Interactions: Loni & Vin @Fernstone Thursday November 24th, The Hollow Tap
Paloma let out a little delighted squeal as Loni bumped the handshake to move in for a hug, throwing both arms around Vin’s sister and giving her a little shake. It was nice that Vin and Marco had firmly drawn the boundary line, because Paloma would’ve hated to have to hate her. She pulled back as Vin and Loni started bickering, her face jumping in shock as Loni suggested that Paloma and Vin were together before settling down into a coy little smile. Oh, she was definitely not going to help correct that assumption. Way too much fun to be had with that one. Paloma made a note to ask about what a Syn-sisters was—a music store? She didn’t do much shopping in the North, even if she worked there too.
Wait, they both worked in the North and they both liked pushing Vin’s buttons? Oh, they just had so much in common! Did Loni have a car? Paloma hoped that Loni had a car. Maybe, what was it called, Synthsisters was a nightclub and Loni worked late like her. That’d be perfect. Paloma would love to avoid public transportation. The bus always smelled like the bedpans she had to clean.
Wait, what were Vin and Marco doing in fifteen minutes? Before she could stick her nose in business that wasn’t her own, Paloma was intercepted by Loni.
"Don't worry, Vin's just shy about these things!"
“Oh, I know!” Paloma whispered loudly back, putting a hand on Loni’s shoulder as if she was in need of support. “Even when we walk home together, Vin’s always rushing forward, acting like we don’t know each other. It’s so adorable.”
Paloma aggressively nodded along as Loni explained the virtues of pink, so happy that they were getting back to the important matter at hand. Work long enough in a hospital and red stops being sexy fast. So Synthsisters was a store after all. Damn, probably no carpool then. Still, it made sense that Loni got more clients than the redshirts selling synthesizers, something about her was immediately charming. Maybe it was because she looked like Vi—nah, it had to be something else. Either way, if she’d asked, Paloma would definitely pay the extra hundred dollars to put her new Casio keyboard under that needless extended warranty.
“...I work alotta evenin’ shifts, so I ain’t home till well past midnight…”
Yes, carpool!
“...and I’m stayin’ at work right now cause’ve the—”
No, stinky bus. Shit!
Oh, wait, these were a lot of names Loni was throwing at Paloma. Kiki? Momo? Sisters? Okay, they’re the Synth Sisters, got it. Paloma just smiled and nodded. She couldn’t get a word in at all. Paloma lacked the self-awareness to realize that she talked almost exactly the same way. Sure, some of the hospital patients enjoyed her chattiness in the same way a person enjoys falling asleep to white noise or a television show, but some had definitely been held in a hostage situation forced to listen to her explain the different kinds of dragons. Even if Paloma knew she was like this, it wouldn’t matter. She thought it was nice that Loni could carry the conversation entirely by herself.
“...Nobody knows Vin better than me. They’re real stingy ‘bout sharin’ things, but I ain’t…”
Paloma’s eyes widened and glistened as if Loni had just shown her the Holy Grail. A full, no holds barred, tell-all about Vin? How could she say no? How could she resist? She needed everything. Time, date, and place of birth just so she could see how compatible her minion was with their supreme leader. Favorite meal. Favorite sweet. Favorite color. Were they, perhaps, an actual psycho killer and if Paloma didn’t have a ghost keeping them away would Vin tie her to a chair, torture her, and kill her so they could make a cute skin suit? Should she be considering a name change and a cross country move to avoid any kind of repercussions? Oh, and yes, absolutely, all the embarrassing stories and baby photos.
“Ohmigosh, yes. Here, may I?” Paloma offered to hold Luciana to make life easier for Loni, ready to bounce the ever loving shit out of that cutie. “Kids are so great. If you ever need somebody else to watch her, just give me a shout. I work in a hospital up North," she added, casually, testing the waters for that offer to get a lift. " But if I’m not working I'm always at home with nothing to do…” No, no, don’t sound like a loser in front of Vin’s sis. Paloma forced a bigger smile. “...that can’t be put off, y’know, if your coworkers are ever too busy.”
Speaking of putting things off, didn’t she have an actual reason to be here today? What was that again? Eh, probably not important. As she bopped, either with or without the toddler, she leaned in closer to the phone, her eyes growing wide. Oh, no, she just couldn’t handle it. She exploded, but not before carefully cupping Luciana’s ears to protect her from hearing loss.
“AWW! YOU WERE JUST SO CUTE, TIGER! AHHH!”
“What happened?” she asked Loni with a giggle before pointing at the phone and squealing across the bar at Vin. “No way! Is that Stripes? I had the same Beanie Baby!” Paloma fanned her face as she turned back to Loni. “Wow. This really must be fate. Let me give you my number. I need you to send those to me. It's definitely gonna be Vin's contact photo. The one I currently got is just not it.”
As if to prove her point, Paloma flashed Loni an image that was mostly just a hand blocking a camera, a turned head, and parts of an embarrassing sailor outfit.
"It’s so hard being this popular. You’ll never get it."
_______________________________________________ Posie Victoria Prescott
She/Her | 17 | German American | 5’5” | 140 lbs _______________________________________________ Pressure _______________________________________________ Skills & Talents "I wasn’t even eligible for senior superlatives and I still got voted Most Likely To Succeed." ___________________________________
[ACT ACE] ⫻ Vicky seems like a sharp student. What she lacks in ingenuity and creativity, she makes up for it with attentiveness, a strong memory, and an eye for details. In the world of standardized testing, this means she can crush through a scantron thirty minutes before pencils down and get back to her romantasy novel. In the world of the supernatural, this means she’s typically the first to notice when shit’s about to get spooky. [Rah Rah Fight Fight] ⫻ Go team! There’s a lot more to being a cheerleader than rooting for our boys and hopefully getting a frontline view to see that dick Danny Graham get utterly killed out on the gridiron. Vicky’s strong for her size, loud as hell, and has good cardio. Plus, she can do a backflip. Danny Graham can’t do a backflip. Danny Graham can’t even follow up on his promise to take someone to prom. [Little Miss Swing-And-A-Miss] ⫻ Vicky’s a pitcher for the high school’s softball team. She’s got a lightning fastball, a nasty changeup, and an awful reputation when it comes to her sportsmanship. Vicky’s mid at best when it comes to being a hitter, but if she’s carrying a bat it’s probably best not to say that to her face. [Popular] ⫻ And it’s not just because she’s conventionally attractive or because her parents have a pool. It’s also because her older brother Winston just turned twenty one, he promised to buy her alcohol now that he’s about to get out of rehab, and even if it's gonna be that big plastic bottle of grocery store vodka that tastes like gasoline it still means that they’re all getting wasted!
Appearance ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Even the girl in the mirror is jealous of me."
In high school, everyone is trying so desperately to blend in so that they don’t get singled out. Unfortunately, this is impossible for poor Posie Victoria Prescott, because she’s been burdened to have the whole world revolve around her.
She has blonde hair and lightly tanned skin. Well, okay, Vicky has brown hair, but now it’s blonde and enough chemicals and expensive haircuts gave that straight shit a "natural" wave. But the tan’s real! Her brown eyes are blue and will remain blue because Diane’s stupid ass bought a yearlong supply of the wrong color contact lenses for Christmas despite Vicky telling her that she definitely wanted green. Vicky has bleach white, perfectly Invisalign-ed teeth surrounded by a dangerously flammable amount of lip gloss that will hopefully pull eyes away from her cleft chin that she absolutely hates. It’s stupid, and gross, and a boy she liked once called it a butt chin, and now she can’t unsee it, she has a butt on her face, and she hates it, hates it, hates it!
Phew. Anyway, Vicky has an athletic build with broad shoulders that rival those of an Olympic swimmer. She’s lowkey jacked thanks to playing sports, exercising every day, and following a rigid, self-enforced diet with no cheat days because cheat days are for fat losers with two stupid butt chins instead of just one and—let’s move on. Visible ab definition easily makes up for it, anyway. She’s proud of her legs, the one good thing her mother gave her. The only thing she seemed to inherit from her father was his stress. She doesn’t wear fake nails just because she finds them cute; she wears fake nails because they stop her from biting her already shredded real ones down to the stubs.
