Seeing Things (Gabriel)

Vespyr blinked and the ghastly sight of Dervish was gone. She realized that she had been staring in horror at one of the waiters; and she was not the only one to notice.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," A smooth voice awoke the girl from her terrified daze and she whipped her head around to see a young man sitting at a nearby table, sipping his coffee. Vespyr coughed, straightened herself, and turned away from him for a moment, not knowing what to say. People usually never talked to her. Well, except for that one girl, but... She learned her lesson, now didn't she?

For a moment she thought about ignoring the young man and staring at the peeling paint on the wall, but something about him made her want to look back and answer to him. And also, she wanted to know what the hell he was talking about. Did he see Dervish too?

No, not possible...

"How-" (cough) "What do you mean? Don't do what?" she half-snarled, half-choked out the words like they tasted bitter on her tongue. Her violet eyes narrowed at the man and she shoved her dirty hands into the pockets of her equally filthy trenchcoat.

"You looked as though you saw death, and were going to challenge him."

Vespyr felt a strange comfort as the young man spoke, and she let her tensed shoulders relax a little. Dropping her guard and nearly forgetting about her hatred for talking to people, she lowered her head and propped it in her hands with her elbows splayed on the table. Her gritty fingers ran through her spiked pink and blonde hair and she sighed deeply; it was a long, exasperated, troubled sigh and she shut tightly her eyes.

"You have no idea..." she murmered through gritted teeth, almost speaking to herself but loud enough so that the stranger could hear her speak. She resisted the urge to look up at him again. He was so mysterious... She had seen a glint in his alluring green eyes that almost reminded her of... No... Not possible. He's just a person. He doesn't know anything. He isn't one of... them...

Even still, she let her eyes glance at him for just another moment and she studied him like she studied all her other people, all the other nobodies. But this young man had something about him that made her almost a little fearful. He wasn't a nobody, he was definitely a somebody. She could see it in the shady figure's eyes.

"Actually my dear, I think I do."

Vespyr's hands went flat on the table and she looked at the stranger with an almost humorous-- but almost angry-- sort of look. He thinks he has any idea what I go through everyday? I'd like to see him chased around by macabre demons that want him to find a way to make two universes collide...

However, the wry look disappeared and was replaced with silent awe when the young man motioned for her to sit down at his table. At that moment, Vespyr realized what she had done. She had opened herself up to another person and started a conversation-- the thing she hated most. And now she didn't know what to do. Her instinct screamed at her to stand up and leave, to sprint around the corner and go and hide on the rooftop like she always did. But something else in her gut told her that she might regret not staying and finding out why this man thought he knew so much. Something in his haunting green eyes almost reflected hers, and so she cautiously stood up and walked over to where he sat. She pulled out a chair and sat ever so slowly, as if at any moment the chair would disappear from beneath her... or the young man would reach out and grab her by the neck and drag her into a dark alley... or Dervish or Calendon might appear out of nowhere and snarl at her.

Vespyr sat silently and coughed once, shoving her hands into her pockets and staring at an oozing cut that peeked through her ripped black jeans, trying to focus on something else rather than the man she sat across from at the table.

"So what can i call you?" the young man asked gently.

The question caught Vespyr off-guard and she opened her mouth only to shut it again and glance nervously at the ceiling. If she had anything like an official name it would have been Vespyr, but since no one ever talked to her she had never really been called so much as that. Dervish and the other figments of her imagination had always confused her with her alter-personality Rainstar, but Vespyr knew she wasn't Rainstar and would never be, no matter how many times they screamed that name at her. She winced and felt a little stupid. It was a simple question.

"Vespyr...?" she said, almost a little too questioningly. Shit. He's gonna think I don't even know my own fucking name. But then again I really don't..

"Vespyr." she said again, a little more reassured and minus the upward inflection so it didn't sound like a question. Her stern violet gaze met the stranger's; her expression could almost be described as menacing. But then again, she always seemed to come off that way. "But why would you want to be on any sort of terms at all? What do you want from me?" she growled, not trusting the stranger. Of all her experiences, she had learned that strangers-- especially the shady looking ones-- often meant trouble. Or rape. Or something along those lines.

"You ask that as though I do need something."

The only thing you need is... decapitation, Vespyr thought, beginning her usual ponder about which way this new person would best be killed by. She sat leaning away from the table, glaring at him for along moment until he spoke again.

"I'm not... skittish. I just don't like people..." Vespyr spoke in a hauntingly calm voice, which was a trick. She was anything but calm and she tried not to show it. Her pale face was grave, and a feral look glinted in her eyes behind the pitch-black eyeliner. There was zero trust emanating from her at this moment, and a little frustration. She wished she had never even set foot in the cafe today. She should have just tolerated the cold and stayed outside... Then she wouldn't have had to break her own moral code, at least. Answering this man's questions was like... blasphemy.

"Well if you don't need anything then I guess I'll leave, I don't want to be late for... school." she lied, searching for an excuse to escape the cruel clutches of conversation. However she immediately resented that statement, wishing she had come up with some other more believable excuse. Vespyr didn't go to school and it was probably obvious.

Vespyr, startled inwardly by his similar attitude, relaxed a little more and the feral look faded from her pale face. She removed one of her hands from her pockets and inspected it blankly, rubbing her thumb against the side of her bony index finger and testing the sharpness of her nail with the pad of her thumb. Nice and pointy, she noted as her thumb bled a little. She stuck it in her mouth and savoured the taste of the blood. She was more than a little hungry.

(cough) "They think they're so intelligent just because they can blow shit up, for one thing. I mean explosives are great, but.. they're not everything... but I hate how conceited they all are. Like that guy-" Vespyr nodded toward the clerk who pretty much had his face stuck in this lady's chest as he was taking her order, and she (a fake-tanned whore who had dyed her hair blonde) was completely oblivious and ordering some extra-caffienated whatever.

"Perverts. Ack. They should all die."

She noticed as someone at the table next to theirs stood up, probably to go to the restroom. Their apple torte was left vulnerable and unguarded on the table and was snatched up into Vespyr's claws as soon as the owner turned his back. Another small pastry falls victim to her conniving clutches...
As she nommed the torte she looked back into the young man's green eyes innocently yet coldly, almost casting an 'answer-me-if-you-dare' sort-of look.