Absit Omen RPG

Dido's hands went behind her back as the boss levelled a real lesson down on their visitor's head, and she failed to repress a smile - sometimes working for Ballentyne was worth the weird notes she sent to Carstairs. Most of the time, actually.

Ambrose endeared himself further to her by explaining his cousin's motiviations. Come to think of it, they didn't look that much different in age, but the wizard was obviously way more mature. Funny. In Dido's experience, witches were usually the level headed ones. Zeta Pepper was looking as red as her hair, and excused herself without so much of a goodbye.

Her ma would have pulled her ear for acting like that. Dido was about to say as much, when she clocked Ballentyne's eyeroll.

"Set up an interview?" she repeated the werewolf's orders but quickly got in line. "Really? Whatever you say boss."

Clicking her heels, Dido's shoes bounced back into rollerskates; she saluted the Head of the Werewolf Wing before pushing off to go after Peppers #1 and #2. They hadn't got far. She caught up with them in the passageway just outside the bullpen, skating ahead and twisting about to roll backwards as she faced the pair.

"What were you, raised in a barn?" Dido clicked her tongue, more at Zeta than Ambrose. "Ballentyne says you can get a lil interview with her if you're desperate. Like, some other day, when she ain't about to turn."

Merlin knew why they chose today of all days. "But don't take it the wrong way," she raised her eyebrows, "I got my eye on you."

Dido thought it was cool that Ballentyne didn't just take the whole day off. Sometimes she felt like calling in sick when she was having a bad period day but here Bruce was powering through the hours before a full moon like a badass. She smiled, typically chipper, at the older witch joining them.

            “Er, hi, erm, sorry, this is Zeta, Zeta Pepper, my cousin.”

Oh, cousin. Oops. Dido stifled a laugh. Awk-ward. Maybe they did resemble each other kind of. It was hard to tell. Seemed like half of wizarding England was related to each other.

The redhead visitor explained the purpose of her visit and Dido's expression turned a little incredulous at her words. Obviously she knew about the whole SAWS thing but she found it sus that there weren't any werewolves heading it up. Hand still on her hip, she tilted her head to the side.

"That's kind of messed up," she commented before the big boss could. "Like, it's not a museum..." Dido felt instinctively protective of the werewolves she saw gathering to enter their cells every full moon.

It was weird to her that anyone who wasn't a Lycan would want to come and gawk at a room that bore witness to one of the worst things a werewolf experienced. That felt so private. Who hoped to see something like that? Was she going to go back and tell her werewolf friends about how she understood them better now that she'd seen the cell?

Dido decided that Zeta didn't share Ambrose's chill vibes. Little creep.

Hyper aware of Ballentyne's presence, though, she shrugged and glanced at the witch: "I can take 'em to see the cell that's being repaired if you want though, boss."

She was transfixed for a moment, more fascinated by the vampire's pauses than by his words. That's how she knew it was something to behold a werewolf on a full moon: even someone as old as Laz here couldn't find the words.

A werewolf, jumping off a tower? Dido couldn't even picture that. What a wild image! Or like he said: crazy crazy crazy.

"Me?" she snorted and took a longer sip of her drink before sliding it aside, something to look at later after the bite. "Not yet. I missed seeing one the other night. They were floating it into a cell or something, like a balloon."

That had been a disappointment. "Is it weird that I kind of want to see one?" she looked at Lazarus frankly.

Dido was heading back to the Werewolf Wing, helped along by rollerskates and an attitude that silently warned people to get out of her way. She had just dropped off a bunch of files and forms for the Department Head to sign because later he would be filling in for Bruce on this holy night of the full moon.

Whatever that meant. Spectre pottered about and wrote reports and looked cool but Dido was the one zipping around, come evening. She was Ballentyne's assistant and in her boss's absence, she made herself as useful as she could. Kinda.

             "So werewolves come here every full moon? And do what?" a unfamiliar voice prodded as Dido glided back into the werewolf wing.

She spotted Pepper first, from Beasts, and then the long red hair of a young witch poking their bulletin board. "They sit down and take tea with the Queen!" Dido exclaimed, coming to a halt and tapping the back wheels of her roller skates twice, so that they flattened down into regular shoes. "What do you think? They check-in and walk into their five star hotel bedrooms. Wake up feeling refreshed to room service."

