( open ) dark eyes without a face

[digiorno]

Who: giorno giovanna & OPEN
When: throughout octeuril
Where: bad decisions haus, desmodus, throughout the city during fright night
What: catchall for octeuril. pm if you'd like to plot anything in particular, or feel free to catch him anywhere.
Warnings: b. blood. blood probably. :E
Notes: With respect to the Desmodus prompt, I'd prefer to limit any actual blood-drinking threads to age-appropriate CR right now (16-19ish). That being said, anybody is welcome to tag that prompt with gen content, to slap a vial of blood in Giorno's hand, to shake him gently, etc.

i. heard voices in the night ( garden )

[Maria is ill.]

[In a curious turn of events, this leaves Giorno feeling very responsible. He wants things to be in order when she wakes, because . . . well, he just does. It seems like the right thing to do. He knows he'd be annoyed if he got sick and woke up to the house trashed. Not to mention that she and Kaede kept the place safe from looters while he was in Dorchact.]

[Plus, he's fond of her decorations. They're all over the fences, a warning to potential intruders: turnips decorated like heads, stuck on spikes. They're terrible and hilarious, and he loves each and every one of them. As such, along with generally keeping things clean and tidy, he spends some time each day checking the turnips to make sure they're not rotten and still facing the street, not crooked, et cetera. The first time one of them lets out a blood-curdling shriek, he nearly falls off his stepstool.]

Hey! [Local mafioso yells at turnips.] When did she fix you to do that?

[He can also be found gardening after the sun sets, filthy to the elbows in rolled-up sleeves with (more than likely) a smudge on his cheek. His mission: weed the sunflowers. It's late in the season and the sunflowers are tired in any case, but he's on a mission. These sunflowers are Important to Maria.]

ii. whispers of double lives ( desmodus mori )

[The thing about the bloodlust is—]

[Well, lots of things. It's embarrassing. Under ordinary circumstances, he wouldn't trust anyone in Aefenglom to touch him in the ways that are necessary for comfortable feeding. And there is, of course, the unfortunate and unavoidable mental connection that comes with drinking blood, every single time. Even his own stubbornly strong self-image can't stop him from feeling some fear in the face of his own bloodlust, considering the legacy of Dio Brando.]

[So he's been doing it as little as possible, from as few sources as possible. The issues with this became evident extremely quickly. Which doesn't mean Desmodus is a good alternative, but . . . when your other options are starving or depending unfairly on your Bonded, a vampire bar starts to look decent.]

[He's pretty obviously not enjoying himself, all the same. Shoulders tense, he's at a table by the wall for a solid hour before he ventures to move; he spends this time with cat-slit eyes, watching the goings-on, getting an idea of the rhythm of the place. He gets a blood drink, and he does finish it, but without particular interest. It seems like a waste of time. If he's going to eat or drink something decent, he'll do so. If he needs blood, there's no point watering it down.]

[There is a point during the night when he considers just going home. But even if no one bullies him into actually getting what he came here for — although they'd be well within their rights to do so — he does eventually slink to the bar to sit next to another patron, or into someone else's booth. Someone who appears to be a little more familiar with Desmodus than he is. That's right, people: Giorno Giovanna is willingly talking to other vampires! Amazing.]

Does this actually get easier at some point, or is that just propaganda? [Incredible. What an icebreaker.]

iii. so i backed from where ( event | changes )

[Giorno is awake when the mist rolls in. Sitting at the windowseat in the kitchen, in fact; reading innocently, chin resting in his hand. This book is terrible. He wishes, idly, for a distraction.]

[Moments later, the mist creeps across the periphery of his vision. Glancing up, his gaze catches on the sister moons as they're rapidly obscured by the mist. His eyes begin to burn. A moment later, all of him begins to burn.]

[It starts badly and ends badly. The sound of bone grinding on bone audible from the moment he slides to the kitchen floor, he grunts and bites down hard on the inside of his cheek in an attempt to keep his voice down. He can't keep track of what's happening, only that it hurts: things poking out through his skin, bones crunching, joints reforming. The clearest thing he can see is fur: like when he's in bat form, but all over, gray and white and startlingly fluffy along elbows and down over his shoulders. Ears shift and go wide and curved, less batlike than feline. Elbows and knees reverse, forearms lengthening. His hide goes rough and patchy with fur and, sometimes, not — sometimes more like a rhinoceros's side. From all angles, wings poke out — from hips, shoulders, elbows. Other places. Anywhere, not always in pairs. His feet spread, wide like a lion's pads. His hands . . . they don't really know what they're doing.]

[He ends up a patchwork creature, about 50% feline with bat wings sticking out everywhere, bright red eyes, and a long — very long, too long tail. All of his limbs are too long for him to know what to do with right now, but the tail is the worst. It lashes like a duster across the kitchen floor. He's Furious.]

iv. your knife went in ( event | enforcement )

[There's a lot about this form, and this situation, that's terrible. Chief among these things is the fact that his body still hasn't really stopped shifting. Every hour or so, something significant shifts, his face or his proportions or the length of his stupid tail, so that he has to consistently switch between going on all fours or switching back to old-fashioned bipedalism. Sometimes his face is unsettlingly human, sometimes it's unsettlingly not.]