But a nervous habit is positively incapable of hindering the aura of confidence Vicky radiates. She is always “Game Face On”, rocking a kind of self-certainty and focused intensity in front of people that gives her a somewhat earned air of authority. The girl also possesses what might just be the single most withering stare in the entire world, capable of shutting down most dissenters with one hard glare. She’s also the loudest person in the room, her raspy voice basically a built-in bullhorn.
When Vicky doesn’t have to dress to rep Cornell for the big game, she almost exclusively dresses in athleisure. She has the most impossibly clean lily white sneakers in the world, so fresh that she must be taking advantage of some store’s lax return policy. Recently, she’s made waves at school when she showed up wearing the letterman jacket of the best linebacker on the varsity football team, the letters C H E F and the coveted double zero printed on the back. What was once the modern day regalia crowning her as the de facto queen of this stupid ass school is now the greatest piece of evidence used against her in the social courts to accuse her of regicide.
Psychology ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Ever notice when someone says, ‘Relax, it’s just a game,’ that they’re always the one who’s losing?"
MAIN GOAL ⫻ She’s getting out of Cornell. Vicky wasn’t just trapped here recently when reality snapped. She’s been trapped here her whole life, same as her parents, and her parents’ parents, and her parents’ parents’ parents. She’s not a quitter. She’s not moving the goalposts. She’s changing the play. If good academics and a sports scholarship can no longer get her out of Cornell then calculated sacrifices and an aluminum bat will.
PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Everything is a competition and life is a zero-sum game. It’s stupid and impossible to try and make everybody happy. Someone has to lose so that somebody can win, and winning is the most important thing in the world. Anyone who says otherwise is just either lying or delusional. This doesn’t mean that Vicky doesn’t believe in cooperation. Cooperation is important. Teamwork is important. The best way to keep winning is to surround yourself with other winners. She just has to be the MVP.
SECRETS ⫻ Vicky is a bully. She’s clever enough not to get caught. Typically, her form of harassment is insidious and untraceable: hateful notes left in a locker, vandalism when nobody is watching, mean comments on social media from a fake profile. People need to remember their place, and that’s below her.
SEXUALITY ⫻ Vicky is attracted to anyone, anyone, anyone who isn’t named Danny Graham. She mostly just dates for status, because how can she possibly love someone more than she loves herself?
FEARS ⫻ She is afraid that she’ll become her parents. She’s scared that she’ll be like her dad, who peaked in high school. She’s afraid she’ll become her mom, who thinks that wine in a box is a good deal and buys wood burned signs that say Live, Laugh, Love. She’s terrified that she’ll have children not for the sake of raising a family but as an act of selfish narcissism, a final Hail Mary pass in an attempt to vicariously have some kind of life because her own has fallen apart, pressuring and pressuring her kids to do better and be better until they snap just like her stupid, broken brother.
REPUTATION IN CORNELL ⫻ Vicky was the golden child. She’s “friends” with everybody. She’s pretty. She’s cool. She’s popular. There’s a reason she’s been crowned the Cob Queen of Cornell in a never seen before back-to-back victory at the end of the yearly Corn Har-Fest parade, and it’s only partially because her mother is on the planning committee. Then her boyfriend ate shit and died. Rumors began to spread, whispers saying that they had been fighting, that Vicky was somehow at fault, that it was even intentional. The authorities deemed his death as accidental. It didn’t matter. She was the golden child, but now she’s public enemy number one.
FLAWS ⫻ She’s selfish, overcompetitive, and fueled almost entirely by jealousy, all of which is huddled up tightly beneath one big massive umbrella of insecurity and repackaged to look like confidence. She always has to come out the winner. She always must get her way. Vicky would rather complain than compromise, be right rather than protect someone’s feelings, and have everyone lose rather than let someone else win. Part of her hates that she’s like this. That part of her is a quitter, a loser, a stupid little dumb bitch and Vicky has to CRUSH IT!
Backstory ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Just great. I really am going to die in this stupid town."
Vicky vividly remembers her first defeat. Her brother never lets her forget it. It was back when she was playing peewee soccer. She was four, maybe five. For once she got the ball out of the mob of little kids and scored a goal, the first one of the summer, the only one of the season, and it was in her own goal. The kids didn’t really care. They still got to eat cardboard cheese pizza at the arcade after the game. But the coach? Coach Prescott? Her dad? He was so utterly disappointed.
She doesn’t remember if he gave her “the speech” after that, but Vicky’s pretty certain her dad would. He would do some variant of it every time she lost a match, or wanted to quit, or dressed “wrong”, or hung out with people that he didn’t like. It always went something like, “There’s no losers in my household. You’re a Prescott, and being a Prescott means you win! And winners dont’...” Riveting, motivating shit from a man who grunted whenever he stood up, fell asleep every night in a recliner after killing a six pack, and had the yawn-inducing job title of logistics manager.
Vicky wasn’t the original plan to define the Prescott legacy. That burden had fallen on her brother Winston’s shoulders since he was the oldest boy, but the boy fumbled the ball so it came down to Vicky to recover it. As her brother burned out, she shined. She won trophies, pageants, and scholastic achievements. She won things that weren’t even competitions. She won so much that everyone else began looking like a loser, including her friends, her teammates, and especially her family. Vicky realized then that she didn’t want to just define the Prescott legacy; she wanted to rewrite it.
Step one was destroying all of the losers in her life that held her back. Vicky was always kind of a brat, but now she’d graduated to being a full on bully. She kept it anonymous when it was aimed at her friends and peers, trashing them from behind the safety of the Internet. She wouldn’t do anything in the real world. She needed them around so that she could climb over their backs, but at home Vicky was an absolute monster. Mom stopped being Mom and became Diane. The first time Vicky made Diane cry it was just, whoa, chills.
“Just you wait until your father gets home.”
So what did he do when he got home? He cracked a beer. That was it. Without her, he had nothing. Vicky was queen of the castle, she was god, and she would remain so as long as she kept winning. She saw what it was like to lose. She saw it in her mother, who realized that her only daughter had grown up to hate her. She saw it in her father, who was no longer the man of the house. Vicky especially saw it in her brother when she found him on the bathroom floor, blood trickling out of his head, as she stood there frozen in fear, terrified that she was witnessing her future.
It's fine. He got better-ish.
Turns out a brother almost dying from an OD was the secret sauce needed to open a seat up for Vicky at the cool kids table. Vicky was, like, so strong and brave. Those words came from the same girls who used to call her Poser Prescott behind her back in middle school. She started to dress like them. She started to talk like them. But deep down Vicky knew she wasn’t like them. She was uglier in every sense of the word and meaner than they could ever imagine, but she was also hungrier, more desperate, more deserving. She wasn’t going to be like her brother, and she wasn’t going to lose her status once the next bitch racked up enough sympathy points to knock Vicky off of her pedestal. She would become unbreakable, untouchable, undefeatable.
So she didn’t crack when that no good, stupid, lousy, worthless piece of shit Danny Graham broke his promise to take her to prom so he could go with Bitchface McBigtits. She didn’t even flinch. She upgraded. She started going out with his best friend, Bray Cooke. Senior. Linebacker. Very big deal. She didn’t really like him. He had a stupid laugh, used 3-in-1 soap, hadn’t read a book since the third grade, and went exclusively by his stupid football nickname. But dating Chef (ugh) solidified her spot at the top of the pyramid, and when he went away to college after summer they could break up. Maybe she’ll say that he cheated on her. Oh, how tragic! Who could blame Chef, boys will be boys right, but still people would feel so bad for her.
It was the perfect plan to remain at the top of the social ladder and kick out all the rungs beneath her. Only Chef didn’t make it to college. He didn’t even make it through the summer. When the party of doom was over, what was left of Chef could be mopped up with a towel and rung out. Most of that blood was on Vicky. Questions were asked. Assumptions were made. Rumors spread. The town turned. She was no longer Vicky Prescott, the Cobqueen of Cornell, softball star, head cheerleader, and future prom queen. She was just that bitch who got Chef killed.
