The surface he was lying on was cold and rough against his face, his shoulder throbbed in pain yet the arm attached to it was devoid of all feeling, his glasses were pressed firmly into the bridge of his nose and Chuck had no idea what had put him there.
“Charles. Open your eyes.”
In response to this rather abrupt command, Chuck dutifully blinked until he could see. The porch swam into focus along with a young, female face that studied him carefully, warily. Lilith. Dr. Vatore. Vampire.
Chuck pushed himself up, his numb arm struggling to support the weight it was requested to, clamouring to his feet as fast as he could in his panic and immediately feeling himself once again hit the deck.
Lilith sighed and hauled him into a seated position, settling herself beside him.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Chuck.”
Chuck’s head gradually stopped spinning and he watched as Lilith’s fingers wrapped around his arm; her cool touch sending shockwaves through his skin. Deathly cold. Vampire.
He swallowed back the lump in his throat. “You fed from me, before,” he stated, trying to finding logic in the words he was speaking. Fed from him. Vampire.
“Desperation,” she explained. “The girls took my whole supply.”
“Your supply?”
“Blood bags. From my clinic. I don’t hunt, Chuck. I don’t feed directly from people unless I absolutely need to.”
Chuck shook his head. This was ludicrous. This whole situation was completely bonkers. Maybe he was dreaming. Perhaps he’d hit his head and this was all the resulting hallucination. He shouldn’t believe a word of this; he didn’t believe this and yet… he did? He could see her, Melinda, in Lilith’s house, laughing, smiling and… raging? That wasn’t very Mellybean and yet, it was. He could hear the conversations she’d had with Lilith, could remember the thought processes behind the answers Lilith gave as if he’d lived these moments.
He wasn’t sure what scared him more; the rational assumption that either himself or Lilith were suffering a mental health condition and experiencing delusions, or the innate knowledge that she was exactly what she claimed to be.
Vampire.
Lilith inclined her head, like she was listening to his thoughts. She is listening, he realised.
“I am,” she murmured, squinting at the sun that was breaking through the trees. “I can’t switch it off.”
He had a million questions about a thousand topics punctuated by a hundred different fears, but they all accumulated into one, loaded word. “How?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out,” Lilith muttered. “Will you come in?”
Chuck could have got up and left. He could have written Lilith off as a con artist, a fraud or a lunatic. At the very least he could have called his wife, told her where he was so they knew where to start looking for his remains.
Babs had always told Chuck that he was too trusting, but never had he believed her until the moment he crossed the threshold, willingly, into a vampire’s lair.
—
“His name is Thor and he’ll be here at nine,” Sage reiterated to her son in their daily, pre-opening briefing. “Unfortunately, I have been summoned by the High Priestess, so I won’t be able to induct him. If you could please show him the ropes, complete today’s checklist, keep an eye on him, don’t let him get overwhelmed and finally, don’t get too friendly.”
Wyatt had been nodding along, idly, only half-listening until this last point. He cocked his head and grinned. “What? Don’t get too friendly?” he said. “Why? Does he bite?”
Sage didn’t know how to answer that, so she didn’t. “Wyatt, sweetheart. I need you to remain professional—“
“Oh? Why? It’s because he’s hot, isn’t it?” he teased. “Isn’t he, like, seventeen though? Although, in human years, I’m about… nineteen? So not too creepy, right?”
“Wyatt—“
“I wonder if he’ll want to come to Becky’s with me later. We can go in our matching shirts. Be like those cute couples who dress alike.”
“Wyatt!” Sage said crisply, this firmer tone finally snapping her son from his droll daydream. He rolled his eyes towards her in his sardonic way.
“Fine. I won’t flirt with him,” he huffed. “I won’t even talk to him. I won’t have any fun at all. I’ll just go join the monastery, shall I?”
She knew that he was joking, he always was, but it still hurt.
Sage genuinely did try to cut him as much slack as she could but, for witches like Wyatt, the leash had to be short. She was forced into the role of supervisor as he ruefully watched his peers conjure and cast while he was limited to crafting and brewing. Safer forms of magic. Controlled forms of magic.
He was bored. He rebelled. He pushed the boundaries.
