[Dice Testing for Verna! How many times does she strike out with her shy self at seducing tasty people?]
[Appearance + Subterfuge, diff 6+2 (shy) -- The approach]
Roll: 5 d10 TN8 (3, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Verna @ 3:32PM
[Wits + Subterfuge + 1 success dice, diff 6+2 (shy) -- Witty repartee]
Roll: 7 d10 TN8 (2, 3, 3, 8, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Verna @ 3:34PM
[Charisma + Empathy + 3 success dice, diff 6+2 (shy) -- suggestive conversation]
Roll: 9 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Verna @ 3:35PM
[Wow, go Verna. Okay, how hungry are you? Roll + Generation]
Roll: 1 d10 TN8 (10) ( success x 1 )
Verna @ 3:36PM
[No, you have to be a little hungry...]
Roll: 1 d10 TN8 (5) ( fail )
[And thus, we find out that Verna had no trouble at all... Roll 10s much, eh?]
It's a little past nine when Verna catches sight of her prey for the evening. She's alone at a table in a bar, listening to jazz and feeling like the world owes her a massive favor or five, dressed in black leggings and a short, red dress with a wide belt. He's a blond, lanky thing in a grey suit that doesn't fit, but she's willing to overlook some things. At least he's wearing a suit. That's a plus. And she has a thing for blondes.
She watches, pretending not to care while he strikes out one after another with each woman he strikes up the courage to hit with a pick-up line or free drink. He's terrible at it. And that's just perfect. There's something about desperation in a man that's such a turn-off to most women. To Verna, it's like a neon "drink me" sign. She might not be able to land him, but hey -- at least the odds are better.
Her odds get even better when he gives up, slides up onto a barstool and starts telling the tender such amazing things as "Why is it always the man's job to do all the asking? Just once I'd like to be asked out. Is that too much to ask?"
She roots around in her purse, goes for a compact and her lip stain, and whiles away a few minutes making sure her appearance is in order, practices what she's going to say when she walks up to the bar. Self-assuredness. Calm. Stature. Grace. She can do this. She's done it before. It will all work out, because it has to.
Her heart doesn't pound anymore, she doesn't sweat. The only thing to worry about as far as tipping her hand is her mannerisms. She has to try hard not to squeak or stammer, she reminds herself. The first few steps in his direction are timid, but the rest aren't. It's a matter of survival, this. She gives a smile to the bartender, who's doing his thing, being an impromptu therapist as is a part of his profession.
"Hi. A drink for the cute guy. On me," she says, and slips a twenty onto the bar. This is followed by a smirk at the direction of the prey. Yes, she heard all of that, and she's going to very well use it.
"And what will you be having, miss?" asks the tender. Of course, he has to. The other part of his profession is selling product. It's tempting to respond with 'Him'. But that's too obvious, a word her prey might roll over in his head later, wondering about. What did David say? That she'll be expected to at least pretend at social events to consume something other than blood? A glance at the specials menu, and Verna finds a thing called a blood martini on the list (supposedly made with grape and blackberry), which raises a brow. If only. This place must know its clientèle.
"Lavender lemon drop, please."
She smiles at the man to her left, who's looking like he can't believe what just happened. That, and it seems he's a bit disappointed at his luck. Perhaps he was expecting some bombshell of a woman to come swooping in and sweep him off his feet. It's the kind of thing Verna waited for for a long time. It just doesn't happen. "So, what do you do?" she asks. It's better to get them talking about themselves. People love talking about themselves, usually. And it avoids her having to lie through her teeth about her own situation.
Turns out, Michael is in finance. Michael makes enough money that he feels like women should be crawling all over him. But Michael is a bit of a prat, a thing that's obvious within the first few minutes of his opening his mouth. Verna just smiles and listens and agrees with everything. There's plenty who would stick around for his inanity for the chance at his money, except that he goes on about gold-diggers and prenups and how he isn't going to get caught. Verna fake-sips at her lavender-lemon-flavored drink and makes a face. Far too lemony, she says. Not sweet enough.
Michael ends up drinking it instead, which is perfect. He's tipsy when they get on the subject of his desires.
"I've heard a lot about what you hate about women, but what do you like?" Verna asks, and looks into his eyes while sliding a foot over to touch his ankle.
"Redheads," he says. Verna's not a redhead. What a charming specimen, no? But she keeps up the pretense of being interested. "They're fiery, you know? Hotheaded in more than one way?"
"So you like a woman who takes charge?"
"Absolutely."
"You think I could take charge, despite my horrible black hair?" she says, and slides her foot up his leg.
He blinks, looking a bit sheepish. "It's not horrible." Then, he leans in toward her, going for something a bit more intimate than footsie.
Oh, no. Verna leans back on her barstool, trying to keep his lips from reaching hers. He'll notice the coldness for sure. Hands are easy to explain away as poor circulation, but lips? Tongues? How is this supposed to work in practice? She slips off of her seat.
"What the hell? I thought we were getting somewhere," Michael says, his fingers curling into a fist on the bar.
She grabs on to his shirt, pulling him in so she can level her lips to his ear, and reminding herself of how important this is. "If you don't follow me to the bathroom in five minutes, I'll be so disappointed."
How's that for taking charge? Has Michael ever seen a woman just jump from casual conversation right to 'meet me in the bathroom' before? Likely not. She was never this easy as a mortal. As Kindred, everything changes. It has to. She just has to remember who she's doing this for. If she can manage this, she can tell David -- not everything -- but he'll know how she hunts on her own. He'll be happy. Certainly, someday, he'll be happy with her. She won't just be the dead albatross hanging from his neck.
She closes her eyes and takes a sigh of a breath on her way to the men's room. Ready for this? Would anybody be ready for this? She tries not to let her doubts seep into her body language as she goes, but it's tough. How do you appear confident when you really aren't? But, head held high, she strides into the forbidden zone of masculinity, and goes to refresh her mascara in the mirror.
Michael finds her bent over the sink, appearing to stab at her eyes with the mascara wand, and she catches him checking out her ass. Mirrors are wonderful things like that. He comes up from behind and puts his hands on the counter to either side of her, leaning his body onto hers. He's so warm. So close. She puts the mascara away, tucking it into her purse.
"You don't have to do that. I like it when girls don't wear a lot of make-up," he says, grinding against her backside.
Verna squirms her body around in order to face him, not bothering to try to disguise the hunger she holds for his warmth. He might take it to mean a different kind of hunger. "I thought you said you liked a woman who takes charge," she says, and worms her hand down between his legs. "Go pick a stall and put your hands on the wall, or I will leave you here. Understand?"
Oh, his eyes go wide, and he gets the stupidest of grins on his face, expecting a thing that is not going to happen. He backs off and trundles off, and she follows him close behind, the smell of his living body drawing her onward. She wants him, but not for the reasons he thinks. Alcohol has made his decision-making sub-par along with his standards, and this man who worries so much about getting caught is about to be.
It's she who leans her body atop his after she enters the (nice mahogany stained-wood) stall. He looks at her with a shit-eating grin on his face, so she grabs him by the hair and gently drags his head in another direction. With the other, she closes the stall door, locking it with a click. A glance at the wall he's leaning on shows that he's facing a freshly-drawn rendition of a cock-and-balls with a smiley face in Sharpie marker. Apparently even at a high-class place like this, boys will still be boys. So, she smashes his nose into it, making him get real close and personal, so she won't have to see it.
"You like this?" Verna asks, a bit incredulous.
"Why don't you cop a feel and find out?"
Verna rolls her eyes, can't believe she's doing this, can't believe this man. But then, that's the reason she had him facing the wall to begin with, right? He won't get to see her or how she feels about trading sex for food. She tries to make it good for him, sliding her hand over his clothed body slowly before getting to the engorged thing at the front of his pants. He likes this. And she's too close to his thudding pulse to care about how indecent it all is anymore.
Her arms wrap around his chest to undo the buttons of his shirt, and he starts breathing hard with the anticipation. She makes it down to his pants, and unbuttons those too, unzips and slides her hand inside, and he tenses at her icy fingers touching that soft skin so flushed with blood. "Hey! Ow! Cold!" he exclaims, and tries to back away from the wall.
"Hands on the wall or I stop," she says, hoping the command sticks.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Good boy."
His warmth bleeds into her chill as she wraps her fingers around his shaft and slides a firm grip up and down the silken skin, pulling it out of his boxer shorts. Soon, her fingers aren't ice anymore, thanks to the warmth of friction and a heavy pulse. He groans out the name that she gave him. Rachael.
Someone else opens the door to the bathroom, to Verna's momentary mortal terror, but whoever it is beats a hasty retreat from the obvious noise going on.
It's time, she thinks. Michael won't question an orgasm now. The interloper has retreated. So, she resumes her grip on his hair and pulls his neck into reach.
"Oh, God," he says, panting with the spike of pleasure. Somebody walking in on them didn't seem to stem his tide. She unsheaths her fangs, eyes the leaping pulse at his neck, and lets out a tiny, shaking moan in the effort of holding back just long enough to make sure she does this right. And then? She's not holding back anymore. Her bite is quick and precise, and as soon as her fangs penetrate his flesh, he's gone in the haze of the deepest, most intense experience he's ever known -- unless she's not the first vampire to get to him.
Verna's rather unprepared for the flood of bright, rich blood into her mouth. She hit the vein, and he's so worked up, his heart going so fast it squirts a hot beat into her, and spills out from the corners of her lips. She latches on harder, trying to keep from missing even a drop, as his cock lurches rhythmically in her hand, plastering the wall with another primal bodily fluid.
Oh, God, indeed. Blood flows down, hot and heavy, warming her from the inside. She wants to take it all, to feel so full of Michael she could burst. If only he could survive it. The thought that really makes her stop is the promise of what would happen should he die. Her fangs retreat, and she licks the holes closed again, swallows the last mouthful. His neck is a mess of drips, which she goes after with her tongue to clean.
"Jesus, Rachael," he stammers. "I'm sorry, I uh... This never happens to me."
She steps back, wipes her arm across her lips. "It's fine," she says, and then wipes at her mouth again with her fingers. "Besides, it's not like I didn't get anything out of it."
He tries to turn around, but she's still afraid she looks like a rabid animal, mouth painted with blood, and tries to stop him. "No. You made a mess. You should clean it up."
"I think... I..." Michael stumbles back, rests a hand on the wall, breathing heavy still. "Need a minute."
She didn't take that much. At least, she thinks she didn't. But he's still breathing, and he's not passed out. It'll be fine. Fine. She unlocks the stall and steps out, closes the door behind her so she doesn't have to see.
He tasted like lavender lemon drop.
"Can I get your number?" Michael asks, his voice echoing on tile.
"No. Can I get yours?" Verna replies, while checking herself in the mirror. She feared looking like a beastial thing, but she only sees herself, sad and pale. No streaks of red to mark her for what she is.
"Sure."
Sunday, May 31, 2015
Friday, May 15, 2015
Shakespeare in the Park
Verna Gardner
It's Sunday, and the people with jobs and lives do tend to live on the weekends, don't they? This is the time of recreation, the day of rest. And on this day, the denizens of Littleton have decided to hold a Shakespeare in the Park at the Littleton Golf and Tennis Club. It's the kind of place Verna Gardner wouldn't have been welcome at. But Rachel Davidson (A new name for new unlife) is.
She doesn't even have to pay to get in. A ghoul at the gate just lets her pass, like she's someone important. But it's not really that, is it? It's more a sign of the vampires' control over this place -- this event. Here is a place where she will be being watched, every move scrutinized and passed on to someone else along the chain.
Not entirely a comfort. Not entirely unwelcome either.
Verna's just here tonight to pass the time away in some other fashion than staring at a wall wondering when the end will come. Shakespeare sounds like a welcome diversion.
Something nice and sweet, tonight. Not Macbeth or Hamlet. Let's be kind to the poor wretch, eh? A Midsummer Night's Dream. Verna wouldn't go to a showing of a bloodbath anyway. Too many recent memories. Too much fear it could stir something in her.
And so it is. Verna, in a new dress (as all her clothes are new). Black, because she mourns. Black because it's the basic little black dress that can go anywhere from a bar to a place like this. Makeup on point, because she does not enjoy appearing as dead as she is. Hair a perfect straight black. And she sits at a table near the back, blessedly alone, waiting for the play to begin.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
Cipriano is not the largest fan of William Shakespeare. There are other playwrights who he found much more profound and interesting. Ibsen was so much more compelling. But who would set A Doll's House in an outdoor theater in suburbia? He will make do with what he has.
Cipriano is wearing a pair of greyish-blue jeans and a long-sleeved cream tee-shirt with da Vinci's vitruvian man printed on it. Now there was a man who understood art. He walks through the crowd, all glorious feline grace, greeting people he has seen on other performances and other nights. There are women staring. There are a few men staring. But never, for any of these people, does he linger quite as he had with Verna.
Verna Gardner
There is a time recently when Verna has hunted -- where she has perused a crowd like this for its prey. Feels strange to do so without David here, but if the opportunity strikes... should she?
That is part of the point of being given her freedom, isn't it? David can't feed her forever. So she people-watches a bit, right? There's nobody staring at her. Nobody would. But she does notice the stares, follows their gazes to...
Oh. Oh, God. Suddenly, her hand goes up to her face and she looks away. That's... not good. Not good. Is that man everywhere she likes to go? It's just that she's been warned so heavily and so often -- do try not to run into people you know.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
And in a crowd of people who turn their heads into his warmth and his light like flowers toward the sun, Cipriano heads toward Verna. The one person in the crowd shuttering herself from him. Not, in this neighborhood, perhaps the only other one barred from the sun. But the only one of those that Cipriano cares to acknowledge for longer than a moment.
There is no wine here, wandering around on trays in fluted glasses. He would not, not now, steal them for her. Because he already knows her secret, at least the one she is keeping here. They all have secrets beyond just the reach of the Masquerade though, don't they?
He walks toward her empty-handed, leaving behind a throng of people that Verna now sees with new eyes. Eyes that mark them not only for what they are but the blood pulsing in their veins like some glorious symphony. The vulnerabilities that she never noted in quite the same way. There is a sharpness to hunger like theirs, akin to the sharpness of their fangs. Razor-edged and ever-present.
Verna Gardner
Oh, of all of the terrible things. He saw her. Of course he did. He walks toward her, and Verna weighs her options while trying not to look in his direction. She could leave. She could pretend everything is normal. Those don't seem to be very good. The former would draw questions, the latter might strain whatever story has been concocted to cover up Verna Gardner's disappearance.
Maybe... maybe pretend to get a message on her phone that speaks of some dire emergency and then leave?
Yes. Let us go with that.
Verna digs her (new) phone out of her purse and turns it to her recent texts from David. These are mostly just test messages to see if it worked. Lie lie lie. Say something vague. Try to get out of this.
"Oh," she says, finally looking at the man. "Cipriano. It's... extremely poor timing, but good to see you again. Unfortunately, I must be leaving."
[Lie lie lie, Manip + Subt!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
[Perception+Empathy? | WP because reasons]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"I see," Cipriano says quietly. "In that case, you'll have to let me walk you out." Is Verna paying attention to him like a predator now? Can she see the way that he angles himself, within easy closing distance but balanced and ready to move for something more than a dancer's grace? More a lion, than a sleek and content housecat. Does she see him more clearly now?
Verna Gardner
Let him walk her out? It's bad enough as it is. He's seen her. And she sees him.
Verna's always seen him as something dangerous. Ever since that first meeting, where she found out just how good he was with a gun, he's been noted as something of a... potential killer. Just, a friendly one. It's possible for humans to be predatory, isn't it? It's what she was counting on, in his case.
So, she doesn't exactly put two and two together yet.
She looks at him for a moment too long while she thinks about it. The worst has already happened. What would be so bad about letting him walk her out? Surely she can pretend for a few minutes.
"Oh. Certainly. You're too kind," she says, and puts her phone away. But despite the polite words, they're tinged with the undercurrent of her worry.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
He does not bring up David in the crowd, does not try force her through the rigors of conversations she has yet to learn t feign with the grace that he does. But then, she has lived with her secrets only so long, Verna. Cipriano has had lifetimes to learn to live with those secrets.
All he says then, as they begin walking out, is, "It has always been such a disappointment to me that the masses as a whole cannot appreciate genius, and instead strive for entertainment. You never see A Doll's House at these things.
"Though, in honesty, I think that may cut to close to the quick here. Perhaps just something haunting and unsettling and a bit uncomfortable. M. Butterfly, perhaps. Heaven forbid, something really interesting, like Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi. Even Rent. But no. Always Shakespeare. Predictable as those men with the bells at Christmas."
