seemed to be unhappy with the arrangement, then she started to question why it was temporary?

"I had requested a single room. I guess it's just taking them some time to arrange it. I do intend on staying..." he said quietly, wondering if her question wasn't a commentary on how long students stayed here. Could it be that college, like so many other things it seemed these days, was not as definitive of a commitment as it had been in the past? It made sense...

As she spoke of her parents he quietly listened to her, his soft blue eyes watching her. She didn't seem intimidated or attracted to him either, which was something that would help make this thing work as well. He made little comment as she protested him going into the woods, his eyes watching her as he pondered if she knew exactly what, or who he was. Probably not, which was an invitation for danger, but also a bridge that he would cross when he came to it. All he really needed to do was keep her away from him at night, which was something it sounded like she was interested in as well.

"I won't go in your room if you don't go in mine." He promised quietly. As she stepped back he pressed a gloved hand against the small of her back lightly as he stepped around her into the room, slowly letting his eyes adjust to difference in lighting, given that it seemed to be a little darker in this room. Still, there was some light that came through the small window in the room. That was enough. Desmond moved to it and paused, before doing what came naturally, which was to throw back the curtain. Dannika seemed perhaps indecently dressed, and he didn't want to embarass her.

Quietly he turned and started to walk towards her again, stopping a few feet from her as he watched her with quiet eyes, offering her a small smile again. "Thank you for letting me stay here. I'm somewhat... unfamiliar with the world as it is now... hopefully you can help me... adjust to it."

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sincity
2010-06-11 05:01 pm UTC (link)

She rose her head slowly and then nodded in understanding. "Right, a single room. Makes sense." She was glad to hear that he intended to stay. Though, for the life of her she couldn't think of why she even cared. She didn't know him from any other strangers on campus. The thing about Dannika, though, was that she was inherantly a good person who genuinely cared about other people whether on a conscious level or not.

As he moved around her to go into his room, he was close enough to touch her and she could smell him. Without her talisman on her person, she was much more subject to his natural persuasion. She sighed softly, as if something very pleasant had just happened, and she smiled at him as he walked into his room. She felt lovesick all of a sudden and leaned against the door frame in a wilted state. She was not forward enough to tell him that she found him attractive or handsome, but she was also not in the right frame of mind to go into her room and get her talisman, either.

When he walked back toward her, her smile grew and she stared at him. He watched her and she realized suddenly how blue his eyes were. They were a stark contrast to his dark hair and she found it both exotic and lovely at the same time. "Of course, I'll help in any way I can." If her words came out a little more breathy than she intended, she didn't know it. She was unaware of the effect he was having on her and hadn't noticed that she'd dropped the towel and was holding her hands to her chest.

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poeticmisery
2010-06-11 05:51 pm UTC (link)

Desmond turned a little as he heard Dannika sigh, his eyebrows raising lightly as he looked at her. She seemed as if she was somehow suddenly... different. But as to what it was that had made her different, he wasn't exactly certain. Honestly, the thought of it being him never entered his mind. It had been quite some time since he'd been close to any mortal females, even before he'd gone to sleep. It was true he often would cause one or two to blush, without him noticing, but usually it was a passing glance at his personage rather than anything else. He didn't often get close enough that someone would get enraptured by him. It seemed rather... unfair. To both parties involved.

Here, however, he felt a rather large amount of safety in that fact. Humans were given talismans to avoid the charms of his kind. That much he had read about before deciding to come to this place. It had been one of the major bonuses of this place. An... equality, if you will. The only thing he would need to fear from humans now was his own self control, and that would be easy to manage when they weren't doe eyed and pressing up close against him. So while elsewhere it might have occurred to him that in fact Dannika was now under his spell, he had simply assumed that she was wearing her talisman under her shirt. After all, were he in a place like this as a mortal, he didn't think that he would be without his talisman for a moment.

Watching the way that she leaned against the doorframe, he approached her quietly, tilting his head slowly as he watched her with quiet blue eyes. He studied her in silence, and watched the way that she was holding her hands against herself. It felt as if something were wrong, but he still wasn't confident enough in his ability to read people in this day and age. Pausing, he nodded quietly when she said that she would do anything she could to help him adjust to this place. Still, she wasn't throwing herself at him, he must clearly be misreading what it was that was going on with her.

"Thank you for your help. I am certain that it will be invaluable..." he said softly, and gave her a light smile that didn't quite show his fangs off.

"Maybe you could start by showing me what it is that male and female roomates usually do together?" It seemed like an innocent enough question. After all, she had said that her parents would flip, but she had also admitted that this sort of thing was not entirely frowned upon. Of course, depending on her mindset at that particular moment, that could be taken very very differently, but Desmond didn't realize it. Instead he just stared at her with trusting blue eyes, the light smile still upon his face as he eagerly waited for her help to learn more about this new world he was in.

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sincity
2010-06-11 06:18 pm UTC (link)

When he paused in front of her, she leaned forward and took another long breath in. She was mesmerized by his eyes. He watched her with an intensity she'd never known before. Dannika had grown up in a grossly conservative home where her parents thought of the supernatural as abominations that were not God's creatures. They were demons and freaks. There had been very rare times that Danni had spoken to one or two, but it hadn't been for long. She'd gone to human schools and this was her first real foray into the Supernatural realm. It was for this reason, and because she'd thought she was alone in the dorm, that she didn't have her talisman on her.

She didn't return herself to an upright position and she had the strangest urge to reach up and caress his face. She closed the distance between them, though she didn't exactly press herself against him. She was definitely invading his space, though. She kept his gaze, a fair sight bolder now than she'd been before their proximity to one another had changed. She spoke in a hushed tone when he asked his question and her lips were only a few inches from his chin, tilting her head up to look at him because he was taller than she.