Just like his brother had.
Sage had anticipated Wyatt’s resistance. She walked over to the refrigerator and retrieved from it a green flask which she held up to her son. Under the spotlights, the swirling contents shimmered in a tantalising fashion.
“What’s that?” he asked, transfixed.
“Repellent,” she replied. “Ironically.”
“Mum,” he laughed, still looking at the flask. “Repellent? Is this necessary? What, you think I’m gonna be spilling all our secrets to him if he comes on to me or something?”
“Possibly. He’s a charmer and I’m unsure of his motivations,” she said, smiling. “Please trust me, my darling.”
Wyatt rolled his eyes again, but he took the flask and plonked himself down at the counter. He pulled out the cork and sniffed it. “Appley,” he murmured. “Is this gonna make me so ugly he’ll run away screaming? Or make me stink or something?” he asked, beginning to drink.
“Something like that.”
—
Yibbo relaxed into her favourite armchair in the headquarters of the Glimmerbrook Truth Society’s Forgotten Hollow Investigation Branch – AKA, Pixie’s dad’s house. Pixie and Morag were conducting their morning séance, leaving Yibbo alone in the living room to do her daily news watch.
She was looking for patterns, unexplainable stories or suspicious activity. She was also a huge Sandy Moss fan and was following the story of the actress’s untimely demise with great interest.
“The world bids a final farewell to beloved actress and philanthropist, Cassandra ‘Sandy’ Moss today. The funeral promises to be a lavish affair attended by A-listers and royalty and we will have live coverage from midday, to ensure you know who everyone is wearing for the occasion.
“You’d think that this would be the end of the Moss Story coverage but oh no! We intend to milk every drop from this cash cow for as long as we can! Head on over to our website where you can buy your commemorative Sandy Moss Funeral t-shirt that Sandy wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing.”
Yibbo nodded approvingly as the t-shirts were displayed on the screen. Stylish, she thought to herself, making a mental note to go on the website afterwards and buy one in each colourway.
“In other news, interesting development in the case of the murdered police officer, Chase Crooks. His colleague and on-off girlfriend, Jessica Spoon, has been confined in The Tower, a psychiatric unit in Windenburg. Chase’s roommate, Marshall Law and Chase’s ex-girlfriend, Penelope Spender have been remanded in custody.
“Up next; a feature about Sandy and her father which you’ve all seen at least five times so you know that it’s as pointless and inconclusive as my whole life is right about now.”
Yibbo stared at her phone in disbelief. Jessica? In the Tower? That reeked of conspiracy!
She ran upstairs as fast as her legs could carry her, which wasn’t very fast because her socked feet slid around in her sandals, threatening to trip her. She burst into the seance room, where Morag and Pixie were about to try out the new crystal ball that Morag had found on Plopsy.
“Guys!” Yibbo gasped, out of breath. She panted, clutching at her chest, wheezing for a while, trying to form words, before she gave up and started gesturing wildly, instead.
“Oh, I love this game!” Pixie said, delighted. “OK. So, it’s a news headline. Five words.”
“Jessica is in The Tower!” Morag announced.
“How do you always get them so fast?!” Pixie demanded. “I smell a rat.”
Morag shrugged, “You can commune with the dead, I can commune with the living— wait a second. Jessica is in The Tower? Jessica Spoon?”
“Yes… she… is!” Yibbo spluttered, her lungs burning with every word.
“No way!” Morag cried out. “She shows signs of witchcraft, is possessed by a witch and then she’s immediately locked up in the asylum? This has got cover up written all over it!”
“They’re on to her,” Pixie whispered in her paranoid fashion. “They’ll make her disappear, like all the others.”
“N-no!” Yibbo managed. “Not… this time! We must… help her!”
Morag and Pixie shot to their feet to join their breathless buddy.
“What can we do?” Pixie asked. “Start a petition?”
“Yes! And we’ll protest!” Morag suggested. “Camp outside and kick up a real fuss; make Jessica as high profile as we can! Make it impossible for her to disappear!”
“We can show the world that she’s not crazy!” Pixie said. “That we’re not crazy! We’ll expose the Wangshafts for who they really are at last!”
