belladonna-wright

[belladonna-wright]

"Yes, well, luckily there are still a few ways around that," Jessie smiled. It was harder and harder with all the ridiculous technology they used these days, and the need for constant identification that drove her up the wall, but a good old compulsion could still handle the border officials themselves.

"It is nice to hear though. So few people travel for the sake of actually travelling these days," she sighed, actually sounding vaguely near her age for a change. "I mean, all people want to do is arrive somewhere, get the perfect holiday snap, and get straight back to their neat little lives." She hated that, hated watching the Swynlake tourists posing incessently but then seeming to pay no actual attention to their surroundings, but perhaps she was, simply, very old-fashioned.

Why hop on a budget airline when you could spend three weeks getting to know the crew on a ship? Hearing all about their exploits and seeing the sun rise and set over the ocean? Or hopping on and off a train at whatever random station took your fancy? Where was the romance! The drama!

"I suppose one of the things Swynlake has going for it is that not everything is so drastically modern here, yet."

@mighty-mitte

Daughters of the Night - Missie

[belladonna-wright]

"I mean... it'd be good, right?" Jessie sighed softly. She glanced around, almost as if she was unsure whether she wanted the others to hear such a confession of sentimentality. They teased her enough for it. "Just think - we'd not have to worry any more. You could all go off on raids and I'd not have to sit here wondering if you were all comin' home."

There'd be no more standing on the hills with an eye-glass as she tried to count heads and horses on the way home and make sure they'd all come back. No more patching them up and fretting over which idiot might get an infection this time. No more call for graves or bandages. Then, maybe, she would feel like she could breathe, every time they went off on a job and didn't let her come.

Not to mention the speed, the strength, they could... well, hell, they could do anything they wanted. They wouldn't have to even think about all those rules and laws that the world tried to use to cage them.

"And there wouldn't be a single person who could come between us all," she added, a glint of excitement in her eyes. Nobody could take away her boys. Nobody. Not if they crossed that line.

@bullseye-stoddard

Who Wants to Live Forever || Jesseye

[belladonna-wright]

"Of course," Jessie agreed. She tilted her head sympathetically, imagining it must be hard to want things for your child they didn't seem to want for themself. She had plenty of contacts that might come in handy, should Karen ever want to use them. Now, whether Karen wanted to use them would no doubt be a very different question. "And if they ever want a reference, or introductions or whatever, let me know."

She took a sip of her drink. "Do you know why Karen prefers not to apply for those sorts of jobs? Is it the art-making and display that they feel most passionate about?"

@agentroz

You Make Me Feel So Young - Rozzie

[belladonna-wright]

"I think there's a clear health and safety risk to doing dangerous work on your own miles from anyone," Jessie stared him down, and did not stop moving. She was not going to be impressed if he got all macho about this.

"Firstly, it's bad procedure to not have someone to hold a ladder, and secondly, what if you'd hit your head and I didn't just happen to be passing? You could have ended up dead."

It was a little melodramatic, perhaps, but then nobody had ever accused her of being utterly rational and calm as a person. "I'm just saying that in that line of work, when there's a chance of an accident with tools, or when there are likely to be hunters out with weapons during the season, it might be a whole lot safer if the Board would fork out some money to pay for an assistant."

Jessie huffed, before relenting a little. His pride was stung. Bad enough falling like that in front of a beautiful lady.

"I don't mean that you can't handle it," she added more gently, more tactfully. "I'm sure that you can. It just would be horrible if something happened to you, and there was nobody around to help."

@chiefhugo-slade

makin a damn fool | Chessie

[belladonna-wright]

"Mostly, sadly. Although I've always said there's a great deal of creativity in sales, and talking people with far too much money to spend large sums of it on some artwork they don't really need." Jessie chuckled, a little modest, since she knew that plenty of people would think it was a ridiculous sort of way to spend huge amounds of money.

"Otherwise there are lots of charities that like to work with artists? Help spreading art to people outside a certain wealth bracket?" That might be more appealing, although sadly the pay was usually worse.

@agentroz

You Make Me Feel So Young - Rozzie

[belladonna-wright]

"Well I've always had an appreciation for art, although it's worth saying that I've absolutely no artistic ability myself," she smiled, happy to appear perfectly humble. "But I find I have rather a knack for planning. Logistics, agreements, things like that have always been quite easy for me. I suppose it's like a puzzle, I like to solve them."