"I don't know. I've never had a roommate, much less one of the male variety." She watched his lips while he spoke and then glanced back up to be locked into his gaze once more. She had brothers, but she'd only ever shared a room with a sister. She had no idea what to do with a hunky taller man. She sighed again and put her hands up, touching his arms and shoulders, then dragging her fingers through his hair. She was going to be very embarrassed when she came back to herself. But at the moment, she was quite happy to be standing there staring at him.

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poeticmisery
2010-06-11 11:08 pm UTC (link)

Desmond's eyes eagerly watched Dannika as he waited for what suggestion that she might have for him. His guard was down, and uncharacteristically so, because of the way that Dannika had acted when he had first come in. She'd pratically tried to attack him with a towel! So the thought that within moments she might suddenly be closing the distance between him in a shy but intensely alluring manner didn't ever enter into his mind, considering that she was wearing her protective medallion. Or so he had thought.

When she stepped a little closer, he slowly tilted his head to the side. He took a light step back in case she wanted to get around him, but he found that she closed the distance all the same. Desmond's eyes started to wind a little as she did so, opening his mouth to say something as he felt her fingertips slide against his collar bone and up around his shoulders. Perhaps she was simply giving him a hug? That was not something that was too uncommon, depending on the culture. And if this twenty-first century meant that men and women could co-habitate under the same roof, well, perhaps it meant that hugging had become a more common expression too, even if it was someone that you had just met.

But, even as she did it, he could feel her fingertips slipping up tantalizingly along the back of his neck into his messy hair. His mouth opened a little at the action, and he forgot to close it, his fangs biting into his lower lip a little as a shiver ran down his back and back up again, causing a little tremble to come from him as he felt his skin alive with goosebumps. Freshly showered, she smelled... amazingly good, he realized and as his eyes fluttered open there he saw something, something that betrayed how easy it would be to lean in and kiss her.

He wanted to. His species was not really known for it's self control when it came to women, after all. Swallowing a little he found his gloved hands at his sides moving towards her, feeling her shirt through the thick leather of them he slid it up, so that she would feel the slightly cool leather dragging across the bottom of her stomach, tantalizingly close to the waistband of her tiny shorts, his blue eyes filling up all of her vision for that moment as he tilted his head in contemplation of leaning down to brush his lips against hers. He could pratically taste her upon his lips.

Then softly, his hand pressed into her stomach, gently, slowly pulling her back as he took a bigger step back away from her, shaking his head to try to regain his sanity. His normally calm face was now hued by a bright red crimson as his chest heaved beneath his black t-shirt and duster, his eyes looking at her hungrily until he forced them to look away.

"I... I can't do this. We've just met, and... it isn't right..." he said softly, hoping that she would understand, and hoping to god that she didn't suddenly throw herself at him, because a part of him didn't know what he would do if she did.

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sincity
2010-06-12 03:05 am UTC (link)

He wasn't fighting her. He was allowing her to get closer and all she could think was that it felt right. She didn't have any experience with boys. She'd never even kissed a boy before. She'd never gone on a date, unless a school dance counted. She didn't have the first idea about what to do with a boy. She was going off a base instinct that drew her to him and urged her to be closer to him.

Their mouths were inches apart and she knew that she wanted to kiss him. He was bending and she was reaching when he felt his hands on her. She sucked in a breath when his hand touched her stomach and she wanted him to touch her lower on her body. But before she could voice such an opinion, he was pushing her away.

His face was red and she didn't understand what was happening. But the further he got from her, the more she came back to herself. She mimicked his movement and took a step back as well. Her mouth fell slowly open as she recalled what she had been doing and what a fool she must have made of herself. She blushed as hard as Desmond, if not more. She began to shake her head, wet strands flying every which way.

She lunged for her door and wrestled it open, not bothering to shut it behind her as she ran for her dresser and picked up the talisman and threw it around her neck. Instantly, she felt its effects and she sighed in relief. She took a few cleansing breaths before she headed back out, shutting the door behind her.

"I'm sorry. That was not me..." She wanted to reassure him that she wasn't that kind of girl. She didn't throw herself at every man that came along. She tucked the talisman beneath her shirt and wiped a hand over her face. "What are you, anyway?"

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poeticmisery
2010-06-12 03:50 am UTC (link)

The closeness of what had almost happened certainly didn't escape him either. It was odd that self control over blood was easier at times than other forms of self control. But then he'd just had a snack before coming here, which did take the edge off. Even as she backed away a few steps, he could feel something in him trying to pull him to take those steps back. It had been a long time since he'd let anyone touch him intimately. Not like she had. And here he was, barely meeting someone and she was caressing him in ways that... Ways that a part of him wanted. And a part of him very much did not. He clenched his jaw tightly as he tried to keep his head from spinning too much.

She was not material to be a mate... not yet. Which meant that anything would be... enjoyable, but also empty, and complicated. Not many women thought of lovemaking as a casual thing, and those that did were often so dangerous that it was better not to indulge even if you wanted to. And, as if some sort of cosmic nod from the heavens above that he was right, he watched her face start to get cherry red as he pushed her away, his eyebrows raising a little as she suddenly dashed out of the room.

Desmond fell back against the wall, leaning his head back to stair up at the ceiling as his mind reeled in the abscence of her prescence, and he regained his composure, slowly but surely, taking slow breaths to help it along as his eyes examined the ceiling quietly. For not the first time, he wondered if coming to this place wasn't one giant mistake...

