1st hunt | video

[momchester]

[The video starts a bit awkwardly, with the shakycam and fumbling of someone who isn't very practiced at the art of video chatting. A late-20-something woman's face is up close, clearly trying to figure out "how does I tech". After some fumbling, the camera stills and she sits back, looking a bit awkward.]

Okay. So, I guess this is what people do here. Calling the Internet using cameras.

[She looks too young and modern to be so fail at technology.]

Anyway- hi. I'm new.

Let's just say I didn't go to the, um, shitshow today- Thank God... Let's say I'm not gonna register. Don't wanna put on tights and fight crime, or whatever.

What're my options? Learn to knit? [There are at least three (3) guns visible in the video. She does not look like a knitter.] Start a [air quotes] "blog"?

I can't exactly do what I did back home- no monsters to hunt. No day job to go back to.

I kinda don't know what to do with myself.

Comments

[failedparenting]

[John blinks at the phone in shock for a moment, and then:]

It absolutely has monsters, baby, and that's why I'm still gonna do my job. A parasite's a parasite even if it's eating off your dog.

[momchester]

John, if they're not actually killing anyone, what's the point?

[failedparenting]

Baby, by that logic we shouldn't hunt ghouls and shit.

[momchester]

...We never hunted ghouls. Not unless they killed the living.

[She looks at him with obvious professional judgment. What kind of operation were u running, Winchester.]

[failedparenting]

[ John pulls the phone away from his ear for a moment to give it a look that he knows would get him smacked upside the head if she could actually see it.]

Wh-

[WHAT.]

You know what, I think this might be a conversation for a later time.

[momchester]

That bad? Really?

[Mildly. Mary really doesn't think this conversation needs to be heated enough to require a face-to-face. She thought it was doing just fine.]

[failedparenting]

No, no, it's not that. I just-

[Jesus. ]

I don't wanna fight. It's stupid shit, anyway. Doesn't matter right now.

[momchester]

Yeah.

[You can hear the soft compromise in her voice, too. She's lost too much to want to fight.]

We should probably talk about the other thing, though. Not ghouls, but- monsters.

[failedparenting]

[And there's the horrible beauty in it. Some couples are content to fight until they lose it all. They've already lost it all, and it's not worth a win in an argument.]

Sh-sure, okay. What about?

[momchester]

[Mary is deciding to see it more as a... a radical shift in perspective. It sounds much healthier, and if you squint it's almost believable.]

If people aren't dying or getting hurt, I don't want to look for trouble. We take jobs if they come up.

But I don't want to make problems with other imPorts. We don't have the same options here.

[That last sentence is said uncertainly, almost like a question. She's still new, but she's getting the strong impression that imPorts aren't half as free or able to do things as they were back home. Between the unsettling fame, government interference, and general insular nature of the community, Mary is getting a "stay with your own kind" vibe about it all.

But she's unsure.]

[failedparenting]

They're not behaving out of the goodness of whatever they got in their chest, they're toeing the line. Given the chance I'm sure most of them would go back to their original nature.

[Is that crazy? John doesn't think so. He thinks it's practical.]

It's only a matter of when.

[momchester]

And when they do, they'll do something stupid that makes the news. Like always.

But I don't want to be a butcher. Or give them a reason to come after us.