aefenglom | text;

Entry tags:

food fantasy: red wine

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Name: Red Wine [un: redwine]
Date: 24/05
Format: Text

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[Red Wine has been here for months and never turned to the network available to him for anything, save to occasionally reply to people who say or ask things he finds interesting. All in all, he doesn't have much faith in it, but... today is a day to cast caution to the winds, it seems.]

Seeking any information regarding the halting of forced physical transformation during the full moon and if it's in any way possible. Specifically with regards to vampires.

Time wasters will be disregarded.

Thank you.

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[sorry, El Vino, shinji knows he is a time waster and doesn't care.]

pretty sure that's not how anything here works. The harder you fight it, the worse the the changes get.

whats so bad about it, anyway?

[ The message settles in Steak's stomach like a stone, sends a chill down his spine. Transforming is part and parcel of what they've been forced into here in Aefenglom, and though Steak's own body has ceased to transform beyond the full moons, he has no idea how or when Red Wine's transformation ends.

So, when the message comes across — Red Wine not even thinking to hide his identity in his question — something clutches at Steak's chest, clawing into his lungs and heart, and one thought fills his mind:

The bastard's been hiding things, again.

And that's how Red Wine ends up with Steak, barreling right into wherever he's sitting, glaring with teeth gritted. ]

What happened?!

[ A normal person might ask that question out of worry, might use some tact or care in broaching the subject, but not Steak. ]

Wouldn't someone who could do that be making a lot of money?

[ She knows she'd pay a fair amount to stop sprouting fur everywhere. To put it another way: If it was possible, surely they'd know about it by now. ]

I will never cease to be utterly confounded by people who think that's a question that even needs to be asked.

[It was a calculated risk, and maybe he should have just gone out somewhere before he made such a request of the entire city. Hiding his name wasn't something he had even considered, but he had known that Steak would have some kind of explosive, ridiculous reaction.]

Nothing you need to concern yourself with.

[He'd had the reply ready and doesn't look up, keeping his attention towards the end of the garden where two birds are fluttering about a bird bath on the grass. His communicator lies abandoned for now, on the table beside him.

Despite the vampirism - still getting worse by the day - he does occasionally venture outside.]

Unless you had an answer to my question.

[ Unfortunately for all parties involved — and the poor bastards they live with — Steak really only has one way of reacting to things like this.

Loudly, and as forcefully as a fire might spread through a forest.

Red Wine chooses to dismiss his concerns and doesn't even turn his head to offer Steak the dignity of lying to his face, and it achieves nothing but infuriating Steak further.

This bastard— ]

Like hell it isn't.

[ His voice lowers to a hiss as the anger simmers inside him, a protective layer around a knot of worry, same as the day he took that letter from the fire and tracked down the author.

Only Red Wine could do this to him. ]

What happened to you?

[ The question is repeated, lowered to a whisper this time. Red Wine looks, all things considered, alright, but people who are alright don't put out messages like that. ]

guess its your lucky day to be confounded

is it the blood drinking thing? 'cause you could just let yourself starve, i guess, if you hate it that much.

I would imagine so. It would depend on the dangers associated.

[Given that Red Wine avoids the Coven, avoids most others and doesn't frequent the goblin markets, he is open to the idea of having missed something.]

[ Well, Trucy is quite outgoing, but she hasn't heard anything either. ]

Yeah... I bet customer complaints are pretty dangerous.

[ That's logic with Trucy Wright for you. ]

I am not and have never been obliged to tell you everything, Steak.

[He snaps back waspishly, tense, already more than prepared to have an argument about this because isn't it just like Steak to assume he's entitled to know every little detail of everything that goes on in Red Wine's life?

Selfish. Always so selfish. It's none of his business.]

I don't want to discuss it. Leave it alone.

[And he folds his arms loosely, a gesture as subtle as a smack in the face to indicate his intentions to utterly close that avenue of questioning.]

[ Secrets will forever be a bone of contention between them — Steak, who has always hated them, and Red Wine, who lives by them. Steak's teeth grit together painfully at the rebuttal and his hand curls and uncurls, fingernails digging into his palm.

Dammit all. Would Red Wine ever understand that telling his teammates — his... somethings, friends, maybe — about things that affect him is a good idea once in a while? ]

That doesn't mean you can hide everything. Other people are affected by what happens to you! [ Sure, they don't have to do everything together, and they don't, or fill each other in on every detail of their lives. But the big things... The transformations which send someone diving onto the network desperately?

Those should be shared. ]

[And he's grown so much better at holding himself back in the Bond - at making sure Steak only sees what he wants him to see. At first the reasons for doing so had been altruistic, in a sense, but now he uses the sense of control freely to make sure he can keep all the kinds of secrets that Steak hates him having.]

