Meridith’s Sunday afternoon odd encounter(Mab)

June 23, 2025

Date: 2025-06-22 13:23

(Meridith’s Sunday afternoon odd encounter(Mab):Mab)

[Sun Jun 22 2025]

In the private chambers of a Confessor
This austere, secluded living space is relatively undecorated. Either recently moved in, found lacking, or merely je ne sais quoi, it is characterized by someone with few worldly possessions. There are two alcoves- one where something is to be placed like a portrait above a fire place, and another where the bed sits. An inverted crucifix made of copper and glass awaits adorns the end of the bed.

It is about 75F(23C) degrees. The mist is heaviest At Mayflower and Darkwater/span

(A demon from hell has become interested in your target, they decide to see if they can tempt them into becoming one of their instruments on earth.
)

Just after noon, the pitter-patter of footsteps can be heard just outside someone’ window. An ominous peal of thunder cracks, despite how pleasant and sunny the weather has been. But in New Haven, where floods and hurricanes can be spontaneously summoned by many a petulant sorcerer or professional with the right contacts, that’s hardly too strange.

“He-hello?” someone calls from out someone’ wither. “Hello! I’m … could you please let me in? It’s just started raining, and I’m getting soaked, please, my car broke down. I just need to call someone!”

“He-hello?” someone calls from out Meridith’s window. “Hello! I’m … could you please let me in? It’s just started raining, and I’m getting soaked, please, my car broke down. I just need to call someone!”

Just after noon, the pitter-patter of footsteps can be heard just outside Meridith’s window. An ominous peal of thunder cracks, despite how pleasant and sunny the weather has been. But in New Haven, where floods and hurricanes can be spontaneously summoned by many a petulant sorcerer or professional with the right contacts, that’s hardly too strange.

Meridith stifles a yawn as she steps towards the door. Fresh wake up, duffel bag concealing the sword at her hip, long bow over her shoulder. She peers at the window a moment and lets out an elongated sigh. She lives at the convent of course, but it is a welcoming place and she does her best to live up to that.

“A moment, a moment.” She peers into the window studying the figure beyond it, before moving to open the door for them. “Come in,” she insists. She’s no stranger to this place and deception, but also, confident enough in her abilities. She barely thinks of the risk.

The fuddy-duddy on the other side of of Meridith’s door looks like no risk at all: a short king in a drenched trench, with droopy dark eyes and short, curly black hair. He’s the very picture of sad-sack, hands clasped in front of him as if in prayer, with fat fingers laced together in front of his otherwise lean, boneless figure. “Oh thank you so much,” he tells her in a nasal voice, scurrying into her home and making sure to scrape his shoes off at her doorstep before he does so, one foot before the other. Once inside, he rakes his fingers through his hair and looks at her with pleading eyes. “Can I use your phone?” he asks her. “Good woman, I saw the cross outside your door … I knew you’d be one to help.”

Meridith waves her hand a little bit. “It’s fine, please stay in the entry way for now, but I can fetch you a towel in a moment,” she allows. “I can’t give you my phone, unfortunately,” how does one explain the multitude of apps to such a person? “But I can call someone on your behalf. What happened to your phone?” she asks with a hint of curiosity. Looking over him, it seems she’s doing the arithmatic on being that much of a sad sack to have also let his phone die.

The man digs his hands into his coat pockets, producing an ex-phone that is physically dripping with water. In fact, now that she looks at him, he really is dripping quite an awful lot, and hasn’t stopped, the droplets raining noisily down from his coat onto her entryway. “I got caught out in the rain,” he tells her, sounding to also be on the verge of tears, “my car got flooded, my phone got wet, my watch even stopped working, just nothing is going my way today.” He lets out a long sigh, shaking his head. “I was just driving in from Redstone, but the Legion … they’re everywhere, ma’am. They’re inescapable, they’re cruel. I ended up diverting into All Saints, but now they’ve taken that too.”

He looks her dead in the eye, and a flicker of red seems to dance within dark brown irises. “They’ll take everything soon. They’ll take me, they’ll take you … there’s nothing we can do,” he tells her with a haunted, hollow gaze.

That’s really all she needs. She lets out a little sigh. Irritated. Not, oh god, the horror, even as the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. It’s more the grunt of annoyance of having to change plans unexpectedly. She pivots back, and puts a foot of distance between them. She flicks a hand to the hilt of the blade obsecure by a duffel bag and scoffs.

“The Legion is a bunch of pitiful doomed fools,” Meridith replies hot. “A bunch of corpses that haven’t gotten their tickets punched yet.” Her eyes leave the man for a moment, scanning the room, the area about her for details, something she might be missing.

If Meridith hadn’t been looking for it, she might not have seen it. But it’s her sudden keen attention — the healthy paranoia — that start to reveal the telltale signs of all that is off about the presence of this man in her house, for nothing she discovers is revealed by natural senses.