“Justice for Jess!” Yibbo shouted, pumping her fist into the air, her t-shirt purchases completely forgotten.
“Justice for Jess!”
—
“Can you only survive on blood?” Chuck asked, unable to tear his eyes away from the red fluid in Lilith’s glass.
“Yes,” Lilith replied, taking a small sip and watching as Chuck’s face turned from green to snow white. There were only a handful of times in her whole existence where she’d confessed her vampirism to someone; Chuck was the first person who hadn’t run away or tried to kill her. The first human, besides Nathaniel, who had ever watched her drink.
It made her uncomfortable.
“How much do you need?”
“That depends on a lot of factors,” Lilith explained. “Activity level plays a part, as do weather conditions, but age is the main one. I believe it’s the atrophy of the vital organs that means that we steadily need more as the years pass. The three girls should be able to survive on the odd pint here or there for a while. But the likes of myself and my brother, we’re talking the equivalent of at least a whole human’s worth, daily, to maintain all faculties.”
“A whole human’s worth?” Chuck repeated, nervously. His fingertips instinctively brushing against the healed seam in his neck. “Oh my goodness. How much do you take from your patients?”
“Not nearly enough,” Lilith replied, in her matter-of-fact way. “For both our sakes, I’ve always had to prioritise feeding Caleb, so I’ve become accustomed to getting by on a lot less. Restriction has limited both our skillsets – mine considerably – but the trade-off was that he maintained some semblance of civility and I… so did I.”
Chuck stared at Lilith. She could hear him catching the fluctuations in her speech but deciding not to push. The guilt began to get to her, especially when he opted to take her words at face value and she could hear him thinking how noble she was, how selfless.
“Nothing about vampires can ever be considered ‘selfless’, Chuck,” she snapped. “We are parasites and monsters by design.”
“Is that why she did it?” Chuck asked. “Is that why Mellybean burst into your house, why she stole from you? It’s so out of character for her to do that. Is it her…” he struggled to say the word, “condition? Can we cure her? Or treat her?”
If it had been anyone other than Chuck asking her that, she could have been blunt; setting him a realistic expectation that finding a cure was a slim chance. Very much an ‘if’ not a ‘when’. But damn him and his optimistic eyes.
“I hope so,” she said, trying to smile. “We need to find them first.”
Chuck finished his water; all she could offer him. He tapped the glass, musing quietly as he did so, “If I was a scared, teenaged vampire, plunged into a new, dark world and hiding from the authorities, where would I go? Where would you go?”
He was asking this question to his absent daughter, but Lilith laughed. “Funnily enough, I was once a scared, teenaged vampire plunged into a new world. I put my full trust in someone who, I thought, understood both worlds and we went to—“
He wouldn’t be so stupid.
No. Wait. He would.
“…Windenburg. They’re in Windenburg.”
“Really? How do you know?”
“Caleb always seeks what’s familiar; returns to what he knows. The moron!”
“Is that so bad?” Chuck asked delicately. “If it’s a familiar place? Windenburg is very rural, it’s safe—“
“It’s a sanctuary; they couldn’t be anywhere worse right now,” Lilith groaned and held her head. “Hopefully Seth will have talked him out of it or they still have some plasma packs, so there’s time. Bollocks; who am I kidding?! I bet Seth has encouraged them to throw the plasma in the river and go wild. He’s probably holed up somewhere, miles away, ‘training’ Faith and laughing his head off, the complete twat!” She started banging her face off the table, repeating, “I’m screwed. We are all utterly screwed.”
“Training Faith to do what? How are you screwed? What do you mean by sanctuary?” Chuck asked, trying to keep up.
Lilith didn’t answer; still ranting to herself as she made a plan, “I knew I’d get forced back into this fucking farce! I’d better go find them. Drag them back here, if I have to. I can convince Caleb to come back, meaning April will have no choice. Faith will be nigh on impossible if Seth has had enough time alone with her, but Melinda…”
She looked up at Chuck who was already on his feet, car keys in hand, mentally mapping his drive to Windenburg. “No,” she said firmly, following him. “You’re going home, Chuck. They’re not the girls you knew. It’s too risky; I need to go alone—”
“So they can attack you and run off again?” he asked, his bluntness knocking her off guard almost as much as the sudden embrace of his warm, soft hand around hers.