Her laugh rang out like a dagger in his chest, and he grabbed her by the throat to stop it, but it didn't stop even as his fingers clenched down and roughly slammed her into the wall hard enough to rattle the dust and dirt that had settled into the brick. Instead, she just smiled at him, a twisted facimile of the one that he had stared at for hours, longing for, wishing for....

"You don't get it yet, do you, Desmond?" She purred at him. "It was all a game. A sad, sorry, twisted little game that we played with you. That everyone plays with you. She never loved you Desmond, she was just another brainwashed slave of yours... another victim of the curse that is you. You shouldn't feel bad about it Desmond, it's what you are!"

"Shut up, Mari... just... SHUT UP!" Desmond howled as he slammed her hard enough that he could hear her skull smashing against the brick with a dull thudding, but unlike a mortal might have she just leaned closer to him, almost close enough to kiss his lips.

"You're a sex god, Desmond. You need to learn to embrace it. HE has... and the sooner you give up these silly little ideas of yours, the sooner you'll understand... no one will really love you for who you are... they don't even have the chance to... stop looking for some deeper meaning to it all and just learn... to accept... your fate."

Desmond's head snapped down as he looked at Dannika, his eyes dialated for a moment before they landed upon what was on her neck. His lips stretched slightly as he forced himself not to frown, or show the pain that stabbed at his heart briefly. Her talisman. Of course she wanted him. She had been compelled to, by the very nature of what he was. He looked down for a moment and closed his eyes, taking the emotion that washed over in him that one breath, that one breath to let all that agony and frustration burn at the depths of his soul...

And then he quietly looked up at her again, and smiled. "You forgot your protection, that... makes a bit more sense now. You should be a little more careful with that around this campus..." he said quietly.

"I'm... a half breed. A... dhampir, I believe they refer to them here." He said quietly, watching her reaction. "Do not worry, I only drink the blood of animals... not humans." He said, leaving out the fact that there were times when he really... really wanted to. "And I promise that I have no intentions of doing that in our apartment."

Forcing a bit of a wider smile, he extended a gloved hand to shake her hand. "Sorry that we got started off on something of the... wrong foot."

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sincity
2010-06-12 04:49 am UTC (link)

He seemed to have been off in some other place when she came out of her room. She saw his eyes go to the talisman before she hid it away beneath her shirt. "I used to live here alone. I didn't need to have it on in the dorm. I suppose that will have to change, though." She would never forget it again, she would make sure of that. Having a sexy half-vampire for a roommate was a dangerous thing.

She nodded when he explained his race. "I was warned that all supernaturals have an allure about them. It seems Dhampirs are no exception." She gave a bemused smile at the situation that had overcome the both of them only minutes before. She wrinkled her nose slightly at the mention of blood. She didn't have a particularly strong stomach when it came to things like that and the idea of dead animals sickened her. "I appreciate that. Dead bunnies aren't exactly my idea of good housemates."

She leaned forward and shook his hand, waiting to feel that overwhelming lovesickness she'd felt before. But nothing came. She truly felt the power of the talisman now, and she was grateful that the faculty had the foresight to know that there were situations when the talismans would be needed. "It's not your fault. I guess even in an empty room I should have been wearing my necklace." She gave a wry smile and shrugged.

"Um, let me show you the rest of the dorm?" She moved past him out of the hall and gestured to the bathroom that she'd come out of when they first met. "The bathroom, obviously." Moving past that, she continued into the living area. "Living room slash dining room and over there," she pointed at the kitchen, "Is the kitchen. I guess you won't be using it much. I hope you don't mind if I do."

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poeticmisery
2010-06-12 05:14 am UTC (link)

"You are right. You were living here alone, and my intrusion was unexpected. I probably should have thought to ask you if you were wearing it, rather than assuming that you were. I'm sorry, Dannika." He smiled a little at her, letting the awkwardness of the situation that they had previously just been in melt away and fade into the background. Gone were the urges now, killed mostly by the memories of his past rather than the fact that the young gymnast was wearing some type of mystical talisman that kept him from being attracted to her. It was said that with enough time, all wounds were healed, but Desmond knew better, that some things could never really fully be mended.

"I don't really care for dead animals myself." Desmond admitted. Though it wasn't as if he couldn't stand them if he needed to. It was just from an aestetic perspective, dead things were somewhat... morbid. That, and they really started to stink after a while, which was why not many vampires tended to relish in their kills by keeping them. The animals that he fed on served a purpose, and once they were done serving that purpose, they were disposed of.

When she shook his hand, though he would not admit it if asked, a part of him was worried that the talisman wouldn't work. And another part of him hoped that it wouldn't, that what had happened before was not some inherant property of his species, but a property of him. That it was not the dhampir that was irresistable, but Desmond. But he could see it in her eyes, there was not any attraction there that had been there a moment ago. He forced his smile a little bigger, and followed her through the tour of the house.

It all seemed pretty spartan, but Desmond, having spent a decent portion of his life with just a bed roll to call home, this was something like a palace. Of course, having stayed in palaces as well, he was aware that thinking of it as a palace was a falacy as well. So instead of offering any particular commentary on the decorum, he quietly followed behind Dannika, taking in every little nook and cranny of the place that he could. It was good to make sure that he knew his surroundings at all times. Though they assured that he was safe here, if, for some reason, he was attacked, a misplaced foot could be all there was between life and death.

"I wouldn't say that I won't be using it at all." Desmond said quietly. "While I can't live by standard food alone, I can still taste it, it is a pleasure, even if it is not a necessity... Maybe I will see if I can cook you up some of the dishes that I can remember how to cook sometime." he offered, trying to extend an olive branch to the girl whom was probably mortified over what had happened.