Dido smiled at Ambrose; she liked him about as much as she liked most of the Beast Handlers. They weren't Einsteins but they were nice. Einsteins probably cheated on his wife or something.

"What's up Peps," she raised her eyebrows, hand on hip. "Bring your girlfriend to work day?"

"Nocturnal like an owl," she confirmed and made a low, musical hooting noise before laughing to herself.

In spite of her complaints, Dido relished those busy nights on level four. There were days at the Ministry where nothing seemed to move except for paperwork and mouths - but on a full moon, gods, the whole place was jumping. Even the department head hung about until the early hours of the morning; she caught sight of him often enough, smoking cigarettes and dropping off reports on Ballentyne's desk.

"I record, I watch, I make myself useful..." Dido sipped her gin and tonic. "The hunters, they don't need to waste time on paperwork. So, voila, I come along on roller skates and take it all away."

She gestured, as if performing wandless magic. "Dead boring but I get a kick out of watching 'em come and go. Crazy wixes."

Well shesaid they were crazy but Dido meant they were brave. And she envied them some, their commitment and camaraderie. It was like with the aurors without all that dark magic business.

"Have you ever seen a werewolf?" she asked abruptly, and felt surprised by the fact that it had never occurred to ask before. "On a full moon?"

She liked getting to Hooker's through Camden Town. London was still a novelty to Dido and she made it a point to let her eyes feast.

By the time she turned into the warded streets and through the bar doors, she was quite full of Camden's fantastic shop signs; its busy, Saturday night folk, the blasting of music as people opened club doors to leave. Dido hung up her jacket (nobody stole shit from a vampire bar) before heading over to the bar for a drink from Anaïs.

                "Dido T, come back to me, I see?"

"Hey hey," she smiled easily as she slid into her usual seat with a gin and tonic. "Been a hot minute, huh? Feels like it anyway. Full moons, man."

After Thursday night, all the witch wanted was to unwind with the 'drug' of her choice and talk at ease. Laz was great about that. There was something about vampires, especially the older ones, she felt like they'd seen it all and this somehow lessened the significance of her own problems or complaints. In a good way.

Dido had been coming here for a few months now, ever since Nemo alerted her[1] to the existence of the vampire bar. "What's good?" she sipped, taking her time.

Once you got used to the song and dance, there was no reason to feel urgent about getting bit. Dido liked this place and she liked Lazarus. It was somewhere to go. Quiet and her own, at least for now.

1.	14th April - And Then There Were Two

Warehouse Residence, East London. 1900 hours.


She lit up, taking a couple of puffs before handing the joint over to Saoirse. Dido leaned back against the iron wrought banister of the balcony and looked to her side at the view of a glistening river cutting through east London's marshes. They were at a warehouse party in a part of town that had yet to be gentrified by muggle Londoners.

Out here there was nothing but terrace houses along rivers or canals, and boat homes floating peacefully in the golden light of a soon-to-be-setting sun. Quirky shops, overgrown garden parks, the unmistakeable scent of someone cooking jerk chicken in their vicinity.

If she looked to the other side of the balcony, which jutted out from the warehouse building, Dido would see more marshes and the familiar sight of construction cranes building a muggle mall.

"It's not boring," she was complaining to her friend about work, "but, like, I am getting bored."

There were a few other wixes out here, everyone in their own little groups smoking cigarettes or gillyweed. The party went on indoors, across three floors, a medley of things happening at once. Live music, dancing, board games, drinking games... the usual for whenever someone in the arts scene was throwing a big one.

Dido wasn't even sure whose party they were at. "My ma says I'm getting a case of the grass is greener on the other side. I don't know. I'm just not feeling it anymore," she took off her hat, shaking out her curls in the August heat. "But that's me these days. How you been?"

It was weird to think that as she was working on four the week before last, Saoirse was getting her wolf on in some hidden safehouse out there.

Was she? Wonderful?

Dido stuck out her tongue between her teeth, neither confirming nor denying the statement. She got up and followed the other girl back down - they left behind their makeshift ashtray for future excursions or like-minded neighbours. The night had begun with plans to listen to the Wireless and it would stay on that track, one way or another.

When they got back into the warm flat, Dido hung up her scarf and focused on the noise off the radio.