Those goddamn eyes; they could melt the ice caps.
“I’m coming with you,” he said. We’re in this together.
< Previous Chapter | Index | Next Chapter >
Almost Eternal 
Chuck is taking all of this incredibly well. Not sure anyone else would in his place. Especially since he already has the experience of Lilith feeding on him. I suppose he has seen her memories, the way she experienced them, so that would make it more compelling to believe her, but still. Yes, Chuck, you should probably notify someone of where you are. Though I can just imagine Babs reaction if he texted her he was at Lilith’s house and that Lilith is a vampire 😀
This probably comes as no surprise given my initial reaction to Lilith when we first met her, but Sage is making me flare up. Oh he just has to be on a short leash, it’s for his own good. Does he? Sage herself in this very segment admits that it was restricting his brother so much that caused him to rebel and indirectly caused him to die as a result, but I’m sure it’s TOTALLY for the best. *throws a tantrum*
So Sage definitely knows exactly what “Thor” is. Probably even who he is. I wonder what’s in this vampire repellent.
Some more useful information from the Glits. They do weirdly seem to be the ones holding the most puzzle pieces. “They’ll make her disappear, like all the others.” Oh boy. Aand they’re going to protest to demonstrate how “sane” Jess is. *facepalm* Oh man. Jess is doomed.
Jeez, Lilith, you could have put that blood in a cup instead of showcasing it in a seethrough glass. Ooh, nerdy vampire facts, I like. That is actually surprisingly little, I would have expected the likes of Seth and Lilith to need more. Hmm, her feeling guilty at the fact he’s taking her at face value tells me we shouldn’t. There’s more to what she’s saying about restriction and limiting their skillsets. I don’t think she’s lying per say, but probably being intentionally misleading. She’s definitely not just talking about restricting volume as such.
Yes, what is a sanctuary? A known vampire location? A location that’s supposed to be off limits to vampires? Do the remaining vamps like Seth and the Vatores have some sort of agreement with the Wangshats (this was a typo, but I’m leaving it 😀 ) about territories perhaps? Oh god, this will go terribly. Lilith is right, they are not the same as when he knew them, and merely knowing someone for a long time does not mean a vampire is no longer dangerous to them – Lilith learned that the hard way.
Not that I envisage it going well had she gone on her own, but Chuck being surrounded by this many vamps, ugh, makes me uneasy. Seth did say they would meet again, though. Clearly he finds Lilith and Caleb very predictable. I sure wonder what his end goal is here. Seems way to calculated for it to just be chaos.
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Yes, Chuck, you muppet. Run off! But he won’t because… it’s Chuck. There’s a certain degree of shock here too and likely curiosity. He is far too trusting, but at least we know Lilith is kind and just and nothing bad will happen, yes?
😆 I probably shouldn’t reward tantrums and can only elaborate so much because – spoilers- but OK, here’s bonus bit for you; Sage does not set the restrictions, but she *is* expected to enforce them. And, hey, she never said that she believed they are for Wyatt’s own good, in fact, with her experience, you’d probably expect her to believe the exact opposite, right? 😉
What’s in the repellent? Apples. Undead creatures hate apples, it’s a well known fact. <— Not canon.
They GliTS hold a lot of puzzle pieces, but fuck knows which puzzle they belong in.
She could have put it in a mug, but she already had a glass on the go – why create unnecessary washing up? She never said how much Seth needs and yeah, she's trying not to scare off the first person in her life who might actually accept what she is so you're probably not getting the full, gruesome picture here. But you will.
We get some info on the premise of sanctuary next chapter, woo! But at least some of those guesses are close! Yay! Why will it go terribly? They'll go and round up the clueless crew and bring them home, Lilith will start a new surgery and everything will be great!
'Clearly he finds Lilith and Caleb very predictable' the first clear thing in the whole story? Seth's end goal is not chaos, no. Although he does enjoy that as an aside.
