and a wolf will move among the lambs

[impetuous_force]

It's that afternoon after school when Bella next visits the Witchnook. (She already made another nighttime visit to pick up her powder, and it's safely stashed under the false bottom in the box full of notebooks under her bed.) This time she just needs beetle wings and a reasonably clear chunk of quartz. Her books and the goldvine bramble she ordered aren't in yet.

Comments

[impetuous_force]

Bella lowers the lens slowly.

[eversomuchfun]

He shrugs.

[impetuous_force]

"...Thanks," she says after a silence.

[eversomuchfun]

"You're welcome," he says dryly.

[impetuous_force]

"How exactly would I constitute something to stay alive for?"

[eversomuchfun]

"At the risk of having another circular conversation about it - you're interesting."

[impetuous_force]

"If I cease to interest you, what happens?" she asks, lifting the lens again.

[eversomuchfun]

"How the fuck should I know? Maybe I leave. Maybe I give the ring back and set myself on fire. I don't expect it to happen."

[impetuous_force]

"Why don't you expect it?"

[eversomuchfun]

"It would be like expecting Angie to stop being nice. It would contradict your fundamental nature as a person."

[impetuous_force]

She peers through her lens.

"Lie to me, I want to test this thing."

[eversomuchfun]

"My name is John Escott and I lost my parents in a vampire attack just a few months ago."

[impetuous_force]

Bella winces at the flare of green light. "Okay, it's working," she mutters.

[eversomuchfun]

He shrugs again.

[impetuous_force]

"...Does this mean that if for some reason you no longer get to experience my interestingness regularly you hare off somewhere and kill yourself?"

[eversomuchfun]

"Well, I hare off somewhere and try to find some other way to pass the time," he says. "But when I run out - yes."

[impetuous_force]

[eversomuchfun]

"While you have the lens going, is there anything else I'd need to say to convince you that I won't be secretly eating people if I take a weekend to go hunting in the woods? I won't be eating people."

[impetuous_force]

"I probably should have been wondering this earlier, but what will you do if a person finds you while you're hunting non-people? It does get likelier if you're out for longer."

[eversomuchfun]

"It hasn't yet and it won't now. And I suppose I'd either talk my way out of it or leave."

[impetuous_force]

Bella chews her lip. "I won't freak out if you're gone for a weekend."

[eversomuchfun]

"Although I suppose placating the Webbers will be another matter."

[impetuous_force]

"Yes, probably."

[eversomuchfun]

He shrugs. "I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I can manage to stay out a day without causing alarm, at least, I'm sure."

[impetuous_force]

"Probably."