The tip of Alastor's claw tapped his bottom lip. His ears rotated owlishly out to either side, to listen past the left and right of Lotte's property. Only at the very edges of his hearing did Alastor begin to register sounds that indicated another human living space. The closest thing, as far as he could tell, was the business-he-didn't-know-was-a-fuel-station and its constantly creaking sign. It had to be a business, and not a home - both times Alastor had been here, the only sound coming from it was the creaking. No humans moving around, no conversations. It was past closing time.
Lotte had already been quite clear that no one came to visit, that no one was particularly interested in her unless they needed her assistance with them. She'd reiterated she had no friends or family to notice if anything here was any different than it had ever been. If the houses Alastor heard were as far away as they guessed (he could tell better if he started broadcasting and really felt for them, but there was no need), no one would pass by Lotte's by accident.
Having confirmed this to his satisfaction, he rounded back to Lotte, the tails of his coat flicking out behind him with a snapping sound. "You?" he laughed. "Only doing what you want? I can't imagine it!"
He watched her spin, a childish kind of delight flashing around her as sharply as the static in the air. Had she been alone so long she forgot how to do even this, to dance, to move for the joy of it? Humans lost what was precious to them so easily, they shed loves and simple joys and old familiar paths home from school and former favorite songs as easily as they shed hairs from their heads. It was wasteful.
As if he owned the place, Alastor gestured for Lotte to follow him and started walking along the side of the little house, to its back yard. While he walked (keeping a slow pace so that Lotte could traipse after him at whatever pace her current level of intoxication would allow her to), he answered her question, saying, "Miss it? Of course not. If I miss a thing, I just get!" One pointed finger punched into the air to emphasize this point. Self-deprivation, after all, was only another way of proving mortal moral superiority. In death, it was utterly useless. "I eat every day - it's unhealthy not to."
The back of the house was no better than the front. Gray, lifeless, otherworldly in a way that unnerved Alastor - the thick dust motes in the air, the silt piled up everywhere between the blades of yellow grass with broken backs, none of it was like anything he'd ever seen, on earth or in Hell. He raised both hands in front of him, at right angles to his elbows, the two fingers in the center of each hand slightly lifted from the others. "Tell me," he said, both to Lotte and to the dead grass, "what do you miss sinking your teeth into?"
no subject
The tip of Alastor's claw tapped his bottom lip. His ears rotated owlishly out to either side, to listen past the left and right of Lotte's property. Only at the very edges of his hearing did Alastor begin to register sounds that indicated another human living space. The closest thing, as far as he could tell, was the business-he-didn't-know-was-a-fuel-station and its constantly creaking sign. It had to be a business, and not a home - both times Alastor had been here, the only sound coming from it was the creaking. No humans moving around, no conversations. It was past closing time.
Lotte had already been quite clear that no one came to visit, that no one was particularly interested in her unless they needed her assistance with them. She'd reiterated she had no friends or family to notice if anything here was any different than it had ever been. If the houses Alastor heard were as far away as they guessed (he could tell better if he started broadcasting and really felt for them, but there was no need), no one would pass by Lotte's by accident.
Having confirmed this to his satisfaction, he rounded back to Lotte, the tails of his coat flicking out behind him with a snapping sound. "You?" he laughed. "Only doing what you want? I can't imagine it!"
He watched her spin, a childish kind of delight flashing around her as sharply as the static in the air. Had she been alone so long she forgot how to do even this, to dance, to move for the joy of it? Humans lost what was precious to them so easily, they shed loves and simple joys and old familiar paths home from school and former favorite songs as easily as they shed hairs from their heads. It was wasteful.
As if he owned the place, Alastor gestured for Lotte to follow him and started walking along the side of the little house, to its back yard. While he walked (keeping a slow pace so that Lotte could traipse after him at whatever pace her current level of intoxication would allow her to), he answered her question, saying, "Miss it? Of course not. If I miss a thing, I just get!" One pointed finger punched into the air to emphasize this point. Self-deprivation, after all, was only another way of proving mortal moral superiority. In death, it was utterly useless. "I eat every day - it's unhealthy not to."
The back of the house was no better than the front. Gray, lifeless, otherworldly in a way that unnerved Alastor - the thick dust motes in the air, the silt piled up everywhere between the blades of yellow grass with broken backs, none of it was like anything he'd ever seen, on earth or in Hell. He raised both hands in front of him, at right angles to his elbows, the two fingers in the center of each hand slightly lifted from the others. "Tell me," he said, both to Lotte and to the dead grass, "what do you miss sinking your teeth into?"