"So... is there anything you do for fun around here?" he asked cautiously, remembering what trouble the last question had gotten him into.

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sincity
2010-06-14 01:49 pm UTC (link)

The truth was, Dannika found Desmond very attractive. There was a part of her that wished she hadn't come to her senses and run for her talisman because she might have been able to experience something she'd never been able to before. Her upbringing had ensured that she would be awkward with the first boy she kissed, the first boy she made out with, and the first boy she finally had sex with. She had convinced herself that sex would be saved for marriage, but after this she wasn't so sure anymore. Who was to say she wouldn't forget her talisman again and end up in the hands of someone who wasn't as honest as Desmond?

It was going to be really strange for her to be around Desmond for a while, knowing what she'd done and how she'd acted; so against her nature. But it had given her some perspective. Now she knew just how strong the natural pull of the supernatural was. She shook her head at his apology. "No need to apologize. It's not entirely your fault." She supposed he couldn't help who he was. It wasn't as if he'd asked to be born. Just like her.

Dannika hadn't realized that dhampirs could eat regular people food. She assumed that because he'd mentioned it, that he lived off of animal blood alone. So it surprised her somewhat when he said that he could not only eat it, but found pleasure in it as well. "Yeah, that would be great. I'm not a bad cook, but I really only know what I can copy out of a cookbook or that I've made a hundred times at home. Tacos, hamburgers, casseroles, spaghetti..." she trailed off looking up at him, "You get the idea." She gave him a small smile and then started to walk back toward the bedroom.

"I'm sorry we don't have a television in our dorm. My parents didn't send one with me and I guess the school doesn't furnish them." She turned back to him when he asked if there was anything fun to do around here. "I've only been here a couple of weeks, but from what I've gathered, there's some pretty good restaurants and some fun bars. I've never been to a bar myself, but I think they have bowling and miniature golf and there are a bunch of natural attractions to see around here, too." She spoke it all pretty quickly, as things came to her. "But I'm not familiar with the area. I think there might be some other students who might be better suited to show you around." She frowned slightly, wishing that she could be of better help.

"I dunno, I bet we could find something fun to do together, though." She realized as it came out of her mouth that it could be misconstrued as something totally different, but she really hoped Desmond wasn't the type to take people's words and make them into something else.

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poeticmisery
2010-06-14 11:56 pm UTC (link)

Even if Dannika found him attractive, Desmond didn't find himself attractive. It was all in his head, essentially. Even if he had not been a dhampir he would have been attractive to women. But the fact that he had lived so long, naturally attracting them regardless of how he acted had lead to a bitterness there. Combine that with the fact that the ones who were immune to his powers were vampires, whom would have regarded him as an ugly half breed regardless of how marvelous he had looked. Over time it had developed into a rather humble self image, one that accredited any attraction to himself as part of his species, rather than just how he looked or who he was inside.

"No, it really was. I am not used to having people with talismans around me, and I took for granted what the school had said about them. I should have checked before hand. Thank you though, it was a valuable lesson that I should be more careful around mortals in the future." he said nodding quietly. What he left out was the way that he had been drawn to her, and that, if it had been combined with the lust for blood it would have been nearly undeniable. That, and he had no particular talisman with which to curb that, so she would always be so... attractive to him whenever the sun went down. Still, he would need to learn to curb those desires, and the best way to do it was with practice.

Desmond couldn't help but wrinkle his nose a little at the things that she mentioned. It was not because he didn't like her cooking, per se, but since waking up in this world, what little experience he'd had with all of the things that she had mentioned was somewhat awful. After all, most of those were things that they sold in what people referred to as 'Fast Food' establishments, which just did not smell right. The worst of all was that place with giant golden arches. It almost turned Desmond's stomach to think of what had happened there when he had tried to order chicken... nuggets. "Well... once I appropriate some funds for myself, I will see what I can do about getting good food to cook." he said quietly.

"A... television." Desmond said slowly, sort of playing with the words. Sometimes he could take apart words into the root words, to try and find a meaning in them. But television did not provide much more than something you looked through. The ability to see something. What it was that you could see, could be anything. Maybe it was a fancy name for a looking glass? But if that was the case, why would she apologize for not having one? And he had seen that there was one in the bathroom, that should have been sufficient. Desmond tilted his head a little and paused, looking at Dannika for a little bit of help on this one. "I have to admit that I am uncertain as to what a television is? Are they necessary for a... natural dormatory living experience?" he said, looking to her for advice. If that was the case, he would certainly need to acquire one.

"Bowling... miniature golf?" Desmond said, with the same blank look on his face. Miniature golf sounded the most interesting, because he did know what golf was... and wondered how one could drive a ball very far if they were playing with a small club. How miniature was miniature? Was everything smaller? Or were certain things smaller, but certain things remained the same. It all seemed very... interesting. Still, he made a mental checklist to do all of the things that Dannika had suggested. An unedited list of things that he should do while he was at Alden was exactly the sort of thing he had been looking for when he'd asked her the question. This was in fact somewhat exciting.

"Doing something together would be wonderful." Desmond said, totally missing the connotation that might have come from her asking him to do something with her might have been. Really, this whole meeting had gone more smoothly than he could have hoped for, save for the small bump in the fact that he'd nearly slept with his roommate. But if you looked past that... well...

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sincity
2010-06-15 02:23 am UTC (link)

He wrinkled his nose and she raised a brow. He seemed familiar with the dishes she mentioned and he also seemed to dislike them. If his wrinkled nose was any indication, anyway. It brought a smile to her face as she thought he must think her a completely backward and utterly hillbilly hick for only knowing how to make those kinds of things. "For what it's worth, I make some pretty good fried chicken." She grinned again, then gestured toward the living room sofa. "Want to have a seat?"