His death was the second worst thing she saw that night. Something else happened at that party. Something that scared the shit out of her. It was proof confirming that nugget of doubt in her mind, shown in the form of a Kindling Event. Even the consultation prize of magic couldn’t heal a revelation so tragic. Vicky wasn’t going to define the Prescott legacy. She certainly wasn’t going to change it. It had been written down in blood centuries ago. It had just been lost, but never truly went away. It said that the Prescotts weren’t winners. They weren't necessarily losers either, but they definitely weren’t winners. They were survivors, scurrying by to struggle some other day, like rats, and cockroaches, and insurance agents.
As the town weirdened and her “friends” started to earn those quotation marks, Vicky knew one thing for certain: she was scared. Scared that she might not live up to her true legacy of being a survivor. Scared of what she might do to become one. Scared that after everything is done and the town is unfucked, if the town could be unfucked, that she’ll still, still, still somehow end up dying in Cornell, survived by those who loved her, a club whose membership was becoming more and more exclusive by the day.
Abstraction ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Watch your own back. Everyone else is just looking for a place to stick the knife."
ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Vicky’s fresh to the scene when it comes to magic, but she’s a tried and true hand when it comes to not showing a single ounce of vulnerability. Her magic is as selfish as she is. She has an affinity for spells that protect herself and is either seemingly unwilling to or incapable of crafting defensive magic that directly assists others.
Shutout ⫻ A defensive spell. With a wave of her hand, Vicky wraps a protective weave of crackling Lux around a part of her body or her bat to brace for an impact. When the weave is hit, it absorbs all of the force and momentum of a blow she’d feel to protect Vicky from the impact. This dampening effect doesn’t cut both ways; the harder something hits Vicky, the harder it might hurt itself. Think of the weave like a diamond, incredibly hard but absolutely brittle, as it snaps and vanishes upon impact. She can rapidly cast multiple instances of Shutout on different parts of her body to keep up her defense.
Shout-out ⫻ A stealth spell. Kinda. Casting Shout-out generates a barrier of absolute silence in a 5-foot radius around Vicky that lasts until she cancels it. Sound can exist inside of the barrier, but it cannot travel out of it. A Shout-out zone is visible when it is first cast, appearing like a sparking dome of Lux before instantly fading away, detectable only as a feeling of static cling or by magical means.
Vicky can cast a modified version of Shout-out and target someone else with it by concentrating it into a softball size ball of energy and throwing it their way. She calls this version the Shut Up. Instead of creating a field of silence around them, it briefly silences them as the ball hits them and becomes a bit of weaved Lux that covers their mouth like a piece of tape. The Shut Up spell ignores Emotional Fields.
Strikeout ⫻ A utility spell that can double as an offensive one. Vicky can make an object invisible by touching it. Once cast she doesn’t have to do anything to maintain it, and the effect could seemingly last forever. Vicky can still see this invisible object, which is highlighted to her by Lux sparking around the item. Otherwise it is undetectable by most, if not all, magical means. Vicky can use Strikeout in an offensive manner by turning her weapon of choice invisible. If she had this back in the day, a lot of invisible rocks would’ve been thrown at people’s windshields. They still might. Typically, her Channeler is under a Strikeout spell.
LIMITS ⫻ While some of her spells allow her to target others, Vicky currently is incapable of learning how to cast spells that would directly protect another person.
Shutout ⫻ Shutout only lasts for a brief moment, measured in seconds if not milliseconds. It’s a parry, not a shield. Vicky needs good timing to pull off a successful Shutout, let alone to keep rolling with multiples. Shutout breaks upon impact. While it absorbs the force of an impact, it doesn’t necessarily deny the effect—the thing that hits her still hits her. In other words, if Vicky were to get blasted with a fireball, she could tank the initial explosion but would still be engulfed by the flames. While Shutout could cause some damage through whiplash, it doesn’t enhance Vicky’s own strikes at all.
Shout-out ⫻ While Shout-out blocks all sound within the barrier around Vicky from leaving, it also blocks all sound outside of the barrier from coming in. She must be able to scream to cast the spell, although that original shout is blocked by the barrier. The zone must be refreshed and will fade away after roughly 30 seconds if Vicky does not say anything, although even a whisper will do.
Vicky cannot maintain a Shout-out zone up when she casts Shut Up. While it ignores Emotional Fields, a Shut Up spell must hit the target’s mouth to actually work. Vicky’s a fast pitcher, but this means the spell can still be dodged, blocked, or intercepted even by something as small as a hand over a mouth. It is physically harmless and can be easily ripped off, making the spell more insulting than it is effective.
Strikeout ⫻ Vicky can only have one thing under the effect of the Strikeout spell at a time, the previous item immediately becoming visible the moment she recasts the spell. The spell cannot be cast on objects carried or held within another person’s Emotional Field. The spell also cannot work on anything larger than her, although it can work on separate parts of a large whole. For example, she could Strikeout a door knob, but she couldn’t Strikeout an entire door even if it would make for a truly great prank.
WEAKNESSES ⫻ Vicky’s abstraction primarily relies inwardly, and this self-focus is a fundamental flaw. Yellow Lux enhances her self-preservation and perception but isolates her from shared defensive space. Her magic actively resists protecting others; attempts to do so often cause spell collapse or feedback. In group settings, this makes her a liability—she can survive situations others cannot, but she cannot stabilize failing scenarios. When allies are injured or killed nearby, her Lux spikes into defensive overdrive, narrowing her focus and increasing tunnel vision and reactivity.
Shutout’s fragility is its biggest weakness. While it prevents momentum, it does not eliminate consequences. Impacts can transfer secondary effects—heat, electricity, corrosion, or poison once the weave shatters. Repeated high-impact Shutouts cause cumulative damage-microfractures, whiplash, and nervous system strain. Poor timing doesn’t just cause failure but can leave her worse off, as the Lux lock briefly contracts her muscles at impact. Because Shutout rewards taking hits, it risks creating a dangerous feedback cycle.
Shout-out’s silence proves to be a double-edged sword. When active, Vicky loses all external audio outside of the zone, leaving her unaware of unseen movements or environmental cues she can’t detect. Extended use leads to disorientation, delayed reactions, and balance issues, especially in chaotic settings. Since silence depends on vocalization, injuries that hinder breathing, gagging, choking, or throat damage can break the spell. If she panics and becomes silent, the silence ends with her.
Strikeout does not make an object intangible or self-guiding; it only removes it from everyone else’s perception. Vicky can still see the invisible object, but her awareness of it is entirely internal to her Lux perception. If her perception is disrupted by pain, concussion, sensory overload, disorientation, or perception-altering effects, the Lux highlight that lets her track the object can flicker or collapse. In those moments, the invisible object becomes genuinely difficult for anyone to locate, including her. Additionally, invisibility does not remove physical interaction. The invisible object still displaces air, leaves marks in dust, blood, or water, and collides with the environment.
Other ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Gimme an L! Gimme an O! Gimme an S! Gimme an E! Gimme an R! What’s that spell? Y! O! U!"
Vicky used to write poetry and publish it anonymously online until she read a comment making fun of it. Now her poems are all locked away inside of a journal she hides underneath her mattress, and she’ll absolutely murder anyone if she ever caught them reading it.
Until freshman year of high school, Vicky just went by her first name. Calling her Posie nowadays is a quick way to get underneath her paperthin skin. Calling her Poser Prescott is a great way to get your locker filled with contents of the trash bin from the girl's locker room.
"It’s so hard being this popular. You’ll never get it."