She smells sulphur, tickling her nose with an acrid stench, and something burning. She starts to see embers floating through cracks in the wall, and then flames dancing. But they aren’t really there at all; when she takes her eyes off them for even a split second, they vanish, seeming to reappear only when she really focuses on that section of the wall once more.

The petite sad-sack is watching her keenly, but with an anxious look, such a humble and undaunting creature. “You’re a woman of faith, bless you.” He clasps his hands in front of him again, shaking them together in gratitude, and dips his head. “Good woman, Christian woman … You’re with St. Batholomew’s? I saw the cross, I just knew, Praise Christ. But you have to stop. This crusade against the demons … it’ll never work. They’ll drown you. They’ll burn you. They’ll come into your home … they’ll take everything you have before you know it.” He starts to sob, shaking, a broken man.

Meridith takes a slow deep breath. Her bravado maintains but the unease and uncertainty filters into her. It urges action, resolution. She narrows her gaze and focuses on the man as he speaks. “You should learn a little more about the faith, brother.” She pulls her blade free, and gestures. “We are not the humble lamb. We are not the sheep of the flock of the Lord.”

“We are the wolves which the Sheppard fear. We are the ones who know that God is dead. That we killed him. We are not here to Damn His Creation. Rejoice. For we are the ones who will take that which He abandoned and make paradise of this Hell He has condemned us.”

“The Legion is a bump on the road, nothing more.” She studies him intently, unconvinced of his innocent nature and insists now, “I rebuke you. I rescind invitations into this house. There is no shelter here from the rain, nor the coming storm. Depart or you will become fuel for our purpose.” Meridith at least pulls her sword free.

The lamb lurches forwards. He does not leave. His black coat sways around his sodden brogues and drips all over her floor as she approaches, one slow step at a time, eyes locked on hers. the longer she looks, the brighter that red spark within starts to glow, like an ember eating away the burned shadow and smoke of his dark iris. “I know,” he says quietly, voice barely above a whisper, while the illusory flames lick higher up her walls. She smells the smoke, and sometimes sees it curling dark plumes across the ceiling, but truly nothing burns. If she closes her eyes for jus a second, it’s gone when she reopens them. “I know you’re like me … Sister … it’s why I came. Your Conclave … my Legion … we belong together, you and me. Allies. We’re winning, and you know it. We took Redstone, we took All Saints, we took Fairefield, we took Killgrove. Bit by bit, one by one, we’ll take it all. But I can spare you, Sister. Or you can end up like the vessel I wear. Don’t you want the power I can give? Why stop with killing one God?”

Meridith growls low as he lurches towards her. Her eyes flick towards the shifting embers, the flame. Illusion perhaps or…well. Just because something can be seen does not mean it is real, but even illusion hides dangers risky to ignore. Her gaze does not flick to panic, or fear, but the tension coils in her gut like a spring ready to snap.

The pitch falls on deaf ears, because the mans implicit threat, she -needs- him. She’d be -greater- if only- “Your string of success in this city ended with my arrival, this city you have claimed is only possible because of my -absence-, because I -am- a God!” She bellows her boast as a cry as a sense of battle fills her limbs.

There’s little hesitation in her movements, she brings her blade up, and brings it crashing down, an attempt to decapitate the poor man in a single strike. About the most peace she can offer. Not in contempt, or hatred, at least, not for the poor vessel. She isn’t so callous as to consider this an act of murder, but of mercy, perhaps even counter to the conclave’s belief’s itself.

The man cries out in pain. She misses, at first, because he dodges and fights back, but not for long at all. It was this poor man’s final, valiant struggle, but an unarmed short king of lithe build and fat fingers can only do so much against a warrior with a sword. The end result is not the instant, merciful decapitation she’d sought, but a butchery, starting with her blade lodged in his shoulders and ending in whatever series of strikes she chooses next to dispatch him. By the end, he’s crumbled on the floor, snarling like an animal, and bleeding a pool of dark crimson.

The strangest thing happens, however. When he dies, the illusions die with him, and they seem to include the dripping water on his coat. It’s not less of a clean-up — blood instead of water — but the implication of demonic power carried by smoke and sulphur are gone. the last thing she sees in his dark eyes, as he dies, are those red embers consuming any spark that was still there within.

Outside, the rain and thunder have also stopped, and it’s just a sunny day in June. But she hears a hiss from just outside her door, and senses some foul presence remaining. Something stays watching her there, and this may not be the last visit she receives.

Meridith is unsteadied by this fight. It clear, she doesn’t hesitate or relent, but she is a -warrior-, not a butcher. Every stroke of her blade intended for mercy comes out as an act of torture. Prolonging suffering, heightening it. Perhaps, had she the blood of the demon she fights alongside in the conclave, there would be joy in this.

There’s no joy. She is left panting soft, when he at last is dispatched dying, she jams the blade towards his chest, to his heart, and twists, watching the embers in his eyes fade with only the vaguest hint of satisfaction.

She turns, lips curling, contemptous, furious. “Come again, if you wish. But don’t expect our next meeting to be on my turf…I’ll be looking…” she insists with a dark hiss.