Sailor Discordia and the Three Slayers Long ago and more or less far away, depending on where you are, there lived a little Louisiana girl named Claudia. A Dark Kingdom Rising story She was poor, but not unhappy, so no one of importance cared when she was picked up by a pair of wicked Vampires and, *Slurp*, made a meal of. by Suika Roberts The younger vampire had been worrying about stupid things, like whether it was proper to eat people and boot being able to see the sun rise, and the older hoped to get him out of his funk. #include The younger vampire was quite put out by the young, pretty, meal, and insisted she become a vampire too. #include So the three were a happy little vampire family for many years, eating people, stealing their money, generally having a grand old time. #include After a time, however, her younger father fell back into angst, and her parents started to fight again. Attempting to regain their lost happiness, or at least contentment, they took a vacation to France. In Paris Claudia found a pretty young woman, and demanded she be turned, so she might have a companion of her own, to keep her company while her parents fought. Not long after that, a group of vampires with more machismo than sense put Claudia and her young woman at the bottom of a deep cistern, so that they might, *Krisp*, see the noonday sun. The foolish vampires died before the sun rose the next morning, mostly, and her parents split up to wander seperately. She, however, discovered that being a ghost had advantages, for though she was lonely, her young woman was nowhere to be found when she awoke from being charcoaled by the noonday sun, she was still quite unwilling to let this world go, even after a century and a half. As a ghost, she could be out in daylight, she could indulge her tendancy to people-watch without fear of discovery, she could travel the world as easily as thinking about it, but it was only rarely and with great difficulty that she could change anything. After a few years she found that a person near death doesn't have a good grip on their body, and she coud borrow it for a bit. If they recovered, they would force her out, and if they didn't . . . that did her no good either. One day, a long time after she became a ghost, and thus not so long ago, she felt a great, despirate surge of magic. Quick as a blink, she was there, inside a young woman quite soaked in oil, and not a fire for miles around. 2003 March 14 `That,' Claudia says to the girl, `Was overkill.' `I was going to burn alive!' `And now your heart's all stopped, and your just going to die anyway.' `I panicked, I guess. Help me?' `If I wait a bit, you'll leave, and I can try to restart your heart, and it will be mine.' `You want my body?' `Yes.' The girl ponders a moment, `I don't want to die yet. Could we share?' Claudia knows the girl cought the "try", so, `What is your name?' `Triguna.' `I am Claudia. You agree to share, Triguna?' `Yes, Claudia.' Claudia feels something weird when, for the first time in several hundred years, her heart starts to beat. Triguna blinks, slumped in the kitchen of her mother-in-law's house, and lets Claudia collapse their knees. *Klang* a heavy iron skillet bounces off the stove, near where they just were. Claudia rolls them to their feet, oil-soaked sari slipping loose as they turn to face Triguna's mother-in-law. `Witch!' shrieks the woman. `Murderer!' Triguna spits back. Triguna's mother-in-law tries to light the lighter again, and again gets not even a spark. Triguna's fear spurs Claudia's fingers, and she grabs something from a place that isn't there, and words flow from her lips, `Discordia Star Power, Make UP!' The house slumps into a pile of mud as rain and lightning flash from a clear sky. `Whell,' Claudia says, looking at the mud-soaked form of Triguna's mother-in-law, `That was unexpected.' `Yes,' Triguna nods vigorously, `Maybe we should run away?' `Let's!' Claudia, just as when she was a ghost, decides to be somewhere else, and so she was, body and all. `That's rather neat,' Triguna gushes, to the startlement of the two young women in front of her. Now, in this world, there are at least two different sorts of vampires. One sort is generally pretty stupid, and only a very few of them ever make much of themselves, despite being able to stay awake during the day. Another sort, Claudia's sort, are known as "Egyptian" vampires by those who care. The vampire in front of her was another. `Lestat!' she calls out, easily brushing between the two women to engulf her suprised parent in a hug. `Do I know you?' he asks, holding the