#Lore24 – Entry #188 – Supers Month II #7 – Conversations on the Trails into the West
From the journal of Abigail “Sassy” Dawson, Mage of the Order of Hecate
Once I’d calmed myself down and gotten over my shock at seein’ the pair alive and kickin’, I was of a mind that they were out to get revenge on me for it. But that weren’t the case, cause neither of them held a grudge, even admitted to havin’ died plenty of times before. I’ll admit, that one threw me a bit. So, I took a seat and started askin’ the tough questions.
They weren’t shy ‘bout talkin’ to me ‘bout themselves, since I already knew they weren’t what you’d call “human”. Turns out they were only half-human, the other half bein’ genie. Found that one hard to believe, but they was dead serious ‘bout it, and they’d been around for centuries. Back when the great mage Scheherazade (always thought she was just a character in them “Arabian Nights” stories till I met these two) had first whipped up the true genies, breedin’ was one of the first things humanity felt they had to do with ‘em. Here I thought modern times was right indecent in that way, but turns out, ain’t nothin’ had really changed. So, they was amongst the first of the half-genie children that were made, and some of the few still roamin’ around on Earth. They had taken up the duty of guarding the planet, they told me, from all kinds of supernatural evils and the like.
You could say I was doubtful, but that would puttin’ it mildly given what I’d seen the two get up to in the town they’d very nearly destroyed. That they shrugged off as just one of their “little arguments”. They’d been huntin’ a particular vampire that had been roamin’ the town, they said, one with a taste for children, so Assane had gone and changed up her appearance to that of a child as bait. When the deed was done and the vampire was dusted, she’d decided to stay that way for a bit, and this got Richard all riled up cause he thought she wasn’t attractive when she looked that way, and then it had spiraled out of control, she’d gotten drunk, lost control of herself for a few days, and then the rest was as I explained it earlier.
Apparently when you live forever, time don’t mean much, so what’s a few days or weeks in a drunken stupor?
Anyway, they’d been married early on, sometime during the Crusades I reckon, though I don’t rightly know which one, both bein’ of royal blood and all. And apparently, they’ve been causin’ trouble all over the world ever since, whenever they get into arguments or if they ain’t too careful in who they cozy up with. Turns out these two might’ve been responsible, well, more or less, for more than one tragedy one the centuries, but that ain’t a story I’m tellin’ here; you want to know, you ask them about it.
With them revelations out in the open, I started askin’ them ‘bout how they did their magic, cause it was a good ways beyond what I could manage back then. Turns out most of their powers came natural to them, given that they’re elementals to some extent, given their genie heritage and all, though they’d learned plenty of spells and rituals beyond what their elemental nature let them do. I got the impression they felt I was about as capable as a newborn babe on the scale of our magic talents, but I ‘spose they saw somethin’ in me, cause as we’d travel further on, they’d teach me plenty that Granny Opal had never even imagined, or at least, had never bothered to mention.
After ridin’ down the Mississippi for a while, we disembarked in St. Louis and started headin’ west. We didn’t have much in the way of a goal at first, cause all of us were curious to see the new side of the country that had opened up, and to get away from the nastiness that followed the war. They hadn’t been in America too awful long themselves, just a few decades, and most of that was spent on the east coast.
Turns out there was plenty of things to keep us busy out there. My eyes were opened up to all kinds of things I had only thought of as fanciful stories or myth till I started hangin’ round these two. First night in St. Louis we wound up takin’ down another bunch of vampires (they just love the city life, good food supply), and it weren’t a week later we were trackin’ down a right ornery bunch of werewolves that were terrorizin’ the people travellin’ out west. For all their rash behavior and dang near childlike antics at times, they were mighty impressive to watch when they worked. They’d always try to make introductions and handle things peaceable, even when we came up on that pack of werewolves while they was in the middle of eatin’ their most recent kills. Basically the choice was to get the hell out of this world and off to another one, or die where they was standin’, and bein’ pretty sure of themselves, lackin’ proper arcane trainin’ and all, they had no clue what they was facin’. Guess the ways of the Old World weren’t so well known in these parts.
And so things went for the better part of the winter months that year, more or less without misfortune, movin’ on from one town to another on the trail of some maneater or troublesome fey or some cult doin’ magic they had no business delvin’ in, the kind dealin’ with elder bein’s from beyond, that kinda foul thing. I had to act as mediator between the two half-genies a few times, and they’d manage to rope me into some rather…intimate affairs I ain’t gonna speak of here. They’re nothin’ if not passionate, I’ll say that.
Our good deeds wouldn’t go unnoticed, though, and soon enough we’d find ourselves bein’ the ones that were getting’ hunted.