"Sounds like he's about to do his whole," she gestured with one hand, "you know, sit down and I'll tell you whodunnit act."

But then, predictably, the show went to advertisements and Dido decided to disappear into the bathroom. She rejoined the other girl after a moment, make-up dissolved and face gleaming with her nightly layers of creams and oils.

"Okay! I'm ready for the finale!" she fell back on the sofa with a satisfied sigh - nothing better than that gillyweed couch-lock. "Hand me that popcorn."

She wondered. Maybe vampires promised something else, something people like Nemo and Dido couldn't dream of because they were so young. Practically children compared to some of them.

"Sylvia Plath and a violin!" she echoed as she dropped herself back on the stool, whistling. What a theatre kid! The kind Dido would have made fun of at Ilvermony... but here? In this place, at this point of her life? She thought it was kind of cool that Nemo could do that, just unapologetically feeling whatever she wanted to feel.

Dido listened with a hazy smile, letting the words wash over her. A voice like coals, a mysterious vampire. A curious one! Wasn't that nice, she thought in her gillyweed-addled mind!

To be so old, probably, and so curious about stuff? That was hopeful. Sometimes Dido felt jaded, felt like the myth of the New Yorker who'd seen it all and didn't ask unnecessary questions.

But if a vampire could still be curious, so could she. Always asking questions and being open to the world, like on this rooftop.

            "Who names their baby Lazarus?"

"I dunno. Someone with a sick baby?" Dido yawned, smiling at her friend in a dreamy way, as if this conversation were a dream. "Like, back in old times, they didn't name babies right away. My grandma was called honey until she was eight months old or something...."

She trailed off, tasting the candy in her mouth. "Maybe some lady had a sick baby, and she thought, hey, I'll call him Lazarus?" Dido made a grand gesture with both arms suddenly. "And voila! Jesus gave her blue-faced baby a breath of life!"

The curly-haired witch laughed before lowering her arms and rubbing her face tiredly.

"Weren't we doing something? Poirot?" she peeked at Nemo between her fingers, brows lowering.

She grinned at Nemo's use of the word darling, sounding very much like one of her aunties greeting her at the doorstep after a period of many years - they were only missing exclamations of how much she had grown since she was seven.

Dido stored her honey sweet in the cheek of her mouth as she took a long drag of the joint, which was burning down to its expiry.

"Yeah, I've seen Vaillancourt smoking on level four," she dreamily conjured the image in her head of the bored looking Frenchman leaning over the Beings secretary's desk with an unlit cigarette in his mouth. "It's funny, huh? Old man in a body like that."

The witch got up, incited by the gillyweed, leaning forward against the ledge wall to look down at the street below: Saturday night, drunk groups toddling along to their next destination. Or maybe home. It was easy to think everyone else was having a wilder evening when you choose to spend yours cosy in the flat.

"Do you think vampires get married? To, like, each other?" she handed the rest of the joint back to Nemo to finish. "I would attend a vampire wedding. Bet they know how to party. Unless," Dido snorted, "I'm an hors d'oeuvre."

M for mature sexual themes.

Dido's eyebrows went up incredulously, surprised by the other girl's over-the-top reaction. There was something definitely sexy about vampires and she didn't think it was that transgressive to bang one. Between the gillyweed and Capri Sun comment, her surprise took a tickled form and she couldn't help laughing again.

"Girl vampire, boy vampire, whatever..." she trailed off, shrugging as she handed the joint back in the hopes that it would loosen Nemo up a little.

Although her scale of experience weighed in favour of ladies, she didn't much see how it made a difference to vampiric speculations. She unfolded her legs and stretched, arms in the air.

"I wouldn't bang one during like a new moon or something. That's when they're crazy hungry, apparently." Dido yawned and looked at Nemo interestedly. "There's just like... something hot about the idea of sleeping with someone dangerous? Aren't you curious?"

That's all this was to her: curiosity. Not that she'd go looking for trouble. More that if trouble landed in her lap, well, she wasn't gonna push it away without thinking about it first.

Dido took out a couple of candies, different from the ones she'd been snacking on downstairs. "And I bet they're real good at it too, loads of experience or whatever," she handed a candy to Nemo and winked.

