He and She: The Outcasts

She: “Dammit! These drains are a pain!”

He:A pain?”

She: “Three of a kind. Thanks for reminding me. Not. I am so sick of having to carry these things around. I feel like some sort of feeding station in an urban fantasy novel!”

He: “Vampire hummingbirds.”

She: “They only come out at night?”

He: “Didn’t work for them. They kept running into things in the dark, and when you’re buzzing around at high speed, that kinda hurts. The bats tried to teach them echolocation, but they were poor students and didn’t get it. Confrontational, and way short attention spans.”

She: “Too much blood sugar?”

He: “Something like that. So some of them started venturing out into the day. Suddenly found they could see where they were going, and they were going fast enough so that the sun didn’t bother them. Hummingbird traffic fatalities went way down. But the other vampires started murmuring. Jealous, y’know. ‘How come they can survive daylight when we can’t?‘, that sort of thing.

“And because they could see, they started dressing up really fancy, and – being hummingbirds, after all – they started boasting about it to the other vampires. Who, of course, couldn’t see what they were talking about in the dark. That was the last straw. The vampire hummingbirds were expelled from the guild, and banned forever from the twilight.”

She:Outcasts!”

He: “Yeah. And they almost went extinct. Not exactly easy to sneak up on creatures that can see you as well as you see them. And the vampire hummingbirds are at least as loud, and as obnoxious, as the flower-feeding kind. So they didn’t get a whole lot to eat. They were reduced to feeding on roadkill, and, of course, many of them became roadkill themselves. A bit of poetic justice, that. Trading one kind of traffic problem for another.”

She: “And they survived how?”

He: “They discovered surgery patients. Sympathetic ones. They became something of a fashion statement: a living cloud of gems decorating your space, and reducing the work of keeping your drains drained. The first groups were attached to humans who loved birds but had no particular connection to the supernatural. Really personal bird feeders.

“Then they came to the attention of Wicca, and now they’re mostly associated with the Crimson Sparkle Club, a blood cult. Mostly in the name of vanity. They’re poor familiars – flighty, self-centered, untrustworthy. But they are pretty, and if your colony’s large enough, they can drain the blood from enemies and gain you an advantage in single combat, physical or magical. Except against ghosts or spirits, or aliens with undigestible blood. Then, you’re on your own. You hope.”

She: “You hope?

He: “They’re already used to drinking your blood. They don’t care whether it’s from your feeders or from your wounds.”

She: “Uh huh.”

He: “Enough plot complications for you to get started with?”

She: “And you complain about my dreams!”

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5 Responses to He and She: The Outcasts

  1. nathhoke says:

    What are you doing up at this hour?
    This is funny, but of course the drains are a pain for sure.

  2. Quilly says:

    Thief! The Vampire Hummingbird line was mine! Geez, let a dude wait on you hand and foot and help you with all your bodily needs and he becomes an idea vampire! Except, I really like that bit about the Wiccan cult and may need to use it.

  3. Ha! You two are clever:) Here’s hoping those drains are history soon!

  4. Terry Duff says:

    Better to laugh than cry…

  5. Pingback: He and She: Breakfast Has Broken | Dude & Dude

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