XXVII.

[hellshaped]

[Let's say this is backdated to a more respectable time of day, how about that!

Carnivals aren't really to Hellboy's tastes, so he's chilling a little ways away from the festival ground, just looking at everything from a distance.

Eventually, he takes out his journal and pens a filter.]

[Priest filter]
[The following is written in a slightly slanted script (he is left-handed, natch.)]

I know there used to be some of you here. I was wondering if all of you left.

[There's a brief pause in the writing.]

Preferably Catholic. But I'm not going to be picky.
[/filter]

[And a bit later, after his business with Cesare is concluded, he can be found sort of in the general vicinity of the church in town as well. Inside, outside, wherever.]

[ooc. open action for gazing at the carnival and wandering around the church!]

Comments

[hellshaped]

I think I can manage that. Lead on, Macduff.

[huntersdaughter]

[She'll loop her arm into his. It's appropriate for an escort.]

You grew up around people, right? I mean, it wasn't some weird keep you isolated thing, like in the movies... was it? And if I ask something I shouldn't, just tell me.

[hellshaped]

[He gladly offers his arm, though he's a little taken aback by the question. Not that it's offensive to him or anything, but apart from Kate and Molotov, nobody's really been all that interested in his childhood during his entire time here.

Nobody's been that interested in his childhood while he was in the real world, either, for that matter.]

Yeah, sort of. I grew up on a military base in New Mexico, so there were a lot of people around. There weren't any kids my own age to play around with, but I grew up fast anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

[huntersdaughter]

Grew up fast -- we're not talking a Tom Petty song sort of thing, we're talking you were big for your age - thing?

[hellshaped]

[Chuckling, he gestures at himself.] More like I've looked like this since I was eight.

[huntersdaughter]

You're not ten now, are you? [That'd be awkward.]

[hellshaped]

Nope. Sixty-five. [He tilts his head a little.] I hope I don't act like I'm ten.

[huntersdaughter]

[Okay, so awkward in another way.]

No, you don't, but there's that old soul thing that some kids have. [That old soul thing that kids have that is creepy.]

[hellshaped]

[Sort of! But he's a demon, so that's ... not as awkward, right? Maybe they age differently.]

In my experience, kids like that are nothing but trouble. Usually they literally have an old soul inside them. [This might be a joke.]

[huntersdaughter]

That... is an interesting theory.

[hellshaped]

[He shrugs a little, smiling thinly.]

I could have just witnessed one too many exorcisms, too.

[huntersdaughter]

I've performed a number of them, but never on kids.

[hellshaped]

Really? What is it you do back home, anyway?

[huntersdaughter]

I'm a hunter... but not of deer. More along the supernatural line of things.

[hellshaped]

I guess some people would consider me to be the same thing.

[huntersdaughter]

Remind me not to drink around you, then. [she smiles.]

[hellshaped]

Why's that? I've always told some of my best stories over a beer.

[huntersdaughter]

My loss is very specific. I'm a really good hunter. Grew up around them, raised into a family of them... I'm good at what I do, even if other hunters don't seem to want to agree about a girl being good at the job.

The castle, decides that if I try to get one over on a hunter -- it'll flip it on me. If I try to do good, it makes it shit. If I try to do a shit job, it makes it good. If I try to drink and not get drunk - yeah, I get plastered.

It's... charming.

[hellshaped]

[Hellboy is quiet for a second, working that out. What a complicated loss ...]

Well, you don't really have to worry. The castle made it so I can't get drunk at all.

[huntersdaughter]

[It makes sense when her writer just puts it down on paper as "She can't hustle a hunter." but since she doesn't have the benefit of that nifty explanation, she gets to just rattle it all off.]

Well, we're quite a pair.

[hellshaped]

[He chuckles.] Seems that way. Peas in a pod.

[huntersdaughter]

I'm sure there are worse vegetables to be.

[hellshaped]

Water chestnuts. Sure. I don't know if those are even a vegetable.

[huntersdaughter]

White crunchy things in Chinese food, right? No thanks.

[hellshaped]

Exactly. They don't taste like anything. Pretty much the world's most useless food.