WHAT: Laurence and Lorna fight a pillow monster, so like, a typical Wednesday in Vallo WHERE: The streets of Vallo City WHEN: This morning WARNINGS: A distinct loss of dignity STATUS: Complete
Lorna Dane has seen a lot in her life, but nothing she’d previously encountered would have prepared her for the fifteen foot tall pillow monster that was currently crashing its way down the street. She had half a mind to turn the other way and get coffee from some other shop before heading to the smithy to start work, but there was always the chance the thing would end up making its way further through the city before someone handled it. That wouldn’t have been too much of a concern but with her daughter in one of the local daycares, she couldn’t really risk it getting even closer.
At least it wasn’t a robot.
Though then she would have been able to disable it with a flick of her hand or a little more maneuvering if there wasn’t any metal inside of it. How the hell was she supposed to take down pillows?
“This really couldn’t have waited until I got my coffee?”
Whatever this was, it had waited until Laurence had got his coffee, though not until after he had finished drinking it.
He really wasn’t sure what to think of all of this; he had seen plenty of strange things since coming to Vallo, but this past week had been, perhaps, the strangest, whether it had been the rainbow coloured unicorns prancing on clouds of gold he had seen on Monday, to… whatever this was. A monster of pillows, it seemed.
It was with a small stab of guilt that he decided against contacting Temeraire. If it seemed like a bigger threat than a bundle of walking pillows, he might have, but the city streets weren’t really wide enough to accommodate Temeraire’s girth, and the dragon would no doubt come flying pell-mell if he thought Laurence was in danger, likely causing more damage than a being apparently made fabric and feathers.
He placed his coffee on a nearby table and drew his pistol, and did a quick check of the street behind the creature. He thought he was likely in the clear.
He strode closer to the creature, pistol levelled at it, until he was next to a green-haired woman. “Cover your ears, if you please,” he said briskly, and then pulled the trigger.
It wasn’t a regular bullet that flew out, but rather an immense soundwave, a bullet created by Brigitte which Laurence had kept as a regular in his arsenal since he arrived: it reminded him, a little, of Temeraire’s Divine Wind. Laurence’s hair blew from his face from the blowback, and the windows along the street rattled in their panes, though if he’d directed the blast at them, they surely would have shattered.
The pillow monster did not – the pillows rippled, and some of the down stuffing flew loose, but the creature only paused briefly when it had encountered the wall of sound, and then continued on unharmed once the wall had blown past it.
Lorna arched a brow at the display. The blast the soundwave had created reminded her of some others she’d seen mutants back in her world create, but the fact it’d done little but cause the pillow to lose a bit of stuffing was definitely a bit of a let down. She racked her brain, trying to determine what usually managed to destroy a pillow. Wear and tear. A dog ripping it apart. Sometimes a seam coming unloose would do the trick.
She lifted her hands, letting the green glow of her powers envelop them before she tugged at the lamp posts along the sidewalk. Each of them pulled free, yanking up into the air and soaring through the sky toward the pillows. Hopefully the city had a decent budget for cleanup and repairs. They pierced the pillows and more fluff flew loose, but the creature continued forward, letting out a low growl.
“Who knew pillows could make noise?” Lorna glanced over at Laurence, nodding toward the thread she could see loosening and trailing down the side of one pillow. “Think you can snag that if I distract this thing?”
Laurence was no longer shocked when people showed themselves to be capable of superhuman feats, but that didn’t stop him from being surprised when the lamp posts pulled themselves out of the sidewalk.
It took him a moment to understand what she meant, but he nodded once he caught sight of the loose thread. He holstered his pistol, and began to release the ties that kept his dragon-hilted sword firmly sheathed while in the city. The sword, at first, hadn’t even occurred to him as an option – it seemed not entirely unlike sticking a pincushion with a needle – but aiming for the seams, well, that was certainly possible.
“I’ve long since ceased to be amazed by the things that can make noise here,” Laurence answered. “But good eye. I think I can manage, so long as you keep it sufficiently distracted. On your signal,” he said, readying his stance to run in.