tall Indian woman at arms length and staring at her abbreviated costume, on which the white night sky of the galactic core shifts with her every move. `Papa! It's me, Claudia!' she responds, dropping into the Creole French of her human childhood. `Claudia?' he asks, surprised into looking beyond her skin, `Who is the other?' `Triguna. It's her body, or it was until she killed herself with magical overload.' `And you stole it?' `We agreed to share.' `Speak English!' demands the blonde woman behind them, wooden stake loose in one hand, short sword sheathed at her side. `This is my daughter, Claudia, who was murdered in Paris over a hundred years ago,' Lestat says, `And her new friend, Triguna.' `Calm Buff,' the tiny redhead says, placing a hand on the taller blonde's arm, `You can tell this one's a beardo, and she's a Sailor, so,' without taking her attention from the two in front of her she rubs her cheek along Buff's shoulder. Buff shudders, then relaxes, `Sailor, will you vouch for this vampire?' `Vouch what?' Triguna asks in her strongly accented southern Indian public school English. `That he won't kill or eat anyone while he's our guest,' the redhead answers. `Lestat?' Claudia asks. `I know and will abide by the rules of hospitality so long as they do.' `Good 'nuff,' the redhead grins an impossibly cute grin, and Triguna is smitten. Claudia notices, but the way the redhead lets her hip brush the taller girl's thigh and tucks her hand into the back pocket of Buff's jeans has her shake her head. `The blonde's cute too,' Triguna says to Claudia. `Probably exclusive, and for a fair while, too,' Claudia responds, `And weren't you married?' `He was my childhood friend, and a good man. He came out to me when we were 15. I was his cover, and he was mine, but I don't think I need to worry about that anymore.' `Maybe not, but I wouldn't put the moves on either of them seperately, and maybe not even together.' Lestat just smiles at the calm happyness radiating from his often troubled child. Claudia spins, `You know where Louis is, right?' she asks, walking backward. `Last I saw him hew was in Miami with Armand. Sulking,' Lestat shrugs. `He's in Cleveland, fighting demons and killing lots of the bumpy vamps. There's some deep juju there, much like here.' `Do you have his phone number?' There's a pause, `Nope. I could ask tommorow, the sun's up there already.' `Please.' Discordia turns without the slightest bobble, and skips up to the slayers, `We can keep up if you run,' she says, and a race breaks out. -*- `Giles, come over, we've got guests.' `Buffy, it's,' rattle of alarm clock, `3:30 in the morning. Can it wait 'til daylight?' `Nope, one of our guests is exclusively nocturnal.' `Does he have a dental problem?' `Sometimes, but his face doesn't go bumpy when he does.' `I'll be right over.' Cologne stares into Lestat's eyes, a little smile on her wrinkled face, while Ranma watches her watcher, and Discordia watches Ranma. She turns as someone approaches the front door, `Tadaima!' calls the brown-haired girl in the doorway. `Okaerinasai,' Ranma calls back, going up on her tiptoes to kiss the taller girl firmly on the lips, `Okyakusan ga imasu. Vanpaia ga Lestat, soshite Sailor ga Triguna to Claudia.' `Vanpaia? Kyaku?' she puts as much disbelief as she can into her question. `Hai. Korosu dame desu wa.' `Naze?' `The Sailor vouched for him.' `Oh. The old bat seems fascinated,' the brunette drops back into English with apparent relief. `I think she might have met him before.' `Some of us are lazy, and have not been practicing their Japanese enough, thus with the lostness,' the red-haired woman in the doorway says, leaning on her slightly taller blonde companion. `Faith,' Point, `Willow, Tara,' indicates the Sailor and vampire, `Triguna and Claudia, and the vampire's Lestat.' `Like the one hit wonder from '95?' Tara asks, then looks defensive as four sets of eyes turn her way, `It was catchy.' `The same,' Lestat says. `You just vanished after the concert.' `Certain parties convinced me to desist if I wished to continue.' `Oh,' Tara looks a little distracted. `I had accomplished what I wanted, so it wasn't that bad.' A pair of headlights flash through the window, followed almost instantly by sparkly pink and blue light. Ranma and Buffy wave their guests in at the door. `Giles,' Buffy greets her watcher, then the Sailors, `Mercury, Moon, Chibi, Saturn, Nox, Erebus, Minerva, and Vulcan.' Ranma greets each Sailor with a hug, a little worried by the firepower present, `These are my guests, Triguna and Claudia, and the vampire Lestat.' Chibi Moon