That was ... something like the truth, if you squinted hard enough. She had always had the ability to plan, to cook up schemes and find her way past anything that might keep her from her objective. Her talents had simply been wasted back then. "So I started helping out on a few jobs, and then decided I could build up my own client base and go solo-"

"But as for your child, I can always keep an ear open about gallery jobs and things like that? If they're a creative then they might be happier in that sort of environment?"

@agentroz

You Make Me Feel So Young - Rozzie

[belladonna-wright]

Jessie was rather pleased to hear her way of seeing things 'the right way.' She wasn't dumb enough to think that everyone would agree with her - fear of vampires ran deep, and even a pretty poor Christian like herself had grown up with a constant sense of them being wrong some how, of it being entirely different to feed from a person. But she didn't much care what everyone else in the world thought; not if the people she cared about the most thought she was alright the way she was.

Hell, the same people who'd call it unnatural would call her leaving the home unnatural! How long had she spent being told she was wrong for failing as a wife, that her husband leaving was her fault for not being able to give him a child?

But she was happier now as an outlaw than she'd ever been as a wife. If they took this step, well, then she'd get to have that forever. She could almost reach out and touch it, it was that damn close.

"I want you to choose this for you," Jessie looked at him solemnly, as she wrung out the cloth she'd been using to clean up his cuts and scratches. "But I think the same, kid. I don't ever wanna risk losing y'all."

@bullseye-stoddard

Who Wants to Live Forever || Jesseye

[belladonna-wright]

"Oh that's me," Jessie laughed, tickled at the idea of being called a millenial, when she was in fact getting increasingly close to being a bicentennial herself! "Hustle culture, always grifting," she shimmied a little to exaggerate it, as if she were making moves at that very moment, before laughing.

"You don't get ahead if you don't look for every opportunity," she added, pretending to look sage and then adding a wink. "Sorry, it's the consultant in me, you know?" Or the straight up con-woman. The line between the two was a little blurry.

@agentroz

You Make Me Feel So Young - Rozzie

[belladonna-wright]

"Well I do love my runs," Jessie shrugged, trying to play it off and hoping he wasn't too disappointed, but as far as she was concerned accepting invitations to dinner from men she barely knew usually led to problems. In her experience, it came with ... expectations, and she was pretty keen to avoid all that.

"No, you're best off getting properly warmed up and not going trying to go out and all that. You gotta get out of the wet gear and properly dried off," she pointed out. "Hypothermia is no joke."

That was her. Jessie couldn't help but smirk a little. A regular do-gooder. Sometimes it amused her, other times it enraged her, the way that she could blend in, that people looked at her and never even knew. She was one of the greatest outlaws of the west (that had never received the acclaim she felt she deserved - but that was the price of not getting caught or killed by some famous lawman)! And here she was, carrying a ladder like some neighbourhood helper.

"You know, I'm amazed you don't have an assistant or something. Seems like a dangerous job for someone to be doing on their own out in the woods."

@chiefhugo-slade

makin a damn fool | Chessie

[belladonna-wright]

"Charades?" Jessie laughed. Oh that was certainly an interesting turn of events. "Whatever next! They'll be taking turns around the room like they're in a period drama, and planning elaborate country dances or something." She shook her head in amusement. In a way it was funny. Time had flown so very fast, and yet when they had no alternative, it seemed that humans so often resorted to the same simple measures.

"Perhaps walking will be the big new trend, we could get out ahead of it by selling some sort of revolutionary new take on an old product." Jessie teased a little.

@agentroz

You Make Me Feel So Young - Rozzie

[belladonna-wright]

It was understandable, and Jessie would have been more surprised if Mitte hadn't wanted to move on from here at some point. The longer a vampire lingered, the more obvious they became; hovering out of time like a constant spectre that only became stronger and stronger as the years past. If they had human friends, they had to watch as their lives changed and twisted and ultimately faded, while they stayed the same.

It was better, sometimes, to move on.

"I have indeed," Jessie confirmed. "They're good fun, really, but I don't like airports. Passport control is a bitch-" she sighed. Firstly you had to have some decent documentation (hard enough for someone of her age!) and then it really depended on where you wanted to go. Anything that officially marked you out as a vampire might be grounds for flat refusal of entry in some places. "But the flying itself is alright." The first time she had been on a plane... oh she had loved it.

"Boats and trains are far easier for getting around without having to worry about visas and which countries actually allow us in-" She confirmed, smirking a little bit. Oh she had had such fun travelling around the world like that, compelling people to not notice. "Plus it's a lovely way to see a country, I just love a train."

