DE: Arrr, Late Morning

[bjornwilde]

 Running late so I'm going with a classic today, Prompts! Tag in with what pups you'd like to play with and we'll give you prompts for a writing blurb of whatever length suits your muse. Can't think of a prompt? Set your MP3 player/program, radio or internet streaming service to shuffle and give us a song title!

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[katyafeline]

It was a dark night, a cold night, a night no one had to be reminded to stay indoors. Even the wind as it whistled through the abandoned streets sounded evil, whining and rattling as it went.

It was the night the treaty balanced on a knife's edge.

No one remembered (in the Day Watch) if it was the vampires or the werewolves that started it, but in the end it didn't matter - both groups had killed beyond their allotted prey, disrupting the balance. Drunk on the power of it, they bragged to more powerful Dark Others of what they had done.

And jealousy had done the rest. Why should they listen to the Light Others, anyway? The Dark was more powerful, would always have a deeper well of emotion to draw strength from. All across Moscow, Dark Others who had been just a day before happy to live their lives with the minor benefits of their position cut loose, trampling the will of their human neighbors for their own entertainment.

In the middle of an unimportant street, a residential street with a corner grocery and a Chinese take-out, Katya has dragged a table and chair out and is now sitting, with her feet up, idly sipping a bottle of rotgut vodka. She makes a very odd figure, a young woman with blond frizzed hair and a predilection to jewelry sitting out in the open, ignoring the silent warning that sent most of Moscow into hiding.

A pack of Dark Others, ranging from a level two wizard to a base werewolf, brought together more out of a misplaced sense of solidarity than any friendship, pause in their headlong rush to mayhem at the sight. Some know Katya already, from minor arrests or seeing her on patrol. None have seen her fight. Some have heard rumors but, what are rumors after all? Stories, often inflated, meant to scare and impress your fellows. Emboldened they call to her, screaming taunts and obscenities, believing there is nothing that one solitary Night Watch member can do against them.

Her reply, cold as the depths of winter and calm as a still lake brings them up short. She calls their names, one after the other, in their entirety.
"You are all under arrest for disruption of the Treaty. You have the right to answer questioning. Any use of power will be considered hostile, and responded to accordingly without warning. You have the right to appoint another to settle your affairs, and your final will should it prove necessary. If you do not understand your rights, you have forfeited them. Stand down immediately." She doesn't even bother to sound keyed up, the order a bored drawl as she studies the crudely-drawn label of her vodka.

Incensed, power-drunk, and unpracticed they attack as a mob, promising (amongst other things) to hang her corpse high from the light post as a warning to others (and Others).

It takes five minutes.

Katya leaves bloody handprints on the vodka bottle when she picks it up for one last drink, but none of the blood is hers, and thus none of her concern. The street is quiet again, and feels cleaner, despite being infinitely more messy. The payphone nearby rings insistently, and she dutifully picks it up.

"Stop playing, Tiger Cub. Meet Bear at the Red Square, you will pick up reinforcements there and proceed to the scheduled defense perimeter."

"Yes, boss." Time to go to work.