_______________________________________________ Posie Victoria Prescott
She/Her | 17 | German American | 5’5” | 140 lbs _______________________________________________ Pressure _______________________________________________ Skills & Talents "I wasn’t even eligible for senior superlatives and I still got voted Most Likely To Succeed." ___________________________________
[ACT ACE] ⫻ Vicky seems like a sharp student. What she lacks in ingenuity and creativity, she makes up for it with attentiveness, a strong memory, and an eye for details. In the world of standardized testing, this means she can crush through a scantron thirty minutes before pencils down and get back to her romantasy novel. In the world of the supernatural, this means she’s typically the first to notice when shit’s about to get spooky. [Rah Rah Fight Fight] ⫻ Go team! There’s a lot more to being a cheerleader than rooting for our boys and hopefully getting a frontline view to see that dick Danny Graham get utterly killed out on the gridiron. Vicky’s strong for her size, loud as hell, and has good cardio. Plus, she can do a backflip. Danny Graham can’t do a backflip. Danny Graham can’t even follow up on his promise to take someone to prom. [Little Miss Swing-And-A-Miss] ⫻ Vicky’s a pitcher for the high school’s softball team. She’s got a lightning fastball, a nasty changeup, and an awful reputation when it comes to her sportsmanship. Vicky’s mid at best when it comes to being a hitter, but if she’s carrying a bat it’s probably best not to say that to her face. [Popular] ⫻ And it’s not just because she’s conventionally attractive or because her parents have a pool. It’s also because her older brother Winston just turned twenty one, he promised to buy her alcohol now that he’s about to get out of rehab, and even if it's gonna be that big plastic bottle of grocery store vodka that tastes like gasoline it still means that they’re all getting wasted!
Appearance ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Even the girl in the mirror is jealous of me."
In high school, everyone is trying so desperately to blend in so that they don’t get singled out. Unfortunately, this is impossible for poor Posie Victoria Prescott, because she’s been burdened to have the whole world revolve around her.
She has blonde hair and lightly tanned skin. Well, okay, Vicky has brown hair, but now it’s blonde and enough chemicals and expensive haircuts gave that straight shit a "natural" wave. But the tan’s real! Her brown eyes are blue and will remain blue because Diane’s stupid ass bought a yearlong supply of the wrong color contact lenses for Christmas despite Vicky telling her that she definitely wanted green. Vicky has bleach white, perfectly Invisalign-ed teeth surrounded by a dangerously flammable amount of lip gloss that will hopefully pull eyes away from her cleft chin that she absolutely hates. It’s stupid, and gross, and a boy she liked once called it a butt chin, and now she can’t unsee it, she has a butt on her face, and she hates it, hates it, hates it!
Phew. Anyway, Vicky has an athletic build with broad shoulders that rival those of an Olympic swimmer. She’s lowkey jacked thanks to playing sports, exercising every day, and following a rigid, self-enforced diet with no cheat days because cheat days are for fat losers with two stupid butt chins instead of just one and—let’s move on. Visible ab definition easily makes up for it, anyway. She’s proud of her legs, the one good thing her mother gave her. The only thing she seemed to inherit from her father was his stress. She doesn’t wear fake nails just because she finds them cute; she wears fake nails because they stop her from biting her already shredded real ones down to the stubs.
But a nervous habit is positively incapable of hindering the aura of confidence Vicky radiates. She is always “Game Face On”, rocking a kind of self-certainty and focused intensity in front of people that gives her a somewhat earned air of authority. The girl also possesses what might just be the single most withering stare in the entire world, capable of shutting down most dissenters with one hard glare. She’s also the loudest person in the room, her raspy voice basically a built-in bullhorn.
When Vicky doesn’t have to dress to rep Cornell for the big game, she almost exclusively dresses in athleisure. She has the most impossibly clean lily white sneakers in the world, so fresh that she must be taking advantage of some store’s lax return policy. Recently, she’s made waves at school when she showed up wearing the letterman jacket of the best linebacker on the varsity football team, the letters C H E F and the coveted double zero printed on the back. What was once the modern day regalia crowning her as the de facto queen of this stupid ass school is now the greatest piece of evidence used against her in the social courts to accuse her of regicide.
Psychology ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Ever notice when someone says, ‘Relax, it’s just a game,’ that they’re always the one who’s losing?"
MAIN GOAL ⫻ She’s getting out of Cornell. Vicky wasn’t just trapped here recently when reality snapped. She’s been trapped here her whole life, same as her parents, and her parents’ parents, and her parents’ parents’ parents. She’s not a quitter. She’s not moving the goalposts. She’s changing the play. If good academics and a sports scholarship can no longer get her out of Cornell then calculated sacrifices and an aluminum bat will.
PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Everything is a competition and life is a zero-sum game. It’s stupid and impossible to try and make everybody happy. Someone has to lose so that somebody can win, and winning is the most important thing in the world. Anyone who says otherwise is just either lying or delusional. This doesn’t mean that Vicky doesn’t believe in cooperation. Cooperation is important. Teamwork is important. The best way to keep winning is to surround yourself with other winners. She just has to be the MVP.
SECRETS ⫻ Vicky is a bully. She’s clever enough not to get caught. Typically, her form of harassment is insidious and untraceable: hateful notes left in a locker, vandalism when nobody is watching, mean comments on social media from a fake profile. People need to remember their place, and that’s below her.
SEXUALITY ⫻ Vicky is attracted to anyone, anyone, anyone who isn’t named Danny Graham. She mostly just dates for status, because how can she possibly love someone more than she loves herself?
FEARS ⫻ She is afraid that she’ll become her parents. She’s scared that she’ll be like her dad, who peaked in high school. She’s afraid she’ll become her mom, who thinks that wine in a box is a good deal and buys wood burned signs that say Live, Laugh, Love. She’s terrified that she’ll have children not for the sake of raising a family but as an act of selfish narcissism, a final Hail Mary pass in an attempt to vicariously have some kind of life because her own has fallen apart, pressuring and pressuring her kids to do better and be better until they snap just like her stupid, broken brother.
REPUTATION IN CORNELL ⫻ Vicky was the golden child. She’s “friends” with everybody. She’s pretty. She’s cool. She’s popular. There’s a reason she’s been crowned the Cob Queen of Cornell in a never seen before back-to-back victory at the end of the yearly Corn Har-Fest parade, and it’s only partially because her mother is on the planning committee. Then her boyfriend ate shit and died. Rumors began to spread, whispers saying that they had been fighting, that Vicky was somehow at fault, that it was even intentional. The authorities deemed his death as accidental. It didn’t matter. She was the golden child, but now she’s public enemy number one.
FLAWS ⫻ She’s selfish, overcompetitive, and fueled almost entirely by jealousy, all of which is huddled up tightly beneath one big massive umbrella of insecurity and repackaged to look like confidence. She always has to come out the winner. She always must get her way. Vicky would rather complain than compromise, be right rather than protect someone’s feelings, and have everyone lose rather than let someone else win. Part of her hates that she’s like this. That part of her is a quitter, a loser, a stupid little dumb bitch and Vicky has to CRUSH IT!
Backstory ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Just great. I really am going to die in this stupid town."
Vicky vividly remembers her first defeat. Her brother never lets her forget it. It was back when she was playing peewee soccer. She was four, maybe five. For once she got the ball out of the mob of little kids and scored a goal, the first one of the summer, the only one of the season, and it was in her own goal. The kids didn’t really care. They still got to eat cardboard cheese pizza at the arcade after the game. But the coach? Coach Prescott? Her dad? He was so utterly disappointed.
She doesn’t remember if he gave her “the speech” after that, but Vicky’s pretty certain her dad would. He would do some variant of it every time she lost a match, or wanted to quit, or dressed “wrong”, or hung out with people that he didn’t like. It always went something like, “There’s no losers in my household. You’re a Prescott, and being a Prescott means you win! And winners dont’...” Riveting, motivating shit from a man who grunted whenever he stood up, fell asleep every night in a recliner after killing a six pack, and had the yawn-inducing job title of logistics manager.