Verna Gardner
She listens to his words, hears him but only superficially. He talks of some plays she's heard of, some she hasn't. Verna has never heard of Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi, but it makes a kind of oddball sense that Cipriano would have.
"You don't think Shakespeare was a genius, then? All my English teachers would fight you for that."
Talk, talk. Words, words. Nothing much of substance, except that he is speaking of such plays cutting to the quick, to the very life of her. And yes, isn't that why she wanted to come here on the comedy night?
She thinks he is merely speaking of the troubles and trials he knew of when she was still alive. She looks to him and tries wiping away the sadness and fear in her with a smile. It's only so successful. Then, stands and offers her hand. See, we can do this. Walk back to her car. Just ever so normal, this.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
Cipriano glances, a little surprised, at that offered hand. He smiles again, that same smile that people were leaning toward without even realising it, and when he takes her hand it is...in the manner in which he learned to escort a woman. Quite some time ago. It is not, perhaps, what Verna was expecting. To the assembled crowd, it is a quaint custom. A curiosity.
Verna is about to find out it's a lingering habit.
Be careful Verna. Or he'll teach you to dance. Find someone to teach you to move in those elegant gowns that weigh as much as you do. And then walk into those boring Venture balls with you.
Verna Gardner
She was expecting his hand to be warm. Every living person she's touched since has felt so uncomfortably warm. Uncomfortable, because it is a reminder of how cold she is, and because it riles the hunger. She wants to drink in the warmth of people. Cipriano takes her hand like a gentleman, allows her to slip it over his delicately.
And his hands are cold.
She looks to him with a momentary spark of confusion before remembering to be normal. Sometimes people's hands are just cold. It's one of those excuses people will use when they run into the undead, right? Only Verna is no longer prey, to make such excuses. And her mind is starting to click into gear.
She walks, guiding him a bit because only she knows where she parked. There's questions lying under the surface of her now, where only worry and her million woes lay before.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
Verna touches him, and his skin is cool. Not, perhaps, entirely unusual out here. Still, were she watching the easy way Cipriano moved through the crowd, his touches were to clothed shoulders and elbows. An occasional playful swipe of his hand at some errant strand of hair.
He meets her eyes at that confused glance, and smiles in a way that is almost an apology. "We have, I fear, more to talk about than you might imagine."
Verna Gardner
"Really? What about?"
She walks along, trying to play the game as best she can. There's any number of things that Cipriano could need to talk to her about that have nothing to do with his cold hands.
And yet, that look.
"Or perhaps you'd prefer we wait until we're out of earshot? I'd completely understand."
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"I would, in fact, wait." He says it quietly, calmly. As though, perhaps, he meant to tell her about something less earth-shattering. "In fact, if you don't mind, I could use a lift." Also, inside of moving vehicles tends to be perfectly suited to conversations. Though, for some of the things he might tell her, it may be better if he is driving.
Of course, at city speeds, how much have they really to fear but discovery from collision?
Verna Gardner
"A lift?" she asks, a bit incredulous. She did just say she had to leave before the play started, right? She's been trying to get away from him.
"I suppose that depends on what you have to talk about. I do need to... be somewhere else."
Anywhere else.
Unless he intends to speak with her about current events.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
They are now, at the farther edge of the event. They are not really at a place he would like to linger for discussion, but they are far enough away and close enough together that he says, "About our mutual acquaintance David and some unfortunate events that allow me to finally be a bit more honest with you about...a number of things."
Verna Gardner
Oh, Cipriano. The questions in Verna's head coalesce into a truth that slots into place. It fits. Certain things make more sense now. She never saw her friend in the day, did she? And he was so quick to offer her violence, as though that were nothing to him.
He is right. They are not honest to the living. And he was not honest with her while she was living. But how much of that was a lie? All of it? Did he just want her for her... nutritious qualities? More than that? This is a watched place, an uncontested place, so she assumes that he is not one of the Bad Ones or else she'd have been warned, right?
The delicate grip she has on his hand squeezes a little tighter.
"Oh, that. A lift then."
And so they walk on, away from Shakespeare and out to the parking lot full of extravagance and expense. Her car is really David's car, and it's not a Lamborghini or a Lexus or anything. It's blue. It's a Ford. But it still drives. It'll do.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
Cipriano, whose understanding of how to be human might have faded more had he spent more time in the halls of vampires and less time out hunting in social situations, squeezes her hand lightly in return. He finds his comfort primarily in brief dalliances with mortals. He offers them solace from their sorrow in the ways he cannot allow the living to offer him and the ways in which it is not really safe ask of the dead. Verna will learn, sooner or later, that the other Kindred offer comfort at a price which is almost always too high.
She is still so very young.
Cipriano settles into the car and looks, without even seeming to try, like someone posed for a camera. And, were he just a touch prettier or a touch less fond of such things as not having his cover blown by appearing sprawled across a centerfold....
Look. There are some paintings.
"I am sorry, for what that is worth. This...if this was to be your world it should have been your choice." A choice he almost certainly would not have offered, though not for lack of affection.
Verna Gardner
Verna steps into 'her' car and folds her hands in her lap as he speaks. She doesn't move to start the engine yet. She does not look as centerfold-ready as he. She's paler now than she was, and she was already pale. The makeup helps disguise that, but her hands, see? Like yellowish wax that she tries to hide with pink nail polish. She never was a glowing beauty, and now...
She looks to him, nods at his statement. Yes. Of course it should have. How much does he know about how it happened, then, if he knows that much?
"I had no idea. I thought you were... you know." she says, and goes for the keys. A little engine noise to help drown out their conversation would be good.
"Alive."
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
She hesitates before she says alive and Cipriano laughs. "If it's any consolation, in all the ways that matter, so do I. It puts me a bit at odds with no few of the people you find it necessary to deal with in your new life. And, alas, there is no unclaimed frontier left, not like there was, to leave all of that behind.
"Well. Except for New Jersey." He looks at her with an expression that is all the man she has come to expect him to be: playful, theatrical, charming. "But...it's New Jersey. "
Verna Gardner
Verna is no longer in a place to be playful, though once Cipriano was able to draw that out of her with ease. His companion is a dour thing, and when she smiles at his joke there is no actual mirth behind it.
It's just that she's had little to do lately except to worry about her coming execution and remember how her first death felt. It hasn't been a good couple of months. Right now, she should have been having a party, celebrating the end of the semester with a lot of friends and alcohol. And that, too, is another stab in the psyche.
"Where do you need to go? Or do you just want to talk? I could do either."
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"I don't have to be anywhere, any more than you do. I just thought that you should know you have more than just David. If you want to talk, about your life before, about your life now, about the way that you died...I am here.
"You should be careful though. I...have no desire to harm you. But you should be careful of giving anyone too much of you. Especially another one of us. All of our potential for immortality seems to bring out the worst in no few of us.
"It's why I enjoyed your company. You had no complicated political machinations in mind for me. You saw what I wanted you to see, yes. But in most of the ways that mattered, you saw more of me than I tend to show anyone more like us."
There is a pause. And then, softly, "And this conversation betrays even more. But I am not so heartless as to abandon you because you have been Embraced. I have always been devoted to what few friends I allowed myself to have.
"But very few have not been mortal. And those...that fell apart more than a century ago. I haven't really stayed anywhere since, except for a stretch of time in New York. But New York at the time was a battleground. Almost no one survived there long. What friendships and alliances it bred tended to be brief."
Verna Gardner
Something, some muscular tightness she'd been holding on to goes slack as he talks. He says she has more than just David, but that isn't quite the right terminology, is it? David has her, not the other way around.
But he says that she has him. Whatever he hid from her when she was alive, that he liked her and enjoyed her company wasn't on that list. It's enough to break her heart, isn't it?
"Thank you. You have no idea how much that means to me right now," she says, and her voice betrays the truth of that -- somewhere between the edge of tears and a great deal of warmth. "Or maybe you do?"
"What do you know about how I was Embraced?"
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"What I found after I was called in to help clean up the mess. Which is to say, probably what I know matches not at all with what happened as you experienced it." He sighs, and it is such a human thing. "David is not without his friends, or at least supporters, as it turns out.
"I did not spend long with him. I had just found out who he had Embraced, and I was trying not to break anyone's nose."
Verna Gardner
He speaks of breaking David's nose, and Verna gasps in some air she doesn't really need. Call it a reflex. "Don't. Don't break his nose on my account."
Oh, God, don't do that.
"It was an accident. I was an accident. I still don't know what they're going to do about that. David, he could have run, could have abandoned me, or killed me again and just tried to brush it under the rug. But he didn't. He's trying to keep me from being... executed. I need him."
She needs him like a junkie needs heroin, like the drowning need air. She needs him, and that's why she defends him.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
Cipriano gives a soft little huff. "If I haven't yet, I'm not likely to. I'm really more a punch first and sort out the political aftermath later kind of guy.
"David is in no position to do much about his own potential execution, much less yours. There are some of us who are, and we are trying to keep both of you from execution. At this point there is no certainty of outcome, but I believe we will be successful."
Verna Gardner
"He's been teaching me. He's been keeping me fed. He's making sure I'm not... running around breaking more laws. At first, I didn't believe anything. I thought if I just got home and took a shower and got something to eat, everything would be fine. I would have killed someone. I would have been an even bigger mess to clean up.
"He's doing what he can."
And, saying he's sorry a lot. There's just no amount of them that will actually help though.
"I'm glad though. That there are others looking out for me," she says, and looks to him with such thankfulness. "That makes me feel so much better."
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"It is hard to believe. In some ways, it was easier for me. But...I come from a time of superstition and literal snake oil salesmen.
"Also laudanum. You would not believe how much that makes easier."
He doesn't seem, quite, to know what to make of that thankfulness. "Why shouldn't there be? We cannot all be monsters."
Verna Gardner
"You.. what?" she asks, and turns to give him a look that betrays some of that crazed disbelief she just spoke of. Laudanum? How old is he?
"Well, yes. I... I've always been very happy to be able to explain nearly everything. I could tell you what colors are and why things fall instead of float. But I can't explain this except in cheap and easy ways. Ways like, I'm really insane. Or, at first, I accused David of giving me LSD, you know.
He asks her why people shouldn't be looking out for her, tells her that they aren't all monsters, and she stares at her hands.
"I didn't know? David's the only other I've really gotten to know. And there's the law. It says I should die. How was I to know that there would be anyone out there who would care? I'm a nobody. It would certainly be easier to just..."
Easier to just let her die, let their justice take its course.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"This is not the safest or gentlest of cities. But, you have considerable scientific knowledge and that...can be rare among us. Our leader here may be amenable to taking that under advisement.
"And, as you will find, most of our rules are more like political obstacles than outright unilateral decree. The right blackmail or bribes or favors or knowledge matter more, in the end. There are those who will tell you otherwise, but they are either blind or lying.
"You should follow the rules. But you should also know that they will be broken. Sometimes by accident and sometimes by design. Because that understanding will help you stay alert for some of the things that will help you survive."
Verna Gardner
Verna nods. She has knowledge. No way to use it, but she has knowledge. There will be no more science in her future, and oh, it stings. She has nothing of her own, least of all enough money or clout to build a laboratory. And she can't use someone else's.
Not anymore.
"I've been trying to think of how to prove myself. I mean, how to prove to people I can be worth keeping around. I could... advise? Teach, maybe? I don't know. Science and technology changes things so quickly these days. It might be something, to have a translator for all the jargon?"
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"Translators for that are good. There are no few of us who don't really know how to use mobile phones. Someone who understands modern technology, particularly as can be used as weapons for or against us, or for our security, is always valuable.
"It is easy for us to become...very static. We have to fight not to be only what we were at the time of our deaths, simply with less and less of a conscience. Sometimes we fail."
Verna Gardner
Verna's so young, still so very close to the time of her death, she has yet to experience the world moving on and leaving her behind. She looks up at Cipriano in his Vitruvian Man t-shirt and jeans and admission of living in the time of laudanum. "You fight pretty well, then."
In more ways than one.
"I really hope I don't get too locked at the time of my death," Verna says, smiles the blackest of smiles. "I'm awfully sad and upset and stressed," and there, a little huff of a laugh. "I'd hate to be, forever."
"Maybe, once all this is over, I won't be such awful company."
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"It was really difficult for me for awhile. I met another one of us, much older. Incredible. She helped me a lot. And taught me how to play poker and see beauty in everything again. Instead of just death.
"She's...." He pauses, eyes distant and sad. "She's asleep right now."
Verna Gardner
Verna wants to ask about the 'asleep' thing, but Cipriano looks so sad. It might not be a good topic to travel down.
Of all the nights since she died, this one has been the most hopeful. She's found out a great many things, and the promise of her judgement seems... at least a bit less certain.
"I'm sorry," she says, and those words remind her so much of David, she can barely get them out.
"For your loss."
It looks like a loss.
Maybe someday, when Cipriano is the one to teach her to see beauty in things again, he will sleep, and she will know what it means to lose.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"There may come a day when she is back. Sometimes we...sleep. Days. Weeks. Months. Years. Decades. Centuries. The oldest of us the most, but any of us can. I miss her right now, but I don't know that I would consider her lost.
"But thank you, all the same." He looks outside for a moment, back toward where there is a play just starting up.
"I know it feels like you have lost so much right now," he says finally. "And you have. I will not tell you that you have not and I will not tell you not to mourn for what was stolen from you. But, soon enough, you will realise that you have a chance to see so much more of the world than you ever imagined. There are parts of it barred to you but you have...can have, at least...so much more time."
Verna Gardner
To sleep for centuries? Verna listens, though it's yet another impossible thing that she has trouble with, and gets shuffled off into the long list of other such unbelievable concepts to deal with later. Still, waking up in a world where nothing makes sense anymore? How horrible. She knows that feeling.
"To be honest, I'm having difficulty thinking beyond the next couple of months. I have nothing. I can't even go back to my apartment and get my clothes. Verna Gardner doesn't exist anymore. And I might not have much more time either."
She looks outside her window too. Everything's just so wrong.
"Sorry. I'm terribly depressing. I know."
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"I suppose the chance to start over completely is only a blessing if that was what you wanted. I did, and it was still hard for me. I can't imagine what it would be like to have come across the way you did.
"You can be depressing. For as long as you want." There is a faint smile, but he isn't really playful right now. "I have time. And you will too. One way or another. I'll make sure of that."
Verna Gardner
"I didn't want this. Maybe a year and a half ago I would have wanted this. But now?"
She balls up a fist and looks ready to hit something, waving it in the air a bit. But there's nothing to hit. She could hit her life right about now... Unlife? Whatever.
"You know, after my undergraduate degree, I ran out of money. I tried to get a job in the general ballpark of physics, and ended up substitute teaching and answering phones. I'd almost lost hope, when I got hired at a lab, and that was fantastic. It was a dream. And then one night some 'people' took that dream away. But then, I had grad school, and that became my new dream, right? But now, I can't go back. My old boss, he said to me once: 'When you are all done, and they call you Doctor Gardner, don't forget the little laboratory where you got your start, eh?' Nobody will ever call me Doctor Gardner.
"I'm just so tired of losing."
She takes a breath, wondering if that's enough depressing for Cipriano, or if he really meant that 'as long as you want'.
"It could be worse. David's at least been trying not to make it too... He tries. He does. It could be so much worse. I know that."
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"Well," Cipriano says, not unsympathetically. "Maybe not in the immediate future. But some of us are doctors. It's knowledge. And a record. I don't doubt you'll have the knowledge. The record...we all need new papers from time to time.
"You may not have it in the manner you meant to, and for that I do apologize. Truly. You did lose something. Just...perhaps not as entirely as you think right now."
Verna Gardner
It's knowledge and a record, he says. A lie as much as her new name is. They could have just slapped a "Dr." before her fake ID name, and voila. But it's not the same, is it? Whoever might be fooled, Verna wouldn't be.
She bows her head, nods. The turmoil within doesn't quite go away though. He's being so comforting, it's almost a crime she can't make herself feel better. All she can see when she closes her eyes is David's worried face. Maybe it's not her own 'life' she's more upset about.
There's a long silence in the car, when Verna can't think of anything to say. And then?
"I'm going to have to tell you everything I know about science at this rate. I owe you so much," she says, and the tone is almost joking. She's not playful. Not yet. But there's a start. Something of the old her peeks through every now and then. Hope has a way of doing that to a person.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
It has been more than a century since Cipriano has had a life in a place. And that was not his mortal life. Nor the life after it. Nor, even, the one after that. How much is left of the boy who went to war so long ago? He barely feels the loss of that life, but soldiers...soldiers the Kindred demand plenty of. He hardly lost his dreams there.
