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[slaying]

[ buffy has been running on autopilot. smile at the right times, nod in the right moments. make the appropriately inappropriate remarks about over-sugared coffees and pop music at all the wrong times in just the right ways. it isn't hard to do once she sets her mind to it; after all, she had done it in sunnydale for seven years

Comments

[lists_to_port]

[It is evening, and Jack Sparrow is walking toward Good Spirits. Long cons are Jack's thing; he can take a con and draw it out over many years, playing all sorts of people in the process, netting intricate lines of falsehood that become loose foundations for those who build truth upon them.

He isn't fond of this con, however. Cullen House has never seemed quite so isolating, and, reasonably sure that Buffy isn't bartending tonight, he is heading into town for a drink.]

[slaying]

[ she hears his beads a-swaying and clinking before she hears any other sound of approach. she knows it, now. a familiar sound. and -- thanks to current circumstances -- this sound carries with it a certain feeling of danger. and therefore a particular sort of thrilling dread. an adrenaline rush.

so she waits around a bend in the path; expecting him to come into the lamplight, soon. she has news for him and it would be the kind of news that passes for good in a situation like this. ]

[lists_to_port]

[What else might she hear as he trips down the path with that peculiar gait of his? Muttering. Jack is muttering again, still on about the same topic he has been muttering about for a couple of weeks, now.]

Robin Whitby. Robin Bloody Whitby. Robin "Scourge of Denmark" Whitby? Nah. Robin "Chained Manta" Whitby? Bloody hell. Bloody Robin hell Whitby.

[slaying]

[ oh, jack. she doesn't want to hear this. it makes her guilt-tendencies act up a bit too much.

she should never have told him. there were possibly many things she shouldn't have told him.

she scuffs her shoes on the path. clears her throat. any little signal to save their collective dignity before they meet at the path's corner. ]

[lists_to_port]

[Jack immediately shuts it. He's not alone, although he has no idea who's there. He draws his pistol as quietly as possible before going forward.]

[slaying]

[ meanwhile, buffy takes the corner rather avidly. jauntily, almost -- but not that genuine kind of jaunty. nope. more like the affected jauntiness of someone who feels she ought to at least pretend to be more upbeat.

certainly not the sort of person who expects to end up faced with a pistol. ]

1/2

[lists_to_port]

[They're all on edge, all of them---even Jack. He is not taking chances, even if a death god is immune to gunshot wounds. When whoever is there comes around the shadowy corner, he takes a good aim.]

Oi! Identify yourself, if you please!

2/2

[lists_to_port]

.......Miss Summers.

[slaying]

[ oh god. she does not like that pistol. she does not like that pistol one bit. ]

...Is it really necessary to wave that thing around? [ where jack seems to be tacking formal with miss summersing, buffy swings the opposite direction. casual to the point of indifference. ]

[lists_to_port]

Aye, it's necessary! To protect my...interests. It is.

[He tucks it back into his belt, silently cursing the choice of pistol over sword. For anyone else, it wouldn't matter, but not for her.]

Going somewhere, Miss Summers?

[slaying]

[ she briefly lifts the scythe off her shoulder -- patrol.

but: ] I'll give you a clue. Not the mall.

[ hmm. she has things to tell him but it wouldn't do to tell him so close to everything else. still in the village. ]

[lists_to_port]

Everything alright over at the fortress, then? Nothing askew about McCoy, is there? I've just found a hat that might suit him and all.

[Where can we go, love?]

[slaying]

Oh, you know. Fortressy.

[ which...hmm. she probably could bring him there. after all, the spell -- but, no. best to tell him about the spell first. ]

And I was headed, uhm, that way. [ she twists and points. it's a fairly vague sort of gesture. she intends to head for the little cherry tree grove. the one whose blossoms have mostly all fallen. ]

[lists_to_port]

Funny thing---so was I.

[Lies. He turns to walk with her, not too closely, though.]

Is it fortressy enough?

[slaying]

[ a simple, easy pace. like nothing's wrong. ]

Mmhm. It took a bit of coloured sand and some tough-to-pronounce words but, we got there.

[ she cuts off the path, now. behind buildings instead of through the square. ]

[lists_to_port]

Did it. [He follows, of course. This strange faux-casual walking might be all the contact Sparrow gets with her tonight, but he'll take it.]

Sounds to me like that won't be quite enough, really.