@mighty-mitte

Daughters of the Night - Missie

[belladonna-wright]

"So long as you don't die of exposure, or anything," Jessie shrugged. Hence why she didn't want to go taking any unnecessary risks that made her look like an utter shit.

"Smart. No sense hanging around now you're freezing," Jessie agreed. She knew more than enough about the dangers of cold weather. It might have been a long time ago, but she knew what it could do to a person if they got far too cold. "Oh, no, I'll probably head back and finish my run." She did not want to find herself sitting there having to pretend to eat a whole dinner with the man, both because the dining itself would be deeply unpleasant, and well... she didn't want to go giving the guy the idea she was the kind of person that got asked to dinner.

"Just doing my civic duty and making sure you don't get frozen to death," Jessie said, smiling merrily enough to try and seem as if this was simply part of who she was.

@chiefhugo-slade

makin a damn fool | Chessie

[belladonna-wright]

"Cards? Well! Is there no end to the creativity of the youngsters these days?" Jessie said, a little mischievously. She'd have expected them to all be far too busy on their phones, and yet a good old-fashioned brawl over a card game had broken out. Just like the good old days! Jessie grinned a little. "Still, I suppose all those hormones need something to fight about, right?"

"Oh?" She raised her eyebrows, and tilted her head as she reconsidered the clue. "Oh!" She sighed in frustration. Oh rats! She had been looking at that one all wrong and missed the double meaning. "Very clever, Roz, very clever," she gave the younger woman a wink as she picked up the pen and filled it in.

@agentroz

You Make Me Feel So Young - Rozzie

[belladonna-wright]

"Ah!" Jessie threw her hand away from the paper dramatically, before sitting further back in her chair. Fair enough, they could work on it throughout the evening and see if they came any closer to cracking it. Perhaps once they had a few words in, the rest would start to make more sense.

"Oh, well, that's been almost as puzzling," Jessie sighed. "I've been trying to work out some logistics for a client, and for the life of me, I can't quite make everything work out for the date they want, without some very expensive overnight stops." Sort of true... sort of not.

"What about you? Tell me some child did something amusing, at least?" She smiled, winningly.

@agentroz

You Make Me Feel So Young - Rozzie

[belladonna-wright]

"Oh, well, then someone with some fresh eyes can take a look, because I'm utterly baffled-" Jessie slide the puzzle over, taking a sip of her drink and considering it carefully. It wasn't quite the same as her order at Tiana's Place would usually come out. Different gin, perhaps? She savoured it, before leaning back over to see how Roz was getting on.

"I know," she sighed. "It seems... alluringly simple, and yet can't imagine it would be that straightforward? The puzzle setter has clearly got their mind on something, but I can't think of any alternative word for a trilby that they could be playing on-"

Damn these cryptic clue-setters!

@agentroz

You Make Me Feel So Young - Rozzie

[belladonna-wright]

[Outfit]

Jessie swirled her cocktail, watching the ice cube that was slowly melting into it as she let another song go by and slowly fade off. She looked up at the sound of footsteps approaching, and smiled.

"Ah, Jessica. You'll have to forgive me," she went into charm mode immediately. "November is something of a tricky month, and so many commitments kept cropping up-"

In truth, she spent much of it to herself, when she could. She had had business to arrange with the fencing of some items, and Rememberance Day always brought out the melancholy in her that hardly wanted to venture beyond her house. Especially with various vampires out and about in town. She hadn't felt like dealing with it all. Nor with her birthday, which always brought up strange feelings.

"I've been meaning to get out of the house, and thought where better!"

@notbad-justsungthatway

In the Mood for a Melody || Open

[belladonna-wright]

'Oh, you know' was universally translated from British speak as 'terribly' so Jessie was glad she had got the orders in, but she wasn't about too start pressing too hard about whatever was wrong. It wasn't that kind of a friendship, really, she found.

"I'm alright, I've spent the day digging out all my winter coats again. It's turned so cold all of a sudden, there'll be snow before we know it, I swear-" she mused. "Although I'd be a darn sight better if I could crack this crossword! It's been bugging me all day!"

She did hate a puzzle she couldn't solve, and for some reason she just had not been able to get her teeth into this one. "Don't tell me you raced through it in ten minutes, I'll never recover-" She teased.

@agentroz

You Make Me Feel So Young - Rozzie