Sloth [Prudence]

[Robin Little]

Robin laughed.

It seemed odd that she wouldn’t drag him around to do things he might not enjoy, but was offering herself up to the treatment that she wouldn’t give him. He shook his head.

”I’m sure we can find some common ground,” he said, though as he looked at Prudence he wondered whether that might be the case. He wasn’t sure he’d ever kept company with someone like her; they didn’t look as if they would have ever run in the same circles. But what was it they always said? Don’t judge a book by its cover? He could only list the things that he was interested in and hope that the two of them could come to some kind of agreement.

”I’m a writer, but that’s not really a … shared activity,” he started, slowly. Why had he just called himself a writer? It wasn’t as if he published much; an article here and there, and never anything of worth. Ever since he’d become a vampire he’d struggled to find that elusive ‘meaning of life’. Not that he’d ever found it before, but now there were other things to consider. Immortality, for one. Wasn’t death the main driving focus of humans? What were they, if they didn’t have death to motivate them? He shook his head.

”I aaah…. I used to crash parties a lot. I liked to get high…” he laughed awkwardly. He really wasn’t giving much of a second impression, was he? He had no doubt that Prudence probably thought he was a loser, and this outing she had suggested was merely out of pity. It was kind of a problem, though. Robin had always had his high, and now he had none. Death, for a writer, was lack of inspiration. And Robin had zilch. Nada. Nothing. He cleared his throat.

”I’m kind of fiddling with crafting, in my spare time? Guns, mostly. They’re not that great just yet but I’m working on it. Learning via YouTube, mostly. You can find anything on the internet…” he said. It sounded kind of creepy. He laughed again. He really didn’t mean to sound like such a loser, it just came out that way.

[Prudence]

Robin was a writer. She remembered that---from the family crownet area, when Prudence was trying to figure him out and what sort of person Lori would sire when it was announced Robin had been sired. The redhead nodded her head, and smiled. "Yup. I remember about that. What kind of books are ya writing? Or trying to write...again?" Prudence couldn't remember what Robin had said about the genre he wrote-but she was sure he said so in the family area.

Prudence listened to Robin talk about getting high and crashing parties. Two things she never did for different reasons. Everyone in the carnival life was allowed in everyone's shindig they were doing. Drugs had never been her thing...Most of her 'family' drank or smoked. Some people got high and she had been offered it a couple times by people a couple years older than her, but Prudence always turned them down. It seemed impossible to find this common ground Robin was talking about with each piece of information the guy divulged about himself. "hmmm," Was all Pru said as she struggled to think of a way to hang out without getting high. They could crash a party-Prudence wasn't against that idea..Maybe they could go crash something in the slums and crack some skulls and stuff together down there.

Then Robin mentioned crafting and guns and Prudence's body responded in a positive way. Her eyes opened in surprise and the tall Killer stood up a little taller before her arms crossed at her chest. "I like guns. Welp, I like using them. To shoot holes in people. I don't know about putting them together from scratch. I can put the pieces that are already made...back together in a really short time frame-but to actually build or shape the pieces? Don't know **** about that. That's cool, Robin." Prudence felt like punching the guy in the arm, near the shoulder, but she wasn't sure if she would hurt him unintentionally, or liked to be touched. She didn't know enough about the guy to just start acting like she did.

[Robin Little]

This was a question that Robin got asked on so many occasions, and yet he was still only able to answer with a vague shrug. Every single writing course he’d ever taken, every published author, always said that an author had to have an ego. Any person who believed that their work was good enough to be published and read by the masses had to have an ego of some kind, otherwise they’d never get anywhere. A confident writer would not have shrugged; a confident writer would have known exactly what he was writing and exactly how far along he was, and when it might get published. Robin, on the other hand, only had bits and pieces. He could admit that he thought those bits and pieces were good, but they could never be joined together to create a whole. He wasn’t so confident, and so didn’t really think he’d ever publish anything.

”I wanted to be like another Jack Kerouac, you know? Maybe Jonathan Franzen, or… I don’t know, Hemingway’s pretty great too. But I suppose that kind of writing is archaic now. But I wanted to have the same kind of lasting fame, you know? Not necessarily to make money but to spread ideas and to open people’s minds and…” he stopped. He was rambling, and realised he hadn’t really answered the question.

”With the exception of Franzen, of course. He’s still writing. But I can’t really copy what’s already out there…” he said, and inwardly cursed himself. He still wasn’t answering the question. Just rambling. Did Prudence even know who any of these people were? Robin forced himself to count to five before he released a breath and flashed a smile.

”Literary fiction. I’ll get somewhere once I figure out how to write about my new circumstances without writing a piece of genre fiction drivel,” he said. As much as he could respect Stephen King for what he had achieved, it wasn’t the kind of author that Robin wanted to become. Maybe he could try to aspire to David Mitchell standards. Or… no, this didn’t bear thinking about right now. Prudence hadn’t said that writing was cool. She’d said that making guns was cool. Why was he rambling about writing? He waved his hand in the air as if to wipe away everything he’d just said.