smiles, `We,' she wraps an arm around Saturn's shoulders, `Were at your concert, but you seemed to have things in hand.' `I thank you for that,' Lestat nods gravely. Mercury is tapping at her computer, but Megumi comes up with an answer first, `Sailor Discordia! I hadn't expected to see you again.' `Oh?' Claudia asks. `You burned yourself out, nearly died, a long time before I went off-line.' `Could you de-transform?' Mercury asks. `How . . . Oh, like this,' and the Sailor is replaced by a draggled young woman in a scorched, oil-soaked sari. `What happened? Let's get you cleaned up, and into something dry,' Ranma says, taking her by an elbow. Tara appears at her other side leading her up the stairs towards the bathroom. `I'll get a robe,' Tara says, peeling off at the bathroom door. Ranma nods, and leads them in, `Soap, shampoo, towels, is there anything else you need?' "You," Claudia and Triguna think in unison, and blush, `Not unless you could wash my back.' Ranma smiles, `Faith and Buffy might get jealous. May they help too?' Triguna blinks, surprised, while Claudia accepts, `Sure.' `Go ahead and get started and we'll be here in a bit.' Triguna wakes to the pounding of the shower and the soft voices of the slayers, `She made a pass at you?' `Yep.' `She's cute, and strong, so where's the harm? Whoops, she's blushing, so I think she woke up.' Triguna looks up, and the brunette, Faith, smiles at her. She smiles back, `Wash my back, pretty lady?' Claudia giggles at Animaniacs flashbacks. Buffy soaps her up, scrubbing her firmly, `I get real jealous, real easy, so don't get too close when I'm not here, at least not yet,' she says, rinsing Triguna's rich brown back. `Sounds fine,' Claudia tells her, then wraps her hands through buffy's hair and pulls her close, twisting and leaning to kiss the shorter woman deeply. -*- Lestat has buried himself in the back yard, the witches have gone to bed, the watchers are talking in the kitchen, the Sailors have left to secure lodging elsewhere, and the slayers are on the porch with Triguna and Claudia, watching the sun rise. `Buffy?' Dawn walks out onto the porch, rubbing sleep from her eyes. `Hey, pipsqueak,' Faith answers, `This is Triguna, who's from India, and Claudia, who was from Louisiana.' `Was?' Dawn asks, plopping down on the steps. `When I was ten, I got eaten by a vampire, my Papa Louis. My Papa Lestat turned me, and we were a happy vampire family until I realized that I'd never grow up, and that pissed me off, and Papa Louis was whining about eating people, and _that_ pissed me off, and Papa Lestat was trying to pretend everything was fine,' Claudia sighs, and Buffy rubs her shoulder, `So we went on vacation to Paris . . . ' -*- `There's something,' Buffy starts, trailing upstairs after Faith, who has a soundly sleeping Triguna in her arms. `Sexy,' Ranma supplies. `Exactly, about Faith with a girl in her arms like that.' `I'm going to school, and I'll pretend I didn't hear that.' `Like you're not jealous, little sister,' Ranma teases, pulling Dawn's head down to kiss her on the forehead, `Five gorgeous women in the house, and you're not getting any from any of them.' `Don't let my girlfriend _ever_ think you're serious about that,' Dawn laughs. `She teases well, too, so . . . ' Ranma fluffs Dawn's hair. Dawn scowls before she runs away down the stairs. -*- `She seems rather more than flattered by the attention, flirt,' Buffy says, `Which is why I treated it so seriously.' `Yep, a Sailor would be a nice asset on the hellmouth,' Ranma says, `Even more than a platoon of Hond III echos.' `You just miss being glomped by cute Asian girls,' Faith smiles, `Unlike the rest of us, who have you for that.' `I don't think it's that simple,' Ranma says, then delivers the requested glomp.' -*- Triguna wakes, blinking, then indulges in a jaw-stretching yawn. `Afternoon,' Claudia says. `And a good afternoon to you, too,' Triguna answers, truely happy for the first time in months. `Out, out of bed, we've slept most of the day away so we need to get up!' Claudia enthuses, practically bouncing them out of bed. `We're moving, we're moving,' Triguna laughs. `Where did the others sleep last night?' Claudia glances around the room. --- Log: 2005/early-middle: Worked on Seitou, planning on the new Sailors and their backstory. 2005/late: Wrote up "Baka", in which Discordia and her Slayers first appeared. 2006/June/sometime: Did a paper draft in the field at Pinon Canyon. 2006/Sept/28: started typing in the paper draft. Three (small) pages to go. 2006/Oct/13: Finished typing in paper draft, in Udari, Kuwait.