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Poor Chuck. He spends entirely too much time with his face on Lilith’s porch. Besides the passing out and obvious brain-error, he’s taking this incredibly well. I wonder if he’s genuinely processing, or if he has simply reached the point of swallowing whatever is shown to him as a way of grasping at anything that looks like a straw that leads to Melinda. Seeing how willingly he walked into the home of a vampire that already drank from him without telling anyone where he went… Chuck, you’re an adorable teddy bear, but you’re going to end up hurt. Babs’s insistence on “protecting” him is making a little more sense.
Vampire repellant! Or just repellant in general? I wonder if it makes Wyatt’s blood taste icky, or if it helps ward against vampiric powers. Maybe it’s both. My money is on that Sage knows exactly what Caleb is… which makes her willingness to leave Wyatt alone with Caleb pretty baffling. If vampires murdered your parents, wouldn’t you normally be a little more wary about letting your son anywhere near them? Unless this is a trap, and Sage really isn’t going anywhere.
Heh. Caleb and Wyatt may even start bonding over their respective “short leashes” in life. For Wyatt it’s Sage, and for Caleb it’s Lilith – and both seem to be for their own good, at least to some extent.
Chuck is the first person to learn of Lilith’s secret and not run away or try to kill her. My gods, her 300+ years must have been incredibly lonely. To not have a single person, that isn’t twisted Seth or eternal toddler Caleb, that truly knows you- and every time you think you found someone, they run off or even try to kill you. Ouch. Ow. My heart.
“but the trade-off was that he maintained some semblance of civility and I…”
I wonder what she was going to say there. Regained some morality? Came back from whatever existence she had with Seth? We still don’t know what was the cause for the two of them “breaking up”, do we?
Ooooh, what is a sanctuary? Why is that the worst place they could be right now? Are there other vampires there, will someone notice them – oh geez I just had a thought regarding why they have such a ridiculously heavily fortified set of doors in the basement and I don’t like it one bit. Lilith is spot-on about Seth, too. I wonder how many times he has done this – if he did it with Lilith – and if Faith is the first one after Lilith.
Oh, Chuck. You’re so sweet and courageous and good to Lilith and I’m scared to death that you’ll face a horrible horrible end. 😭
Comment is turning into a novel and I haven’t even touched on the GliTS yet. Will do that on your thread sometime this weekend. 😁
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You’re so pessimistic! Lilith hasn’t killed him yet and she had plenty of chance to, so therefore it’s all fine and he can stroll in happily. La la la. Yeah, no way in hell would Babs have let Chuck walk through that door.
Haha, we can see the effects of the repellent next chapter. “If vampires murdered your parents, wouldn’t you normally be a little more wary about letting your son anywhere near them?” Yes. So, what does that tell you…? 🤔
If Caleb can get over Wyatt being stinky, or whatever the repellent does, and doesn’t try to eat him, they could be great friends! Until they find out who the other is, maybe. Hmm.
I know. Gah, Lilith. And now stand-offish has become her default stance with new people, pushing them away before they even have chance to know her. There’s safety in solitary.
The cause of the break-up? Have I not told you guys that yet? Oh, no I haven’t. Should probably get around to that at some point. *cough* book five *cough*. I’ll give you a bonus bit though, as I seem to be in that kind of mood today: the break-up was not Seth’s idea, but he did instigate it.
Sanctuary info dump next time. Ooh, what’s your theory about the basement? Seth has done this ‘training’ a few times, yes.
Geez, super-pessimistic. And here I thought this chapter was one of the lighter ones (bar, y’know, crispy sim screenshot), but I’m getting crying emojis, tantrums and email abuse. Well. Back into the abyss for you lot next time, then. 😆
Yay! I look forward to that! Hopefully Yibbo remembers to order her t-shirt.
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There are some interesting comparisons to make here between last chapter Faith/Seth and Lilith/Chuck. Seth can’t read Faith’s mind, but he observed her long enough to come to some valid conclusions to manipulate her his way, using to her low self-esteem and insecurities against her and leading her on by giving her a slight taste of that emotional connection she desperately wants through romance.