A sword. Why not? She hadn’t expected it but Lorna had learned to expect the unexpected pretty quickly in Vallo. She nodded to Laurence before rising up into the air, green electromagnetism crackling around her. She pulled on whatever large pieces of metal she could get her hands on, a number of bicycles heading into the air while pipes pulled off of the buildings, all of them poised in the air, waiting for her command.
“Go,” she said, rising higher as she let the items thrust through the air toward the pillow monster. She was hoping to knock it down to give Laurence an even easier time of getting at the seams. Thankfully the bystanders were heading away from the creature and the thing moved at a fairly slow pace, giving everyone she’d seen time to escape its wrath.
Laurence wasn’t superpowered, nor had speed ever been a factor in any of his careers, and so it was less a sprint and more a brisk jog toward the pillow monster. Luckily, the monster wasn’t likely to suddenly gain a burst of speed, especially not while it was so thoroughly engaged with what the woman was doing. He paused, briefly, to look at the floating pipes and metal, wondering if, perhaps, he should warn her against the wanton destruction of property – he’d have chided Temeraire for less – but ultimately decided that that could wait.
He raised the sword above his head with both hands – not something he’d have done in a proper fight – and plunged it into the cotton. It was sharp, and the seams opened easily beneath it, spilling the feathers over Laurence and into the street. The monster bellowed and listed to the side.
Lorna twisted one of the poles into the other side of the monster, tugging at the seams there as well to help release even more feathers onto the street. They scattered around, the fabric collapsing down into a pile that was no longer moving. She didn’t see any further creatures meandering about either.
“You good?” she called out, glancing over at where Laurence had been as she floated the poles and pipes back to their original locations.
Laurence was unharmed, but he wasn’t necessarily what he would consider “good.” He was, in fact, trapped under the heavy fabric of the pillow monster, and while he tried to keep the flailing to a minimum, it was altogether impossible to escape without some loss of dignity. He finally managed to fight his way out, feather’s stuck unseemingly in his suit and, he realised when he touched his head, in his hair. He’d likely have to retie his queue to be free of them entirely. He debated, for a moment, whether it would be less dignified to begin defeathering himself here and now, or to bear out the humiliation of a ruffled appearance until he could find somewhere more private to deplume himself, and decided that fussing around with his clothes and his hair in the middle of the street was far more unseemly.
“I am unharmed,” he answered, once he was free and his sword sheathed again at his side. He was unable to prevent himself from tugging down the hem of his jacket to smooth it of wrinkles, and to adjust his cuffs. “And yourself? You’re unharmed, I hope?”
Well, at least Lorna wasn’t one for social media, otherwise Laurence would have had his photo taken several times over and been posted to one of them by now. That didn’t stop her lips from twitching at his predicament under the pillows and then smirking once he’d gotten out from under them.
“Not a scratch on me.” Lorna cocked her head to the side, brow lifting. “Or feather, in this case.” There were benefits to not needing to get up close and personal because of her powers. “I think its time I get my coffee.” She’d definitely earned it.
Laurence was, pointedly, ignoring the look on her face, but he couldn’t help but flush just a little at the mention of feathers. He wished, not for the first time, for Lan Xichen’s ability to always look perfectly put together no matter the circumstances. He glanced toward where he’d set down his own coffee, only to discover that the table and his coffee had both been overturned. He wondered if he should go without, or if he could stand the humiliation of looking like a disgruntled pigeon.
He sighed.
“Perhaps I might buy you one, once I call the DOA to send a clean-up crew,” Laurence said. “I’m sure that would not have gone half so well had you not been here. I’m Will Laurence, by the by.”
A clean-up crew. That would certainly come in handy and was good to know about. Lorna filed that piece of information away. Even if she hoped she wouldn’t need to use it ever. Considering the chaos this place could bring every so often, it was good to know.
“Lorna Dane.” She didn’t offer up her hand to shake but did dole out a smile. “I’m not about to say no to a free cup of coffee before I head to the smithy.” Hopefully there wouldn’t be any other pillow monsters along the way.
