A world of pain had to have been experienced for such hardness in what could otherwise be, in her opinion, beautiful green eyes. He hid his pain behind anger, and if his little weapon posed any threat, perhaps she would be afraid. People who are hurting tend to lash out faster and with less reservations than others. She tilted her head, considering, and then corrected herself. Even with the pain and anger, the eyes were still beautiful.
She then tried to envision herself as they saw her, standing head and shoulders above the tall one, something he seemed to dislike a great deal, judging by his expression as he lifted his chin to meet her eyes. Her willowy frame made her seem delicate, despite her height. Soft, lilac skin on long fingers tipped with claws traced up bare arms to slowly give way to scales that thickened at her shoulders and thinned to flesh again as they ran across her chest to disappear in the edge of her wispy black dress and up her neck to a face unlike that of the humans before her. Theirs were almost harsh in comparison, lacking the elongated and smoothed features of her kind. Their eyes were smaller than hers. Where their noses were prominent, hers was settled into her face; their lips were full, hers thin. They were sweating from the heat of the day; her skin and scales were dry, eagerly soaking in the heat, needing it. She also had fangs, small, yet a formidable weapon her kind used when threatened.
Interesting, she thought, that she would know so much of her own kind and her own world, though she had only experienced this world, one where she did not belong. She could feel it like a dull ache in her soul. No, she did not belong here, and while it was worrisome, she couldn't let it distract her.
"Now that I have revealed myself, I suppose you will begin to trust me?" her deep, whispery voice wasn't changed now that she was out in the open. It had occurred to her that sending her voice without her form might unnerve them; she had been right. Large, dark purple eyes, slitted like those of a snake, regarded the weapons still pointed at her chest. They would not damage her, but as long as the men felt it necessary to hold them, they would be unable to reach a peace. She watched the hesitation bloom behind their eyes at her words. The guns were their security, but they were trying to work out whether they needed it against her. She waited, holding herself very still, only allowing her eyes to flick between the hard one and the tall. She almost smiled, thinking of a being who was a good foot shorter than her as tall. Obviously the term was relative. He did, after all, tower over all of the other humans she had seen him interact with since she had been put to observe them. She watched the decision flicker through the hard one's eyes moments before he lowered his gun. The tall one mimicked the action so quickly after, it appeared they moved as one. She deduced that he was used to taking queues from his partner. Only once the guns were tucked safely away did she relax her stance for them. The very air around them seemed to move again.
"I believe introductions are in order," she suggested.
The tall one spoke. "I'm Sam," he motioned to the hard one. "This is my brother, Dean."
Brothers. My. She was not often surprised. "I am called Yuelina." She took a small step forward, offering her hands to Sam since he was the one who had spoken. One palm up, the other down, in the traditional greeting. She saw him pause, confusion in his eyes, and she realized too late that her customs were not his. Before she could lower her hands, though, Sam also stepped forward and took them in his. She waited. Sam had three choices in that moment, though it was now clear to Yuelina he did not know what they were. He could have stacked the backs of her hands together, trapping them between his, to show he felt himself to be her superior. He could have put his own hands together, deferring to her. Or, he could have kept their hands just as they were, parallel. A fanged smile spread across her face when Sam did nothing. She knew it was ignorance which stayed his hands, but she still accepted their places as equals. She repeated the steps with Dean, despite him also not knowing what they meant. He, too, simply took her hands, and for a brief, amused moment, she considered asserting her dominance over him just to see their bewilderment at differing greetings between the two.
Formalities out of the way, she stepped back again to view both of them easily. It was time to speak plainly. "I have been following you."
"So we've been told," Dean replied. "Your buddy Cliff helped us out last night. Told us about you."
"Yes, I heard.. and saw." Yuelina felt a distasteful shudder run through her. "I also saw what Amanda's character did... and what he almost did to you. There has been some discussion as to which of the characters is most terrifying, that nameless man, the Mangleclaw, or..." She trailed off, eyes lifting away from the brothers to gaze blankly beyond, seeing the beast inside her head.
"Or what?" Sam asked. "Is there something else you've gotten?"
"Gotten?" Yuelina blinked them back into focus. "We were fortunate to lose only one in the altercation against the Mangleclaw. We dare not face this one. Not without your help."
"You lost one," mused Dean. "Torn to pieces, like that first victim." It wasn't a question.
Yuelina nodded anyhow. "As you learned last night, not all of us can die from what you would consider conventional means. Others, however, are susceptible to your firearms... or to being ripped apart. It depends entirely on how each of us have been designed by our creators."
"Then it sounds like we do still need to get those papers," Sam's grey-green eyes lit up as the idea struck him. "We need to read them and learn about each character. Find out what their weakness are so we can stop them. This whole time, I've been needing something to research..." He shook his head, frustration taking over. Yuelina waited, seeing there was more to his thought than he had said aloud. When it was evident Sam would not continue on his own, she prompted.
"Go on." But Sam shook his head again and looked away.
"We'll get the papers," Dean spoke up to pull Yuelina's attention away from Sam. She kept her gaze on the taller brother for a few more heartbeats before turning it to Dean. "We'll get them, we'll read them, and then we'll hunt down and kill every single one of those sons of bitches."
Yuelina tilted her head and used both hands to push long hair behind her shoulders. Tips of pointed ears peaked out from the blue locks, the pale skin standing out starkly against the blue. "Every single one?" Dean's returning stare was defiant. "You would hunt me? Cliff? The rest?"
"It's my job. It's what we do."
"Your job," she scoffed, finding annoyance in not only his stubbornness, but in his easy talk of killing her after accepting her as an equal. "To kill innocents. That is what you do?"