Save the ones of coming home. Farms. A wife. Children. But he wanted to be off to see the world and make his name and his fortune. He has never stopped doing that.
"And you won't stop learning, I bet. So the process will be indefinite." He smiles a little. "You'll be very tired of me."
Verna Gardner
"Or you'll be very tired of me. About the time we get to black holes, I suppose. And then I'll have to come up with something else to talk about."
She sighs. They're speaking of a future that may not ever be. But what did he say? He would make sure she had the time, one way or another? Cipriano is a man who promises such things, yes. He's made promises before. And if he is as old as he says he is, as powerful as he makes himself out to be?
Men do sometimes lie like that. It's like bright feathers on a bird.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"You will have a lot of science to catch me up on. And I do find it fascinating. I doubt that I will be terribly bored."
"I do know that you'll need time. That's alright. We all do. And I should get to that whole hunting thing.
"Just know. It gets harder to be human, but it gets easier to be a monster. And that is both as comforting and as horrific as it sounds. But the time we get and the things we may yet see....I remember when New York City had gas street lamps and I remember when the Wright brothers first flew their plane and I remember when we first got into space. Every time I think maybe we are coming to the edge of the unknown that boundary turns out to be a mirage.
"There is not end to the wonders of this world. You want to press into that unknown too, though you do it very differently. There is an eternity of the chase that we most love before us. If nothing else, that is reason not to despair."
Verna Gardner
[How much blood do you have, Verna? Hungry much? Roll + 2]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )
Verna Gardner
It gets harder to be human. As if it weren't hard enough already.
When he talks about the things he has seen -- more clues to his age, she turns to look at him. Sad eyes lock to his. It's so... strange. He was alive before the Theory of Relativity. He could have met Marie Curie, perhaps. He just doesn't seem so old, does he?
If she has another hundred years, how will she seem?
"I need to. Hunt. David says... I can have some when I get back, but I know I need to be more... self-reliant. It's hard. For me, it's difficult. I've never been good at meeting new people."
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"Some of us cultivate contacts at blood banks and hospitals," Cipriano says. "But I have always preferred...there is something different. I do not love that we have to feed on people, but it can be something that they enjoy as much as we do.
"It took a long time for me to get used to it, though. I hated it at first."
Verna Gardner
Verna looks away. In her experience, both receiving and doling out the Kiss, it's enjoyed, in spite of yourself. Nobody has wanted it from her. Nobody except for that one tart who called her 'honey' and would have crawled all over her in front of David to get some. That one knew exactly what she was getting into. Disgusting.
"I'm just... always so afraid I'm going to make a mistake. I'll do something wrong, and then they'll make their decision about me because of it, and I'll get David killed too, because I was obviously a terrible person to try to save. It makes it so hard to act like... like normal. And my normal is pretty... abysmal."
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"I like your normal just fine, as you may recall." He sighs. "Sometimes we find someone to feed from repeatedly. And that is easier. But also harder. Because, as you point out, our mistakes.....
"You will make fewer mistakes as you come to trust yourself, but that will take time. Experience. But it will not be so long as you likely fear."
Verna Gardner
"I can't afford to make a mistake, much less fewer," Verna says. God, the stress of it all. Perfection has never been so important, has it? And it's always been important to her.
"Did you ever? With me, I mean? I might not have even known, right? Oh... I wouldn't judge you. I know how it is. Just curious."
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
Cipriano gives Verna a sudden puzzled glance. "No. You're my friend. Friends...are generally not food. Sometimes we take someone to be food and they become friends. Sometimes our friends offer us their blood. But...you were never someone I hunted."
Verna Gardner
Friends aren't food. And she counts as a friend. That's... kind of a relief, isn't it? That whatever else stalked her and tailed her steps, Cipriano wasn't included in that.
"I wouldn't have offered you my blood. I would have called you crazy and told you to seek professional help. I didn't believe in vampires for... quite a few days after... nights after I became one. I can't even imagine..."
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
Cipriano laughs. "I wasn't planning to tell you. It isn't...something we can generally share. There are occasional exceptions. But we, for the most part, must keep our secrets." And he would know about secrets.
"Good luck. I'm sure I'll see you again soon."
Verna Gardner
He's leaving, then. Good luck. Luck has been so cruel to her, though.
"I do hope so. I feel a little better, now," she says, and tries to smile for him. See? Proof.
"Good... hunting? Yes?"
It seems a little strange, to be offering such a blessing. Have a good time with your people-eating tonight. Hope that goes well for you and all.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"Hunting," he says, though he is beginning to think he is making a phone call instead. "Good night."
It's Sunday, and the people with jobs and lives do tend to live on the weekends, don't they? This is the time of recreation, the day of rest. And on this day, the denizens of Littleton have decided to hold a Shakespeare in the Park at the Littleton Golf and Tennis Club. It's the kind of place Verna Gardner wouldn't have been welcome at. But Rachel Davidson (A new name for new unlife) is.
She doesn't even have to pay to get in. A ghoul at the gate just lets her pass, like she's someone important. But it's not really that, is it? It's more a sign of the vampires' control over this place -- this event. Here is a place where she will be being watched, every move scrutinized and passed on to someone else along the chain.
Not entirely a comfort. Not entirely unwelcome either.
Verna's just here tonight to pass the time away in some other fashion than staring at a wall wondering when the end will come. Shakespeare sounds like a welcome diversion.
Something nice and sweet, tonight. Not Macbeth or Hamlet. Let's be kind to the poor wretch, eh? A Midsummer Night's Dream. Verna wouldn't go to a showing of a bloodbath anyway. Too many recent memories. Too much fear it could stir something in her.
And so it is. Verna, in a new dress (as all her clothes are new). Black, because she mourns. Black because it's the basic little black dress that can go anywhere from a bar to a place like this. Makeup on point, because she does not enjoy appearing as dead as she is. Hair a perfect straight black. And she sits at a table near the back, blessedly alone, waiting for the play to begin.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
Cipriano is not the largest fan of William Shakespeare. There are other playwrights who he found much more profound and interesting. Ibsen was so much more compelling. But who would set A Doll's House in an outdoor theater in suburbia? He will make do with what he has.
Cipriano is wearing a pair of greyish-blue jeans and a long-sleeved cream tee-shirt with da Vinci's vitruvian man printed on it. Now there was a man who understood art. He walks through the crowd, all glorious feline grace, greeting people he has seen on other performances and other nights. There are women staring. There are a few men staring. But never, for any of these people, does he linger quite as he had with Verna.
Verna Gardner
There is a time recently when Verna has hunted -- where she has perused a crowd like this for its prey. Feels strange to do so without David here, but if the opportunity strikes... should she?
That is part of the point of being given her freedom, isn't it? David can't feed her forever. So she people-watches a bit, right? There's nobody staring at her. Nobody would. But she does notice the stares, follows their gazes to...
Oh. Oh, God. Suddenly, her hand goes up to her face and she looks away. That's... not good. Not good. Is that man everywhere she likes to go? It's just that she's been warned so heavily and so often -- do try not to run into people you know.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
And in a crowd of people who turn their heads into his warmth and his light like flowers toward the sun, Cipriano heads toward Verna. The one person in the crowd shuttering herself from him. Not, in this neighborhood, perhaps the only other one barred from the sun. But the only one of those that Cipriano cares to acknowledge for longer than a moment.
There is no wine here, wandering around on trays in fluted glasses. He would not, not now, steal them for her. Because he already knows her secret, at least the one she is keeping here. They all have secrets beyond just the reach of the Masquerade though, don't they?
He walks toward her empty-handed, leaving behind a throng of people that Verna now sees with new eyes. Eyes that mark them not only for what they are but the blood pulsing in their veins like some glorious symphony. The vulnerabilities that she never noted in quite the same way. There is a sharpness to hunger like theirs, akin to the sharpness of their fangs. Razor-edged and ever-present.
Verna Gardner
Oh, of all of the terrible things. He saw her. Of course he did. He walks toward her, and Verna weighs her options while trying not to look in his direction. She could leave. She could pretend everything is normal. Those don't seem to be very good. The former would draw questions, the latter might strain whatever story has been concocted to cover up Verna Gardner's disappearance.
Maybe... maybe pretend to get a message on her phone that speaks of some dire emergency and then leave?
Yes. Let us go with that.
Verna digs her (new) phone out of her purse and turns it to her recent texts from David. These are mostly just test messages to see if it worked. Lie lie lie. Say something vague. Try to get out of this.
"Oh," she says, finally looking at the man. "Cipriano. It's... extremely poor timing, but good to see you again. Unfortunately, I must be leaving."
[Lie lie lie, Manip + Subt!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
[Perception+Empathy? | WP because reasons]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"I see," Cipriano says quietly. "In that case, you'll have to let me walk you out." Is Verna paying attention to him like a predator now? Can she see the way that he angles himself, within easy closing distance but balanced and ready to move for something more than a dancer's grace? More a lion, than a sleek and content housecat. Does she see him more clearly now?
Verna Gardner
Let him walk her out? It's bad enough as it is. He's seen her. And she sees him.
Verna's always seen him as something dangerous. Ever since that first meeting, where she found out just how good he was with a gun, he's been noted as something of a... potential killer. Just, a friendly one. It's possible for humans to be predatory, isn't it? It's what she was counting on, in his case.
So, she doesn't exactly put two and two together yet.
She looks at him for a moment too long while she thinks about it. The worst has already happened. What would be so bad about letting him walk her out? Surely she can pretend for a few minutes.
"Oh. Certainly. You're too kind," she says, and puts her phone away. But despite the polite words, they're tinged with the undercurrent of her worry.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
He does not bring up David in the crowd, does not try force her through the rigors of conversations she has yet to learn t feign with the grace that he does. But then, she has lived with her secrets only so long, Verna. Cipriano has had lifetimes to learn to live with those secrets.
All he says then, as they begin walking out, is, "It has always been such a disappointment to me that the masses as a whole cannot appreciate genius, and instead strive for entertainment. You never see A Doll's House at these things.
"Though, in honesty, I think that may cut to close to the quick here. Perhaps just something haunting and unsettling and a bit uncomfortable. M. Butterfly, perhaps. Heaven forbid, something really interesting, like Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi. Even Rent. But no. Always Shakespeare. Predictable as those men with the bells at Christmas."
Verna Gardner
She listens to his words, hears him but only superficially. He talks of some plays she's heard of, some she hasn't. Verna has never heard of Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi, but it makes a kind of oddball sense that Cipriano would have.
"You don't think Shakespeare was a genius, then? All my English teachers would fight you for that."
Talk, talk. Words, words. Nothing much of substance, except that he is speaking of such plays cutting to the quick, to the very life of her. And yes, isn't that why she wanted to come here on the comedy night?
She thinks he is merely speaking of the troubles and trials he knew of when she was still alive. She looks to him and tries wiping away the sadness and fear in her with a smile. It's only so successful. Then, stands and offers her hand. See, we can do this. Walk back to her car. Just ever so normal, this.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
Cipriano glances, a little surprised, at that offered hand. He smiles again, that same smile that people were leaning toward without even realising it, and when he takes her hand it is...in the manner in which he learned to escort a woman. Quite some time ago. It is not, perhaps, what Verna was expecting. To the assembled crowd, it is a quaint custom. A curiosity.
Verna is about to find out it's a lingering habit.
Be careful Verna. Or he'll teach you to dance. Find someone to teach you to move in those elegant gowns that weigh as much as you do. And then walk into those boring Venture balls with you.
Verna Gardner
She was expecting his hand to be warm. Every living person she's touched since has felt so uncomfortably warm. Uncomfortable, because it is a reminder of how cold she is, and because it riles the hunger. She wants to drink in the warmth of people. Cipriano takes her hand like a gentleman, allows her to slip it over his delicately.
And his hands are cold.
She looks to him with a momentary spark of confusion before remembering to be normal. Sometimes people's hands are just cold. It's one of those excuses people will use when they run into the undead, right? Only Verna is no longer prey, to make such excuses. And her mind is starting to click into gear.
She walks, guiding him a bit because only she knows where she parked. There's questions lying under the surface of her now, where only worry and her million woes lay before.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
Verna touches him, and his skin is cool. Not, perhaps, entirely unusual out here. Still, were she watching the easy way Cipriano moved through the crowd, his touches were to clothed shoulders and elbows. An occasional playful swipe of his hand at some errant strand of hair.
He meets her eyes at that confused glance, and smiles in a way that is almost an apology. "We have, I fear, more to talk about than you might imagine."
Verna Gardner
"Really? What about?"
She walks along, trying to play the game as best she can. There's any number of things that Cipriano could need to talk to her about that have nothing to do with his cold hands.
And yet, that look.
"Or perhaps you'd prefer we wait until we're out of earshot? I'd completely understand."
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"I would, in fact, wait." He says it quietly, calmly. As though, perhaps, he meant to tell her about something less earth-shattering. "In fact, if you don't mind, I could use a lift." Also, inside of moving vehicles tends to be perfectly suited to conversations. Though, for some of the things he might tell her, it may be better if he is driving.
Of course, at city speeds, how much have they really to fear but discovery from collision?
Verna Gardner
"A lift?" she asks, a bit incredulous. She did just say she had to leave before the play started, right? She's been trying to get away from him.
"I suppose that depends on what you have to talk about. I do need to... be somewhere else."
Anywhere else.
Unless he intends to speak with her about current events.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
They are now, at the farther edge of the event. They are not really at a place he would like to linger for discussion, but they are far enough away and close enough together that he says, "About our mutual acquaintance David and some unfortunate events that allow me to finally be a bit more honest with you about...a number of things."
Verna Gardner
Oh, Cipriano. The questions in Verna's head coalesce into a truth that slots into place. It fits. Certain things make more sense now. She never saw her friend in the day, did she? And he was so quick to offer her violence, as though that were nothing to him.
He is right. They are not honest to the living. And he was not honest with her while she was living. But how much of that was a lie? All of it? Did he just want her for her... nutritious qualities? More than that? This is a watched place, an uncontested place, so she assumes that he is not one of the Bad Ones or else she'd have been warned, right?
The delicate grip she has on his hand squeezes a little tighter.
"Oh, that. A lift then."
And so they walk on, away from Shakespeare and out to the parking lot full of extravagance and expense. Her car is really David's car, and it's not a Lamborghini or a Lexus or anything. It's blue. It's a Ford. But it still drives. It'll do.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
Cipriano, whose understanding of how to be human might have faded more had he spent more time in the halls of vampires and less time out hunting in social situations, squeezes her hand lightly in return. He finds his comfort primarily in brief dalliances with mortals. He offers them solace from their sorrow in the ways he cannot allow the living to offer him and the ways in which it is not really safe ask of the dead. Verna will learn, sooner or later, that the other Kindred offer comfort at a price which is almost always too high.
She is still so very young.
Cipriano settles into the car and looks, without even seeming to try, like someone posed for a camera. And, were he just a touch prettier or a touch less fond of such things as not having his cover blown by appearing sprawled across a centerfold....
Look. There are some paintings.
"I am sorry, for what that is worth. This...if this was to be your world it should have been your choice." A choice he almost certainly would not have offered, though not for lack of affection.
Verna Gardner
Verna steps into 'her' car and folds her hands in her lap as he speaks. She doesn't move to start the engine yet. She does not look as centerfold-ready as he. She's paler now than she was, and she was already pale. The makeup helps disguise that, but her hands, see? Like yellowish wax that she tries to hide with pink nail polish. She never was a glowing beauty, and now...
She looks to him, nods at his statement. Yes. Of course it should have. How much does he know about how it happened, then, if he knows that much?
"I had no idea. I thought you were... you know." she says, and goes for the keys. A little engine noise to help drown out their conversation would be good.
"Alive."
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
She hesitates before she says alive and Cipriano laughs. "If it's any consolation, in all the ways that matter, so do I. It puts me a bit at odds with no few of the people you find it necessary to deal with in your new life. And, alas, there is no unclaimed frontier left, not like there was, to leave all of that behind.
"Well. Except for New Jersey." He looks at her with an expression that is all the man she has come to expect him to be: playful, theatrical, charming. "But...it's New Jersey. "
Verna Gardner
Verna is no longer in a place to be playful, though once Cipriano was able to draw that out of her with ease. His companion is a dour thing, and when she smiles at his joke there is no actual mirth behind it.
It's just that she's had little to do lately except to worry about her coming execution and remember how her first death felt. It hasn't been a good couple of months. Right now, she should have been having a party, celebrating the end of the semester with a lot of friends and alcohol. And that, too, is another stab in the psyche.
"Where do you need to go? Or do you just want to talk? I could do either."
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"I don't have to be anywhere, any more than you do. I just thought that you should know you have more than just David. If you want to talk, about your life before, about your life now, about the way that you died...I am here.
