The Meese

When we made the Meese, I was thinking of the Keres from Greek mythology. (female death-spirits, also called Tenebrae, or the Darknesses,with a thirst for human blood. Hung around battlefields picking off wounded men. )  Coy was thinking of these drippy, slimy, scary ladies from Galaxy Express. This is what came of that combination. 

Personification of nightmares and creatures of darkness, as old as time. All but one take the form of women. They frequently appear in a creepy bus. All can change shape at will.  They are carnivorous and prefer humans, particularly males.  They frequently resemble dripping black shadows or have a dark aura. 

The Meese, first abstractly mentioned in the camping trip, appear in bus schedule. They are black mass-like creatures, appearing with red eyes and claws. They travel in a bus called the Hell-T-D, which has been called by it's full name, Hell-To-Dream, only a select few times.
They work by picking up males, driving through streets or finding lost passerby and seducing them, instructing them to lie down, tilt their heads back and close their eyes, upon which the vampiric meese attack en masse. (2008)

The Meese do not let women on their bus. If they like someone, they give him his fantasy, along with an audience doing whatever it is that he wishes. If they do not, they devour him. Face-sucking sounds, slurps and crunches have emanated from the bus as it rocks back and forth, within the Meese are feeding.  (2008)

Identified Meese:

Their names are literal meanings, translated from some kind of ancient proto-meese-langauge. They may not even have the words in English to describe their real names.

Moonchild: Leader of the Meese. A strong leader who interacts frequently with humans. She has a big appetite, but is unable to feed when she cannot lure humans in. She uses her mischievousness and seductiveness to trap and feed off them, but the people of the DHQ are wise to her tricks. Because of this she chooses to help them rather than eat them. 


RedEyes: The Meese's only brother. Does not, or cannot talk. His sisters are able to communicate with him silently. 

Three Meese have been named: Red-Eyes, who stares out of the bus window and uses only a blink method of talking... (2008)

Nightmare: Screeches and prevents males from escaping.

Petal: The Meese's younger sister.  Rather than being dark and shadowy, she has a bright, rainbowey aura. She wears a cheerful, easygoing personality. The other Meese seem to tolerate her, but frequently get annoyed by her presence. She also seems to only tolerate the other Meese. She doesn't particularly like them but does claim to love them because they are family. She also claims to be a vegetarian. She too, can change her appearance at will, and often changes her hair, eye and skin color to try to fit in with the humans.

• Moonchild, the bus driver. Moonchild appears to be the only Meese able to leave the bus and all other forms of hiding behind. She calls the others her sisters, although she stated that Red-Eyes was male... 
• Moonchild often leaves the bus to convince men to come aboard. She is a humanoid semi-intangible shadowy form, dripping darkness. She has an obiously female body, long hair and slanted red eyes.
• When she cannot make a male come into the bus, she deigns it 'Not a Big Loss', and moves onto the next target. No one watching feels any will towards stopping the interaction.
• Moonchild does not appear outwardly harmful, but her evil/good morality is very vague.
• She acts caring towards the men she locks onto.
• She explains things rather vaguely, and has a habit of repeating certain words twice, like friend. 

(2008)

Blush: Moonchild's daughter of unknown paternity. Was found on Katt's doorstep one morning. Katt, a young teenager at the time, panicked and dropped her off at Coy's house to be raised. Moonchild shows no maternal instinct towards Blush and rarely interacts with her. There may be a reason for this, but as of now that reason is unknown.

Pale: Moonchild's infant son, also of unknown paternity. He could have been created from magic or is a changeling. He is used as a lure, where she claims certain men are responsible for his existence and tries to make them feel accountable and bound to her. 