She sat at one end of the couch, tucking her legs beneath her and pulling one of the throw pillows into her lap. She looked at him blankly for a minute. "You don't know what a television is?" She couldn't conceive of someone not knowing about TVs. "Then I guess you probably don't know about computers either, huh?" She shook her head. "Just how old are you, anyway?" She knew that vampires and dhampirs could age without ever looking any older. For all she knew, Desmond could be hundreds of years old. "And where have you been for the last hundred years since TVs have been around?"

"A TV isn't strictly necessary for dorm life, but it helps to pass the time." She paused a moment as she contemplated how to explain televisions. "A television is a box with a screen. It projects moving images for people to watch. I'm guessing you've never seen a motion picture, then, either?" She really wished she had a TV now because it would be cool to see him react to it.

"Oh man, you have missed out on a lot of stuff. Bowling is a game where you throw a heavy ball at some pins that are standing in a triangular pattern. The more you knock down, the better your score. And miniature golf is like regular golf except the course is much smaller, you only get one kind of club, a putter, and there are usually themes to each hole or course. Like at the end, you hit the ball into a big windmill or something." Having something to talk about was helping Danni forget what a fool she'd made of herself earlier.

"So are you a freshman, then? What courses are you taking? Are you taking summer courses? I got here early so I could start practicing with the gymnastics team. I'm not going to be taking any classes until fall, though. Do you have a major?" Now she was her usually chatty self. Once she got going, it was hard to get her to stop. Not only was she a curious person, but she had a natural bubbly nature.

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poeticmisery
2010-06-15 03:33 am UTC (link)

Images of a horrific place called 'Kentucky Fried Chicken' sprang to mind, and his eyes widened a little as he looked down, not knowing how to delicately tell her that he would want to pass on her fried chicken. Then again, maybe she would have some way of making it a bit less... wretched. But then, maybe she wouldn't. Desmond felt somewhat conflicted. "As long as you don't prefer that it be fried the Kentucky way with eleven herbs and spices..." he said slowly, remembering exactly how it had been explained to him. It was not... pleasant. To say the least.

Cautiously as she offered him a seat he graciously nodded, and then sat, at the other end of the couch from her, but not hugging the other end of it. It was a polite amount of space, which seemed to him, adequate for their relationship, especially given the fact that a few moments ago she had been running her fingers through his hair. She seemed somewhat bemused with the fact that he didn't know what a television was, which betrayed the fact that he needed her all the more, so that he would have someone who would tell him what these things happened to be so that he could fit in with society with a bit more ease then he was currently doing. She might have been bubbly, but at this point he was very, very inquisitive.

"No, I do not know what a television is." he said solemnly. As she brought up a computer, he blinked a little, and then slowly shook his head. "I am afraid I do not really know what a compute-or is either." Desmond couldn't help but wince a little as she seemed taken aback by both of these facts, and gave him the same look that the woman had given him when he had been unable to use a computer for registering for his classes. "I am very, very old." he said when she asked what his age was. He found that tended to work better with humans than to tell his actual age. The human mind could really only take so much sometimes, and often when he spoke his real age it would simply fail to really process with some people.

"But I have been asleep for a few hundred years as well. It seems as if the advances that were made in such a short period of time were... vast and significant. Which is why I am here. I need to... re-learn how to live in the world. And what better place to re-learn such a thing than a college campus?" He smiled a little, though it didn't meet the sadness that was forever present in his eyes. Hopefully, however, Dannika would not notice that. The sadness there was a bit much to try to tackle in a single day, after all.

"Oh!" he said, nodding a little as she mentioned what a television was. "I have seen one of those, the portals, in all sizes, that show many different things. At first I had thought they were magic, but they seemed so prevalent that I realized they were not." he said. "I have seen them in store windows, but I did not know what they were called." He paused a little and frowned. "What is it that people seem to carry with them in their hands? It seems as if most people have them, but they come in all shapes and sizes, but I don't know what they are called." Now he wished he had one so that he could show her. It seemed as if it would be so much easier to explain that way.

"They usually have some sort of buttons on them, sometimes it's just twelve of them, with ten numbers and two symbols..." He looked at her, hoping that she would realize what it was that he was talking about. It seemed as if they were very important, and he was terribly curious as to what they were.

He tilted his head as she explained to him what bowling was. "It seems like the pins would often be destroyed, unless they are made of a tough metal. What are they made of? How heavy are the balls?" he said. Clearly the concept of it was alluding him a little. But then again, he could easily have thrown a bowling ball through an armored car. It did seem like a game he would be good at, however.

"So it is golf, but just putting. That sounds... odd." Desmond frowned a little. "Why would someone not play old fashioned golf then? Is it just a different way of working on your putting skills? Is it scored the same as normal golf?"

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poeticmisery
2010-06-15 03:33 am UTC (link)

"Yes, I am a freshman. I am taking six summer courses. I do not have a major. Gymnastics, does that still mean what it used to mean?" Desmond had been around for the root of the word, in greek origins. The actions of physical activity had been lost when the Romans had taken over the Grecian empire, however. Romans were far more concerned with War, which helped them conquer. "Perhaps some time I can watch you do this."

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sincity
2010-06-15 04:09 am UTC (link)

Danni actually laughed at that. "I guess you're not too fond of fast food, huh? Well, my fried chicken isn't like KFC's. It's way better. I promise." Her mother had been famous for her fried chicken, and it had been many of the staples at church gatherings when she was growing up. Her mother had taught her how to make it when she was in high school and she'd made it a few times for friends. It had gone over well, but then her friends were used to the abundance of fast food, unlike Desmond.