"You ain't natural."
She stepped closer to him. "Natural." Another step. "You speak of this? You?" Step. "Dean, hard one, you are not natural." Her eyes stayed on his, but she peripherally watched as his hand inched to the small of his back. His head was craned back to the point of what she would assume was discomfort, but he did not back away from her. Stubbornness. She could have already ripped his throat out with him exposing it as he was. Yuelina took a slow, deep breath as she leaned down over him, putting her face close to his, purple eyes meeting green with only inches to spare. "I can smell it on you. You are impure. You are the unnatural thing you hunt. Remember that next time you point that toy at someone." Dean's gun was between them.
Yuelina stood as slowly as she had leaned down, pulled her shoulders back, straightened her head, but kept her eyes cut down to Dean, giving the impression of looking down at something insignificant. She held her ground and rolled her eyes toward Sam who was standing with both hands held out slightly toward them, palms forward, looking very uncertain whether interference would escalate or ease the strain between her and his brother. Dean reluctantly edged backwards, obviously not one to usually give ground, but he kept his gun out. Still honoring their status of equals, Yuelina also stepped back. Her chin relaxed so as to allow her nose to point at his face as she searched the anger in his eyes. She let her own eyes drop to the gun for a few seconds then lifted them to Dean's again.
She decided against telling him she was already dying.
.oOo.
Sam watched the tension stretch between Dean and Yuelina even as they backed away from each other. She seemed incredibly blithe about having Dean's gun pointed at her -for a second time- and even called it a toy. Dean had to know it wouldn't do anything to her. It wasn't the gun that had caused her to advance on him; it had been Dean's threat to kill her and the other non-murdering characters. Sam itched to clean up this mess.
"Dean," he said quietly. He didn't expect his brother to take his eyes off his mark and wasn't surprised when Dean made no outward appearance at listening. Sam continued speaking anyhow, "Yuelina is helping us. Cliff is helping. The others. They lost someone while hunting something we couldn't even identify, let alone know where to start looking for it." He paused, letting his words sink in. "We need them. And now they're asking us for our help because they need us too. Whatever's left, it's going to take all of us to take it down."
"Yeah, well, we don't know what's left, though," Dean replied, finally sparing a quick look to Sam and letting his gun drop. He used it to point at Yuelina before turning the motion into putting it away again. "She hasn't told us." Dean turned his words to her, "You just clammed up and went on a little mental vacation when it was mentioned."
The folds in the back of her long, black dress twitched. Sam started. Was that a tail?
"If you are lucky, you will never know why seeing it affected me so," Yuelina told Dean cryptically. "The simple answer, though, is that the creature we seek was inspired by a Strix."
"A Strix?" Dean looked at Sam. "You familiar with that?"
Sam shook his head to his brother and settled into student mode to listen to Yuelina. He lived for the hunt, he knew that, but he truly could never get enough of learning.
"It is from your Greek mythologies. In the story, Polyphonte and her sons exhibited cannibalistic tendencies. As punishment, she was turned into a Strix, an evil, owl-like creature that feasts on human flesh. In some tellings, she has only two legs; in others, she has four. This one has four. It is larger than you, Sam, with a wingspan half again as wide as you are tall. It has both owl and human features, quite an abomination to behold."
"Why hasn't it killed yet?" Sam asked. "By your description, it should have a pretty high body count by now."
"Procrastination on the student's behalf?" Yuelina answered with a wry smile. "Or perhaps the student simply struggled with making the character their own. Whatever the reason, it was sighted just this morning, scouting the town. One can surmise its writer only just finished the assignment."
Dean actually smirked at that. "Putting it off until the day it's due. I remember how that went."
"The delay worked out in our favor. While it has been seen observing this morning, it is, in fact nocturnal. I do not expect it will hunt in daylight. However, I fully believe it will strike tonight. And when it does, when it gets a real taste of human flesh, not just what it was written to know, that will only increase its hunger. There will be more than one kill." Yuelina looked back and forth between the two of them. Her face had been calm and smooth during most of their talk, hard to read even when she had been obviously angry, standing over Dean, but now Sam could see a tightness at the corners of her large eyes that gave lie to her calmness. She was worried. Dean spoke before he could.
"Then it's a good thing we're about to get the papers. It should be about that time by now," Dean jerked his head at Sam to motion him to come, and he whirled around to head back out of the copse. "That'll be the first one we read so we know how to kill the thing." Sam hung back, seeing that Yuelina hadn't made a move to follow.
"Will you come with us?" His soft question stopped Dean and caused him to turn to them.
Yuelina ran her right hand up her left arm, claws playing along the scales, making a rasping sound where the edges lifted slightly. His gaze followed where she touched. "I cannot," she replied. Sam raised his eyes from her pale scales to her face, and at his questioning look, she continued. "Like the reptiles of this world, I am cold-blooded and bask in this wonderful heat." Dean snorted behind him. "But my skin is too fragile for the sun. It is extraordinarily painful. I have to stay in the shadows and can travel openly only by darkness. Anything you do by daylight, I cannot assist with it."
"Find it for us," Sam instructed. "Our best bet is to find and kill this thing while it's resting, before it starts hunting. You can do that, right? I mean, Cliff called you a 'damn good scout.'"
"Yeah," Dean chimed in. "How've been following us in the daylight anyway?"
Yuelina tilted her head with a small smile. "I have my own means. I shall do my best to locate beast." Sam looked over his shoulder at Dean, who nodded slightly, then back at Yuelina. She was gone.