Vicky wasn’t the original plan to define the Prescott legacy. That burden had fallen on her brother Winston’s shoulders since he was the oldest boy, but the boy fumbled the ball so it came down to Vicky to recover it. As her brother burned out, she shined. She won trophies, pageants, and scholastic achievements. She won things that weren’t even competitions. She won so much that everyone else began looking like a loser, including her friends, her teammates, and especially her family. Vicky realized then that she didn’t want to just define the Prescott legacy; she wanted to rewrite it.
Step one was destroying all of the losers in her life that held her back. Vicky was always kind of a brat, but now she’d graduated to being a full on bully. She kept it anonymous when it was aimed at her friends and peers, trashing them from behind the safety of the Internet. She wouldn’t do anything in the real world. She needed them around so that she could climb over their backs, but at home Vicky was an absolute monster. Mom stopped being Mom and became Diane. The first time Vicky made Diane cry it was just, whoa, chills.
“Just you wait until your father gets home.”
So what did he do when he got home? He cracked a beer. That was it. Without her, he had nothing. Vicky was queen of the castle, she was god, and she would remain so as long as she kept winning. She saw what it was like to lose. She saw it in her mother, who realized that her only daughter had grown up to hate her. She saw it in her father, who was no longer the man of the house. Vicky especially saw it in her brother when she found him on the bathroom floor, blood trickling out of his head, as she stood there frozen in fear, terrified that she was witnessing her future.
It's fine. He got better-ish.
Turns out a brother almost dying from an OD was the secret sauce needed to open a seat up for Vicky at the cool kids table. Vicky was, like, so strong and brave. Those words came from the same girls who used to call her Poser Prescott behind her back in middle school. She started to dress like them. She started to talk like them. But deep down Vicky knew she wasn’t like them. She was uglier in every sense of the word and meaner than they could ever imagine, but she was also hungrier, more desperate, more deserving. She wasn’t going to be like her brother, and she wasn’t going to lose her status once the next bitch racked up enough sympathy points to knock Vicky off of her pedestal. She would become unbreakable, untouchable, undefeatable.
So she didn’t crack when that no good, stupid, lousy, worthless piece of shit Danny Graham broke his promise to take her to prom so he could go with Bitchface McBigtits. She didn’t even flinch. She upgraded. She started going out with his best friend, Bray Cooke. Senior. Linebacker. Very big deal. She didn’t really like him. He had a stupid laugh, used 3-in-1 soap, hadn’t read a book since the third grade, and went exclusively by his stupid football nickname. But dating Chef (ugh) solidified her spot at the top of the pyramid, and when he went away to college after summer they could break up. Maybe she’ll say that he cheated on her. Oh, how tragic! Who could blame Chef, boys will be boys right, but still people would feel so bad for her.
It was the perfect plan to remain at the top of the social ladder and kick out all the rungs beneath her. Only Chef didn’t make it to college. He didn’t even make it through the summer. When the party of doom was over, what was left of Chef could be mopped up with a towel and rung out. Most of that blood was on Vicky. Questions were asked. Assumptions were made. Rumors spread. The town turned. She was no longer Vicky Prescott, the Cobqueen of Cornell, softball star, head cheerleader, and future prom queen. She was just that bitch who got Chef killed.
His death was the second worst thing she saw that night. Something else happened at that party. Something that scared the shit out of her. It was proof confirming that nugget of doubt in her mind, shown in the form of a Kindling Event. Even the consultation prize of magic couldn’t heal a revelation so tragic. Vicky wasn’t going to define the Prescott legacy. She certainly wasn’t going to change it. It had been written down in blood centuries ago. It had just been lost, but never truly went away. It said that the Prescotts weren’t winners. They weren't necessarily losers either, but they definitely weren’t winners. They were survivors, scurrying by to struggle some other day, like rats, and cockroaches, and insurance agents.
As the town weirdened and her “friends” started to earn those quotation marks, Vicky knew one thing for certain: she was scared. Scared that she might not live up to her true legacy of being a survivor. Scared of what she might do to become one. Scared that after everything is done and the town is unfucked, if the town could be unfucked, that she’ll still, still, still somehow end up dying in Cornell, survived by those who loved her, a club whose membership was becoming more and more exclusive by the day.
Abstraction ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Watch your own back. Everyone else is just looking for a place to stick the knife."
ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Vicky’s fresh to the scene when it comes to magic, but she’s a tried and true hand when it comes to not showing a single ounce of vulnerability. Her magic is as selfish as she is. She has an affinity for spells that protect herself and is either seemingly unwilling to or incapable of crafting defensive magic that directly assists others.
Shutout ⫻ A defensive spell. With a wave of her hand, Vicky wraps a protective weave of crackling Lux around a part of her body or her bat to brace for an impact. When the weave is hit, it absorbs all of the force and momentum of a blow she’d feel to protect Vicky from the impact. This dampening effect doesn’t cut both ways; the harder something hits Vicky, the harder it might hurt itself. Think of the weave like a diamond, incredibly hard but absolutely brittle, as it snaps and vanishes upon impact. She can rapidly cast multiple instances of Shutout on different parts of her body to keep up her defense.
Shout-out ⫻ A stealth spell. Kinda. Casting Shout-out generates a barrier of absolute silence in a 5-foot radius around Vicky that lasts until she cancels it. Sound can exist inside of the barrier, but it cannot travel out of it. A Shout-out zone is visible when it is first cast, appearing like a sparking dome of Lux before instantly fading away, detectable only as a feeling of static cling or by magical means.
Vicky can cast a modified version of Shout-out and target someone else with it by concentrating it into a softball size ball of energy and throwing it their way. She calls this version the Shut Up. Instead of creating a field of silence around them, it briefly silences them as the ball hits them and becomes a bit of weaved Lux that covers their mouth like a piece of tape. The Shut Up spell ignores Emotional Fields.
Strikeout ⫻ A utility spell that can double as an offensive one. Vicky can make an object invisible by touching it. Once cast she doesn’t have to do anything to maintain it, and the effect could seemingly last forever. Vicky can still see this invisible object, which is highlighted to her by Lux sparking around the item. Otherwise it is undetectable by most, if not all, magical means. Vicky can use Strikeout in an offensive manner by turning her weapon of choice invisible. If she had this back in the day, a lot of invisible rocks would’ve been thrown at people’s windshields. They still might. Typically, her Channeler is under a Strikeout spell.
LIMITS ⫻ While some of her spells allow her to target others, Vicky currently is incapable of learning how to cast spells that would directly protect another person.
Shutout ⫻ Shutout only lasts for a brief moment, measured in seconds if not milliseconds. It’s a parry, not a shield. Vicky needs good timing to pull off a successful Shutout, let alone to keep rolling with multiples. Shutout breaks upon impact. While it absorbs the force of an impact, it doesn’t necessarily deny the effect—the thing that hits her still hits her. In other words, if Vicky were to get blasted with a fireball, she could tank the initial explosion but would still be engulfed by the flames. While Shutout could cause some damage through whiplash, it doesn’t enhance Vicky’s own strikes at all.
Shout-out ⫻ While Shout-out blocks all sound within the barrier around Vicky from leaving, it also blocks all sound outside of the barrier from coming in. She must be able to scream to cast the spell, although that original shout is blocked by the barrier. The zone must be refreshed and will fade away after roughly 30 seconds if Vicky does not say anything, although even a whisper will do.
Vicky cannot maintain a Shout-out zone up when she casts Shut Up. While it ignores Emotional Fields, a Shut Up spell must hit the target’s mouth to actually work. Vicky’s a fast pitcher, but this means the spell can still be dodged, blocked, or intercepted even by something as small as a hand over a mouth. It is physically harmless and can be easily ripped off, making the spell more insulting than it is effective.
Strikeout ⫻ Vicky can only have one thing under the effect of the Strikeout spell at a time, the previous item immediately becoming visible the moment she recasts the spell. The spell cannot be cast on objects carried or held within another person’s Emotional Field. The spell also cannot work on anything larger than her, although it can work on separate parts of a large whole. For example, she could Strikeout a door knob, but she couldn’t Strikeout an entire door even if it would make for a truly great prank.
