Re: Roadside tent: Daniel W & Damian W
The idea that Daniel had a sense of propriety was a good one, yes. At first, it might be propriety--the polite (extremely western) idea of man and ownership, a this land is my land thing, one interpreted in modern society with hedges and white picket fences. Daniel would say that the feeling started as a violation of hospitality, the combination of rage and disquiet when strange people have been tramping your innermost ground, and the contrast between an open door with an invitation to tea and trespassing through a locked window to steal the silver. The vampire would say this, but truly at that moment his response was territorial, nearly bestial. His approach had not been to teach anyone a lesson, but wipe the occupants of the tent off the earth in a splash of blood and a very short scream.
By his presence alone the little chessman impeded some of that instinct, as he intrigued Daniel on an intellectual level, and it was difficult to act like a savage when your brains were mulling over the puzzle of outside personality and evolved humanity. In general Daniel was also intrigued by various forms of youth and innocence, perhaps because he himself was such an old, stained creature, and hardly likely to venture into those virgin grounds again. Watching the little chessman with his structured, trained violence, Daniel was more interested in him than the scrounging peddlers in the tent.
Fortunately for them.
It was a near thing when one of them actually shot him. As with a surprising number of killers, Daniel was frightened by pain, and the supposed threat to his existence made him angry enough to nearly forget he had an audience that obviously wished to frighten and detain rather than kill. The loose cream of his shirt now slashed with the wet shadow of old blood down chest and stomach, the vampire did not react well to Damian when he came forward to drag Goon #1 over for a treatment similar to #2; his immediate response was a silent snarl of teeth, like a hawk protecting a kill. He blinked twice, however, as the green boots flashed at the edge of his blackened vision, and he pulled his lips down as if in an expression of distaste before he stretched the top of his spine in either direction, the movement reminiscent of certain snakes settling the hinge of the jaw back into place. Amid the visual echoes of these two predators, Daniel inhaled air he didn't need and brushed his fingers down his sticky, stinging chest. He grimaced, but inclined his head in a more human way as Damian gestured at him.
Once again he obeyed, his eyes glinting with amusement rather than anger, moving back and away again into the corner of tent and pole, where the debris concealed the edges of his silhouette. Daniel was not as patient of a hunter as Damian, and he was used to striding out and talking people into his embrace, so he was certainly not as still as the two men outside had a little conversation about the mess inside. As Daniel had no special means of torture nor any real skill with the subject, he hadn't any idea what to do with the Actor if he wasn't going to kill him. He wasn't as angry as before, and where a human more used to intimidating and fighting other humans might be skilled and practiced in doing things like, oh, snapping a limb or terrifying the superstitious, Daniel was only used to being himself. For most occasions that was quite frightening enough.
Now, for lack of any better idea, he simply walked out of the dark behind the man left for him, and sank his teeth into the side of the man's neck, wrapping around and hauling him back like a serpent coiling around a rat. He let the man scream as he drained him into unconsciousness, and dropped the Actor in a (still living) heap with regret he couldn't have tasted better. He looked over to see what the little chessman would do with the greasy-smelling leader.