She nodded when he explained that he was very very old. It was probably the same situation she encountered with her mother and her friends. As people aged, they didn't like to disclose their age as much. Danni didn't really understand why, but she respected other people's privacy enough to know when an inquiry had gone far enough. "Asleep? Like Sleeping Beauty?" She tried to imagine Desmond asleep on some sort four poster bed with gauzy drapes and a comforter tucked perfectly around his still form, but the thought only served to make her giggle. She clapped a hand over her mouth and looked at him guiltily. "I'm sorry, I wasn't laughing at you."

She nodded. "You certainly have a lot to learn. How long were you asleep, exactly? I mean... where should we start?" It was lucky that he had been accidentally roomed with a techie, because she was probably the best person to help him understand all the new technologies out there. She could explain how they worked, if it interested him, and at least show him how to operate them if it didn't.

"The little things? iPods, maybe?" But as he further explained an understanding dawned on her. "Oh, phones. Those are telephones. Devices meant to help people communicate with one another over long distances. You can also send text messages, short typed notes, through telephones as well. The ones you see people holding are called cellular phones, or cell phones. They operate by satellite... a device that orbits the Earth and transmits signals." Good lord she was going to have a lot to explain. "They're a pretty recent development. Before ten years ago, everyone had land lines and the communication was transmitted through the telephone wires."

"Oh, the balls are not that heavy. Between eight and fifteen pounds, normally. And the pins I think are made of wood or plastic. I'm not sure. Maybe wood coated in plastic? But they're resilient. They take quite a beating but hold up pretty well." Danni liked to bowl. It was one of the things she'd done with her family about once a month. And in Nebraska, that was something exciting.

She laughed at his description of miniature golf. "It is a little odd, really. But it's not a real sport like regular golf. It's just for fun. Mostly I think it's designed for little kids, but us big kids like to play it sometimes, too. I'm pretty sure a game of mini golf goes way faster than an 18-hole course of old fashioned golf."

"I'm a freshman, too. I'm majoring in Mechanical Engineering because believe it or not, they don't offer a major in gymnastics. One of these days I'm going to go to the Olympics, though. I'll just work in my time off or something." Gymnastics was her real passion, and she was only majoring in something so she could go to school here. "Um, I think it still means the same thing." She watched him for a moment, not sure if he was serious about wanting to watch her do some of her moves. But he didn't seem to be laughing so she got up from the couch and bent over, putting her weight on both hands before lifting her lower body into the air. She performed a handstand, walked a few paces and then split her legs. She put all her weight on one hand and then lifted the other so that she was balanced on one palm.

She put her hand back down and then lowered her feet to the ground. "I have a couple of routines, but this place isn't big enough by far for those." She spoke as she stood up, a little red-faced from the blood rushing downward.

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poeticmisery
2010-06-15 11:41 pm UTC (link)

"Fast food is... somewhat expedient, but... very little else." Desmond said quietly. It took him a minute to realize that KFC was supposed to stand for Kentucky Fried Chicken. Society, these days seemed obsessed with their acronyms to the point of insanity. While it did seem to condense speech slightly, Desmond wasn't sure if it was worth the trade offs were worth people sounding the way that they did when they were spouting out acronym after acronym to the point where it took a minute to really register what they were saying. Perhaps it was easier when one got used to it, though Desmond wondered if that wasn't the case, and people just spouted acronyms at one another to make themselves feel impressive.

"Sleeping beauty..?" Desmond questioned a little. He had been asleep before the Grimm's fairytales had really been widespread throughout the world, and even if he hadn't, he had very little use for children's stories. He watched her laugh and tilted his head a little, wondering if she was perhaps making fun of the way that he looked. She seemed to find it amusing that he would be called beautiful, or so he had thought. It really just served to reinforce the idea in his mind that without some mystic power over someone he really was just simply... plain. But it was something he learned to live with, so he just nodded politely when she apologized and didn't really bring it up.

"I was asleep for about 200 years, give or take." he said. Before he had hunted down Dracula, then given up hunting altogether, he had been obsessed with killing vampires to the point where he rarely ate or slept unless it was to gain strength before the hunt. The years had flown by, and he hadn't truly been paying attention to what year it was while he had been hunting. Only the next kill, and more blood on his hands to try to fill the void that had been left, though no amount of it really did anything for him.

"iPods?" he said, tilting his head. Clearly he had no idea what it was that an iPod was. The name seemed vague enough that it really could have applied to anything. At least a television had words that he could break down. "A telephone..." he said, repeating the word and rolling it around in his mind. As Dannika started to explain it his eyes widened a little. It seemed that the future was rather frightening indeed if such things were possible. "So, you can speak into one of these telephones... to someone on the other side of the world?" he asked. Not even the most powerful vampire he'd ever confronted could perform such a feet as speaking into someone's mind a world away.

"Satellites. So mankind has ventured into space then? How many planets in this solar system have they colonized?" he said, perhaps getting a bit ahead of himself. All of this seemed like the work of fantasy writers back in his times, but even then man had dreamnt of being able to explore the stars, and mankind had discovered that the universe did not revolve around earth (even if they had been forced to recant such findings due to outside influence). Desmond couldn't help but wonder exactly how fantastic the world had become... would it be hard to see other worlds? Was it something that vampires and Dhampirs could even do? There were so very many questions.