WEAKNESSES ⫻ (DO NOT FILL THIS OUT, I WILL PROVIDE IT FOR YOU)
Other ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Gimme an L! Gimme an O! Gimme an S! Gimme an E! Gimme an R! What’s that spell? Y! O! U!"
Vicky used to write poetry and publish it anonymously online until she read a comment making fun of it. Now her poems are all locked away inside of a journal she hides underneath her mattress, and she’ll absolutely murder anyone if she ever caught them reading it.
Until freshman year of high school, Vicky just went by her first name. Calling her Posie nowadays is a quick way to get underneath her paperthin skin. Calling her Poser Prescott is a great way to get your locker filled with contents of the trash bin from the girl's locker room.
I would also like to take this time to formally open a poll on whether the high school football team is named the Cornell Cougars or the Cornell Cornballs. Get in the comments.
The Waystone Inn Interactions: Ed @NoriWasHere Latrom @Cosmic Outfit: Absolutely covered in snow
Almost immediately, and most certainly due to his irresistability, Ransom inspired Lairëcúma to burst into another song. Wait, stupid hair? A cloudy breath escaped from his mouth as he blew a heavenly lock of hair out of his face. This must be a cover. He heard the cat jawjacking behind his back as Cali started shooting straight bullshit out of her mouth. Ransom was a gentleman. He’d never shove a lady out of the way just like Cali would never admit the real reason why she doth protest too much. Ransom gave a cocky little half-shrug at her accusation, not wanting to start a fight with Cali when he had a kitty to maim.
He turned back to Lucky and was caught off guard as his opponent blitzed past him, shouting for everyone to go away. Momentarily stunned, Ransom realized that technically an unanswered challenge meant that he had won the duel. He turned towards Lairëcúma to see if he could get her to sing a song of his victory, but she was already moving through the door with Cali behind her. He watched as the tiefling scooped up her fox. Perhaps slightly distracted by the swish of a tail, he did not immediately register the shredded ribbons of leather clenched in the beast’s jaws as once belonging to him until he noticed that his glove was now missing when he moved to pick it up. Ransom dropped his head with a heavy sigh. His victory didn’t feel very celebratory.
“Thank you for calling pause, Ransom,” said the Undertaker. He glanced at her from underneath his stupid hair, confused as to what she was going on about. “I would hate for bloodshed to ruin such a promising nigh-”
Yes. Yes, see, she got it. Ransom was such a benevolent man that he had let Lucky go unharmed. His eyes drifted to Latrom as Ransom rubbed his own shoulder, unaware that the muscle he assumed to be the Undertaker’s guard had been the one who had eased Lila’s punch. Although he was not injured, Ransom could still use a priest. It would totally help validate his claim to being a holy man of…which god had he gone with again? Ilmater? Loviatar? Lathander. Right, light boy.
“You’re welcome?” offered Ransom when he realized Ed wasn’t going to finish her thought after something rumbled.
She was distracted, looking at something else. His eyes followed hers to the top of the Arcane Tower as it began to spin and slowly rotate. He blinked. Had Cali actually been able to secretly slip something into his drink? He blinked again. No, this was happening. The city groaned, snapped, and shifted. Oh, shit! No, no, no, this was happening! A pile of snow sliding off the roof of the Waystone Inn clocked Ransom and sent him to the ground with an, “Oh, shit!" He frantically started to dig himself out of the snow, his unprotected hand stung by the cold, as his mind gravitated to one single thought:
See, this is fucking why you don’t build your town around a mage tower.
Nothing good ever came from a mage tower being located in town. He never ever heard of a story about a mage tower where something mysterious happened and everyone in town found twenty gold pieces in their pocket. There was never an arcane experiment gone array and now everyone was two points hotter or a bunch of nymphs got summoned to town. No portal ever opened up to the wine and cheese dimension. It was always arcane explosions, zombie apocalypses, or unspeakable eldritch beings whose name was spelled with sixteen consonants, seven apostrophes, and pronounced by tearing out your own throat.
Ransom pulled himself out of the snow. Either some snow had gotten into his boots or some part of Kel had started to freeze. He shoved his bare hand under his arm to warm it back up as he surveyed the cataclysm around him from his knees. Roads weren’t supposed to do that. Buildings weren’t supposed to do that. People definitely weren’t supposed to do that. He winced as a man proved why, despite Ransom’s own wariness of mages, that having a wizard around who stocked Feather Fall was always a sensible idea. Ouch. What a way to go. He watched as Edwina moved to help a mother and her child, a monstrous construct emerging out of the shadows to shield them.
“Don’t just stand there! Help.”
What?
Why?
The instinct was to get up and run. He didn’t owe these people nothing, and these people clearly had nothing to give otherwise they wouldn’t live in Greyharrow. He wouldn’t gamble away his own life for nothing in return. He’d sworn no oaths. He’d signed no contracts. He wasn’t some—a voice, shrill and squeaky, in the back of his head: Mrs. Marmsdale. A memory of something his etiquette teacher had once said. A noble man doesn’t help others because he wants to. He does so because he has to. At first he has always thought it was some stupid lesson in chivalry, but know remembering the phrase with the benefit of hindsight, knowing that no bannerman arrived to answer his father’s demands to defend Labelle Gardens from the goblin horde, he was pretty sure it was actually a lesson in karma.
Goddamnit. Ransom stood up. The Undertaker and her golem had the mother and child safe, or had at the very least bought them some more time. He moved to save another stumbling toddler, seemingly unaware of the rocks falling down around their head. Why were there so many damn children up at this time of night? Ransom moved quickly, one hand over his noggin to protect it in case he failed to dodge a piece of debris. He bent low, slid, and scooped the toddler moments before something wooden came crashing down. The toddler started slamming him with their fists as he felt something slash and sting across his calf. He buckled but did not fall, skating across the snow until he set down the toddler in the relative safety of the shadow of the Waystone Inn.
It was only then that he realized the toddler had a full handlebar mustache and graying hair.
“Oy, whaddja think ya doin’, ya freak? Tryin’ ta git fresh wit me, are ya? Ol’ Petey don’lit anyway touch ‘im ‘cept Missus Petey. Where’s me knife at, I gut ya from shin ta knee ya fucking bastard! I fucking kill ya,” hollered the drunk gnome.
Ransom shoved the gnome backwards into the safety of the pile of snow Ransom had just dug out. The drunk gnome harmless kicked and punched at the air, unable to stand himself upright, as he rolled around in the fresh powder and made the saddest snow angel ever. The gnome was safe as long as his drunk ass didn’t bury his face beneath the snow. Ransom just hoped he didn’t follow through with that threat when he turned his back. Across the way, he spotted a hand beneath a mound of snow. He bolted to the pile and started digging at it with one hand—look, he wasn’t just about to get frostbite for someone who might already be dead. It really wasn’t working too well. Fuck it, he wrapped his bare hand in his cloak and began shoveling with it, too.
“Hey, big guy!” Ransom yelled at Latrom. “I hope those aren’t just show muscles. Help me pull them out.”
To say that Paloma immediately realized her mistake gave her too much credit. It took getting hit by a couple of waves first before she completely allowed clarity to wash over her. The first sign that she’d beefed it came when Vin’s first instinct wasn’t to pounce but rather to pass off a frozen toddler. The fact that the toddler was in stasis served as a second sign–it’d still be wiggling and oh-ee-ahing if it had just been an extremely stout doppelganger. However, it was only when Vin started hollering at Marco that the third and final piece of the Fisher-Price puzzle clicked into place.
Sister. As in Vin’s sister. As in Vin’s twin sister.
Paloma felt herself go flush. This wasn’t her fault! Vin had said they had a sister, but they had never said it was a twin sister. That’s something a person should mention. Paloma was pretty sure twins were obligated to tell everyone that they ever met that they had a twin to avoid things like this happening. That was especially true when there was a doppelganger epidemic! Shit, this was so awkward. Shit, she had just abused the Samaritan’s power in public. Shit, Gideon was here, wasn’t he?