"You should be careful though. I...have no desire to harm you. But you should be careful of giving anyone too much of you. Especially another one of us. All of our potential for immortality seems to bring out the worst in no few of us.
"It's why I enjoyed your company. You had no complicated political machinations in mind for me. You saw what I wanted you to see, yes. But in most of the ways that mattered, you saw more of me than I tend to show anyone more like us."
There is a pause. And then, softly, "And this conversation betrays even more. But I am not so heartless as to abandon you because you have been Embraced. I have always been devoted to what few friends I allowed myself to have.
"But very few have not been mortal. And those...that fell apart more than a century ago. I haven't really stayed anywhere since, except for a stretch of time in New York. But New York at the time was a battleground. Almost no one survived there long. What friendships and alliances it bred tended to be brief."
Verna Gardner
Something, some muscular tightness she'd been holding on to goes slack as he talks. He says she has more than just David, but that isn't quite the right terminology, is it? David has her, not the other way around.
But he says that she has him. Whatever he hid from her when she was alive, that he liked her and enjoyed her company wasn't on that list. It's enough to break her heart, isn't it?
"Thank you. You have no idea how much that means to me right now," she says, and her voice betrays the truth of that -- somewhere between the edge of tears and a great deal of warmth. "Or maybe you do?"
"What do you know about how I was Embraced?"
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"What I found after I was called in to help clean up the mess. Which is to say, probably what I know matches not at all with what happened as you experienced it." He sighs, and it is such a human thing. "David is not without his friends, or at least supporters, as it turns out.
"I did not spend long with him. I had just found out who he had Embraced, and I was trying not to break anyone's nose."
Verna Gardner
He speaks of breaking David's nose, and Verna gasps in some air she doesn't really need. Call it a reflex. "Don't. Don't break his nose on my account."
Oh, God, don't do that.
"It was an accident. I was an accident. I still don't know what they're going to do about that. David, he could have run, could have abandoned me, or killed me again and just tried to brush it under the rug. But he didn't. He's trying to keep me from being... executed. I need him."
She needs him like a junkie needs heroin, like the drowning need air. She needs him, and that's why she defends him.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
Cipriano gives a soft little huff. "If I haven't yet, I'm not likely to. I'm really more a punch first and sort out the political aftermath later kind of guy.
"David is in no position to do much about his own potential execution, much less yours. There are some of us who are, and we are trying to keep both of you from execution. At this point there is no certainty of outcome, but I believe we will be successful."
Verna Gardner
"He's been teaching me. He's been keeping me fed. He's making sure I'm not... running around breaking more laws. At first, I didn't believe anything. I thought if I just got home and took a shower and got something to eat, everything would be fine. I would have killed someone. I would have been an even bigger mess to clean up.
"He's doing what he can."
And, saying he's sorry a lot. There's just no amount of them that will actually help though.
"I'm glad though. That there are others looking out for me," she says, and looks to him with such thankfulness. "That makes me feel so much better."
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"It is hard to believe. In some ways, it was easier for me. But...I come from a time of superstition and literal snake oil salesmen.
"Also laudanum. You would not believe how much that makes easier."
He doesn't seem, quite, to know what to make of that thankfulness. "Why shouldn't there be? We cannot all be monsters."
Verna Gardner
"You.. what?" she asks, and turns to give him a look that betrays some of that crazed disbelief she just spoke of. Laudanum? How old is he?
"Well, yes. I... I've always been very happy to be able to explain nearly everything. I could tell you what colors are and why things fall instead of float. But I can't explain this except in cheap and easy ways. Ways like, I'm really insane. Or, at first, I accused David of giving me LSD, you know.
He asks her why people shouldn't be looking out for her, tells her that they aren't all monsters, and she stares at her hands.
"I didn't know? David's the only other I've really gotten to know. And there's the law. It says I should die. How was I to know that there would be anyone out there who would care? I'm a nobody. It would certainly be easier to just..."
Easier to just let her die, let their justice take its course.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"This is not the safest or gentlest of cities. But, you have considerable scientific knowledge and that...can be rare among us. Our leader here may be amenable to taking that under advisement.
"And, as you will find, most of our rules are more like political obstacles than outright unilateral decree. The right blackmail or bribes or favors or knowledge matter more, in the end. There are those who will tell you otherwise, but they are either blind or lying.
"You should follow the rules. But you should also know that they will be broken. Sometimes by accident and sometimes by design. Because that understanding will help you stay alert for some of the things that will help you survive."
Verna Gardner
Verna nods. She has knowledge. No way to use it, but she has knowledge. There will be no more science in her future, and oh, it stings. She has nothing of her own, least of all enough money or clout to build a laboratory. And she can't use someone else's.
Not anymore.
"I've been trying to think of how to prove myself. I mean, how to prove to people I can be worth keeping around. I could... advise? Teach, maybe? I don't know. Science and technology changes things so quickly these days. It might be something, to have a translator for all the jargon?"
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"Translators for that are good. There are no few of us who don't really know how to use mobile phones. Someone who understands modern technology, particularly as can be used as weapons for or against us, or for our security, is always valuable.
"It is easy for us to become...very static. We have to fight not to be only what we were at the time of our deaths, simply with less and less of a conscience. Sometimes we fail."
Verna Gardner
Verna's so young, still so very close to the time of her death, she has yet to experience the world moving on and leaving her behind. She looks up at Cipriano in his Vitruvian Man t-shirt and jeans and admission of living in the time of laudanum. "You fight pretty well, then."
In more ways than one.
"I really hope I don't get too locked at the time of my death," Verna says, smiles the blackest of smiles. "I'm awfully sad and upset and stressed," and there, a little huff of a laugh. "I'd hate to be, forever."
"Maybe, once all this is over, I won't be such awful company."
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"It was really difficult for me for awhile. I met another one of us, much older. Incredible. She helped me a lot. And taught me how to play poker and see beauty in everything again. Instead of just death.
"She's...." He pauses, eyes distant and sad. "She's asleep right now."
Verna Gardner
Verna wants to ask about the 'asleep' thing, but Cipriano looks so sad. It might not be a good topic to travel down.
Of all the nights since she died, this one has been the most hopeful. She's found out a great many things, and the promise of her judgement seems... at least a bit less certain.
"I'm sorry," she says, and those words remind her so much of David, she can barely get them out.
"For your loss."
It looks like a loss.
Maybe someday, when Cipriano is the one to teach her to see beauty in things again, he will sleep, and she will know what it means to lose.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"There may come a day when she is back. Sometimes we...sleep. Days. Weeks. Months. Years. Decades. Centuries. The oldest of us the most, but any of us can. I miss her right now, but I don't know that I would consider her lost.
"But thank you, all the same." He looks outside for a moment, back toward where there is a play just starting up.
"I know it feels like you have lost so much right now," he says finally. "And you have. I will not tell you that you have not and I will not tell you not to mourn for what was stolen from you. But, soon enough, you will realise that you have a chance to see so much more of the world than you ever imagined. There are parts of it barred to you but you have...can have, at least...so much more time."
Verna Gardner
To sleep for centuries? Verna listens, though it's yet another impossible thing that she has trouble with, and gets shuffled off into the long list of other such unbelievable concepts to deal with later. Still, waking up in a world where nothing makes sense anymore? How horrible. She knows that feeling.
"To be honest, I'm having difficulty thinking beyond the next couple of months. I have nothing. I can't even go back to my apartment and get my clothes. Verna Gardner doesn't exist anymore. And I might not have much more time either."
She looks outside her window too. Everything's just so wrong.
"Sorry. I'm terribly depressing. I know."
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"I suppose the chance to start over completely is only a blessing if that was what you wanted. I did, and it was still hard for me. I can't imagine what it would be like to have come across the way you did.
"You can be depressing. For as long as you want." There is a faint smile, but he isn't really playful right now. "I have time. And you will too. One way or another. I'll make sure of that."
Verna Gardner
"I didn't want this. Maybe a year and a half ago I would have wanted this. But now?"
She balls up a fist and looks ready to hit something, waving it in the air a bit. But there's nothing to hit. She could hit her life right about now... Unlife? Whatever.
"You know, after my undergraduate degree, I ran out of money. I tried to get a job in the general ballpark of physics, and ended up substitute teaching and answering phones. I'd almost lost hope, when I got hired at a lab, and that was fantastic. It was a dream. And then one night some 'people' took that dream away. But then, I had grad school, and that became my new dream, right? But now, I can't go back. My old boss, he said to me once: 'When you are all done, and they call you Doctor Gardner, don't forget the little laboratory where you got your start, eh?' Nobody will ever call me Doctor Gardner.
"I'm just so tired of losing."
She takes a breath, wondering if that's enough depressing for Cipriano, or if he really meant that 'as long as you want'.
"It could be worse. David's at least been trying not to make it too... He tries. He does. It could be so much worse. I know that."
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"Well," Cipriano says, not unsympathetically. "Maybe not in the immediate future. But some of us are doctors. It's knowledge. And a record. I don't doubt you'll have the knowledge. The record...we all need new papers from time to time.
"You may not have it in the manner you meant to, and for that I do apologize. Truly. You did lose something. Just...perhaps not as entirely as you think right now."
Verna Gardner
It's knowledge and a record, he says. A lie as much as her new name is. They could have just slapped a "Dr." before her fake ID name, and voila. But it's not the same, is it? Whoever might be fooled, Verna wouldn't be.
She bows her head, nods. The turmoil within doesn't quite go away though. He's being so comforting, it's almost a crime she can't make herself feel better. All she can see when she closes her eyes is David's worried face. Maybe it's not her own 'life' she's more upset about.
There's a long silence in the car, when Verna can't think of anything to say. And then?
"I'm going to have to tell you everything I know about science at this rate. I owe you so much," she says, and the tone is almost joking. She's not playful. Not yet. But there's a start. Something of the old her peeks through every now and then. Hope has a way of doing that to a person.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
It has been more than a century since Cipriano has had a life in a place. And that was not his mortal life. Nor the life after it. Nor, even, the one after that. How much is left of the boy who went to war so long ago? He barely feels the loss of that life, but soldiers...soldiers the Kindred demand plenty of. He hardly lost his dreams there.
Save the ones of coming home. Farms. A wife. Children. But he wanted to be off to see the world and make his name and his fortune. He has never stopped doing that.
"And you won't stop learning, I bet. So the process will be indefinite." He smiles a little. "You'll be very tired of me."
Verna Gardner
"Or you'll be very tired of me. About the time we get to black holes, I suppose. And then I'll have to come up with something else to talk about."
She sighs. They're speaking of a future that may not ever be. But what did he say? He would make sure she had the time, one way or another? Cipriano is a man who promises such things, yes. He's made promises before. And if he is as old as he says he is, as powerful as he makes himself out to be?
Men do sometimes lie like that. It's like bright feathers on a bird.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"You will have a lot of science to catch me up on. And I do find it fascinating. I doubt that I will be terribly bored."
"I do know that you'll need time. That's alright. We all do. And I should get to that whole hunting thing.
"Just know. It gets harder to be human, but it gets easier to be a monster. And that is both as comforting and as horrific as it sounds. But the time we get and the things we may yet see....I remember when New York City had gas street lamps and I remember when the Wright brothers first flew their plane and I remember when we first got into space. Every time I think maybe we are coming to the edge of the unknown that boundary turns out to be a mirage.
"There is not end to the wonders of this world. You want to press into that unknown too, though you do it very differently. There is an eternity of the chase that we most love before us. If nothing else, that is reason not to despair."
Verna Gardner
[How much blood do you have, Verna? Hungry much? Roll + 2]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )
Verna Gardner
It gets harder to be human. As if it weren't hard enough already.
When he talks about the things he has seen -- more clues to his age, she turns to look at him. Sad eyes lock to his. It's so... strange. He was alive before the Theory of Relativity. He could have met Marie Curie, perhaps. He just doesn't seem so old, does he?
If she has another hundred years, how will she seem?
"I need to. Hunt. David says... I can have some when I get back, but I know I need to be more... self-reliant. It's hard. For me, it's difficult. I've never been good at meeting new people."
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"Some of us cultivate contacts at blood banks and hospitals," Cipriano says. "But I have always preferred...there is something different. I do not love that we have to feed on people, but it can be something that they enjoy as much as we do.
"It took a long time for me to get used to it, though. I hated it at first."
Verna Gardner
Verna looks away. In her experience, both receiving and doling out the Kiss, it's enjoyed, in spite of yourself. Nobody has wanted it from her. Nobody except for that one tart who called her 'honey' and would have crawled all over her in front of David to get some. That one knew exactly what she was getting into. Disgusting.
"I'm just... always so afraid I'm going to make a mistake. I'll do something wrong, and then they'll make their decision about me because of it, and I'll get David killed too, because I was obviously a terrible person to try to save. It makes it so hard to act like... like normal. And my normal is pretty... abysmal."
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"I like your normal just fine, as you may recall." He sighs. "Sometimes we find someone to feed from repeatedly. And that is easier. But also harder. Because, as you point out, our mistakes.....
"You will make fewer mistakes as you come to trust yourself, but that will take time. Experience. But it will not be so long as you likely fear."
Verna Gardner
"I can't afford to make a mistake, much less fewer," Verna says. God, the stress of it all. Perfection has never been so important, has it? And it's always been important to her.
"Did you ever? With me, I mean? I might not have even known, right? Oh... I wouldn't judge you. I know how it is. Just curious."
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
Cipriano gives Verna a sudden puzzled glance. "No. You're my friend. Friends...are generally not food. Sometimes we take someone to be food and they become friends. Sometimes our friends offer us their blood. But...you were never someone I hunted."
Verna Gardner
Friends aren't food. And she counts as a friend. That's... kind of a relief, isn't it? That whatever else stalked her and tailed her steps, Cipriano wasn't included in that.
"I wouldn't have offered you my blood. I would have called you crazy and told you to seek professional help. I didn't believe in vampires for... quite a few days after... nights after I became one. I can't even imagine..."
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
Cipriano laughs. "I wasn't planning to tell you. It isn't...something we can generally share. There are occasional exceptions. But we, for the most part, must keep our secrets." And he would know about secrets.
"Good luck. I'm sure I'll see you again soon."
Verna Gardner
He's leaving, then. Good luck. Luck has been so cruel to her, though.
"I do hope so. I feel a little better, now," she says, and tries to smile for him. See? Proof.
"Good... hunting? Yes?"
It seems a little strange, to be offering such a blessing. Have a good time with your people-eating tonight. Hope that goes well for you and all.
Cipriano Santos-Augustine
"Hunting," he says, though he is beginning to think he is making a phone call instead. "Good night."
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Hunting Lesson
David
Verna's sire (kidnapper, murderer, ne'er-do-well Ventrue with a heart of rust, shit-head and thorn in the blueblood's side) comes to Verna one night in early April, after her taste has been somewhat tested, and tells her that he wants to see how well she can hunt for herself. He is nervous telling her this. He is nervous for all the reasons you can possibly imagine: he doesn't know what she's going to do or how she's going to react. He has cheated and bound her will to his, he has treated her as well as (in his opinion [mileage varies]) he can, but he knows his childe is opinionated and their start was, ah, shall we say, rocky to the extreme. He doesn't care about freedom: that's something hippies and Anarchs whine about. He does care about his survival, and hers too, since he's taken that burden on.
They don't go near the university, but to one of the uppercrust suburbs attached to the Denver metropolitan area. David drives and he looks out at the highway with an air of vigilance, checking his rearview mirror frequently.
"The last thing we need is for the Sabbat to appear. Uh, let's see... there's a ... I've got a note, uh, in the glove compartment there... Any of those places sound good to you?"
If she opens the glove compartment and checks the note, it's a list of locations. A small orchestral concert. A bar. A wine bar. A learning annex class. And a gym.
Verna Gardner
Verna, despite her newly dead self can't seem to stay still tonight. She fidgets with the trappings of nervousness, and every so often tries to check herself in a mirror. It's just that this is a test, and the price of failure is death, and not just for her, huh? David's been forthcoming about how important it is to learn and not do anything wrong because this little reprieve from dying could be very short indeed otherwise.
Ever since getting them to give her some makeup, she's tried to make her pallor look presentable every night, but tonight it was even more important. So her lips are stained (so it won't rub off) and her eyes are dark (to hide the red crust in case she should cry) and there is a faked healthy glow to her. She wonders at times how the men even manage...
And, of course, she won't go outside without looking nice. Nice, to her, can be a bit dowdy, but tonight we're going with 'sexy librarian' instead. It might work, right? Black pencil skirts go with everything. And she can still run in her leather boots. She's tried hard to rid them of blood spatters, too.
