mayfield_rpg

[Action A | 5719 Cunningham Lane]

No. No, no, no, no, no. Not again. Please God, not again.

She's had this dream before. Waking up in the hell hole of a place that was Mayfield again, trapped in the Pleasantville way of life, unable to snap herself out of the nightmare.

Please, God, let her be dreaming.

Except that the man she woke up next to isn't Hal, and the house she rushes out of isn't the one she lived in before, and the street she's standing in the middle of isn't Kramden Road.

Not again. No, no, no, not again.

[Action B | Kramden Road]

She's still barefoot in her ridiculous nightgown, not having bothered to change before she tore her way towards her old street. Maybe her old friends are still there. Maybe Hal...

But if she's switched around, maybe everybody else is, too. Which is why she's just going around pounding her fists on every door on the street like a crazy person in hopes that a familiar face answers.

[Action C | Around Town]

By the end of the day, she's a mess. Still barefoot, still nightgown-clad. Wandering her way around the Mayfield streets hoping for someone to make sense of why she's back.

It wasn't fair. She'd escaped this place. Spent a full year pretending it was just a bad dream. And now here she was again, wondering if that year of freedom had even been real.

She finds a bench, curls her knees to her chest, and buries her face in her arms.

Fucking Mayfield.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ She sighs. ] Last weekend, I was... something else.

[ Ilsa goes to make coffee, ] There's a few things I didn't tell you, last time you were here. One of them is I'm not all human. Last weekend, near as I can figure, my memories were replaced. I believed I was someone from my dad's world. One of the... opponents to Daddy's folks.

[Her frown deepens and she takes a seat on a kitchen stool, watching Ilsa carefully.]

Not... human? I don't understand.

Yeah... you see, at home, my family's under the radar. The general public doesn't need to know the nightmares are real. So I haven't talked much about it until I got here... and definitely not to the media.

[ She shrugs. ] Sorry, it was just habit, but about the time you were droned, I finally got to the point that the realization that others might need the information to help get us out of here overrode my old security habits.

So it was hard for me to tell a reporter that my mama is a mage and my daddy is an incubus. [ She looks nervous, though. ]

[She blinked at Ilsa a moment, working the new information over in her brain.]

... An... incubus.

I'm guessing you don't mean in the cool, rock band kind of way.

[ Ilsa gives a surprised snicker. ] No, he's more of a jazz and world-beat kinda guy.

Um. [ She flusters a bit, and settles on assembling something involving flour. Possibly to have something to do with her hands. ]

Well, you know how bad press goes further than good, sometimes?

[She manages a slight smile, still watching Ilsa busy herself in the kitchen.]

Sure. Look, Ilsa, we've known each other a while. You can talk to me as a friend, not a reporter, you know.

Yeah, it took me a while... well, there's a bit of history to work with. Daddy was an exile when he met Mama. Political infighting, and such. That was cleared up about the time I was born, but the infighting has been going on for a couple of millennia, so that didn't really change.

[ She looks up from the dough she is kneading and smiles a little. ]

You know, the tales most human dimensions have about incubi and succubi are true, but only about the individuals that were part of those incidents. Those are the ones that...

[ Her smile fades. ] When I was five and my sister was two, there was a kidnapping attempt. I don't remember much of that time, but... considering what I did over the weekend, there's a possibility that the town gave me memories as if I hadn't been rescued.

[She listens intently, chewing on her lip. Lois's isn't all that caught up on incubi and succubi lore, but they didn't sound particularly friendly. Ilsa had never been anything but kind to her, though. She was glad not to have experienced her... transformation.]

Kidnapping? Wait- what? What do they do, these... incubi?

That's the side I get most of my empathic abilities from. They're able to feed off the energies that get generated with strong emotions. Daddy's family and allies try to do more good than harm, and without letting people know. Things like encouraging artists and trying to heal emotional hurts are some of the things I was taught by my grandparents and the rest.

[ Ilsa finishes slicing the dough, putting it in the oven, and then cleaning up. ]

The ones across the aisle from them are... not concerned with the welfare of others. A good many of them enjoy the darker emotions, and have no problems causing permanent damage or death. They're supposed to be blocked from entering my home dimension unless they agree to the rules the Council laid out for behavior abroad.

A cell from that group attempted to kidnap us to have a lever against my parents. Nadine doesn't remember any of it, and my memories are very dim of that time.

Edited 2012-06-15 17:36 (UTC)

[She watches Ilsa work in relative silence, chewing on her lip as the other woman explained. She suppose it made sense, what with all of Ilsa's empathy, but it was... still a bit of a shock.]

Can you do any of that now? The emotional stuff, I mean?

I can.

[ Her voice is quiet, and she does not look at Lois, seeming to watch the timer on the counter. ]

I'm still young, by their standards, not even out of my first century, so I'm not able to do everything they can, but the emotional talents are one of the first to develop. The differences between me and the one that was here that weekend are ethical.

[She looks ashamed at that, which seems strange to her because it seems more like a talent than a curse. Then again, Lois is used to knowing talented individuals that use their powers for good.]

How old are you? [Lois. Don't you know that's not a question to ask a lady?]

[ Luckily, she's not asking a lady, she's asking a doctor. ]

Thirty-two. Daddy's around 950 or 960, depending on the calendars. He's not even considered middle-aged, yet. Mama's in her mid-sixties...

[ Ilsa gets a small frown. ] Even accounting for Mama's family being long-lived, she doesn't look her age, either.

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