[However, he doesn't mind being out and about tonight, despite the chaos. This body seems shockingly content to roam the streets, tail swishing curiously, vertical pupils blown wide in the darkness. It seems very certain that this is all one big adventure, so he thinks he might as well go along with it.]

[He does a lot of pouncing on muggers, truth be told. He's heavier than he looks, and his paws are enormous, so once muggers are pounced upon, they stay down and he lets someone else bother with dragging them away. The looters he doesn't so much bother with, especially the ones who appear to be looting things they actually need. He watches, evaluates, and sometimes accidentally starts licking his feet once satisfied before spitting irritably.]

[When he sees the orphans, though . . . well, he just goes to stand guard as they take what they need. Anyone who tries to stop them gets an extremely unpleasant glowing red glare, Giorno's tail extending as it whips back and forth.] Can I help you?

[Hopefully, the answer is no.]

[By the time the sun rises, he's meandered home, exhausted and with his bones hurting like hell. His stamina's garbage these days anyway, but with his body shifting every half-hour, he passes out as soon as he gets home. On the couch. On top of anyone who happened to be sitting there already. So, you know, deal with it.]

Comments

[digiorno]

[Even with superhuman hearing, it’s hard to get a bead on Maria most of the time. When she speaks, he jolts, shoulders tense and ears perked up sharp and alert even before he turns. And who exactly was he expecting it to be? He knew she was up, he just didn’t know she was up.]

Oh. [A soft huff of laughter, mostly at himself.] Hello. A little bit over, yes.

[He slides sideways, sitting on a bare patch of soil so he’s half-facing her, still with eyes on the sunflowers as he works. It’s always important to keep someone potentially dangerous within one’s field of vision. It’s also rude to be facing away from someone when you’re talking to them. Two birds.]

They’re not bad. I just didn’t want them to get bad, you know? If it were me and I came back to a messy garden, I’d be furious.

[whomthebelltolls]

[Good to know her Hunter training hasn't totally gone rusty. Maybe some day she'll need the ability to slip quietly through the darkness of the streets once again to Hunt, but... for now it's not relevant. It hasn't actually been for a while.

Once she knows he's not totally about to jump and run, she moves closer, kneeling down, herself, toward the garden to admire his handiwork.]

... Well, it's already been mostly destroyed once. [She reaches over with a bit of what might seem to be uncharacteristic tenderness and cups one of the wilting flowers in her palm.] Still, thank you for doing this. They can sleep for the winter in peace.

[She huffs a tiny bit in amusement.] I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself for the winter. Someone mentioned a greenhouse. Perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea for some herbs and vegetables. The flowers I think I'll keep outside.

[digiorno]

[It is uncharacteristic, but . . . at the same time, he's seen her out here more than a few times. Call it a privilege of sharing a household with her. There are interesting nuances to Maria that he's been able to see. He imagines that if he could still feel the life-force of all living things, he might feel it flowing from Maria to her tired flowers now.]

. . . That's a good way to put it.

[Poetic, in another surprisingly Maria-ish way. Sleep in peace, like a benediction.]

We could build a small greenhouse here, you know. There's space in the yard. We could probably build a stadium in this yard if we really wanted to.

[A greenhouse would be much nicer, obviously.]

Trees are planted in fall or spring, too.

[whomthebelltolls]

[She does nurture her garden with an amount of gentleness she doesn't tend to show more sapient creatures, it is true. It's an outlet for energy that is creative, rather than destructive, and she knows she needs those. Besides, she likes the smell of particularly fragrant flowers as a hold-over from Yharnam, when the streets would reek of the stench of blood and beast. Lumenflowers were much better to smell.]

There is. I think on the other side of the stables and horse yard, though. I will soon be taking on a horse. [She cranes a look back beyond the area for the horses.] Hm... fruit trees, were you thinking? Perhaps some apples or pears would be nice.

[digiorno]

Are you really?

[He's abruptly very excited. He doesn't know much about horses, but he does know that having a nonhuman (or Monster) living thing around would make things . . . easier. Just easier, that's all.]

[Best not to think about whether a horse would be frightened of him like animals are of vampires in the movies sometimes. Really just not even going to go there.]

Fruit trees would be best. I don't think citrus trees would work at all around here or I'd say oranges, too. Maybe a walnut.

[whomthebelltolls]

Yes. I miss riding, and it would make getting around in the city and the Wilde much easier. Aefenglom is a large place. [Pause.] You may not know this, but... I was not originally trained as a Hunter, as it were. I was trained as a knight. [So. A horse. Yes. Also, congrats Gio, you learned a thing about her.]

If I could keep the garden spelled to be warm all year, citrus could work, but it might not be worth it. I'll try something heartier. Walnuts might not be bad, either. If I could clear up some space, an olive tree wouldn't be bad, either. Olives have many uses, after all.