Interesting Facts (2008)

• The Meese seem to be very good gamblers, despite saying several times they have no need or want of money. Strangely, they would rather play for money than souls or wills. This may be because of their lethargic ability on the wills of most anyway.
• Moonchild's favorite game is Russian Roulette. So far no one has played it with her.The Meese exist in their own time/space reality, merely moving into another. 
• It is always night in the bus, shafted through the shadows by beams of moonlight. The inside of the bus has doors with sizeable rooms as well as seats, and anything needed at the time.
• Shade identified the Meese as demons, but Moonchild cried out that she had no idea they were. It is not known whether she was telling the truth or not.
• Moonchild seems very little aware of her own safety while outside of the bus.
• Meese seem to have a latent psychic hold over most people, sapping their will to do anything unless instructed.
• Meese also know their victim's loves and hates, using it greatly to their advantage in catching prey.
• Moonchild knows the names of those she adresses, but still calls them by descriptive titles most of the time, such as silver darling and small child.
• Men who seem to be attached to another person are harder to get into the bus, and Moonchild usually gives up on them quite easily.
• Moonchild allows a representative to pass unharmed into the bus to ask the victims who were accepted if they would like to come back their own house, however she seems aware of tricks and demands that they wait for the victim's answer. She also argues for the ulterior, reminding the victim of their annoyance that led them into the bus in the first place while the representative is attempting to get them to go back.
• Moonchild is passive about letting the victims leave if they want though, and it is unknown how much Meese actually need to eat.
• Carnivorous, but not exactly cannibalistic, there are child meese as well as adults. How many are actually related and how many merely called part of the family is unknown.
• Upon the wall of the bus by the driver's seat is taped a message in scrawly handwriting:

1. Meese are always convenient

2. Meese always love the one they're with

• Moonchild seems to be focused on something beyond her catch and devour game, staring loftily off most of the time. When asked what happens to the meese who do not obey the rules on the wall, she responded, "There are no Meese like that.". Further comment was unavailable on the subject.

Katarael; nature of

"Katherine" was not something Katt had not been called in many, many years.

Katt was not born with the element of water. To be honest she felt rather detached to it.  Katt was born as an aether elementalist, something that ran in her extended family- though she doubted any of them realized it. Aether is a generic element. Her great great grandfather could move things with his mind, and many of her relatives would have mild telepathic experiences every once in a while. Aetherians sometimes had a tendency to lean towards a certain element, and ever since Kat was a baby she loved air. One time she jumped off the porch and hung there, in the wind. It made her heart dance and her stomach flip, and up to that point it was the single most amazing experience of her life. Nobody except her best friend Leraco had seen. Afterwards they both took turns jumping off the porch and ended up extremely bruised, sore, and disappointed. But that’s a different story. 

Katt was born with the name of “Katherine.” But nobody knew that. Not even her parents. Not anymore.

One day her grandparents came to visit. They visited once every couple of years from the desert town where they lived, hundreds of miles away. Her grandma always brought her granddaughter gifts when she came. Katt was ten years old at the time. Her grandma cherished genealogy, and at this age, she decided, Katt could be trusted with a family heirloom.  Her grandma sat her down and told her a story about her father, and how he could always find water, even in the driest of places. It seemed to her, her grandmother had said, that he could call it out of the ground. Her father had a necklace, she told Katt, with a cold jewel, as sparkling blue as the deepest, oldest depths of the sea. And when she would look into it she could see things in the prisms, and hear things, almost like when you put your ear to sea shell, only more real.  Her father passed it onto her, and in turn she was passing it onto Katt.

Katt was thrilled to find out that when she wore the necklace she could move water. She could twist it and bend it, and make it /do/ things.

Except it wasn’t her controlling the water.

Sometimes she could hear the crystal too.

It called her Katarael. It called itself Katarael.

It was around this time that she met Dengo. He showed her the DHQ and taught her about the elements.  Katt learned that all the water elementalists were gone. She was the only one.

She decided to make water her primary element. And the more she practiced it the less she found that she could use her old abilities. 

Katherine was gone.  Gone with the aether and the air. But still, she would always be Katherine.

But she would always be Katarael too. Katarael was a shield. A shield that protected her family, her childhood, and her heart. And her parents forgot.

Nobody called her Katherine. Not even her parents.

Sometimes she regretted ever putting on that necklace. Just as one regrets growing old or moving on.