"Fifteen lbs... and wooden pins? This must be a human game, then..." he said, imagining for a moment what he could do with such instruments. He would break the pins every time if he were not careful... perhaps if they made the ball softer or something along those lines it could make the game more challenging, though he still failed to see how knocking down 10 pieces of wood stood up on an end could be that difficult if he could throw a ball as hard as he was able to do so into them. He smiled a little though at hte idea... it still might be fun to try...

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poeticmisery
2010-06-15 11:41 pm UTC (link)

"The Olympics...? Truly?" Desmond asked. If Dannika knew her history, that might date him. After all, the modern olympics were not 200 years old. They were barely around 150. Which meant that if Desmond knew what the olympics were, he had known about the original ones, the ones that had happened in ancient greece. "How strange that mankind would revive such a transition... but heartening though..." he said. The Olympics were a peaceful ideal... not one based off of war.

As he watched her do her handstand, he blinked a little, hoping that her talisman did not fall off with her upside down like that. He didn't see it fall off, but that wasn't to say that he didn't miss something... especially not when she was stretching her legs in those flimsy shorts of hers... "Yes, that seems very similar to what I remember. And is very impressive... most humans these days do not seem like they are capable of such feats like you are..."

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sincity
2010-06-16 04:28 pm UTC (link)

Danni nodded to show that she understood his view on fast food. She didn't necessarily agree, but she'd been brought up on it. Well, it had been prevalent when she was young, but that wasn't to say that her mother let them have it very often. It was expensive to take everyone to a fast food restaurant and much cheaper to feed the family at home. But that wasn't to say that the food she had at home wasn't similar. They were meals that were easy to prepare and fairly inexpensive.

She shook her head. "It's a fairytale. About a Princess who is put to sleep for a hundred years or something by a wicked fairy who wasn't invited to her blessing day. She pricks her finger on a spindle and goes to sleep until she's awakened by her Prince's true love's kiss." She hoped he would see why she thought it funny. "They don't have many fairytales where the man is the victim." She shrugged.

"That's quite an amount of time to lose." It also told her that he was at least two hundred years old. She tried to think of what he had missed and realized that it was quite a lot. "We should probably go to the library and check some books out on the developments of the last two hundred years. It's likely I'll forget something if we don't."

"An iPod is a small device that plays music. There are small speakers that fit in the ears so that you can listen to it without anyone else really hearing it. They're called headphones. Anyway, they attach to the iPod and you can store thousands and thousands of songs on it. I think I have around ten thousand songs in mine." She used the music to practice her dance routines and she listened to it while she did her homework because it helped her to concentrate. The silence was way more distracting to her than the blast of music.

She knew that there were a lot more things than technology that she needed to go over with him. Music, even, had passed through several different phases and there were so many different genres now. She figured he'd probably like classical more than anything, if he even liked music to begin with.

She nodded at his questions of the telephone. "Yes. It's pretty amazing if you really stop to think about it, but I think most people take this kind of technology for granted these days. Oh yeah. We've had a man on the moon and everything. Colonized?" She began to laugh. "Well, the planets in our solar system are uninhabitable so far. At least by humans. Who knows about any beyond that." She knew that there were aliens, extraterrestrials, on Earth, but she didn't know much about them. In human schools, they didn't teach about those systems and planets.

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sincity
2010-06-16 04:28 pm UTC (link)

She nodded with a smile. "Yeah, Bowling is definitely a human game. Do vampires and dhampirs have games of their own?" She could see where Desmond would question this because of the strength his species was known to have. Throwing a ball at a bunch of pins must seem very easy to him. "It's harder than you think, and there's a strategy. Even the people who throw the ball hard have been known to leave pins standing on the sides while the ball plows through them. I think if you get the ball spinning, and hit the first pin at an angle it knocks the rest down." She informed him. It was easy for her to feel inferior to his species. To any supernaturals, actually. They all seemed to be faster, stronger, smarter and had powers she could never even attempt to obtain.

"Oh yeah! I was just shy of competing in the 2008 Summer Games in China." She would have loved to have been able to go there. She felt a little vindictive toward her home country because the parents she'd been born to there hadn't been able to keep her and so she'd gone to an orphanage. It was only luck that she'd been adopted by such a loving American family. Having the chance to be on the team that defeated the Chinese on the Balance Beam on their home turf would have been cathartic for her.

Something that he said about the Olympics being revived niggled at her. As one who had been fairly obsessed with the Olympics, she realized that they had only been around in the modern world since 1896. 114 years. And he'd been asleep for 200. She didn't reveal her new realization, but how very old he was finally registered with her and she let out a soft breath of wonder.

She laughed and shook her head, "No, most humans aren't capable of 'such feats'. I've trained since I was a child. The last 13 years or so of my life have been dedicated to Gymnastics. Some humans might be able to tumble a little, but what I do requires years and years of training." She was sure that gymnastics would be easier for a supernatural than it was for a human because of their natural litheness and the make up of their bodies to be lighter and bendier. But the Olympics were still just for humans and even if she didn't win much for Alden, she'd still get in a lot of practice and some different training having to go up against Supers.

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poeticmisery
2010-06-17 10:20 pm UTC (link)

"A fairy tale?" Desmond said suspiciously. Wondering, of course, why she would think that he would relate to a tale about fairies. After all, they went to school here, and while, as far experience had taught him they were an alright (if not mischevious bunch), he still wasn't sure how a fairy related to a dhampir at all. He seemed a bit skeptical of her whole explanation of the thing. But he supposed that he had heard of more far fetched magicks than the one she had described, perhaps this fairy tale had actually happened at some point.

"No... it was no magic that killed me, just a device created to impale me and drain my blood." Desmond said rather flatly. Clearly the humor in her story was just a little bit lost on him. Not that he was particularly angry about it, it just was... odd.