Are you affected by whatever happened to me? [He knows what the answer to that is. More complicated than a simple 'yes' or 'no' but he does not currently see 'I'm worried' as holding any real impact.]

I don't believe you are, and neither were you or you would have already asked me about it. I'll tell you one last time. Leave it alone.

[ Damn this bastard to hell...! ]

And if it happens again?! Are you going to hide things until someone is hurt?!

[ Whether Red Wine himself, or another innocent person. How is Steak supposed to do his job as a protector if he doesn't have all the information? Red Wine has been doing this since they were back in the kingdom, crashing parties and killing Countesses without Steak's knowledge, leaving him panicked that something worse happened to the asshole.

He aches with the worry, a feeling which has only grown more dire, more intense, since arriving in Aefenglom. A feeling which now reaches its peak, clutching at his heart painfully because—

Because...

Ugh!

Why did Red Wine, of all the Souls on Tierra, have to be the one who got under his skin like this?! ]

if you get anything worthwhile would love to know
but
pretty sure you're SOL on that
haven't been able to stop anything
especially the slow dying and the blood drinky part
and actually it's probably way worse tryna force it to stop

I'm already dead, and I've had to resign myself to drinking blood to avoid going insane.

When I noted the full moon I was being quite deliberately specific in my wording.

It will happen again.

[And he looks away from Steak again, back to the little birds, his fingers clenching tightly around his elbows. That's the worst of it, really, and the reason behind his 'desperate' reaching out. This is not some small slip that he can fix and control.]

It will happen again, and again, and again, every full moon for as long as I am imprisoned here and there is nothing you can do about it, Steak, so drop it.

[There's nothing Steak can do about it. Nothing Red Wine can do about it. All he can hope is that there's something that anyone can do about it because the certainty of going through it again is difficult to process.

His brow furrows, the fabric of his coat pulling into sharp creases.]

I don't want to discuss it, and there will be no letters that you can ferret out of the fire for information this time.

yeah well
that was more.. speaking from experience
shit gets way worse around the full moons
if we can't stop being thirsty for blood on any other day
what makes you think you can stop the whole moon influence thing ??
that's not even a vampire problem as much as just a monster problem

It affects us all in specific ways, does it not?

I thought it a question worth the asking. I found the experiences of the last full moon far more

distressing

than anything else thus far.

[Ugh, and that was difficult to admit. Just thinking about turning into a bat makes his skin crawl all over.]

Edited 2020-05-25 21:19 (UTC)

no no it totally is worth it
it's just easy to get your hopes up i guess
and i'm like usually the last person to ever tell anyone not to be hopeful
but i feel you
having had two friends "donate" to the whole blood business so far kinda qualifies as distressing in my case
so it'd be nice if there was a way to keep any of this from getting worse
mostly how is there all this magic in the world but it's useless when it counts

[ They've always been good at fighting, whether it's other people or each other, but Aefenglom has brought Steak to a place he never imagined he would reach:

He's tired of having these same arguments with Red Wine, of butting his head against a brick wall again and again. And yet, he can't stop himself from diving into it every time, worried and wishing he could keep Red Wine safe to be the same infuriating snob he always has been.

And he's tired of the knowledge that he can't do anything about it. He can't fight this, can't push whatever's invading their systems out with swords and fire. He doubts he could even bargain Red Wine's way out of this, as much as the idea of doing a deal with the people who have confined them here grates on him. He'd consider it if it would do anything. ]

Perhaps not. [ He'll accept that he can't prevent whatever transformation Red Wine has to undergo now, but he can prevent it doing harm to people, can't he? ] ... We're partners. We're more than— [ God, what can he even describe their relationship as? ] —than. Coworkers. I will always be connected to you, and always care about what happens to you. It pisses me off. But as long as we both have a form, I have to look after you.

that's not possible, sorry

An impression I'm getting.

So I may have finally found something to divert my energy towards.

why? did something happen?

What, specifically, are you having trouble with?

[There's no resolution to the kinds of fights they end up having here. Fights about things so much larger than arm wrestles and petty pranks. Red Wine knows, as he's known from the very beginning of all of this that he is being unfair. That he doesn't need to be pushing Steak away like he does - like he is, right now.

But perhaps it's just easier for him not to know at all than to know and be able to do nothing about it.

Poor reasoning, really.

He closes his eyes, exhales a soft breath, then opens them again.]

I'll tell you. [Red Wine says then, shooting Steak a brief sidelong look.] But not right now. Later. Right now I just--... want some peace.

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