Shade couldn't remember the last time she'd gone so long without having a serious run-in with some kind of supernatural criminal. Sure, she'd been doing some fairly brisk business with the petty kind, but she didn't consider that work at all. That was just a matter of reminding them that she wouldn't put up with any nonsense.

Shadow just had a way of dealing with the stupid ones on its own, by and large. She thought of herself as being more of a symbol than an enforcer... People couldn't as easily forget about the rules when they knew she was lurking out there.

She wasn't tonight, though. Tonight she was present in company that she didn't much care for, but was somewhat obligated to tolerate every once in a while.

These vampires were wealthy and had far too much time on their hands. She didn't much like this "extended family" but she would have been terribly stupid to turn down the kind of support that they gave her. Financially, if nothing else.

It was a yearly party... thing, one that she always forgot about until the last minute.

As usual, she hadn't bothered to wear a dress. She wasn't the only one, either. At least she'd learned something and hadn't come alone this year.

She'd asked Moridae to come with her. Said it would do him some good to meet some decent vampires for once, and it would save her the trouble of having to rudely turn down any prospective dates.

And it was amusing. After making brief introductions to a few people, she just sat back while they talked to him. At least, some people just talked to him, a lot of the girls were positively fawning over him. They couldn't get over how much he looked like Orlando Bloom.

He was doing much better than she'd expected. Some of his age and heritage was showing, despite the rough exterior that he'd perfected lately. He was really almost twice as old as she was, oddly enough.

She'd told them, quite clearly, that he was just a friend. She knew very well that they wouldn't believe that for a minute, but she hardly cared. Let them think whatever they wanted to.

I got a letter from the House today. They actually bothered to send someone out to take it to me, rather than just sending it through the post, which is quite reliable enough. Tch... Bunch of rule-mongering, etiquette fanatics, that's what they are. Add in a generous helping of political intrigue and you've got a lot of bloody fun there.

That isn't to say that they're evil. Terribly arrogant, yes, and not too concerned with anything outside of their own little world, but not malicious by nature.

It's almost a shame. Then I'd have a good excuse not to have anything to do with them.

Find your Role-Playing
Stereotype at mutedfaith.com.


Something like that, I guess.

Maybe I do spend too much time looking at the big picture. It's almost funny that I'm always making selfish choices, but I'm never really thinking of myself. Maybe that doesn't even make sense, but I never pretended that I did.

It's just a habit now, I guess, me being this way. It's how I've survived the past few hundred years, and I suppose the idea is that it'll get me through the next hundred.

I don't know why it should suddenly bother me.

I resent being blackmailed into this, but it was either I put this one up, or she puts up one of me in pink.



The cat just adds insult to injury.

This one is more amusing, and rather more accurate, though my hair isn't short.

All these years of fighting for the "common good". It's mostly just keeping rampaging monsters and psychotics from murdering every poor human in their sleep. But why did I ever start doing it?

Sometimes we lose sight of the original goals over the years. It happens to a lot of people, soldiers especially. In the thick of battle, amidst all the chaos and the suffering, it's hard to remember what you're fighting for. It becomes a habit, a reflex... Someone's got to die here, and it sure as hell isn't going to be me.

Maybe I'm strange, or maybe it has to do with the immortality thing, if you can call it that, but I've never been able to forget why I started this. Why I became who I am now.

It started out as revenge... and sometimes I think that it'll end that way, too. It's just the way the universe likes to wory. Irony is a concept that has followed me around like a lost puppy.

Even though I'm supposedly dead and deprived of my soul, some deep part of me recoiled at that bitter taste. There was no reason to it, just anger. Although it was, in truth, the first step on the long road of a vampire hunter, that wasn't how it felt. That wasn't what it was to me, at the time, which is the only point of view that really matters.

My revenge was settled, whether or not I liked the way it was. I was then compelled to do the right thing... And before I sound too noble, it was always the right thing for me. Admittedly it was the right thing for me because I have morals of some kind, but it was still a selfish decision on the whole. I don't feel guilty about it. That's just me.

It didn't take me long to see the way that the world worked. For every decent vampire or werewolf out there, there are a dozen elsewhere which have no concept of decency to speak of, maybe three or four who are real meanaces. I became more or less disillusioned with the whole thing because of that and because of the shit that I had to put up with from the very people I was always trying to protect. The suspicion I could handle, some have always and will always outright hate me, but I think it was the people who hated me but took advantage of what I did, just for their own gain... the same people who I went through hell every day for... Those were the real fuckers, I can tell you.

Some days I do this just out of pure spite. To spite whatever god or gods that hate me, the people that think I should be on their side, and the people who think that I'm just a shady (no bad puns or you'll have this steel-toed boot shoved up your ass) character who's up to no good.

I'm no paladin. Hell no. I don't meet the height requirements... but seriously, I'm just not the type. I drink, I smoke, and let's just say that I'm not a big believer in chastity... I just have my own set of ideals, and I don't think I've ever found another person, let alone a society, that's completely compatable with my views.

I know it's horrible cliche to be the loner, but that seems to be what I'm stuck as. It's not such a rotten deal sometimes.

I do what I do... Not many people ask why, and that's fine with me.