Think quick, Paloma, think quick. No way they could pin this back on her, especially if she pretended to be caught in the Bystander Effect too! She froze. Well, kind of. Her rapidly blinking eyes darted around the room, realizing that the others would’ve already seen her move when she had taken Luciana. Okay, new plan. She was a dungeon master, after all. She was a pro at making plans that didn't pan out and improvising from there.
“Oh, er, wow. How, uh, did…how did this happen?” said Paloma with a stilted delivery. She looked down at Destiny and Latoya. “Ha. Ha. Did you…do this? Wow, that’s–that is–this is…so. Crazy. Ohmigosh,neverseenanything. Likethis. Before? Oh, excuse me, I should return this kid.”
Nailed it. Super believable. Super genuine. And those bitches back in the drama club had always insisted that she work stage crew. Paloma bolted away from them and made a beeline straight towards Loni. Certainly, she just wanted to reunite mother with daughter and definitely had no intentions of clam jamming–“You can’t stop me from sleepin’ with someone if I wanna and they wanna."–OH MY FUCKING GOD! Vin, teach this motherfucker that family’s off limits.
Paloma moved to run distraction, quietly praying that Vin wouldn’t completely cripple Marco.
“Hiii, hiiiiiiiii,” squeaked Paloma, hand held out for a shake while the other one balanced Luciana against her shoulder. “You must be Vin’s sister. Vin just never stops talking about you. Honestly, it makes me almost crazy with jealousy, I mean, it’s just so nice.”
Except they forgot to mention one VERY IMPORTANT FUCKING DETAIL!
“Y’know, we’re actually neighbors. It’s so weird that we never met. Love your outfit, by the way. Pink is my favorite color,” said Paloma, shifting Luciana’s dead weight with a groan as the words flooded out of her mouth. “She’s perfectly fine, by the way. Gosh, the way kids grow up so fast you kind of wish they could stay like this forever, y’know? Just kidding, I’m sure whoever did this had no ill intent and will fix it like-eek!”
Paloma froze again as Gideon called her out, her grip tightening on Luciana. Suddenly she felt like she wasn’t much older than the statue in her arms as Gideon scolded her like a child. It was only as he turned his attention to Vin and Marco did she thaw ever so slightly. In fact, she was starting to run hot. Girl? He had called her girl? She was damn near thirty years old. Nobody had the right to call her girl, especially not some geriatric, limp-dicked, trickle-down economics boomer who forced everybody to kiss his fucking ring just so that they wouldn’t go hungry on Thanksgiving. If Loni wasn’t completely distracted by the woman suddenly holding her child hostage, she might catch the string of incredibly colorful expletives Paloma bravely mouthed behind Gideon’s back.
“So enjoy your flirtin’ with anyone but their fucking sister…”
On second thought, Gideon was okay. Just as long as he didn’t…
““Now, girl, unfreeze my guests.”
…girl her again.
The crowd reanimated. A half a dozen heads or so, unnoticed in the crowd, turned toward Paloma. A few chairs scouted out. A couple of men stood up. And then, as an adorable ball of energy began squirming and Paloma’s thoughts turned towards the actual girl in her arms, they all went back to normal. The atmosphere became lively again as chatter and laughter filled the air. People argued about football and complained that the free turkey was a bit dry. A few people grumbled about having lost their fork. Children began slaving away once more at ruining what had once been delicious baked goods, overloading the gingerbread turkeys with icing and sprinkles.
Paloma smiled down at Luciana, bopping up and down with her and forgetting for now just how good Gideon’s head would look in a basket.
“Hi, Luciana. Oh, wow, you’re just too precious. Look, there’s mama. Say hi mama. Hiiiiii mama,” said Paloma, finally handing the abductee back to Loni. “I’m Paloma. It’s so nice to finally meet you.”
Now how soon was too soon to ask about somebody’s dead baby daddy?
Ransom saw the drunken sway in the tired tabaxi’s stance as the end of his cigarette glowed red. The fresh night air nipped at the tips of Ransom’s unprotected fingers. Perhaps it even cooled his temper. Satisfaction still had to be found, but the cost of payback was discounted from life to first blood. Then the cat opened his stupid mouth going off about guns and started driving the price back up.
Ransom opened his mouth up to retort that guns were the weapons of the weak, ignoring the growing weight of his stashed hand crossbow that was essentially just gun-but-old, and received a shotgun blast of smoke spewed from the cat that caught him directly in the back of his throat. Ransom flinched and started to cough violently. Was that catnip and a vaporized form of Something Else mixed in with the tobacco? It took every precious ounce of his very limited willpower to keep his eyes on Lucky. Ransom hadn’t dealt with a smoke that harsh since the day he had to convince the goblins of Nomog-Gesomething-or-other that he was cool.
Yet even through his coughing fit, Ransom still picked up on Lucky telling him to beat feet and beat off. What kind of cheap, dirty, rotten, lousy scoundrel would say something crass and lowbrow like that? Utterly uncivilized.
Speaking of civility, the tabaxi wasn’t backing down, but he wasn’t picking up the glove either. A proper duel had pomp and circumstance, requiring way too many hoops to jump through and terms to set, all allowing for plenty of opportunities to get the hell out of town before actually meeting in a field at dawn. It was gentlemanly. It was noble. It's what separated them from the animals. The way the tabaxi was squaring up, he looked as if he wanted the fight right here, right now as if they were common street toughs. And his eyes. Look at his eyes. What the hell was happening to his eyes?
It must’ve been really cold outside, because Ransom froze. Whatever was causing that cat’s eyes to become all weird and glossy was some nonsense mystical magic shit that Ransom absolutely did not mess around with. He was a wizard. Of course he was a wizard. Why was it that everytime Ransom picked a fight, it ended up being with a wizard? This was why duels needed terms and conditions. Fights weren’t fair when the other person could just cast Fireball. Had that smoke been a spell? Some kind of enchantment? Ransom didn’t know how magic worked, but he was hearing something heavenly ring in his ears.
“...Than just another...bar fight.”
Now that Ransom was no longer just seeing red, he was able to witness the breathtaking beauty of an elven bard serenading him with song. In a town overflowing with scum and dirtbags and flirty tieflings that played hot-and-cold, her appearance was one of radiance and majesty, an angel sent down from the heavens and shining like a diamond. Surely she had just arrived, because there was no way Ransom would’ve missed someone like that. The best of poets and playwrights in the world would lack the words to describe someone so striking, and Ransom was neither of these things so all he was left with was a single, solitary, Whoa!
Wait, had she just called him an asshole? No, no, no, see, she just didn’t know the whole story. Ransom wasn’t an asshole. He was the victim here, see? He just barely clocked Cali playing the part of the devil on Lairëcúma's shoulder. For someone so “repulsed” by him, Cali sure seemed to be following him around. Was this her doing? What had she said to the elf? Character assassination! This cried of character assination! He was a nice guy and he’d ruin anyone who said otherwise.
“Hold on, time out.” Ransom threw Lucky a T with his hands as the rage in his voice retreated before gesturing to his own eyes. “Quit whatever that weird shit is and go lick your asshole or something. Just give me one minute.” He turned towards Edwina. “Undertaker, make sure he doesn’t take any cheap shots.”
Knowing that there was now definitely no way he’d be suckerpunched, Ransom turned his attention fully to Lairëcúma and tried his damnedest not to shoot Cali any dirty looks.
“That was one of the most beautifully sung songs that I have ever heard. I’m sure it might sound like small praise considering the company we find ourselves in, but unlike the crowd here I know how to appreciate art,” said Ransom, unable to resist being a snob just as he couldn’t resist correcting her. “But this is going to be a proper duel, not some pedestrian barfight.”
“And only one of us here is an asshole!” What Ransom thought was a clever remark that dogged Lucky only served to out himself. “I’m sure someone as talented as you only lowers herself to come to a place as dingy as this in search of inspiration. Well, Ransom Labelle is all the inspiration that you will need. Just watch.”
He turned back to Lucky and pointed at him.