"Yes, the time I slept was rather extensive... but then again, it is better than what it could have been. The most disheartening thing about it is how very much has changed in such a short span of time. I can only imagine what would happen if I fell asleep for two hundred years now. The advancements that mankind are making seem to be speeding up more and more rapidly." He didn't even mention the level of human expansion. When he had gone to sleep there was wild country in the Americas to explore. Yet now, now there were people everywhere like rats on a ship, crowding and piling themselves up on one another in their great stone and glass towers that stood out for miles around.

"Ten thousand songs?" Desmond paled a little at the idea of it. A decently composed piece could take 10 minutes if not more for a single movement in a song. What would happen then if there were 10,000 complete songs on a single device. "And the computer makes the music then, there are no more need for pianists or violinists to play these pieces?" Desmond asked, frowning slightly. Ten thousand was a big number, and the fact that she had idly thrown that out meant that she probably wasn't pressing the limits of what the device was capable of. "How would you have time to listen to all of them before you died?" he asked, frowning again as he tried to wrap his brain around all of it. It was starting to hurt a little.

"A man on the moon. Fascinating. But we have not gone to explore other planets then? Surely the moon is no more inhabitable than the other planets in our system." Desmond said, even as he frowned a little. It seemed strange, man was capable of so much, and yet the most fascinating dream, the ability to reach for the stars and go to colonize other worlds seemed beyond their reach. He supposed that it made sense in a way. Usually those who were pioneers were often interested in what they did for the money, and until there could be a good way to make money off of going to other planets, he doubted that man's greed would let him overcome his short sitedness when it came to exploring other places.

"As far as I know, Half Breeds are so uncommon that there really aren't many... games, that are played amongst us. Vampires tend to consider themselves aristocracy... sleeping with a human that you have no intention of turning is considered... slumming it." Desmond said quietly. He could have put it a bit gentler, but then, there didn't really seem to be a better way to state it. Dhampirs weren't exactly run of the mill, or they hadn't been when Desmond had been awake in this world. He still was somewhat surprised that they and vampires were in the same house... perhaps the old hatreds were not there, though Desmond woul be surprised if that was truly the case. "As for vampires... the sorts of games that they play, you would not like to know about." Desmond said honestly, recalling some of the more horrific things that he had seen.

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poeticmisery
2010-06-17 10:20 pm UTC (link)

"China? So they host it in different places then?" he asked, further betraying the fact that the Olympic games that he was familiar with had nothing to do with the ones that were played now. Back in the day, they were only hosted in greece, not the way that they moved about now. So very many things about this world seemed odd and unique to him.

"Not everything has changed then." Desmond replied to her when she mentioned having trained for 13 years to get her body into such a condition. "I spent many many years perfecting my body in a similar fashion. Dhampir do not have their powers in the day, so it is crucial to be able to perform such acrobatics as a normal human. It also enhances what one can put themselves through at night."

As he mentioned this, he noted that it was starting to get a bit late in the day. He didn't particularly want to be around Dannika when the sun went down... not yet, anyway. Not until he was used to the cravings again. "But, while it has been enjoyable talking, I should probably go, prepare myself for the evening. Thank you for taking the time to share so much about the current times with me, Dannika." he said politely. "I'm sure I'll have many many more questions soon."

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sincity
2010-06-21 02:13 pm UTC (link)

Dannika cringed lightly. "It's a human word. For anything that's unbelievable, although I'm pretty sure it's completely possible." Dannika had grown up the way most normal humans did. Because the supernatural were segregated away from humans, their culture didn't seep into the human education.

When he described the device that had made him sleep for two hundred years, she visibly paled. Dannika did not handle bodily fluids well, not even her own. If she bled, she fainted. If she vomited, she passed out. The idea of draining someone of their blood, just the idea of it, made her stomach flip flop. This was why she was a mechanical engineering major and not a pre-med student.

"Oh, no no! We definitely still have a need for musicians and singers. The computer can replicate the sounds, but it's not the same. I think music has probably changed quite a bit since you've been away." The length of songs was one of those changes. They didn't last more than five minutes these days, and even that was considered a lengthy one.

"No, I don't think we have the equipment for exploring the other planets. Mostly because it's so far away. Sending humans into space greatly deteriorates their bone mass. Ten percent for each month in space. It's sort of dangerous, actually. And no, the moon is no more inhabitable, mostly because there's no atmosphere, no gravity. A human couldn't breathe, they'd combust." She was actually pretty happy being on Earth, and had no desire to go into space whatsoever.

As Desmond described the way that vampires thought of themselves, her lip curled slightly. It was a little surprising to hear that vampires were selective of the humans they chose to turn. Apparently humans weren't the only snobs around.

She nodded. "Yeah, we hold them quite a bit here in the United States. But other countries get to hold them as well. You just missed the winter games. They held them in Vancouver this year. That's in Canada." She wasn't sure which countries and cities had been around when he'd gone to sleep, so she was really just trying to help him understand.

It was good to know what he was telling her about Dhampirs. Interesting, and something she could possibly use to save her life if it came to that again. She glanced toward the window at the rear of the hall and nodded. The sun was still up, and it would still be up for quite a few hours, but she'd talked to Desmond for several hours and it was now time to get to the gym.

She stood up and gave him a smile. "Sure. You can ask me whatever you want. I can't guarantee I'll know the answer, but I bet we could figure it out together. I think once you discover the internet, it's going to be hard to pry you away from the computer." She grinned and then headed for her room to change. Her damp hair had long ago dried and she twisted it as she stepped into her room and closed the door.

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