“A pleasure, Miss Dane,” Laurence said, smiling back and offering a slight bow at his waist. He turned from her, briefly, to make the brief call – a general description of the scene and the location was all that was required. “The smithy? Do you work with Miss Lindholm at her smithy, or is it a different one altogether?”
He thought there was likely more than one, though the only one he’d ever used was Brigitte’s; her work had proved to be reliable, and she seemed versatile enough to meet all of his needs. There was no need to go elsewhere.
The formality to his words and demeanor had Lorna arching a brow and wondering what time in history he’d been plucked from. Knowing Vallo though there was nothing to say he wasn’t from some other universe’s future.
“I work for Brigitte.” She’d been one of the first people Lorna talked to on the network and the versatility of her shop would never stop astounding her. She also liked that she could hole up in her own space there and work without interference when she wanted. “Seems better to work at an Outlander run place since they understand when weird things happen to make us miss work.”
Laurence nodded. “I would hope that even the locals would have some understanding of such things, but it is nice to work among those who understand fully.” It was one of the things that he most enjoyed about working for the DOA: being among those similarly affected by Vallo’s whims. It was certainly nice to be among those who understood the pain of having loved ones disappear. He surreptitiously picked downy feathers from his sleeves as they began the walk toward the coffee shop.
“Have you been in Vallo for very long?”
Maybe the locals did but admittedly Lorna didn’t interact with them much. Not that she interacted with many Outlanders either. That would need to change now that Dawn was around. She didn’t want her daughter growing up in isolation.
“Only a few months for me.” The coffee shop wasn’t crowded and thankfully hadn’t been disturbed by the chaos outside. “What about you? Been here long?”
“A year this month,” Laurence said. It was both hard to believe, both in the sense that it hardly felt so long since he’d given up his old life, and also in the sense that it didn’t feel like a year. So many friends had come and gone, each one an ache, but Lan Xichen had remained steadfast by his side since nearly the beginning.
He held the door for the coffee shop for her. “Have you been enjoying your time here?”
That was a difficult question and not one that Lorna really wanted to delve into much. There were aspects she liked, others she was still coming to terms with. Every time she thought she settled in a bit more, Lorna was reminded that nearly everyone she loved was back in a world full of danger. One made more chaotic because of choices she’d made.
“It’s been fine,” she settled on, smile tight as she got into the line. “You?”
Laurence didn’t miss the tight smile, nor the less than enthusiastic response, but he’d not pry. If she wished to get into it, then she would without his asking, and he hardly knew her well enough to begin asking such personal questions.
“Very much so,” Laurence said. “It has its drawbacks, I think, but now that I’ve experienced it, I think I could no longer live happily in a world that didn’t have hot showers.” Or a world that didn’t contain Lan Xichen; he understood that, should he ever go home, he’d likely forget this whole experience, but he thought that forgetting it all would be worse than returning home and remembering every minute of it.
“There is something to be said about hot showers.” Lorna missed them whenever her crew had needed to hide out in less reputable areas. If she was able to get more people from here, cultivate that list, she’d probably be more comfortable with sticking around. Dawn being present helped and she wanted her daughter to have a life in Vallo. If only Dawn’s dad could be around to be in it as well.
She ordered her coffee and stepped aside for Laurence to do the same.
Laurence order his own coffee, and then paid for them both; he was smiling when he turned back to lorna. “Well, Lorna, it was a pleasure being able to fight alongside you, even if a monster made of pillows was… unexpected.” Really, he should probably stop in at the DOA and see if they had any further information. Pillow monsters seemed easy enough to deal with, so long as they didn’t attack in force. He procured one of his personal business cards from his breast pocket. “I think I’ll need to go in person to give my report, but I hope you’ll call me if you run into any more trouble; I’m sure you can handle it yourself, but there is something to be said for having backup.”
Of course he had business cards. She pocketed it. “If I cross anything else I’ll text you.” Though hopefully that had been a one and done experience. Not that Laurence wasn’t a nice guy, but she really didn’t want to deal with any more monsters on her way to work. Even if they were made of pillows. Lorna lifted her cup. “Thanks for the coffee and the assist.”