The Street Between the Rocky Bits and the Park, Thursday Evening

[alreadyhollow]

The going was slow when you were a fifteen-foot monstrosity made of fire and molten stone. Or, rather, it felt that way. Every movement was a slow, deliberate one, but the extra height made up for it. One could clear a lot of road in a single step, when one was as tall as some of the buildings in town, after all.

So, what was the fifteen-foot monstrosity doing wandering the streets of town? If anybody asked Jonothon - and let's be real, most sane people probably wouldn't bother to try to strike up a conversation with him in the first place, and the island didn't typically have many of those left - he'd say he was doing patrols. Keeping an open psionic eye to be certain the hollows weren't wandering too close to the park. If you pressed him for a better answer, he might even give in and admit that curiosity had won out, that yesterday's flickers of sunshine and the wealth of new minds around the island today had him straying from the rocky bits mostly because... well... he needed to know.

But, of course, the going was slow. Not that he was in any particular hurry. It wasn't like the people here were going to be leaving any time soon, after all.

[OOC: Lumbering Giant meandering down Loon Drive, as one does. Open!]

Comments

[gettingoldernow]

"Allie?" Peter frowned at her. "I thought you were distracting -" he stopped. Wait. Allie was clean, and the currents of magic around her were different. "You're not Allie."

Was this a new trick of one of the hollows? She seemed non-aggressive, but...

[allie-vamp.livejournal.com]

Not aggressive, just wary. Very, very wary.

"I'm Allie, but the island's being weird again, so god only knows what's going on," she said, lifting a shoulder in the universal sign of what are you going to do? Allie looked the stranger over a little more closely.

He looked like a more disheveled version of "Peter?"

[gettingoldernow]

Peter nodded, then realized, "The dimensions. They were melting - you're from another Fandom?" He lifted his hand and gestured, testing the magic. It told him this was a vampire, not hollow, not a trick. He let out a breath. "It's not safe out here. You need to get to the village. How many of you are there?"

[allie-vamp.livejournal.com]

"Dammit, I should have realized it was that time of year again." Fucking island. "Dimension hopping. It's more fun in the summer when the island's not trying to kill us."

Sorry Peter, Allie's just a little jaded at this point. "I'm not sure how many people are here. Between students, people in town, NPCs there could be over a hundred or more."

[gettingoldernow]

"That many?" Peter stared, dismayed. "We'll never keep them all safe."

[allie-vamp.livejournal.com]

Allie was trying hard to maintain her been there, done that optimism when it came to wacky island shenanigans. Peter was making it difficult.

"People are pretty good at looking out for themselves. It's not the first time the island's tried to kill us."

[gettingoldernow]

"No," Peter confirmed grimly, "only the last. Hard to look out for yourself when you forget what you're looking out for."

[allie-vamp.livejournal.com]

"That's what Jono was telling me. About the hollows and how people change. Damn."

Which of course begged the question. "You and Jono both mentioned an Allie you knew on the island. Is she okay?"

Because the last thing Allie wanted was for any version of herself to be a threat to any innocent.

[gettingoldernow]

"Define okay," Peter said. "I left her chasing the hollow of her love to keep him away from the village. Nobody's okay. But she's not hollow or anything; we think she might be immune."

[allie-vamp.livejournal.com]

"Not running around killing people is a good start to a definition."

That was the easy part.

"Not sure I want to know about her love life."

Because losing Zeke was hard enough.

[gettingoldernow]

"Fair enough." Peter shrugged. Then, because he'd planned to do this patrol with Allie anyway, "You still good with a sword? How hungry are you?"

[allie-vamp.livejournal.com]

"I can hold my own," she said confidently. "And I'm good. I made sure to have some True Blood before I went to sleep this morning. Things were weird enough I thought it was better to be prepared."

Allie looked around the ruins of the street. "I guess the True Blood supplies ran out a while ago?"

[gettingoldernow]

Peter huffed in amusement. "Years ago. When the place got cut off, it wasn't like anyone here knew how to make the stuff. You know where anyone else is? Help me find them and get them to the village?"

[allie-vamp.livejournal.com]

That could be a problem. Since this other Allie seemed to be surviving, hopefully she was making good choices.

"I haven't seen anyone yet," Allie admitted. "But I have a rough idea of where people would be on an average Thursday night. We could start there."

[gettingoldernow]

Peter had no quarrels with her choices, anyway.

"Sounds like as good a place as any to start." He nodded. "Lead on. I'll let you know if you start heading anywhere you shouldn't."

[allie-vamp.livejournal.com]

Where to start? Kitty and Clint's place? Mike's house? Jack's?

Allie mentally flipped a coin and started heading towards Kitty's apartment. "I've got some friends that live over this way. Kitty and Clint."

[gettingoldernow]

"Kitty." She was hard to forget. "We lost her. She's hollow now. Clint..." He thought, then shook his head. "I don't remember him. My memory's mostly good, but I still have holes. Or maybe he never made it long."

[allie-vamp.livejournal.com]

"Dammit. I'm sorry."

She hoped her Kitty was okay. Losing her last year, even for that short time, was hard enough. Allie didn't feel like repeating it.

"I'm not sure if I should ask about anyone else. I have a feeling I won't like what I hear."

[gettingoldernow]

"Probably not," Peter answered reluctantly. "There are fewer of us left every day. I'm glad to have you as a friend." He gave her a smile. "You last."

[allie-vamp.livejournal.com]

"I guess I'm just too damn stubborn to let death stop me in any dimension."

As they walked Allie let her hearing focus on the surrounding areas, listening for signs of life.

Almost instantly she heard the steady thrum of a human heart. She turned, looking for its source, and blinked when she realized where it was coming from.

"Why is your heart beating normally?"

[gettingoldernow]

Peter blinked, then smiled self-deprecatingly. "Because I'm human. Have been for a while. Still pretty hard to kill, though."

[allie-vamp.livejournal.com]

"How the hell did that happen?"

She was so damn diplomatic and polite.

"The Peter I know is a vampire."

[gettingoldernow]

Diplomatic and polite were overrated these days.

"Shadow," he corrected absently. "I don't really understand it myself. It wasn't related to all this; happened before. There was a transformation - my other parts..." He shook his head. "It'd take a day at least to explain."

[allie-vamp.livejournal.com]

Tomato...Tomahto....

"Magic stuff?" Allie guessed.

[gettingoldernow]

"Magic stuff," Peter agreed. In Latin. "You should have been there with me, Tsumi."