She snorted, gillyweed going straight to her head. Too young! Maybe vampires looked at wixes like wines... too young a vintage was a no-no. Could they even tell? Could they smell young blood? These questions swam circles in her head while she had another go on the joint.

            "I thought vampires were, like, illegal here."

"I don't think folk like them here?" Dido frowned a little. "But totally not illegal, they even get blood bags courtesy of our department. I guess everyone's gotta eat."

Working for the Werewolf Wing had been a crash course in so much stuff. Werewolves, yeah, but Dido was picking up all kinds of info from everyone else on four - she had to, socialising with the other assistants, or she'd look like a real ignoramus. People loved gossiping about vampires anyway. That's what they were doing right now, wasn't it?

The witch blew a cloud of smoke, obscuring the sight of London's lights for a second. "You think all vampires are..." she cough-laughed, "Lechy? Maybe they get bored with all that time on their hands. French guy is like a hundred and something years old."

Dido shuddered and giggled at the same time, passing the joint. "Oh man that makes it even grosser!" A grin pulled at her lips. "But I don't know. I wouldn't mind, if it was just a one time thing... fucking, not volunteering," she clarified with another giggle.

Whaaaat! Vampires!

"You're fucking with me," she exclaimed, joint hanging in her mouth as she grabbed her shawl off their coat hanger by the door. "That's wicked." Dido loved using that word - it made her feel like she was really getting the hang of British-isms or whatever. Plus, you know, vampire bar? Definitely earned the descriptor.

As she waited for Nemo to get her wand, the witch wrapped her neck up and searched her hanging coat for candy to snack on when they were on the roof.


"Vampires are creepy, huh?" Dido mused through a cloud of gillyweed smoke, passing the joint.

The rooftop at Dorothea's was peopled by potted herbs here and there, though otherwise pretty bare. Some wooden stools were stacked in a corner, and Dido found an empty can (pickled newt tails) to use as an ashtray. She folded her long legs up and balanced precariously on her stool.

"I only saw them at, like, a distance back home..." she looked out across the city, distant lights of central London forming a pretty sight. "But we got one at the Ministry," Dido laughed suddenly and lifted her hands in air quotes. "Consultant vampire. Fancy French dude, kind of hot."

Or maybe he wasn't. Sometimes she wondered if she found European guys hot because they were exotically European or because they were actually hot. "So...were you a volunteer?" she glanced at Nemo curiously. "At Hooker's?"

Maybe her flatmate was freakier than she realised.

Nemo headed into the kitchen, and Dido didn't make it a point to notice - she was ticked off about the whole don't-want-negativity thing anyway. Ads were still running; she realised it must have been a kind of intermission so she got up and went to her room to get her gillyweed pouch.

The other witch got back just as Dido settled down at the coffee table again, smoothing out smoking paper to roll them a joint.

           "Do you know about Camden Town Hookers?"

Her long fingers worked delicately but with a kind of ruthless ease borne of practice, twisting an old steel grinder. "Camden Town I know, it's where I get my green..." she paused to open the grinder and started pinching the ground herb onto the sheet.

"Hookers, nope. Is it like," Dido's lips twitched into a cackle, "Like, a magical bordello or something? Please let it be a bordello. I could totally picture one in that part of town."

Smiling, she tapped and rolled up the joint quickly enough. Dido used her long nails to twist the thin end before raising it in Nemo's direction.

"Crack a window or do we go rooftop?"

The boiled sweet rolled around in her mouth, tart and saccharine. Murder on the Orient Express had gone into advertisements - some jingle or other about specialty condoms, which proved the hour late.

"You sound like my kid brothers." Dido raised her eyebrows as she leaned back on her hands. "They don't read the papers either. Ma's always telling 'em to though. Like, they're gonna know shit about this country if they don't right? But they keep saying they're gonna grow up and go back to New York, so whatever."

The unimpressed look on her face was not dissimilar to the one that stole over whenever Ballentyne was trying to do something lame, like harass[1] Abby's boss. She thought the little witch knew her way around town but it sounded like there wasn't a lot more than met the eye - she was just a kid.

"My grandma likes the personals." Dido grinned, glancing at herself in the mirror and tilting her chin up to see if the bronzer had helped sharpen her jawline. "Circles her fav ones, says crazy got no nationality. Same on both sides of the pond."

1.	January 2012 - This Could Have Gone in a Memo