The First DSU Meeting After the Holy Water Incident

Chloe forced herself to walk to the DSU meeting, and she left her human shape charm in her purse. She felt exposed, wary the entire time, even with Ozerchabal following her around. But still, she was seen out in the open. She wasn't hiding. She didn't look afraid, even if she felt it.

It would be the first time she'd seen many of these people since the incident - when Xavier Joiner dumped holy water on her in the cafeteria, in what she'd thought at the time might be an attempt on her life. The court case had come and gone, and Xavier was still a free man. He had also drowned and come back as a merman, apparently, and some people quietly wondered if Chloe had tried to return the favor by putting out a hit on him.

A lot of people were scared, angry, or both. Chloe felt like she had to do something to address that. Talking with Jude had helped, but she still wasn't looking forward to it. She tried to tell herself it would be safe in here. She tried not to think about how many of the club's members were called "Michael."

For now, she was just meeting people as they came in. She expected to get crowded a little bit, considering how scarce she'd made herself for the last few weeks. People probably wanted to talk to her, see how she was doing.

DSU meetings weren't usually this somber before they started.

"Oh! I'm Chloe," she said, shaking the hand that was offered. "It's good to meet you, Raella." Her spade-tipped tail twitching behind her, she was just about to say something else when Liliana came to greet her.

"Don't mind at all! I wouldn't be advertising the meetings on posters if I wanted to exclude people. All are welcome." And punctuating that with a brief smile, she would try to pick her conversation with Raella back up where she left it.

"Anyway, yeah, I'm actually the one who started this club. Been running it since then, for about three years. Is it... current events that brought you here this evening? Or are you new to the school?" She hoped it wasn't the second thing. What a nightmare of a first impression this mess must be giving people.

Chloe managed a smile for Raella.

This whole situation sucked. She was probably more terrified than anyone else here. She'd been taking these ridiculous precautions to protect herself, like wearing disguises and taking different routes just to pick stuff up from the grocery store. She hadn't wanted to risk walking between classes.

Chloe felt like a coward. And now she felt obligated to look strong and brave and calm everyone else down, about the incident that might have been an attempt on her life. She didn't want to be out here telling people it was all alright.

"That's more than alright," Chloe told Raella, nodding. "Makes sense, too. Nice to meet you, Raella."

It was probably too late to call the whole thing off.

Some more people came over to say hi to her, verify that she was okay, remark on how they hadn't seen her a lot since the incident, stuff like that. They would reach a few minutes past their planned starting time before Chloe finally called for everyone's attention. She was holding a piece of paper now, with her writing on it.

"So... before we start. I know we've had a crazy few weeks, and I'd like to say a few words about them." She cleared her throat, and took a moment to look back down at her notes. "First, a recap, so we're all on the same page. A couple of weeks ago, a guy called Xavier dumped holy water on me. It didn't injure me, thankfully. I got the police involved, and got them to investigate it as a potential hate crime or murder attempt. He got off charged with just assault, when it was found that he didn't know it was holy water, and he thought it was just a prank."

Chloe could hear grumbles and murmurs from the other demons. Not a lot of people believed that he could really be so innocent, and they weren't shy about sharing that belief.

"Actually, I think he was telling the truth." Chloe said.

That shut them up real fast.

"Or at least... the truth as best he knows it. He didn't seem to have that kind of motive, or any kind of connection to the kinds of hate groups that might put him up to this. We can't know for sure if he was mind controlled or blackmailed into it, but as far as we can tell, something crazy like that gives him a clearer motivation than anything he would choose for himself. So we shouldn't be directing our anger at him. It's true he's not blameless, but he's not the way I've seen people talking about him online, either.

"I've also been receiving strange and threatening packages in the mail. The other day..." She sighed. This was probably not helping a lot, but she'd already brought it up. "I got a box full of crow's feet and blood. And beaks." She shifted her weight where she stood. Her own scaly legs might look something like those crow's feet, if you squint. "We're not sure who sent it, but it couldn't have been Xavier.

"It seems like being targeted, but for better or worse we can't be sure why. It might not even be speciesism. There's a lot we don't know, but the best thing we can probably do is stay vigilant, and try to find a way to prevent this kind of thing from happening again."

She started folding up her paper. "So. Any... questions about any of that?"

There would be.