“First to injure. No magic. You pick the weapon, the time, and the location. Aaaand…” Just one more thing to set the record straight. Ransom turned his attention back to Lairëcúma, his guard not fully down but distracted enough as his finger slashed through the snowfall until it was pointed at Cali. “Anything that woman has to say about me is a lie. She is a stalker and she is jealous and she wants me all to herself and will say anything to make that happen. It's almost endearing.”
Ransom stopped himself from leaning in as Kel began mumbling at him. He had just managed to wipe the rest of her spew on the side of a barstool, so there was no way in hell he was going to step into the splash zone again. He strained his ears instead and must’ve misheard her over the raucous of the bar, because there was no way that she had called him embarrassing. He wasn’t the one who couldn’t hold his liquor. He wasn’t the one wrapping a tail around the leg of someone out of his league. He wasn’t the one looking like a total asshole here, most definitely not.
So why then, pray tell, was Cali treating him like he was one?
He tried his best to look shocked as Cali called him out. It was a poor performance, but it lasted so shortly that it wouldn’t even be able to register as a disappointing attempt. In mere seconds, the fish-out-of-water, gasping-for-air thing he was doing with his mouth ceased as his lips sealed shut, the corners fighting to restrain a smile as he choked back laughter. Cali was stealing his best material. Ransom was no bard, but he was quite familiar with being an inspiration. If imitation was a form of flattery, then Cali was mere moments away from shining his boots.
”Like they both said, embarrassing.”
The smug look on Ransom’s face flickered as a barb finally pierced through a weak link in his battered armor. He was transported back to when he was barely more than a boy, standing inside of a dining hall that was roughly the same size as the bar floor but in his mind’s eye was much larger. A man stood at the end of a mahogany table full of untouched plates, his face red, spittle flying from his lips, servants and guests flinching as he grabbed a goblet, flung it with all of his might, and screamed, “He’s an embarrassment! A fucking embarrassment!”
Back in the present, Ransom flinched. The insufferable smirk didn’t return, nor were there any more attempts at playing like an offended holyman. The leather of his gloves creaked as his fist tightened. He turned to stone, not staring at Cali so much as looking through her as she unloaded a quiver full of insults at him. Nothing she said about him was true–he’s been poked by enough tusks and horns to know that the only adornments he truly fetishized were some fancy jewelry and a sparkling crown. Yet despite the fact that she was spitting false assumptions it made them all sting more.
“I take it back.” Damn straight. “You ain’t like every depraved man I’ve met.” Ransom’s smug smile returned. “You’re...” Irresistible. Breathtaking. A total stud. The purest form of machismo and kavorka. “...even more repulsive.”
Huh. Huh? Fuck the bounties and fuck this bitch! Was he just supposed to stand here and take this like he was some kind of saint? There was only so many times a man could turn his cheek before he was expected to spread them. He was better than all of them! Ransom pulled his glove off with his teeth, the taste of iron from where Dev had bit him acting as an appetizer for his bloodthirst. He stepped forward to issue the challenge, but before he could throw the glove at Cali’s feet something walloped him in the back of his skull. Hard. It was a good thing Ransom had such a thickhead or he would’ve gone down instead of just being dazed. The room swam. The tieflings doubled into an actual foursome.
"Move," said the scraggily tabaxi who had just assaulted him.
Move? MOVE!? As if Ransom was the one who got in the way! Whatever happened to apologies? “Hey.” The tabaxi moved on without even giving him a chance to retort. “Hey!” Of all the insults Ransom had suffered since the poker game had gone south, not being allowed the final word was the worst. “I said hey!”
Ransom didn’t even throw a look at the two tieflings before taking off after the cat, unable to carve a clear path through the crowd and the tunnel vision. He shoved and elbowed as he made his way, kicking boots and stomping toes. Normally, the appearance of a stunning elf maiden with hair the color of money would cause Ransom to stop dead in his tracks. Instead, she was just in his way. As she announced her arrival to the Waystone Inn, he greeted her with a bloodied palm shoved right towards her face in an attempt to push her out of the way, not even registering her as anything other than an obstruction as he slipped through the cloud of smoke and out the door.
"Howdy, Undertaker."
“Good! You’ll need one,” barked Ransom as he emerged to confront Lucky man-to-cat. He hurled his glove at the dirty snow by the feline’s mudstompers. “I demand satisfaction! Pick it up!”
The snow shifted beneath Ransom’s foot as he waited for Lucky to bend down and accept the challenge, a knee strike to the face readied in recompense for the honorless cheapshot.
Ransom knew the truth the moment Cali slipped between Kel and himself. The game was coming to an end. The river had been drawn, the bluffs had been called, and all of the chips were in. The only thing that was left was to reveal their hands. Cali had shown hers first. She was jealous. She was absolutely smitten. She didn’t want to share Ransom. How could he blame her? It was especially hard to think of a reason why as she backed her tail up against his legs.
In fact, it was quite difficult to think about anything else–or it would have been. Yet even after he had wiped most of it off on Kel’s leg before she was pulled away, the bile that had crept into his boots had completely killed the mood. Odd. Normally Ransom felt disgust after clarity, not the other way around. He was certain Cali had wedged herself between them out of an instinctive jealousy. Of that there was no doubt. She wanted to tangle with him all by herself, even if she was no longer pretending it was one thing when really it was the other.
“Oh, I know,” said Ransom, his smile shifting to mirror Cali’s wicked grin. “The temptation is killing me.”
He knew exactly what would happen if they stepped into that alleyway. He’d teach her a lesson in the importance of self-worth: never give away something for free when others would pay you for it. It was a shame, really. If she had heard him out and listened to reason she might’ve made for an excellent protege, or perhaps just a fun little pet until someone else caught his eye. It wasn’t that hard to find partners. He had proof of that waiting just outside of town. It was just that he hadn’t come to Greyharrow to bust one player; he wanted to clear the entire table. They were all worth more alive than dead. Ransom threw away the winning hand. He could still steal the jackpot.
Besides, killing a woman would just mar his reputation as a ladykiller.
“Alas–”
Ransom was cut off by a claw on his shoulder as a dragonborn stood to confront him–as if he was the bad guy and not the victim! Last Ransom checked, he wasn’t the one getting pats on the back with a “there, there” and being forced to switch to water. His darkening eyes lingered on the obvious glowing weak point of the interloper’s magitech before they shifted to lock horns with Grask’s gaze.
Ransom didn’t even have to give the man a once over to know exactly what he was capable of, because he’d recognized him the moment the dragonborn had stood up. This fucking guy was in every bar Ransom had ever stepped his once pristine boots in. Sometimes he was a human, sometimes a dwarf, sometimes a bard, sometimes a talentless prick with a six string guitar playing shitty covers of love songs to make up for his own lack of originality. Whoever he was he could never mind his own business, always acting like he was being a hero even when nobody had ever asked to be saved. Today this guy was Grask.
“The only embarrassment here is you, friend. I’m afraid you’ve mistaken your own personal experiences for a universal one. Unlike you, I don’t need to prey on a drunken slag to get with a woman. If you weren't so busy ogling them, you might've noticed that she came on to me.”
He pointed at Cali. True...on one massive technicality, but true.
“Now why don’t you sit back down in your chair before you truly embarrass yourself. We can even scooch it over to the corner where you’d be more comfortable. It’s obvious that you love to watch something you’re not involved in,” bit Ransom, pushing Grask’s hand from his shoulder. “Your glove can keep you company. Fuck off from ours.”
Feeling no need to check the pulse of the little dragon man he had just murdered, Ransom turned back to the conversation he was having before it had been so rudely interrupted.
“Sorry about him. Men,” said Ransom with a heavy sigh and a shudder. “The second some poor woman gets a bit too sloppy he comes over squealing like a pig hoping to get a little dirty. Just disgusting. I'm sorry. I just can’t stand a guy like that.” Bless him, Grask might’ve just saved a life. “What were we talking about? Forget it. Is she okay?” Wait, wasn't he still a priest? Quick, tag on a little, "Lathander's light."
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