WOULD YOU KINDLY? | verse

[castafiore]

THE HOUSE GUEST They are demons and they are parasites. Their main weapons are manners, etiquette, and the sort of beguiling qualities that most can't really resist. (People can be a little too trusting, you see. Sometimes it's ever so easy to be invited in.) The gist is this: the house guests will prey upon anyone so long as they have an established address. (Trailers and similar spaces are fair game. It is only those who lack the shelter of four walls that are never considered food.) They will insinuate themselves into the lives of their prey, first with small things (such as using the telephone or borrowing a cup of sugar), then with slightly bigger things (such as staying for lunch and then dinner and then staying over), and then moving in completely. Once that's done, the house guest will choose a night, and, upon that date, devour the victim(s) completely. There are some exceptions, of course — house guests who force their way in and have no conception of subtlety, but those tend not to last long (thanks to the all-too capable hands of their peers). Bred from small sins and larger devils, the house guests will usually choose some sort of phrase to serve as their hook into a household, whether it be something as simple as if you please or if you wouldn't mind. This is not a necessary element, and some choose to operate without. What is considered typical, however, is the use of beauty as a way in, under the principle of 'the more attractive the features are, the harder they are to resist.' Unfortunately, this is the sort of thing that house guests have little control over, as their genes determine that (when they are born, they grow from typical infancy and simply stop aging outwardly at a certain point — which point that is varies from house guest to house guest). That said, there is an element of natural selection that goes on and the majority of house guests could easily be considered beautiful. (Those who are not, in the eyes of their peers, tend to resort to being more conscious of their style of dress, etc., to compensate.) House guests are immortal as far as natural life span goes (unless they starve to death), but they can be killed by either other house guests or any supernatural entities that are more powerful than they are. They cannot be killed by humans by any means; any injuries they sustain will mend and any destroyed appendages will regenerate. However, if any house guest is known to have been discovered by humans, they will be killed by other house guests and the humans in question will subsequently be destroyed. The main goal of house guests is to get their work done without ever being discovered (and to that end, they are a fairly rare breed), which is why their usual modus operandi is so understated and subtle, and any who threaten that status quo are taken care of. To a certain extent, the forms of the house guests are simply fronts. When the time comes to feed, they can unhinge their jaws, and their true sets of teeth are generally akin to those of typical storybook monsters — many in number and each and every last one as deadly as the rest. They require flesh and blood to survive, and only that of humans. They do not possess any other special supernatural powers, but they do possess a sort of glamour (although that depends upon the specific house guest) as well as a certain amount of brute strength. As far as exceptions go, there are the occasional house guests who don't bother with the veneer of harmlessness, but unless they are particularly strong, they will be taken care of by their kin. There are also house guests who have fallen for their hosts, but and in those cases, there usually isn't intervention. If it happens to be in the form of romantic attachment, it's left up to the house guest to explain why the child has so many teeth.