David says to check the note in the glove compartment, so she does, reads...
"I'm not dressed for the gym. Won't they expect me to drink at the bars? I can't..."
There, a breath, to steady.
"What about the concert?"
David
"Concert it is."
David's dressed in -- well. The Metallica teeshirt doesn't count against him with that nice gray sweater over it. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel as they drive, but he doesn't turn on the radio unless Verna requests it. He doesn't look at her too often either, and if she has asked for perfume or if his ghoul has gone ahead and decided to make a nice little thing like Verna feel more put together by buying perfume his nose twitches now and then. Vampires sneeze. It's just habit instead of instinct.
"Now, uh... You'll find that most places you go, they'll expect you to at least have a drink. Every function, somebody goes for the beer or the soda... I didn't notice it as much before I was turned, but after I noticed it constantly. It's the social thing to do. Sometimes you'll be obliged to hold one as if you're taking part. Just get rid of the drink as soon as possible, or be polite and keep the conversation going. Most people aren't very perceptive. They see what they want to see, and they'll fill in their own excuses."
Woe begone, hangdog expression. Verna was a perfect mortal and he had to ruin her. She could've been filling in her own excuses for years.
He drums his fingers again.
"You'll do fine," he says, and he sounds more as if he's trying to convince himself than her. "It'll be fine. Don't drink too deep. And do you remember how I showed you to close up the wound? You lick it closed."
Fuss, fuss, fuss. The world is a mad world and hunger gnaws at Verna as it always does, a constant. Has she been full for even one night since she was changed?
Verna Gardner
She nods at him, flits her eyes to his face and back to the road. She doesn't say how she seriously doubts she'll be able to get to the point where drinking deeply or not will be a concern.
God, if she could though. If she could, the hunger would abate and some of the nerves would go away. That is such a big if.
She'll make a terrible vampire. She knows it.
They are a pair, these two. Torturing themselves in the car to the point where they could be personifications of woe and anxiety. And then, once we're at the destination, those emotions have to get packed away, because nobody likes the dour.
"What about after? Won't they realize something's wrong?"
David
"Usually not. You take just enough to keep you going for a night, and they're in no danger. Take a little more, and they might feel faint ... but when you actually drink, it feels good to them. It feels good to us, too, but you shouldn't ever let somebody stick their fangs in you, especially in Denver. Do you believe in the soul?"
There's a lot that David does not know about Verna. Whether or not she is in any way religious, or finds herself feeling religious now, is one of them.
He guides the car off the highway, and they pass a car with the music turned up so loudly that they can feel it rattling through the car. He grits his teeth and blinks a few times, shaking his head as if to clear it.
Verna Gardner
David talks about how it feels when you're bitten, and she looks away, closes her eyes. She remembers. He says she shouldn't ever let somebody stick their fangs in her, and she can't help but huff out a sardonic laugh. Yes, that would not be good, would it?
She remembers how he'd pressed in on her broken body and killed her. She remembers how she didn't care. It felt too good.
"Show me a particle of a soul, and I'll believe in one."
Just then, they pass that car with its bass, and Verna puts a finger up to her ear, as elegantly as she can manage. She doesn't like it either.
brat pack
Show me a particle of a soul. David drives in silence following that statement following the loud car. It takes him a moment or three to regather his wits. He drives more slowly, too, until they're gone from the same roadspace as the car. He doesn't notice how what he said might bring her mind back toward the night she died. He should, but he doesn't. He was a young man in a time when it didn't always matter, how a woman felt. It doesn't occur to him. It doesn't occur to him that it should've occured to him.
"I could teach you the Discipline of Auspex," David says, glancing from the road toward Verna. "It's not one of our -- our clan's -- natural Disciplines, but I made a point of learning it. I wanted to see what the big fuss was about. I wanted to see -- erm, there was this Brujah, Dolly, who -- you'd have liked her. She was an astronomer. She learned it so that she could better see things in the Heavens. Auspex gives your senses a sharpening, but you can also see the colors of the spirit. You can see when somebody else has, ah, consumed somebody else's soul," and he sounds uncomfortable. Deeply, utterly uncomfortable, describing this to Verna.
"It's not... of course it's not always accurate..."
Verna Gardner
She looks at David, tries to memorize his face when it's not directed at her -- when it's not twisted and fanged. Her own personal experience with The Kiss wasn't something she'd ever wish to repeat (oh, but it was him doing it). And now? She's about to do that to someone else.
That woman, that doll that they brought for her? The way she wanted it turned Verna's stomach long before the taste of her nastiness. But maybe that's the way of it? People will just let her. Might just want her to. And Verna, she tries to remind herself how much she doesn't want David to do that again. She'd be like that... doll.
He talks. She listens, pushing her disturbing thoughts to the side, because everything he says is important. But what he says? More unbelievable things that make no sense.
"That's what you saw in me, isn't it? You thought I'd... eaten someone's soul?"
She's incredulous. Like, that? That is the reason why she's dead? He thought she'd done something impossible...
brat pack
He doesn't answer her directly. He drums his fingers against the wheel nervous tic and rubs his jaw and speeds up to pass a jeep which is driving at five fucking miles an hour. "I lost control," David says. This doesn't address the stake through her heart but the ghost of judgment in her voice has him pricked into an answer. His tone is as deliberate as he can make it. "That's what you need to guard against when you're out among them. The kine. Your former friends and enemies. It's easy to lose control, get it? When you're hungry, or injured, and you do what the Hunger wants even if you don't want to do it. Wouldn't want to do it if you were in your right mind. Regret doing it."
"But I ... I did look at you and see somebody who was already dead and whose, whose soul was black. Black means bad fucking -- pardon me. Black isn't good. Black's what those others probably had through their auras."
Verna Gardner
This isn't the first time he's looked like this. He says how sorry he is in so many different ways. Most of it comes, like this, with a healthy dose of yet more horrible things that Verna has to get used to.
I'm sorry you can't see the sun again. I'm sorry you have to drink this. You have to keep control; I'm sorry I didn't.
"Do I still look like that? To you?" And there -- worry. She wants him to think well of her. Wants him to love her back, even though that's... No. In a strange way, he cares, but he doesn't really like her. Does he?
brat pack
"No," he says, as if he's looked. He hasn't looked. He hasn't looked again because he's terrified he'll look and see something else wrong. Because he's terrified constantly now. He clears his throat and his adam's apple bobs. "Would you... would you like to learn the Discipline of Auspex? We haven't- we haven't talked very much about the Disciplines, have we? My sire used to tell me they are called Disciplines instead of Arts because they take a lot of sweat and blood, uh- a lot of work and smarts."
Verna Gardner
He asks her if she would like to learn the Discipline that led to her murder. He asks, because he wants to offer her something, and doesn't think to try seeing it from her side, to wonder how she feels about that.
"If you like. If you think it would help. I would learn it."
She would, too. As much as those words come out dead and null, she would learn this thing that she doesn't even believe in, if he thought it would help.
She, they, need everything they can get, right?
brat pack
"M-maybe," he sighs, frustrated, upset at himself, hearing the stutter, the skip in his voice. "Maybe we should focus on the other Disciplines first. It might be useful for you to learn Auspex and see outside your- it's good for hunches, too, you know, epiphany's and hearing and- if you get good enough at it you can project your consciousness elsewhere- you can see through fucking Obfuscate. That's what I started to learn it- I- you never know what's lurking around watching. But maybe we should focus on other Disciplines. Dominate. Presence. Fortitude. Not Fortitude," another stutter. An impressive sire, Verna, verily and truly: impressive. "It might help when you do science. Help you see things you wouldn't have noticed otherwise. I mean. But we can wait."
"I think we're almost there. You're going to do great." Yes. He sounds positive. He flicks a glance at her, then back at the dark road ahead. "Let me see your fangs?" Another flick of a glance.
They're pulling toward a small park now, lights arrayed between trees like twinkle stars, fairy lights, luminous and lovely and the dark shadows between, and in the center of the park there's a large building she can see it through the trees some Masons Lodge something fancy opened up just for the night. Lots of people in varying states of sleek dress drifting toward it.
Music, too.
Verna Gardner
He flicks a glance to her and finds her staring, which she corrects in shame. You're going to do great, he says. She takes a breath, though she doesn't need it. Habit, right?
Let me see your fangs.
Her brows come together in confusion. "Oh," she nods, opens her mouth and looks back to him. She thinks of that businessman with his wrist stuck in her teeth, and... fangs. She's a predator, and now it shows -- but so does the nervousness.
brat pack
"Good! Nice and sharp." He sounds encouraging, right? This is what one is supposed to do with one's Childe, right? He squares his shoulders, rolls down his window and when the valet comes by glances to assure himself Verna is there or is behaving or ... And then he pays the man and another valet opens Verna's door and David comes around and is ready to offer her his elbow like a gentleman. He may be a black sheep but even black sheep know the score. Etiquette drilled in by his own sire, see.
Verna Gardner
"Do... do they get dull?" she asks, and then the window's down and he can't answer, and she realizes that she needs to hide her mouth now. Okay, let's not flash those to the world. Back down.
So, when he glances at her, her hand is covering her mouth and she's looking out her window the other way. Not screaming for help or trying to escape, just... trying to do everything right.
She smiles a thank you to the valet, and takes David's arm when he arrives -- lets him lead her out of the car. She's been cooped up in his basement for too long for this not to be -- dare we say it? Nice?
Verna's sire (kidnapper, murderer, ne'er-do-well Ventrue with a heart of rust, shit-head and thorn in the blueblood's side) comes to Verna one night in early April, after her taste has been somewhat tested, and tells her that he wants to see how well she can hunt for herself. He is nervous telling her this. He is nervous for all the reasons you can possibly imagine: he doesn't know what she's going to do or how she's going to react. He has cheated and bound her will to his, he has treated her as well as (in his opinion [mileage varies]) he can, but he knows his childe is opinionated and their start was, ah, shall we say, rocky to the extreme. He doesn't care about freedom: that's something hippies and Anarchs whine about. He does care about his survival, and hers too, since he's taken that burden on.
They don't go near the university, but to one of the uppercrust suburbs attached to the Denver metropolitan area. David drives and he looks out at the highway with an air of vigilance, checking his rearview mirror frequently.
"The last thing we need is for the Sabbat to appear. Uh, let's see... there's a ... I've got a note, uh, in the glove compartment there... Any of those places sound good to you?"
If she opens the glove compartment and checks the note, it's a list of locations. A small orchestral concert. A bar. A wine bar. A learning annex class. And a gym.
Verna Gardner
Verna, despite her newly dead self can't seem to stay still tonight. She fidgets with the trappings of nervousness, and every so often tries to check herself in a mirror. It's just that this is a test, and the price of failure is death, and not just for her, huh? David's been forthcoming about how important it is to learn and not do anything wrong because this little reprieve from dying could be very short indeed otherwise.
Ever since getting them to give her some makeup, she's tried to make her pallor look presentable every night, but tonight it was even more important. So her lips are stained (so it won't rub off) and her eyes are dark (to hide the red crust in case she should cry) and there is a faked healthy glow to her. She wonders at times how the men even manage...
And, of course, she won't go outside without looking nice. Nice, to her, can be a bit dowdy, but tonight we're going with 'sexy librarian' instead. It might work, right? Black pencil skirts go with everything. And she can still run in her leather boots. She's tried hard to rid them of blood spatters, too.
David says to check the note in the glove compartment, so she does, reads...
"I'm not dressed for the gym. Won't they expect me to drink at the bars? I can't..."
There, a breath, to steady.
"What about the concert?"
David
"Concert it is."
David's dressed in -- well. The Metallica teeshirt doesn't count against him with that nice gray sweater over it. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel as they drive, but he doesn't turn on the radio unless Verna requests it. He doesn't look at her too often either, and if she has asked for perfume or if his ghoul has gone ahead and decided to make a nice little thing like Verna feel more put together by buying perfume his nose twitches now and then. Vampires sneeze. It's just habit instead of instinct.
"Now, uh... You'll find that most places you go, they'll expect you to at least have a drink. Every function, somebody goes for the beer or the soda... I didn't notice it as much before I was turned, but after I noticed it constantly. It's the social thing to do. Sometimes you'll be obliged to hold one as if you're taking part. Just get rid of the drink as soon as possible, or be polite and keep the conversation going. Most people aren't very perceptive. They see what they want to see, and they'll fill in their own excuses."
Woe begone, hangdog expression. Verna was a perfect mortal and he had to ruin her. She could've been filling in her own excuses for years.
He drums his fingers again.
"You'll do fine," he says, and he sounds more as if he's trying to convince himself than her. "It'll be fine. Don't drink too deep. And do you remember how I showed you to close up the wound? You lick it closed."
Fuss, fuss, fuss. The world is a mad world and hunger gnaws at Verna as it always does, a constant. Has she been full for even one night since she was changed?
Verna Gardner
She nods at him, flits her eyes to his face and back to the road. She doesn't say how she seriously doubts she'll be able to get to the point where drinking deeply or not will be a concern.
God, if she could though. If she could, the hunger would abate and some of the nerves would go away. That is such a big if.
She'll make a terrible vampire. She knows it.
They are a pair, these two. Torturing themselves in the car to the point where they could be personifications of woe and anxiety. And then, once we're at the destination, those emotions have to get packed away, because nobody likes the dour.
"What about after? Won't they realize something's wrong?"
David
"Usually not. You take just enough to keep you going for a night, and they're in no danger. Take a little more, and they might feel faint ... but when you actually drink, it feels good to them. It feels good to us, too, but you shouldn't ever let somebody stick their fangs in you, especially in Denver. Do you believe in the soul?"
There's a lot that David does not know about Verna. Whether or not she is in any way religious, or finds herself feeling religious now, is one of them.
He guides the car off the highway, and they pass a car with the music turned up so loudly that they can feel it rattling through the car. He grits his teeth and blinks a few times, shaking his head as if to clear it.
Verna Gardner
David talks about how it feels when you're bitten, and she looks away, closes her eyes. She remembers. He says she shouldn't ever let somebody stick their fangs in her, and she can't help but huff out a sardonic laugh. Yes, that would not be good, would it?
She remembers how he'd pressed in on her broken body and killed her. She remembers how she didn't care. It felt too good.
"Show me a particle of a soul, and I'll believe in one."
Just then, they pass that car with its bass, and Verna puts a finger up to her ear, as elegantly as she can manage. She doesn't like it either.
brat pack
Show me a particle of a soul. David drives in silence following that statement following the loud car. It takes him a moment or three to regather his wits. He drives more slowly, too, until they're gone from the same roadspace as the car. He doesn't notice how what he said might bring her mind back toward the night she died. He should, but he doesn't. He was a young man in a time when it didn't always matter, how a woman felt. It doesn't occur to him. It doesn't occur to him that it should've occured to him.
"I could teach you the Discipline of Auspex," David says, glancing from the road toward Verna. "It's not one of our -- our clan's -- natural Disciplines, but I made a point of learning it. I wanted to see what the big fuss was about. I wanted to see -- erm, there was this Brujah, Dolly, who -- you'd have liked her. She was an astronomer. She learned it so that she could better see things in the Heavens. Auspex gives your senses a sharpening, but you can also see the colors of the spirit. You can see when somebody else has, ah, consumed somebody else's soul," and he sounds uncomfortable. Deeply, utterly uncomfortable, describing this to Verna.
"It's not... of course it's not always accurate..."
Verna Gardner
She looks at David, tries to memorize his face when it's not directed at her -- when it's not twisted and fanged. Her own personal experience with The Kiss wasn't something she'd ever wish to repeat (oh, but it was him doing it). And now? She's about to do that to someone else.
That woman, that doll that they brought for her? The way she wanted it turned Verna's stomach long before the taste of her nastiness. But maybe that's the way of it? People will just let her. Might just want her to. And Verna, she tries to remind herself how much she doesn't want David to do that again. She'd be like that... doll.
He talks. She listens, pushing her disturbing thoughts to the side, because everything he says is important. But what he says? More unbelievable things that make no sense.
"That's what you saw in me, isn't it? You thought I'd... eaten someone's soul?"
She's incredulous. Like, that? That is the reason why she's dead? He thought she'd done something impossible...
brat pack
He doesn't answer her directly. He drums his fingers against the wheel nervous tic and rubs his jaw and speeds up to pass a jeep which is driving at five fucking miles an hour. "I lost control," David says. This doesn't address the stake through her heart but the ghost of judgment in her voice has him pricked into an answer. His tone is as deliberate as he can make it. "That's what you need to guard against when you're out among them. The kine. Your former friends and enemies. It's easy to lose control, get it? When you're hungry, or injured, and you do what the Hunger wants even if you don't want to do it. Wouldn't want to do it if you were in your right mind. Regret doing it."