Lilith knows a lot about Chuck through her mind reading ability and can bend the truth and improvise along the way to make herself look better to him, appeal to his compassionate nature by condemning her own ‘species’. But she doesn’t. And she is aware that she has to control her thirst to not drain her victims, even if you did mention she miss being able to do so without a care. (That in itself implies she’s so close to snapping if pushed to the limit Dx Let’s not think about that.) But oof it highlights just how conflicting their ideologies are and thus their conduct.
Tangent. This makes me wonder if Lilith and Seth being a couple before were because they were drawn by each other’s differences. Seth condemned Lilith’s lifestyle at the start of S2, Lilith did the same for his being. If they got together while having these differences it makes me wonder if they somewhat lived vicariously through each other. (Also for someone as guilt-feeling as Lilith, feeding off Seth could ease her conscience. Seth ‘providing’ for her could ease some of *his* conscience (even if he acts like he doesn’t have one now). Ha ha ha. Nonsensical theories end here hehe. 😆
Going back to Chuck and Lilith, it would be better if Chuck knew the truth and set realistic expectations ofc, but I think Lilith herself needed to believe. She’s so close to snapping, she came to the conclusion she needed to hunt, she had to shut down her practice. Chuck and his happy face is too much of a ray of sunshine to put out. Especially when she’ll be the one doing that. I don’t think she can stand being any more lower than she thinks she is.
I’m so worried now. This chapter ended on such a sweet note and you know how I want Chuck and Lilith to bond and ship them together even but this is not the best time for Chuck and Lilith to hang around each other. I can already see Chuck offering himself to Lilith so she doesn’t need to hurt other people. What if Chuck dies!??? Omg that would be the ultimate punch in the face and Lilith will go nuts if that happened and by her hands! 😫
What is witches like Wyatt? Controlled forms of magic? Is it inheritable? Sage is powerful but seems like she has everything under control. Did it come from Dad? Did Wyatt’s older bro overcharge himself? So that lady from last chapter is sage! Omg I don’t know which is worse. Whether Lilith dueled his bro and resulted this picture or was it by his own hands.
Sage says Wyatt ‘pushed’ and ‘rebelled’. He’s been acting pretty okay, especially if his real ‘brain age’ is a 19y.o teen human. I guess I’m not sure if their brains mature slowly like how Plumbob’s elves do, or whether he has a 73y.o brain in a 19 y.o body. But he puts on the floral shirt, drinks the potion and mans the shop. Unwillingly, but he does.
Hehehe Yibbo buying Sandy shirts in each colorway. xDDD Ahahaha!
I’m convinced. Morag, Yibbo and Pixie are secretly supernatural in some ways. Communing with the dead and understanding garbled speech. XD Yay we look awesome in summer clothing! I have icecream on my ears ❤
Also, through Wangshaft and SBI’s carefully controlled watch, Windenburg is a sanctuary against vampires? At least that’s what it sounds like. So vamps are allowed to ‘exist’ so long as they don’t go to Windenburg specifically? I mean, Will knows and he didn’t call SBI on them. So I assume there’s some treaty made.
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Lilith and Seth are much more similar than either can admit.
Nonsensical theories are always welcome!
Yes, it would be better for Chuck if Lilith took time to explain everything in detail before he runs happily into vampireland, but you are totally right; she doesn’t want Chuck to see her as a monster. She doesn’t want to be the one to burst Chuck’s bubble, either.
I cannot win. You guys ship them, you want them to be a thing, I get them holding hands and suddenly it’s the worst thing ever and you want them to be apart. Tough. I did warn you to be careful what you wish for because I do tend to deliver… in the worst way possible. 😂😬😐 Offering himself would be a very Chuck thing to do, wouldn’t it?
Witches like Wyatt are those with the biggest wells of power, which is inheritable, yes. You’ll get more about the types of magic and its restrictions later, but here’s your bonus bit because everyone else got one: controlled forms of magic are brewing (potions which follow set measurements and instructions) and crafting (creating things from nature, such as making food with medicinal herbs, or carving an artefact from a tree that had history/ spiritual connections, etc.). Anything that calls more upon the power of nature, rather than the power of the witch, basically. Wyatt’s brother overcharged and yes, that’s younger Sage.
