Sulking in the Shade

The girl sat curled up under the shade of a tree, staring ahead silently.

She was not happy. She had finally found her father. A year of searching she had found him. But she couldn't do anything about it.

Belial.

That bastard of a Demon had stopped her.

What could she do? Wait for Belial to leave so she could get to Zakhar?

Jack was smiling. He'd never been away from his hometown before. He believed this new place would be full of fun. He decided a little bit of wandering would suit his tastes.

He walked for some time, suddenly coming to the realization he'd never been on these grounds before...so everything was unfamiliar.

He walked for some more time, spotting a shape in the distance. He walked closer, the form slowly coming into focus; it was a person. They seemed...distracted.

He approached the figure a bit slowly.

"Hello?"

A low growl rumbled in her chest when she heard someone approaching.

Couldn't they see she was sulking? She didn't want anyone annoying her or stopping her from sulking.

"Fuck off," she hissed when she felt someone poking her, her brown eyes narrowing up at them.

Someone she hadn't met before. Great.

Now she had to play nice and make friends. Not a chance.

Jack laughed. "Nice first impression. So, what's got you so grumpy?""

He smiled at her and sat down next to her.

"Th' name's Jack, by the way."

She wasn't in the mood for good first impressions.

She wanted to sit and sulk. Not play nice with someone. The last thing she wanted right now was someone talking to her unless they could help kill her father.

"Dusa."

Her eyes turned up to him again. "What do you want?"

"Dusa, eh? Nice name." Jack said, smiling still, not letting Brandusa's attitude faze him.

"I'm not sure. There's a lot of things that I want. What do you want?" Jack asked playfully, gazing back at her.

"You don't sound like you're having fun sitting under a tree."

She gave a half-hearted shrug.

It was just a name. Brandusa. Brandy. Dusa. She didnt care what she was called. No, she took that bad almost instantly. Not Brandy. That was what Zakhar called her. She couldnt tolerate anyone calling her that.

"You don't wanna know."

More than anything, she wanted her father lying at her feet dead.

"I'm not."

He glanced at her.

"But I do want to know. It's part of the whole 'getting-to-know' people, y'know." he said.

"Why sit under a tree? It's boring."

"I don't want to get to know people."

She wanted to be alone. Was he stupid or just trying to piss her off? Trying to piss her off was stupid, too. So either way he was stupid.

"I'm sulking," she ground out. "That thing you do alone. Y'know, that thing you dont want people around for?"

Get the hint already.

"Don't want to get to know people? Too bad. I want to get to know you, since you're the first person I've ever met outside of the area I was born in." he said, sticking his tongue out.

"Sulking, eh? Alright. I'll sulk with you!" Jack said, crossing his arms sternly and staring 'intently' into the distance with a fake pouting face.

She sighed softly.

Stupid. That was the only way she could explain why he was doing this.

His declaration caught her attention. He was going to...? Was he being serious? That was just ridiculous.

Her eyes turned to him, staring ahead like that with a stupid pout on his face and she just couldnt help but to giggle softly.

He turned to her and smiled. He was making progress.

He decided diverting her from what had made her sulk-y would be the best option.

"I hear this place is for...not...human people. So what are you?"

Not human-people. That was a good description.

"I'm...mostly Necromancer. Partly Lycan." She wasn't all that proud of her Lycan half. Or rather, the parent that her Lycan half had come from.

"And you?"

She couldn't explain it but after he had made her giggle like that she felt a little better. She felt good enough to socialise just a little.

"Partly Lycan? Cool. I'm a Lycan myself, which has some good qualities I suppose..." Jack said, trailing off while focusing on making his half-werewolf ears to appear. When they did, he looked at Brandusa, pointing at them.

"Free accessories to your appearance, see? Except I couldn't show anyone outside of my family, I'd probably end up in a lab somewhere." His ears disappeared.

"Although it really sucks when it's that time of month..." he started, his eyes glancing across the ground. Realizing what he said, he looked up at Brandusa, his face slightly flushing. "Not like..I mean...you know...moon and all!" He said quickly, making sure she didn't get the wrong idea.

Cool? Not so much. She didn't like her Lycan side. It gave her too many weaknesses. She didn't care about the strength or speed she got from her Lycanthropy but she hated the allergy to silver and the need to shange on the full moon.

Her head cocked to the side when his ears appeared. Those were...cute. Like Noah's.

She pushed herself to kneel up next to him and reach up to stroke the ears, scratching behind them like she did for Noah.

She understood what he meant immediately when he said 'that time of the month.' But she couldn't help but to laugh when he made a fuss about it. Any Lycan or part Lycan would know what he had meant by that. Making a fuss was unnecessary but very amusing.

"Try going through that twice a month." The women of the species definitely had it worse off.

He chuckled. "Haha, I suppose you do have it worse having both..."

He looked at her eyes with his own silver ones.

"So, tell me about yourself. What about your Necromancer side? I've never met a Necromancer before."

"Lycan women always have it off worse than the men."

Even with Lycan, women had it worse. That had always annoyed her. Men got a time of the month - much better than any other species, she could tell you that - but females had two. Two! As if one wasn't bad enough.

"Necromancy is cool."

Her eyes lit up. She loved her Necromancy.

"I'm not the best... I mean, well... I haven't trained my abilities much. Mother was going to train me but then I left home. She's really good."

"True. I won't complain, and I don't want to know what it feels like. Ever." Jack grinned.

He smiled at her expression, becoming more fascinated in the subject.

"I'll assume being a Necromancer is cool, since you say it is. What do Necromancers do?"

"What don't they do?"

She grinned widely, her brown eyes almost sparkling. "We have a high affinity with magic. We do a lot of magic."

She gestured grandly, eyes lighting up again. "Really good Necromancers can raise the dead. I can't do that yet but someday, once I've done what I have to do here, I really want to learn."

She pointed. "Oh! I can summon imps! That's something Necromancers can do, too."

He smiled. "I'm sure you'll eventually get to that level of Necromancy to do so." He paused. "Ah? You have something to do here?"

He thought about the options. She might be here to escape from the 'outside world' but, then again, there's more than one place for that, so it could've been another reason. Personal reason perhaps?

"Imps, huh? Care to do a demonstration?"

"Uh-huh. Something really important."

Something that she hadn't been able to do the last time she had the chance. She;d find another chance and she'd take it. She was determined to get it done.

She smiled brightly and gave a little nod. "Uh-huh."

She held her arm out and almost immediately an imp appeared on it, purring and nuzzling against her affectionately. She smiled softly and stroked the imp. "This is my favourite imp, Drăcușor."

"Ah." He said, simply.

He stared at her imp. It looked strange and unfamiliar, but cute, in a way.

He glanced at her.

"So when you're done doing 'that important thing' are you leaving this place?"

The girl's eyes were bright as she nuzzled against the imp.

Drăcușor purred and nuzzled against his master in return, clinging to her curly, dark hair with his clawed hands.

At the question her lips parted.

She stayed silent for a moment as she tried to think over what would happen after she had done what she needed to do. Honestly she had never thought that far ahead. Her focus had always been on her goal, not what came afterwards.

"Probably," she eventually replied. At some point she wanted to go back to Romania to be with her mother again.