"But I ... I did look at you and see somebody who was already dead and whose, whose soul was black. Black means bad fucking -- pardon me. Black isn't good. Black's what those others probably had through their auras."
Verna Gardner
This isn't the first time he's looked like this. He says how sorry he is in so many different ways. Most of it comes, like this, with a healthy dose of yet more horrible things that Verna has to get used to.
I'm sorry you can't see the sun again. I'm sorry you have to drink this. You have to keep control; I'm sorry I didn't.
"Do I still look like that? To you?" And there -- worry. She wants him to think well of her. Wants him to love her back, even though that's... No. In a strange way, he cares, but he doesn't really like her. Does he?
brat pack
"No," he says, as if he's looked. He hasn't looked. He hasn't looked again because he's terrified he'll look and see something else wrong. Because he's terrified constantly now. He clears his throat and his adam's apple bobs. "Would you... would you like to learn the Discipline of Auspex? We haven't- we haven't talked very much about the Disciplines, have we? My sire used to tell me they are called Disciplines instead of Arts because they take a lot of sweat and blood, uh- a lot of work and smarts."
Verna Gardner
He asks her if she would like to learn the Discipline that led to her murder. He asks, because he wants to offer her something, and doesn't think to try seeing it from her side, to wonder how she feels about that.
"If you like. If you think it would help. I would learn it."
She would, too. As much as those words come out dead and null, she would learn this thing that she doesn't even believe in, if he thought it would help.
She, they, need everything they can get, right?
brat pack
"M-maybe," he sighs, frustrated, upset at himself, hearing the stutter, the skip in his voice. "Maybe we should focus on the other Disciplines first. It might be useful for you to learn Auspex and see outside your- it's good for hunches, too, you know, epiphany's and hearing and- if you get good enough at it you can project your consciousness elsewhere- you can see through fucking Obfuscate. That's what I started to learn it- I- you never know what's lurking around watching. But maybe we should focus on other Disciplines. Dominate. Presence. Fortitude. Not Fortitude," another stutter. An impressive sire, Verna, verily and truly: impressive. "It might help when you do science. Help you see things you wouldn't have noticed otherwise. I mean. But we can wait."
"I think we're almost there. You're going to do great." Yes. He sounds positive. He flicks a glance at her, then back at the dark road ahead. "Let me see your fangs?" Another flick of a glance.
They're pulling toward a small park now, lights arrayed between trees like twinkle stars, fairy lights, luminous and lovely and the dark shadows between, and in the center of the park there's a large building she can see it through the trees some Masons Lodge something fancy opened up just for the night. Lots of people in varying states of sleek dress drifting toward it.
Music, too.
Verna Gardner
He flicks a glance to her and finds her staring, which she corrects in shame. You're going to do great, he says. She takes a breath, though she doesn't need it. Habit, right?
Let me see your fangs.
Her brows come together in confusion. "Oh," she nods, opens her mouth and looks back to him. She thinks of that businessman with his wrist stuck in her teeth, and... fangs. She's a predator, and now it shows -- but so does the nervousness.
brat pack
"Good! Nice and sharp." He sounds encouraging, right? This is what one is supposed to do with one's Childe, right? He squares his shoulders, rolls down his window and when the valet comes by glances to assure himself Verna is there or is behaving or ... And then he pays the man and another valet opens Verna's door and David comes around and is ready to offer her his elbow like a gentleman. He may be a black sheep but even black sheep know the score. Etiquette drilled in by his own sire, see.
Verna Gardner
"Do... do they get dull?" she asks, and then the window's down and he can't answer, and she realizes that she needs to hide her mouth now. Okay, let's not flash those to the world. Back down.
So, when he glances at her, her hand is covering her mouth and she's looking out her window the other way. Not screaming for help or trying to escape, just... trying to do everything right.
She smiles a thank you to the valet, and takes David's arm when he arrives -- lets him lead her out of the car. She's been cooped up in his basement for too long for this not to be -- dare we say it? Nice?
brat pack
It helps to have the wit to spy opportunity when one is hunting, and Verna as she cases the joint has wit enough. Does hunger sharpen her? A dull ache, and it would be easiest simply to drink from David. No need to be sneaky. No need to be social. No need to talk to strangers. No need to be judged by strangers. Discounted by strangers. Ignored by strangers. But David's not on the menu tonight.
Desperate enough and alone enough. . . .
Promising. An older man, silver in his hair but not handsome enough to be a fox, dressed well enough to be a lawyer or a banker, wearing frameless glasses and sitting a chair away from two people, one of whom looks related to him by blood although not young enough to be his daughter or son.
Promising. A young Indian woman, younger than Verna is (when does it become 'was'?), fresh-faced and pretty, standing with her shoulders stiff and her hair up toying with a kleenex in one hand, glancing frequently toward the door whenever she thinks somebody's looking at her as if - well. More study might give Verna a more accurate understanding of her possible prey's mental state.
Promising. A freckled woman somewhat heavyset, dressed nicely in pink and white, leaning on crutches one leg broken and peering around with the air of someone looking for someone or something.
Promising. A gawky man around Verna's age, perhaps a little bit older, smiling faintly at the orchestra. He's dressed sharply, moneyed, and when somebody bumps into him he doesn't seem to notice for a second, off in his own daydreaming world.
Verna Gardner
She can tell, can't she? That most of these people would be... good. Delicious, yes, that sort of good.
Of course, there is a hipster dude who looks like he moonlights as a lumberjack, if lumberjacks were famous for having huge gauges in their ears and neck tattoos. No amount of nice clothes can cover that up. He gets checked off the mental list as her eyes go skimming around.
She sees a woman with crutches, and that is a strangely attractive sight for someone on a hunt, right? But no. She's looking for someone. And besides, it sticks out, the crutches. Verna doesn't want anything to seem... out of the ordinary.
It has to be perfect.
But then, nothing ever is.
There's the older man sitting with his family, but he's with people. They might look for him.
There... the Indian woman. Is she crying?
[Perception + Empathy!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
brat pack
The woman has been crying, and recently, and recently she re-applied her make-up or she has really good quality make-up because there's no sign of tears around her eyes except perhaps a certain shadowy quality to the skin, something about the line of her mouth misery-set something about the way she anxiously plays with her kleenex. Shoulders up because she knows she's alone, because she feels like she's alone, but she doesn't want anybody else to know that she's bothered by loneliness, and so here she is, stiff and pretty and to keep people from asking questions she glances at the door like maybe somebody will come. Maybe. Maybe somebody will come.
David lets her set the pace and doesn't seem inclined to conversation. He smiles genially if he catches anybody's eye and here at least in his nice clothes manages to look not so much nervous as a touch excited and wolf in sheep's clothing put together.
There's no tray going around but he does touch the base of Verna's spine to get her attention and nods toward some empty chairs. He has his phone in hand, rude but a good way to blend in. There's always some Millenial texting away.
It conceals the intensity with which he is guaging the crowd, making certain (with a push, scanning) that there are no how shall we say competing predators and if there are whether or not they're to be avoided.
Wouldn't want a coyote to come along and snap up Verna the kitten.
Verna Gardner
[Perception + Awareness!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
brat pack
And while she's looking, she can feel the hairs on the back of her neck lift feel a hunch in her blood in her bones an intuition a suspicion a chill, because Someone Did Something, Somewhere.
Verna Gardner
Verna sniffs and arches her back when she feels that. Starts looking around to see... what? A ghost in the air? Verna, for all her recent mind-opening experiences does not yet believe in them. Souls are suspect.
So, she focuses her attention elsewhere. That woman. She's been stood up. Verna can put the narrative together, oh yes. It's also an excuse for some nice person to say hello and make friends and...
Make her night immeasurably worse perhaps.
Verna looks away, bites her lip. The woman is alone. She's got runaway emotions. She's a good target. It's the best of choices.
Then, she looks to David, this look on her face like she's certain she can't do this. He's a reminder of why she has to try, though.
"I think. There's a woman. Over there. S-should I just go say hello?"
brat pack
He looks for the woman Verna is referring to, gaze brushing across her if Verna makes any gesture at all, if not he misses her completely or thinks he's found her and it doesn't really matter, because after the glance of 'over there,' he turns his back to the orchestra and the Indian woman and looks at Verna. He pitches his voice low, of course, because that's what members of secret societies do. "It's a start. What is your goal?"
Verna Gardner
"She looks sad, like someone stood her up. I could just... I don't know? Talk? Keep talking? Until I can get her..."
It's terrible, laying it out. Putting words to the whole ordeal makes it real.
"Y-you know. Out of view."
Verna fidgets. It's what she does when she's nervous. It's not the mortal terror David's used to from her, but a cousin of it perhaps.
brat pack
"And how will you ..." He clicks his teeth gently.
Verna Gardner
"What... how... uh... do you suggest?" Verna responds, because she really has no idea.
brat pack
"If she's upset and will let you hug her, maybe then. Otherwise..." David doesn't shrug, but the shrug is in his voice and his gaze is intent on Verna's now, focused, for in this he is confident.
"Improvise. The important thing is not to let her see the," he clicks his teeth again, which just now look as human as anybody's who never died and rose again to drink blood, "and to lick the wound closed once you're done sucking. Do you remember how long is too long?"
He'd told her before to count to three and not to go beyond three to start no matter how good it felt.
Verna Gardner
Verna nods. "Three."
Three. There's a limit. She has to remember that. And the licking thing. And don't let anyone see.
She looks over his shoulder, just a glance, and wishes she could still down some alcohol for her courage's sake.
"Okay," she says, takes a deep breath, seems to straighten out her face into something a lot less overwrought. "Okay."
And then, smiling a little, like she's trying to remember what enjoying herself felt like, minces her way over to the lady by the door.
brat pack
When Verna gets close enough, the woman's eyes (large, dark, brown) touch hers and then she glances at the door, unsmiling and nervous but clearly without any expectation that Verna was approaching her or means to continue approaching or means to interact with her at all. When she turns her head back, it is to put her gaze on the orchestra, which is beginning to warm up, drag people's attention from their conversations and their meals, readying itself to play, play, play. Nobody says a few words about tonight's program or about the charity the concert is benefiting (the penniless musician's fund, bitches! Er, ladies and gentlemen), because they're trying to appeal to more people and they want to surprise the audience and anyway people are allowed to socialize and anyway they'll have somebody speak about the goals of their orchestra between pieces. First up, the overture for the Magic Flute; it will begin.
Verna Gardner
As she walks, she cocks her head a little at the woman, gives her a shy smile. There there, it's not so bad is it?
"H-hi. I know you don't know me or anything, but..." But what, Verna? She clears her throat. "It looks like I've been abandoned tonight."
Right. Go for the solidarity thing?
"I don't have anyone to sit with. Anymore. Could I? With you?"
[Manip + Subt = 5, Diff 8 'cause shy!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (5, 5, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Verna Gardner
[Hungry?]
Dice: 1 d10 TN8 (9) ( success x 1 )
brat pack
[NPC Manip + Subt!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )
Verna Gardner
[Perc + Subt = What? Is that a falsehood?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
brat pack
The stiff-shouldered woman looks up at Verna when the little fledgling shyly begins speaking, and she still doesn't smile, corners of her mouth shifting downward for a moment. Her gaze darts back to the orchestra and, without looking at Verna, she says, "I'm sorry to hear that. You're welcome to take a chair."
The only lie is her face and her attitude; that air of injured dignity drawn together, smoothed out, polished, put on a good face for this stranger right now who'd normally annoy her might annoy her except well she isn't thinking about how to be annoyed tonight. She's pretending well, although not so well that Verna, on high alert, doesn't see the places where the mask wears thin and the woman's true misery is visible.
An inaudible swallow, just so.
Verna Gardner
"Hey, what's wrong?" Verna asks, sliding down into a chair with all the grace she can muster. "You look worse off than I do, and let me tell you, my night's going horribly."
No lie there.
Not one bit.
brat pack
"Why would you assume something is wrong?" the woman says, a quaver on 'assume' for all she is trying to sound sharp. "Do I look like I was also abandoned?"
Verna Gardner
"No... no... I can't imagine why anyone would abandon you. Just, you looked a little sad. I'm sorry. I didn't mean..."
Verna gives up and looks toward the orchestra, fidgets as everything seems to be falling apart so soon.
brat pack
Silence. In the orchestra, everybody is alert, everybody is at attention even when it isn't yet their turn, and when it's time to join the music they do so with precision, with choreographed grace; many of the people here are here because they like to watch something so practiced, people so in concert with one another that they can draw heaven out of the air and send it back again. Nobody can play in a symphony without practice even if they know how to read the music.
The woman doesn't speak immediately, but finally gives a stiff-sounding little, "I know you didn't mean anything by it; it's fine."
Verna Gardner
It's like breaking the ice with a glacier. Verna tries to pay more attention to the music than her failure, which is wearing on her face even though the music is so upbeat.
Mozart. He was genius, wasn't he? Always been one of her favorites. Some classical composers tried, but few could match his layered complexity. When the other woman speaks up again, Verna just hits her with another shy smile, and goes back to feeling whatever she can.
Is David watching this? Can he see how she isn't getting anywhere? Oh, he probably is. He probably isn't letting her out of his sight, lest she bolt for freedom or some other stupid thing.
brat pack
She's new. It's not difficult to feel. Ennui hasn't come to rewrite her memories betrayal hasn't come to tell her that there is no hope for friendship she has not yet done unspeakable things when not in her right mind she is young. She is a young woman and she is a young vampire and her heart doesn't race to tell her she is nervous, but surely the mind is enough? Thoughts. Ideas. Hunger for something.
Maybe one night she'll hear Mozart and think, Ah, the first time I hunted on my own, I was so young, and she'll feel something different.
Maybe one night she'll hear Mozart and think, Ah, one gets bored.
Maybe.
Does Verna look around for David? He's hiding in the crowd. It's not difficult to break ice with a glacier; one just has to make an impact. To get the old stuff, the ice that'll tell one something about the past about the earth about this metaphor is getting out of control, sometimes one has to really dig. The best defense against ice is warmth.
The woman sneakily puts her kleenex, ragged, torn, into her purse, and casts Verna a quick sidelong glance to make sure she hasn't seen.
The woman wouldn't want to look weak, would she?
Nobody wants that.
Verna Gardner
The overture is short, and afterward there is the appreciative clapping, to which Verna supplies her own bit.
It's so tempting to just ignore her... prey? To just listen to music and not do anything, but she has to try, doesn't she? After the clapping dies down, she tries again.
"I love Mozart, you know? It's nice.. um. Thanks for letting me sit with you. I..."
I've been so lonely. Stuck in a guy's concrete basement. Dead inside, with only a few, incredibly strange people to talk with. Pretty sure I'm going to die soon.
And she can't say any of that, out loud, so the sentence hangs there while Verna lets her own mask slip. She misses being normal, and able to smile truthfully.
"Just, thanks."
Verna Gardner
[Charisma + Empathy! Spending WP because this is where she botches, I know it.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 2 ) [Doubling Tens] [WP]
brat pack
Another spell of silence, but this one is shorter. The pretty woman turns her chin toward Verna and opens her mouth as if she's going to say something once, and then twice, and then finally, after a prim little pursing of her mouth, she smiles a thin but genuine smile.
"You're welcome. It's fine. I don't have any one tonight to listen to the music with either, not that I need someone..."
Swallow, and as she swallows she reaches up to touch her earring. Verna is well-fed, well-suited for a leisurely hunt a hunt with no undo surprises from a loss of control, but if she has any preconceived notions on where to bite it must be the neck, mustn't it? David told her that any place will do.
Just make the blood flow and suck. They won't fight.
"What's your name?"
Verna Gardner
Her companion (are we to that point now?) touches her earring, and Verna follows the motion, eyes holding there a second while she thinks. Yes. Just there. Three.
"My name? I'm Verna," she says. But isn't Verna dead? Or something? The old Verna, that is. Who should she be?
"I don't need anyone either. Sometimes, it's just so much... crap." She sighs. "Nobody needs terrible people."
Except, Verna, you need David, don't you? And there, another sigh.
brat pack
The woman gives an emphatic little nod, and she puts her hands in her lap and looks down at them, studying the nails, the ring on the ringfinger of her left hand which has a little pearl all milky luminescence.
Verna Gardner
"What's your name?" Verna asks, and immediately regrets that. She's not here to actually get close to this woman, but... damn it's hard, isn't it? They're both sad, lonely women, and Verna's beginning to regret her choice.
Well, that's not entirely true. She's regretted it from the beginning. She keeps having to tell herself how necessary this all is.
brat pack
"It's Neela," she tells Verna. A pause. And then a slightly less stiff, "It's nice to meet you, Verna."