Their brains mature slower. Wyatt doesn’t rebel; you’d never catch him tweaking his potions, magically busting people out of jail or casting any spells he wasn’t supposed to, would you? 😉
I wonder how many colourways there are and if she’ll find one that compliments or clashes with her sandal and sock combo. 😆 Yay! I’m glad you’re not yet shaking your head in despair, regretting the day you sent me your simself.
Your theory about sanctuary is the closest! But still not quite right.
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Oh I love the Glimmerbrook Truth Society and not least your description of Yibbo’s socks skating around in her sandals. Or how Morag can decode Yibbo’s gesturing wildly …. it makes no sense at all to anyone but them 🤣
I love your humorous display of its members and I really hope they appreciate your loving treatment. There is nothing as liberating as a good laugh.
I hope the members succeeded in freeing Jessica. Regardless of her teddy bears and nonsense, I have come to love her 💓
I also love Chuck’s warm gentle eyes. They can melt ice and vampire hearts … at least when this frozen organ “lives” in Lilith.
Barb, of course, is absolutely right when she says Chuck is too trusting, but so far fate has been gracious to him.
He asks exactly the questions Lilith needs to come to terms with where Caleb has taken the girls. The realization scares Lilith very much 😟
What do I know so far about Windenburg?
There is an old hut and there is a flower shop run by witches. Witches who probably know about the vampires’ existence. Are they enemies or friends?
I need to discover more 🤔
Oh no! Chuck insists on following Lilith!
He should go home to his wife 😬
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Yep, they live in their own bizarre little world. Yet, remarkably, they know quite a lot.
Let’s hope fate continues to be kind to Chuck and his gentle eyes.
That’s pretty much all I’ve told you about Windenburg. Oh, the Tower is in Windenburg, too. Are the witches and vampires enemies or friends? That depends on who you talk to. 😉
He should go home. Maybe Lilith will talk him out of it.
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Chuck and Lilith working together is a dream come true. I’d totally love to see a scene in which they put Lilith mind reading skills to good use, like interogation or something. The two of them sure have a potential and motivation to find the cure if there’s any. Imagine Lilith cured… Babs who? 😈
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Ooh, yay! Someone who’s positive about the whole Chilith situation. But yeah, lots of ifs there… if Chuck survives, if there’s a cure, if Lilith is cured. Aw, poor Babs.
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CHILILITH MUST BE PROTECTED AT ALL COSTS! THEY ARE TOO PURE FOR THIS WORLD AND WE DON’T DESERVE THEM! I AM NOT TAKING QUESTIONS AT THIS TIME.
Listen, I know I ship them but man, I just feel like this is the first time someone had Lilith’s back for reasons that weren’t just trying to use her in some way. I know she calls herself a monster, but she is soft-hearted just like Chuck and that’s got my heart pounding. I adore them. I’m rooting for them.
The Truth Society is on the case omfg I actually cheered. CHEERED! Like, I want their rescue to be a bit more hands on but I knew Jessica was going to have someone on her side. Girlfriend lands on her feet. Look out Wangshafts! The Truth Society is coming for you!!!
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Aw, more love for Chilith. Chuck is not using her; he’d have definitely found his daughter without Lilith’s help, right?
Is a protest not hands-on enough? Want them scaling the walls to bust her out? Careful what you wish for. 😉
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Damn it. I knew I recognized that dark-haired woman.
Caleb can be in danger because literally, eff him.
But Lilith needs to be safe so that she and Chuck can ride off into the sunset.
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Your second sentence = coffee snorted everywhere.
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Alright. So, now we get an idea as to why Lilith bothered projecting. If it makes Chuck believe she´s a) not a liar and b) not intentionally malicious, of course it´s worth effort. Poor Chuck, though, that has to be a lot to process at once. Also too bad Lils isn´t strong enough to catch him, because that faceplant looked painful.
About them spellcasters, so many things. Firstly, I feel like Sage is planning something and it makes me even more nervous about her. I´m still worrying about fires here, both literal and not. Also… *snorts* actually, Wyatt… he does bite, yeah. But apparently not guys if he can help it so you should be fine. 😉
The part about Wyatt´s brother… I don´t read it like that being the result of the boundaries set. It looks to me like some spellcasters just have wilder magic than others and can die of overcharge or even backlash if not careful enough? It would then make sense for them not to risk it, but the question is if the risks had been properly explained to Wyatt. It´s much easier to handle boredom “because you might die” that just because “the High Priests says it would be very dangerous.” Blunt can be much better sometimes.