”I’m not really too sure about how I feel about shooting people with the guns I make or whether I’m even any good at it, but that’s part and parcel of my new circumstances, right? Something I’ve got to try to get my head around. I make guns and you like shooting them which is kind of common ground – but how do we turn that into something to do?” he asked. There, he had achieved something that wasn’t rambling. Hadn’t Fleur told him he talked too much?

[Prudence]

The only name she recognized out of any of those people Robin mentioned was Hemmingway and it wasn't because she knew a lot about the guy's work. She only knew the name because everyone and their grandma knew that guy for something or another or because he was mentioned a lot by nerds. Robin was a nerd she deducted, which was whatever. The world needed all types of people, but she wasn't that type of people, so this was going to be one hell of a task in Prudence's mind. So all she could do was nod her head and that's what the woman did. Just nodded, trying to empathize or pretend she did know, when Prudence didn't know. Not really.

"New circumstance?" Prudence asked, intrigued at that statement more than anything else Robin had said in the last few minutes or so. "Ya don't mean the whole vampire thing, do ya?" Her tone grew serious as her eyes landed right on his face, two brows raised in skepticism. "That's probably not a really good idea between you and me." The woman shrugged her shoulders after making her suggestion and decided in the end what he did was his business. She warned him and if he didn't heed to it, well that was on Robin. Much like the stupid **** CC said and did was her business; something she had washed her hands of a long time ago.

The lengthy redheaded killer wasn't surprised to learn that Robin didn't like shooting people. Neither did Lori and since they were friends from Hoshkosh she suspected that cult or whatever weirdness they were wrong more or less all thought the same thing. The idea that because someone made a gun and the other person shot and killed people were one of the same had Prudence wanting to tell him no, so all she did was just shrug her shoulders. This was Lori's mini so she couldn't just blow him off by snorting and rolling her eyes.

"We could shoot non-living things, maybe?" Prudence offered with another shrug. That seemed to be her thing tonight. Shrugging, so not to say something that might offend Robin, that might offend or piss off Lori. "Maybe like some discs or something?" Prudence tucked the hair that lay over her right ear, behind it as she looked to Robin for any other suggestions he might throw out with being okay at shooting whatever.

[Robin Little]

It didn’t occur to Robin that Prudence might have been talking about anything other than the fact that vampire fiction wouldn’t do very well. He nodded because she thought it wasn’t a very good idea, and he agreed. Vampire fiction had had its day. No one was interested anymore. The debacle that was Twilight had ruined it for everyone else, and all the good vampire fiction rarely saw the light of day. Robin himself had only read one or two good ones; Tom Holland, he thought, was a good author, but that was because Tom Holland was an historian as well. He had the historical knowledge to draw from.

Robin could, he supposed, try to delve into the history of Harper Rock and try to write something semi-genuine. Something descent because it was based on something true. Always be true, that is what Hemingway would say. Would he have still thought that, had he been turned into a vampire, or had he known all that existed within the confines of this one small city?

”We can… I mean the Quarantine Zone?” he said. He could have suggested the catacombs or the sewers, but the times he’d found himself down in the confines of the underground city, he hadn’t done much good against the feistier foe. He had determined that he was just never going to be any good. And even in this endeavour, he figured he was going to make a right fool of himself in front of this redhead. But what else was he supposed to do? Deny the only semi-common ground they had found?

”…maybe you can teach me how to use my guns properly,” he said with a sheepish grin. At least if he was completely honest about his lack of ability, she couldn’t judge him too harshly. With that, he collected the weapons he did own and gestured toward the fadeportal. Though there were a few, and he’d forgotten which one would take them to where they needed to be. Which was why he waited awkwardly for Prudence to take the lead.

[Prudence]

He was agreeing. They were moving and going to do something. Good. Prudence hated standing around doing idle chit-chat and being all awkward. Her topics were far and few between. What was new to kill in town? Where could she go find stuff to kill? Where the **** was Mordie? Anything and everything about Nathaniel [but only with a select few, which would be two people and none of those two were Robin]. Did someone know how to shoot, or put together a gun? Did you need a job? Things that were relative to survival, with the exception of all things Nathaniel and Mordie's location. Those things were essential for every day living, they were just things Prudence enjoyed talking about.

"Sure?" She seemed uncertain, but Prudence wasn't. She just had been taken aback by the suggestion Robin made, not expecting him to pick any location, let alone a damn good location. Maybe he was a quicker study than anyone gave him credit for. Or maybe people just didn't push the guy enough to use that brain in his head he seemed to have. Writers had to have them right? They had to spell right and use a variety of words, so the guy had to be smart. "Totally. That place works." Prudence was about to jump through the portal that took them to Bullwood station when she stopped and turned to look at Robin. "Ya wouldn't happen to have a thrower lying around, would ya?" The red head already knew the answer but thought she would ask anyways, just for shits. "Kidding. We'll need to get some stuff from a sporting good store. Or something like that. So probably the mall. Maybe 8th dimension. Ya game?" She looked at him before giving Robin a salute. "See ya at the station." Prudence vanished through the portal and arrived on the edge of the platform, just a couple inches from the tracks. The redhead teetered on the ledge, then scooted back to miss the oncoming train.