Verna Gardner
Neela. Her first target is Neela. Will she even remember that, later? Will she live long enough to forget?
Things seem to be going a little better, so Verna stops messing with her nails (pink polished, to cover up the greyish nailbeds) and starts paying more attention to the music.
"That's such a pretty name," she says, and can't really think of anything else. "A-and... you're pretty too. I'm sure you'll find someone who isn't terrible."
Just, not tonight.
Verna Gardner
[Charisma + Empathy! 2WPs spent!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 7) ( success x 1 ) [Doubling Tens] [WP]
brat pack
[NPC self-control]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (7, 8) ( success x 2 )
brat pack
A-and... you're pretty too, Verna says, and Neela gives Verna a startled side-eye, and then closes her eyes for a moment. Her face grows very still as she tries to reach for her composure and manages to, but when she opens her eyes the lashes stick together a little and her gaze is bright with unshed tears. Which she ignores, naturally. Nobody cries during conductorless orchestra shows. It's a rule.
"Thank you, but I don't think so. I found somebody and they lied. Don't they always lie?"
Verna Gardner
"Not always. There are those who don't lie," Verna says. They have a bad habit of disappearing when you need them, but they exist, she thinks she knows. "They're the ones who are worth grieving over."
As opposed to, say, the lying scumbags of the world.
"Liars, though? Worthless."
brat pack
Neela offers Verna another thin but genuine smile, and then turns her attention to the orchestra. Some of the stiffness has left her shoulders, but she's still a portrait of contained upset. She swallows once, and though her eyes get less bright, less luminous, her chin wrinkles up. Once. See?
Verna Gardner
Verna's also struggling to contain herself tonight. The pressure is enormous. Deal with it, or die -- and that's supposed to help? Still. It's not going... badly. She hasn't run Neela off, or been yelled at. It's all going to be okay, she keeps telling herself. It'll be okay. Okay?
And she, too turns her attention to the music, closes her eyes for a bit -- just listening.
brat pack
Next. Now. Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, Allegro Molto, mischievous rills sweeping through a Romantic melody, music for night-stalking, music for clouds boiling, roiling, music for triumphal if pastoral dances --
It'll be okay. It has to be okay.
Nobody around her seems to know how much the night means to Verna, or what she is. Nobody has given her strange looks, and even the woman beside Verna, though reserved and initially unfriendly (and why should she be? A stranger!), treats Verna like a person.
There aren't many people trickling in any longer, although one or two eddy toward the doors, heading for a bath room or to take a cell number.
At least nobody's cell phone has gone off; even in a conversational, almost casual concert such as this it would be the height of rudeness to have a loud ring tone.
Verna Gardner
Verna doesn't have her phone. Phones are a privilege for good little vampires who have proven that they're not going to use them to dial 911. Maybe she'll never get her phone back.
Did David even bother to carry her things with him when he took her? It begs the question. There was a gun and a phone and her identification and a lot of blood. Surely somebody cleaned up after him, right?
"It's going to be okay," Verna says, low-voiced, partly to her 'friend' but mostly to herself. There's no guarantee of that, ever. She should know this by now. But hey. It's only a little lie.
brat pack
[Ye olde manip + subt]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Verna Gardner
[Perception + Subt!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 6, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )
brat pack
[TIE BREAK]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Verna Gardner
[Again! Tie!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
brat pack
Hard on the heels of Verna's low-voiced remark, Neela smooths her skirt down and stands. "Pardon me," she says. "I'm just going to freshen up. I'll be right back." The last sentence is added in a rare moment of thoughtfulness; Neela isn't cruel but she is selfish and, since she feels so awful, she'd like to feel less awful, and she wouldn't want to think that she was being abandoned after confessing to abandonment, etc., etc. The point is: she says what she says so Verna doesn't feel downcast.
And she will be right back -- probably. But what she really needs is to go outside and cry.
Verna Gardner
Her 'friend' leaves, and lies as she goes. She's not gone to go freshen up, and Verna knows it. She knows that veneer of politeness over a breakdown, because it is her life. And as the symphony swells and ebbs in this beautiful place, she suddenly gets a blank look on her face. It's a better visage than the alternative. She knows what she has to do now.
She looks to the floor and rises from her chair, follows after Neela, giving her space, letting her get outside. But following.
This is her chance.
brat pack
Neela goes through one of the side doors, avoiding the main foyer. She was a Rainbow Girl, came to this lodge for ceremonies once upon a time, when she was even younger than she is now, so she knows where to go to avoid being seen. There's a hall with inlaid marble: white and black and gold-flecked, suddenly opulence, pictures of old men who were influential once and enjoyed boxing and political shenanigans. There's a door open to the main foyer, but Neela doesn't go in that direction; she walks down the hall toward an out of the way set of stairs, meaning to sit on them where nobody can see her for a moment or two. The plants throw spiky shadows, see them? And the light through the main foyer's chandelier dances on the ground like pixies, containing the noise of people talk talk talking, one businessman's voice rising to obnoxious levels of joviality as he yells at an assistant and the acoustics cause his directions to echo.
Verna Gardner
Verna follows. Her boots make soft sounds on the lodge's marble floors, not the telltale clack of heels. But she's not even trying to disguise the fact that she's there. She just puts on her sympathetic face, and keeps walking.
"Neela?"
"I meant that, you know. It's going to be okay."
This isn't the end. Not for you, Neela.
brat pack
Neela startles when Verna speaks, so wrapped up was she in her desire to just get out go somewhere that she hadn't noticed or had the opportunity to notice Verna walking up behind her. She catches herself on the stair alcove's wall instead of sitting down and looks at Verna in disbelief. Disbelief which flickers to anger, not necessarily directed at Verna, though not necessarily safe either. "How do you know? You don't know what you're talking about."
Verna Gardner
"Maybe not specifically, no. But I know you're pretty. You don't believe that, but you are. And you're young and there's hope yet, right? As long as there's hope, you just keep going."
Verna knows all about that last part. There's a shred of hope in her that she clings to like it's her very existence. Determination has kept her -- well, not necessarily alive -- but continuing for a long time now. Neela is her hope right now. If she can just do this. If she can just get closer...
She takes a step. Another.
brat pack
Neela opens her mouth to say something, then closes it firmly. Verna is coming closer and the young woman has no idea that she is in danger of anything but an awkward moment, or losing her temper, or losing her composure; of feeling worse than she already feels. Her lower chin wrinkles again and her eyes find the ceiling, the wall, and she holds her hands out then brings them back one hits her thigh with a slap and she leans against the wall.
Verna Gardner
Okay, so. This is it. This is the test, right? Verna holds her arms out, like she's going to be someone to lean on instead of the cold wall. Verna's cold herself, but Neela likely won't feel that through the clothes.
It's okay. You can cry. Let it all out on Verna's shoulder.
It'll feel so good.
She can do this. It'll be okay. She can do this.
Verna Gardner
[Charisma + Subt! Diff 8 because shy, 3 WP spent, because so close!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 6) ( success x 1 ) [Doubling Tens] [WP]
brat pack
Neela doesn't come into Verna's arms as if Verna were sanctuary, a welcome solace. Her shoulders stiffen, but she doesn't pull back or move away; instead she blinks furiousy, because she is not going to cry, damn it.
Verna can do this. Only mice have bad times with hugs when boa constrictors are in town, and Verna isn't really a mouse. Even if she feels like one or acts like one, shy, shy, shy sometimes. She's the thing with fangs.
Verna Gardner
Oh, she has a warm, living person in her arms, and Neela's neck is right there, and the thrill of it... She keeps her arms from wandering, at least.
But Neela's not the one whose breath comes choppy, like she's close to tears. That's all Verna. She's manipulated herself into this position, and now it's time to make good on it, and save her life. Save David's life.
She makes sure to just happen to cant her lips toward Neela's neck as they get closer. Makes sure not to breathe on her skin. She can feel the need inside push on her fangs, and then...
It's quick. Verna doesn't want to give her victim time to react to the scrape of a tooth across her skin. She just wants to get this done -- to get Neela's blood, which flows, oh! Lips around the wound, suck on it, don't let it get messy now. God, the pulse, it just pumps so hard, so fast...
She almost forgets to count.
One.
Two.
Three.
brat pack
Neela doesn't hug Verna back, but remains stiff in the moment before Verna bites her. Neela doesn't pull back and look at Verna, accuse her of being a monster, crazy, a psycho, something Other, some inhuman thing; she doesn't accuse her of anything, and the stiffness is all because a stranger however well intentioned is hugging her and she just wants to cry and then Verna's teeth scrape her skin and Neela makes a sound and then it is far too late because Verna is sucking and her blood is flowing. Her heartbeat picks up, scared rabbit racing, but she doesn't sound scared when she moans: quietly, in some confusion, whisked away by the exquisite --
David's right. Even when it isn't a blood doll, even when it isn't someone who has been prepped for her, they don't fight. If anything, it's quite the opposite, and Verna's victim would like to die this way.
Sure.
One.
Two.
Three, and Verna is full. She hasn't been full since her last day, though she's come close, and for once hunger abates completely.
(Lies. It waits. It lurks. It's always present. It's air now.)
Verna Gardner
She draws her fangs out, and then there's her tongue to seal the holes left behind. Verna keeps holding Neela, though. This is the part she's dreaded. How is she going to react to that? It can't be good.
Verna shakes. It's pretty obvious now how her own emotions won't be held back for long, how she wants to cry too. It's too intense, isn't it? Everything is.
"You'll be okay. I know it," she says, into her victim's ear.
Verna Gardner
"Just like... I will. Right?"
brat pack
Verna's breath on her ear now, Verna still holding her tight, and Neela who went loose and relaxed and just a moment ago couldn't keep herself from making a pleasure-sound if she wanted to, well, Neela feels light-headed and sick and trapped. Her heart is still hammering, trying to make up for her loss, and her vision swims. Just like... I will, Verna says, and Neela shudders. Right?
"I- I don't know. I- I need to go." Her voice is as tight as a steel trap. "I've- I didn't know I- I'm sorry I just," longing, too. "I feel weird."
"I- I don't usually like girls. I mean I- I haven't. My fiancée- he just died. He k-killed himself in the hosp- hospit- but he said he'd hold on until- and his br- his brother- just please let me go. I mean I should go. Or... I shouldn't? I- "
Verna Gardner
Verna lets go. The stammering, the sudden explosion of emotion, it hits her like a moving wall. She runs her tongue over her teeth, because the last thing she wants to do is try to talk this out while looking... freakish. She can still taste Neela in her mouth, the soft tang of copper, the freshness of her.
I don't usually like girls.
Well, you know, Neela... Neither do I.
My fiancée- he just died.
"I'm so sorry, Neela. That's... terrible. I don't know what to say. Just..." She knows how that feels, and it's awful, dying is.
I should go. Or... I shouldn't?
"Go," she says, and if it's a command, it's one she's trying to be gentle about. "Just, know that you can get through this. People can get through a lot of things."
Verna would know. There's a depth of sadness in her that mirrors Neela's. And she doesn't hide it now, who could? She looks like if she could go paler, she would be, and steps back once, twice, before turning around.
brat pack
As soon as Verna steps back, moves at all, gives Neela any space, Neela bolts. She doesn't actually run, because she feels too light-headed for that, but she goes as quickly as she can and definitely passes Verna on her way back to (if only she knew it) the ring of light a glow of safety, glancing back not a timid little mouse glance back but a worried concerned doesn't know what she's looking at glance back, and then with her head down and her arms wrapped around herself she disappears back into the lodge's ball room.
Music: Danse Macabre.
Verna Gardner
Verna, fists balled and body tense walks back to the room herself, but doesn't try to follow Neela. It's just, she needs to find David. She needs for him to know it went... okay. She didn't kill anyone. She didn't make anyone think she was a vampire.
She needs that. Or she is going to lose it right there by the staircase.
Part of her is so relieved. Part of her is so sated. And of course, most of her is entirely horrified over what she just did.
Surely he will be happy with her now? Surely. She did everything right. Everything. Right?
"I'm sorry, Neela," she whispers under her breath, low beneath the music.
It helps to have the wit to spy opportunity when one is hunting, and Verna as she cases the joint has wit enough. Does hunger sharpen her? A dull ache, and it would be easiest simply to drink from David. No need to be sneaky. No need to be social. No need to talk to strangers. No need to be judged by strangers. Discounted by strangers. Ignored by strangers. But David's not on the menu tonight.
Desperate enough and alone enough. . . .
Promising. An older man, silver in his hair but not handsome enough to be a fox, dressed well enough to be a lawyer or a banker, wearing frameless glasses and sitting a chair away from two people, one of whom looks related to him by blood although not young enough to be his daughter or son.
Promising. A young Indian woman, younger than Verna is (when does it become 'was'?), fresh-faced and pretty, standing with her shoulders stiff and her hair up toying with a kleenex in one hand, glancing frequently toward the door whenever she thinks somebody's looking at her as if - well. More study might give Verna a more accurate understanding of her possible prey's mental state.
Promising. A freckled woman somewhat heavyset, dressed nicely in pink and white, leaning on crutches one leg broken and peering around with the air of someone looking for someone or something.
Promising. A gawky man around Verna's age, perhaps a little bit older, smiling faintly at the orchestra. He's dressed sharply, moneyed, and when somebody bumps into him he doesn't seem to notice for a second, off in his own daydreaming world.
Verna Gardner
She can tell, can't she? That most of these people would be... good. Delicious, yes, that sort of good.
Of course, there is a hipster dude who looks like he moonlights as a lumberjack, if lumberjacks were famous for having huge gauges in their ears and neck tattoos. No amount of nice clothes can cover that up. He gets checked off the mental list as her eyes go skimming around.
She sees a woman with crutches, and that is a strangely attractive sight for someone on a hunt, right? But no. She's looking for someone. And besides, it sticks out, the crutches. Verna doesn't want anything to seem... out of the ordinary.
It has to be perfect.
But then, nothing ever is.
There's the older man sitting with his family, but he's with people. They might look for him.
There... the Indian woman. Is she crying?
[Perception + Empathy!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
brat pack
The woman has been crying, and recently, and recently she re-applied her make-up or she has really good quality make-up because there's no sign of tears around her eyes except perhaps a certain shadowy quality to the skin, something about the line of her mouth misery-set something about the way she anxiously plays with her kleenex. Shoulders up because she knows she's alone, because she feels like she's alone, but she doesn't want anybody else to know that she's bothered by loneliness, and so here she is, stiff and pretty and to keep people from asking questions she glances at the door like maybe somebody will come. Maybe. Maybe somebody will come.
David lets her set the pace and doesn't seem inclined to conversation. He smiles genially if he catches anybody's eye and here at least in his nice clothes manages to look not so much nervous as a touch excited and wolf in sheep's clothing put together.
There's no tray going around but he does touch the base of Verna's spine to get her attention and nods toward some empty chairs. He has his phone in hand, rude but a good way to blend in. There's always some Millenial texting away.
It conceals the intensity with which he is guaging the crowd, making certain (with a push, scanning) that there are no how shall we say competing predators and if there are whether or not they're to be avoided.
Wouldn't want a coyote to come along and snap up Verna the kitten.
Verna Gardner
[Perception + Awareness!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
brat pack
And while she's looking, she can feel the hairs on the back of her neck lift feel a hunch in her blood in her bones an intuition a suspicion a chill, because Someone Did Something, Somewhere.
Verna Gardner
Verna sniffs and arches her back when she feels that. Starts looking around to see... what? A ghost in the air? Verna, for all her recent mind-opening experiences does not yet believe in them. Souls are suspect.
So, she focuses her attention elsewhere. That woman. She's been stood up. Verna can put the narrative together, oh yes. It's also an excuse for some nice person to say hello and make friends and...
Make her night immeasurably worse perhaps.
Verna looks away, bites her lip. The woman is alone. She's got runaway emotions. She's a good target. It's the best of choices.
Then, she looks to David, this look on her face like she's certain she can't do this. He's a reminder of why she has to try, though.
"I think. There's a woman. Over there. S-should I just go say hello?"
brat pack
He looks for the woman Verna is referring to, gaze brushing across her if Verna makes any gesture at all, if not he misses her completely or thinks he's found her and it doesn't really matter, because after the glance of 'over there,' he turns his back to the orchestra and the Indian woman and looks at Verna. He pitches his voice low, of course, because that's what members of secret societies do. "It's a start. What is your goal?"
Verna Gardner
"She looks sad, like someone stood her up. I could just... I don't know? Talk? Keep talking? Until I can get her..."
