Pride is a funny thing. \u00a0I mean, there are those with the hubris to suggest that pride and humour are probably some kind of opposite ends of a spectrum, but pride itself is, well kind of amusing. \u00a0Or maybe it’s just how malleable it seems. \u00a0I suppose there are extreme honour systems where pride reflects how well you’re able to hit the targets of your honour’s needs, but I mark that (in my off-the-cuff system) as being closer to a moral code, and pride and humiliation do connect with morality, but the nexus is not the whole of the map.<\/p>\n
The idea that pride is your measure, however, is a strictly human one.<\/p>\n
Humans play a lot of face games, in the idea that we present certain qualities of ourselves as the person we are under those circumstances. \u00a0Animals (and a lot of those that come from Beyond) may exaggerate their qualities for preservation (“I’m red! I’m poisonous!” \u00a0“I’m sixteen times bigger because my claws and scent are higher on the tree!”) but they don’t say, “I’m better.” \u00a0“Better” is found out by challenge, it’s not just something you can claim.<\/p>\n
This is one of the place us humans and those Outside tend to clash. \u00a0They say, “I’m a slayer of Dragons,” for example. \u00a0They’ll have two Dragons’ heads to prove it. \u00a0We say, “I’m a slayer of Dragons,” and we mean we’re the type of go-getters who cut through red tape, and get things done. \u00a0They say, “I can kill you,” and there is no doubt in their mind that that is a possibility. \u00a0We say, “I can kill you,” and mean that we’re mad at you and well, we can try. \u00a0We’ve never killed anything outside maybe squishing a bug. \u00a0It’s not just the literal value, though. \u00a0You are what you say you are.<\/p>\n
Matana is a vampire. \u00a0She’s not disguising herself. \u00a0She’s not really one of the —cubi, or a leannan sidhe, or a werewolf who likes to feast on the blood of her enemies, or anything like that, but because she’s not just the parasite, she might shade the truth a little bit. \u00a0She might hide herself, imply things, say she’s older than she is, that sort of thing. \u00a0(The really old ones follow my rule of thumb, by the way. \u00a0Once you’re so unnatural as to stop aging entirely, you’re not as stable. \u00a0Of course, aging at a significantly reduced rate is something the parasite just does, so it’s not one of the reliable methods.)<\/p>\n
Doloise, on the other hand, wouldn’t even think of lying. \u00a0The problem is then in translation.<\/p>\n
Doloise, if asked, “What can you do?” could not answer, “Shoot fireballs out of my butt.” \u00a0Unless, of course, she could. \u00a0She’d probably say, “The firey breath of the Dragon that designed me allowed me to bear his nethermark.” \u00a0Or some such poetic expression that would be the slang for explosive-bottom-blasting amongst her people. \u00a0It’s not like she’s saying it in some prideful manner, though, and I’m not sure what that would look like except for the occasional, “Of course I can (or can’t) do that.”<\/p>\n
Until this morning, I didn’t think I could stake a woman through the wrists (in Ed’s mom’s backyard) in order to see if she could bear the dawn. \u00a0I would not have put it in my list of things I can do for pride. \u00a0It wasn’t on Heinlein’s list , although after having done it, I might have said it should be.<\/p>\n
“You should just stake her.”<\/p>\n
Hawk was a smaller man than I thought of him. \u00a0He had that lean, snaky look of someone who is used to looking over his shoulder.<\/p>\n
“I don’t actually want her dead.”<\/p>\n
“She’s a vampire.”<\/p>\n
I sighed. \u00a0I had used that same sentence a couple of times, myself.<\/p>\n
“I know,” I said.<\/p>\n
Ed’s mom sat on the porch, peeling an apple. \u00a0It was her way of compensating for quitting smoking. \u00a0She did long, curly peels of apple, and she was extremely curious about what we were doing. \u00a0I had tried to convince her that she didn’t want any part of this, but she ignored my hints.<\/p>\n
Roberto and my sister were watching early morning cartoons on the large television screen. \u00a0Or, at least that’s where I’d left them. \u00a0I wasn’t used to the second language mode and the voices weren’t what I had expected coming from the characters.<\/p>\n
Ed had finished his shower and was waiting at the edge of the back porch, idly juggling stakes that Hawk had brought. \u00a0“I’d prefer it if I wasn’t actually involved in murder,” he said. \u00a0He probably meant it to be light, but it sounded kind of desperate.<\/p>\n
“Killing monsters is different,” Hawk said.<\/p>\n
“That’s a fabulous argument in la-la-land or wherever you come from, but Matana is kind of a person to me,” Ed said, annoyed.<\/p>\n
“She attacked you,” I pointed out.<\/p>\n
“E, shut up.”<\/p>\n
“You want to come out here and do this?” I growled.<\/p>\n
“Hey, you’re the doctor,” he said sarcastically.<\/p>\n
It looked like real blood she was bleeding. \u00a0We got the silver chain wrapped around the stakes in her wrist just as the dawn broke.<\/p>\n
She jerked on the chain, life returning to her body.<\/p>\n
This was a pretty dramatic moment, as I’ve seen dead bodies, and it startled me to see reanimation. \u00a0It’s like one moment you’re lugging around a heavy \u00a0mannequin and then the next it’s a living, breathing human being.<\/p>\n
Except it was a vampire.<\/p>\n
The blood all over my shoes and hands flared in the sunlight, and then it was gone. \u00a0All of it except for an artful amount against the perfectly punctured hole in her chest.<\/p>\n
“Should have staked her,” Hawk repeated.<\/p>\n
“I appreciate that you didn’t,” she said. \u00a0She opened her eyes. \u00a0“Ah. \u00a0We recognize this binding. \u00a0 Very European. \u00a0Classic materials. \u00a0I expected something different, E.”<\/p>\n
I shrugged. \u00a0“Why mess with what works?”<\/p>\n
“You could have maybe used some parallel cables? \u00a0CAT-5?” she suggested. \u00a0“They would have worked as well.”<\/p>\n
“Hawk has family silver.”<\/p>\n
“That’s his name these days?” she looked him in the eye, and he didn’t flinch or look away.<\/p>\n
“M’name always,” he muttered.<\/p>\n
“Have I passed the test?” she asked. \u00a0“Or are you going to complete the ritual?”<\/p>\n
“I’m no wizard. \u00a0But you’re not going anywhere until we get some answers,” I said.<\/p>\n
“I’ll bring the lemonade,” Ed’s mom said, cheerfully.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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