*facepalm* I know the Glits mean well, really. It´s nice of them to try and help and all. They even do know stuff, it seems. But something tells me they won´t convince anyone that Jess isn´t crazy. And if they go camp outside the Tower… well, I wouldn´t be shocked if they found themselves inside before they can say “conspiracy.” DX
“he maintained some semblance of civility and I…” let me guess. Lost some of yours? So you were able to do what needed done?
And again. Sanctuary… the question is, whose sanctuary. I wanted to say, maybe for any vampire. But if Lilith doesn´t expect Seth to stick around there, then he probably has a reason not to which goes against that idea. Hmmm. Either way, I think it has something to do with those double doors. I´m still suspicious over that little detail.
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Yep, Lilith projecting there was much easier and more likely to succeed than her trying to explain everything to Chuck’s logical, human brain and he gets it all from her perspective which probably contains no bias whatsoever. Nope. No bias there.
“It looks to me like some spellcasters just have wilder magic than others and can die of overcharge or even backlash if not careful enough?” Yes, this. I’ll explain this all more later but this level of magic is rare and the coven has a terrible track record of managing witches who are born ‘wilder’ if you will. Wyatt knows he’s not supposed to use magic yet, and why, but he’s also oddly immature and we’ve already seen that knowing he shouldn’t use magic doesn’t actually stop him doing it, it just makes him hide that he’s doing it.
Wait, is camping outside a secure unit in a tinfoil hat not a good way to convince the world of someone’s sanity? Maybe they will end up the Tower. Maybe that’s all part of the plan.
Whatever Lilith is referring to there certainly helped her get done what was needed, yes. I can’t elaborate more than that just yet. Sanctuary again and yes, you’d think if it was a vampire sanctuary that they’d all be living there happily ever after, frolicking through the meadows and basking in the streams rather than lurking in a dark, depressing forest where people go to die, wouldn’t you. Oh, and Lilith wouldn’t be banging her face off the table. In a roundabout way it is to do with the double doors – it’s to protect someone from someone else. 🤐
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Heh, well. Sometimes seeing things from someone else´s perspective is pretty hard, so projecting would be helpful for that, but I doubt that´s the case with Chuck. He´s sweet enough to find excuses for people all on his own.
Huh, you´d think knowing the danger was that big would do something. Then again, maybe it´s a part of it. maybe being “oddly immature” comes with that kind of magic? Or just that level of magic? That lackadaisical way of approaching things actually makes me think elves. You know, the little ones dancing in the forests around their little bonfires? Wyatt wouldn´t make a bad Fae, with that way of thinking.
Now I wonder what it would look like, an attempt to detain the Glits. Oh, the chaos they could cause inside the Tower. You´re right, maybe that wouldn´t actually be a bad way to get Jess outta there, now that I think about it that way. XD
I mean… humans dying and vampires living happily ever after aren´t exactly mutually exclusive, but… that probably isn´t the point here. Besides, Windenburg /is/ Wangshaft territory and that in itself is a problem. Most likely that has something to do with Lils banging her head.
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The oddly immature does come with that level of magic. Most teenagers think they’re invincible and Wyatt is still very teenagery despite his actual age. Ha! I can so see him as elf; he is waaaaaay too chill.
There are already some… interesting characters in the Tower, the GliTS would blend right in. 😆
Maybe humans dying is how vampires get a happily ever after. I forgot what my point was. But ugh, I wouldn’t want to live my whole life in Wangshaft territory either; I’d take my chance in the murder woods.
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XD
Unless living in Wangshaft territory would include getting rid of Wilbur and only having to deal with Beth. That might not be quite that bad… or it just might be even worse. Depends. PX
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Oho, be careful what you wish for… 😉
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*snicker* Oh, I wouldn´t be surprised if Beth dealt with him personally. She´s certainly spirited enough.
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