It's terrible, laying it out. Putting words to the whole ordeal makes it real.
"Y-you know. Out of view."
Verna fidgets. It's what she does when she's nervous. It's not the mortal terror David's used to from her, but a cousin of it perhaps.
brat pack
"And how will you ..." He clicks his teeth gently.
Verna Gardner
"What... how... uh... do you suggest?" Verna responds, because she really has no idea.
brat pack
"If she's upset and will let you hug her, maybe then. Otherwise..." David doesn't shrug, but the shrug is in his voice and his gaze is intent on Verna's now, focused, for in this he is confident.
"Improvise. The important thing is not to let her see the," he clicks his teeth again, which just now look as human as anybody's who never died and rose again to drink blood, "and to lick the wound closed once you're done sucking. Do you remember how long is too long?"
He'd told her before to count to three and not to go beyond three to start no matter how good it felt.
Verna Gardner
Verna nods. "Three."
Three. There's a limit. She has to remember that. And the licking thing. And don't let anyone see.
She looks over his shoulder, just a glance, and wishes she could still down some alcohol for her courage's sake.
"Okay," she says, takes a deep breath, seems to straighten out her face into something a lot less overwrought. "Okay."
And then, smiling a little, like she's trying to remember what enjoying herself felt like, minces her way over to the lady by the door.
brat pack
When Verna gets close enough, the woman's eyes (large, dark, brown) touch hers and then she glances at the door, unsmiling and nervous but clearly without any expectation that Verna was approaching her or means to continue approaching or means to interact with her at all. When she turns her head back, it is to put her gaze on the orchestra, which is beginning to warm up, drag people's attention from their conversations and their meals, readying itself to play, play, play. Nobody says a few words about tonight's program or about the charity the concert is benefiting (the penniless musician's fund, bitches! Er, ladies and gentlemen), because they're trying to appeal to more people and they want to surprise the audience and anyway people are allowed to socialize and anyway they'll have somebody speak about the goals of their orchestra between pieces. First up, the overture for the Magic Flute; it will begin.
Verna Gardner
As she walks, she cocks her head a little at the woman, gives her a shy smile. There there, it's not so bad is it?
"H-hi. I know you don't know me or anything, but..." But what, Verna? She clears her throat. "It looks like I've been abandoned tonight."
Right. Go for the solidarity thing?
"I don't have anyone to sit with. Anymore. Could I? With you?"
[Manip + Subt = 5, Diff 8 'cause shy!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (5, 5, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Verna Gardner
[Hungry?]
Dice: 1 d10 TN8 (9) ( success x 1 )
brat pack
[NPC Manip + Subt!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )
Verna Gardner
[Perc + Subt = What? Is that a falsehood?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
brat pack
The stiff-shouldered woman looks up at Verna when the little fledgling shyly begins speaking, and she still doesn't smile, corners of her mouth shifting downward for a moment. Her gaze darts back to the orchestra and, without looking at Verna, she says, "I'm sorry to hear that. You're welcome to take a chair."
The only lie is her face and her attitude; that air of injured dignity drawn together, smoothed out, polished, put on a good face for this stranger right now who'd normally annoy her might annoy her except well she isn't thinking about how to be annoyed tonight. She's pretending well, although not so well that Verna, on high alert, doesn't see the places where the mask wears thin and the woman's true misery is visible.
An inaudible swallow, just so.
Verna Gardner
"Hey, what's wrong?" Verna asks, sliding down into a chair with all the grace she can muster. "You look worse off than I do, and let me tell you, my night's going horribly."
No lie there.
Not one bit.
brat pack
"Why would you assume something is wrong?" the woman says, a quaver on 'assume' for all she is trying to sound sharp. "Do I look like I was also abandoned?"
Verna Gardner
"No... no... I can't imagine why anyone would abandon you. Just, you looked a little sad. I'm sorry. I didn't mean..."
Verna gives up and looks toward the orchestra, fidgets as everything seems to be falling apart so soon.
brat pack
Silence. In the orchestra, everybody is alert, everybody is at attention even when it isn't yet their turn, and when it's time to join the music they do so with precision, with choreographed grace; many of the people here are here because they like to watch something so practiced, people so in concert with one another that they can draw heaven out of the air and send it back again. Nobody can play in a symphony without practice even if they know how to read the music.
The woman doesn't speak immediately, but finally gives a stiff-sounding little, "I know you didn't mean anything by it; it's fine."
Verna Gardner
It's like breaking the ice with a glacier. Verna tries to pay more attention to the music than her failure, which is wearing on her face even though the music is so upbeat.
Mozart. He was genius, wasn't he? Always been one of her favorites. Some classical composers tried, but few could match his layered complexity. When the other woman speaks up again, Verna just hits her with another shy smile, and goes back to feeling whatever she can.
Is David watching this? Can he see how she isn't getting anywhere? Oh, he probably is. He probably isn't letting her out of his sight, lest she bolt for freedom or some other stupid thing.
brat pack
She's new. It's not difficult to feel. Ennui hasn't come to rewrite her memories betrayal hasn't come to tell her that there is no hope for friendship she has not yet done unspeakable things when not in her right mind she is young. She is a young woman and she is a young vampire and her heart doesn't race to tell her she is nervous, but surely the mind is enough? Thoughts. Ideas. Hunger for something.
Maybe one night she'll hear Mozart and think, Ah, the first time I hunted on my own, I was so young, and she'll feel something different.
Maybe one night she'll hear Mozart and think, Ah, one gets bored.
Maybe.
Does Verna look around for David? He's hiding in the crowd. It's not difficult to break ice with a glacier; one just has to make an impact. To get the old stuff, the ice that'll tell one something about the past about the earth about this metaphor is getting out of control, sometimes one has to really dig. The best defense against ice is warmth.
The woman sneakily puts her kleenex, ragged, torn, into her purse, and casts Verna a quick sidelong glance to make sure she hasn't seen.
The woman wouldn't want to look weak, would she?
Nobody wants that.
Verna Gardner
The overture is short, and afterward there is the appreciative clapping, to which Verna supplies her own bit.
It's so tempting to just ignore her... prey? To just listen to music and not do anything, but she has to try, doesn't she? After the clapping dies down, she tries again.
"I love Mozart, you know? It's nice.. um. Thanks for letting me sit with you. I..."
I've been so lonely. Stuck in a guy's concrete basement. Dead inside, with only a few, incredibly strange people to talk with. Pretty sure I'm going to die soon.
And she can't say any of that, out loud, so the sentence hangs there while Verna lets her own mask slip. She misses being normal, and able to smile truthfully.
"Just, thanks."
Verna Gardner
[Charisma + Empathy! Spending WP because this is where she botches, I know it.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 2 ) [Doubling Tens] [WP]
brat pack
Another spell of silence, but this one is shorter. The pretty woman turns her chin toward Verna and opens her mouth as if she's going to say something once, and then twice, and then finally, after a prim little pursing of her mouth, she smiles a thin but genuine smile.
"You're welcome. It's fine. I don't have any one tonight to listen to the music with either, not that I need someone..."
Swallow, and as she swallows she reaches up to touch her earring. Verna is well-fed, well-suited for a leisurely hunt a hunt with no undo surprises from a loss of control, but if she has any preconceived notions on where to bite it must be the neck, mustn't it? David told her that any place will do.
Just make the blood flow and suck. They won't fight.
"What's your name?"
Verna Gardner
Her companion (are we to that point now?) touches her earring, and Verna follows the motion, eyes holding there a second while she thinks. Yes. Just there. Three.
"My name? I'm Verna," she says. But isn't Verna dead? Or something? The old Verna, that is. Who should she be?
"I don't need anyone either. Sometimes, it's just so much... crap." She sighs. "Nobody needs terrible people."
Except, Verna, you need David, don't you? And there, another sigh.
brat pack
The woman gives an emphatic little nod, and she puts her hands in her lap and looks down at them, studying the nails, the ring on the ringfinger of her left hand which has a little pearl all milky luminescence.
Verna Gardner
"What's your name?" Verna asks, and immediately regrets that. She's not here to actually get close to this woman, but... damn it's hard, isn't it? They're both sad, lonely women, and Verna's beginning to regret her choice.
Well, that's not entirely true. She's regretted it from the beginning. She keeps having to tell herself how necessary this all is.
brat pack
"It's Neela," she tells Verna. A pause. And then a slightly less stiff, "It's nice to meet you, Verna."
Verna Gardner
Neela. Her first target is Neela. Will she even remember that, later? Will she live long enough to forget?
Things seem to be going a little better, so Verna stops messing with her nails (pink polished, to cover up the greyish nailbeds) and starts paying more attention to the music.
"That's such a pretty name," she says, and can't really think of anything else. "A-and... you're pretty too. I'm sure you'll find someone who isn't terrible."
Just, not tonight.
Verna Gardner
[Charisma + Empathy! 2WPs spent!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 7) ( success x 1 ) [Doubling Tens] [WP]
brat pack
[NPC self-control]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (7, 8) ( success x 2 )
brat pack
A-and... you're pretty too, Verna says, and Neela gives Verna a startled side-eye, and then closes her eyes for a moment. Her face grows very still as she tries to reach for her composure and manages to, but when she opens her eyes the lashes stick together a little and her gaze is bright with unshed tears. Which she ignores, naturally. Nobody cries during conductorless orchestra shows. It's a rule.
"Thank you, but I don't think so. I found somebody and they lied. Don't they always lie?"
Verna Gardner
"Not always. There are those who don't lie," Verna says. They have a bad habit of disappearing when you need them, but they exist, she thinks she knows. "They're the ones who are worth grieving over."
As opposed to, say, the lying scumbags of the world.
"Liars, though? Worthless."
brat pack
Neela offers Verna another thin but genuine smile, and then turns her attention to the orchestra. Some of the stiffness has left her shoulders, but she's still a portrait of contained upset. She swallows once, and though her eyes get less bright, less luminous, her chin wrinkles up. Once. See?
Verna Gardner
Verna's also struggling to contain herself tonight. The pressure is enormous. Deal with it, or die -- and that's supposed to help? Still. It's not going... badly. She hasn't run Neela off, or been yelled at. It's all going to be okay, she keeps telling herself. It'll be okay. Okay?
And she, too turns her attention to the music, closes her eyes for a bit -- just listening.
brat pack
Next. Now. Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, Allegro Molto, mischievous rills sweeping through a Romantic melody, music for night-stalking, music for clouds boiling, roiling, music for triumphal if pastoral dances --
It'll be okay. It has to be okay.
Nobody around her seems to know how much the night means to Verna, or what she is. Nobody has given her strange looks, and even the woman beside Verna, though reserved and initially unfriendly (and why should she be? A stranger!), treats Verna like a person.
There aren't many people trickling in any longer, although one or two eddy toward the doors, heading for a bath room or to take a cell number.
At least nobody's cell phone has gone off; even in a conversational, almost casual concert such as this it would be the height of rudeness to have a loud ring tone.
Verna Gardner
Verna doesn't have her phone. Phones are a privilege for good little vampires who have proven that they're not going to use them to dial 911. Maybe she'll never get her phone back.
Did David even bother to carry her things with him when he took her? It begs the question. There was a gun and a phone and her identification and a lot of blood. Surely somebody cleaned up after him, right?
"It's going to be okay," Verna says, low-voiced, partly to her 'friend' but mostly to herself. There's no guarantee of that, ever. She should know this by now. But hey. It's only a little lie.
brat pack
[Ye olde manip + subt]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Verna Gardner
[Perception + Subt!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 6, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )
brat pack
[TIE BREAK]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Verna Gardner
[Again! Tie!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
brat pack
Hard on the heels of Verna's low-voiced remark, Neela smooths her skirt down and stands. "Pardon me," she says. "I'm just going to freshen up. I'll be right back." The last sentence is added in a rare moment of thoughtfulness; Neela isn't cruel but she is selfish and, since she feels so awful, she'd like to feel less awful, and she wouldn't want to think that she was being abandoned after confessing to abandonment, etc., etc. The point is: she says what she says so Verna doesn't feel downcast.
And she will be right back -- probably. But what she really needs is to go outside and cry.
Verna Gardner
Her 'friend' leaves, and lies as she goes. She's not gone to go freshen up, and Verna knows it. She knows that veneer of politeness over a breakdown, because it is her life. And as the symphony swells and ebbs in this beautiful place, she suddenly gets a blank look on her face. It's a better visage than the alternative. She knows what she has to do now.
She looks to the floor and rises from her chair, follows after Neela, giving her space, letting her get outside. But following.
This is her chance.
brat pack
Neela goes through one of the side doors, avoiding the main foyer. She was a Rainbow Girl, came to this lodge for ceremonies once upon a time, when she was even younger than she is now, so she knows where to go to avoid being seen. There's a hall with inlaid marble: white and black and gold-flecked, suddenly opulence, pictures of old men who were influential once and enjoyed boxing and political shenanigans. There's a door open to the main foyer, but Neela doesn't go in that direction; she walks down the hall toward an out of the way set of stairs, meaning to sit on them where nobody can see her for a moment or two. The plants throw spiky shadows, see them? And the light through the main foyer's chandelier dances on the ground like pixies, containing the noise of people talk talk talking, one businessman's voice rising to obnoxious levels of joviality as he yells at an assistant and the acoustics cause his directions to echo.
Verna Gardner
Verna follows. Her boots make soft sounds on the lodge's marble floors, not the telltale clack of heels. But she's not even trying to disguise the fact that she's there. She just puts on her sympathetic face, and keeps walking.
"Neela?"
"I meant that, you know. It's going to be okay."
This isn't the end. Not for you, Neela.
brat pack
Neela startles when Verna speaks, so wrapped up was she in her desire to just get out go somewhere that she hadn't noticed or had the opportunity to notice Verna walking up behind her. She catches herself on the stair alcove's wall instead of sitting down and looks at Verna in disbelief. Disbelief which flickers to anger, not necessarily directed at Verna, though not necessarily safe either. "How do you know? You don't know what you're talking about."
Verna Gardner
"Maybe not specifically, no. But I know you're pretty. You don't believe that, but you are. And you're young and there's hope yet, right? As long as there's hope, you just keep going."
Verna knows all about that last part. There's a shred of hope in her that she clings to like it's her very existence. Determination has kept her -- well, not necessarily alive -- but continuing for a long time now. Neela is her hope right now. If she can just do this. If she can just get closer...
She takes a step. Another.
brat pack
Neela opens her mouth to say something, then closes it firmly. Verna is coming closer and the young woman has no idea that she is in danger of anything but an awkward moment, or losing her temper, or losing her composure; of feeling worse than she already feels. Her lower chin wrinkles again and her eyes find the ceiling, the wall, and she holds her hands out then brings them back one hits her thigh with a slap and she leans against the wall.
Verna Gardner
Okay, so. This is it. This is the test, right? Verna holds her arms out, like she's going to be someone to lean on instead of the cold wall. Verna's cold herself, but Neela likely won't feel that through the clothes.
It's okay. You can cry. Let it all out on Verna's shoulder.
It'll feel so good.
She can do this. It'll be okay. She can do this.
Verna Gardner
[Charisma + Subt! Diff 8 because shy, 3 WP spent, because so close!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 6) ( success x 1 ) [Doubling Tens] [WP]
brat pack
Neela doesn't come into Verna's arms as if Verna were sanctuary, a welcome solace. Her shoulders stiffen, but she doesn't pull back or move away; instead she blinks furiousy, because she is not going to cry, damn it.
Verna can do this. Only mice have bad times with hugs when boa constrictors are in town, and Verna isn't really a mouse. Even if she feels like one or acts like one, shy, shy, shy sometimes. She's the thing with fangs.
Verna Gardner
Oh, she has a warm, living person in her arms, and Neela's neck is right there, and the thrill of it... She keeps her arms from wandering, at least.
But Neela's not the one whose breath comes choppy, like she's close to tears. That's all Verna. She's manipulated herself into this position, and now it's time to make good on it, and save her life. Save David's life.
She makes sure to just happen to cant her lips toward Neela's neck as they get closer. Makes sure not to breathe on her skin. She can feel the need inside push on her fangs, and then...
It's quick. Verna doesn't want to give her victim time to react to the scrape of a tooth across her skin. She just wants to get this done -- to get Neela's blood, which flows, oh! Lips around the wound, suck on it, don't let it get messy now. God, the pulse, it just pumps so hard, so fast...
She almost forgets to count.
One.
Two.
Three.
brat pack
Neela doesn't hug Verna back, but remains stiff in the moment before Verna bites her. Neela doesn't pull back and look at Verna, accuse her of being a monster, crazy, a psycho, something Other, some inhuman thing; she doesn't accuse her of anything, and the stiffness is all because a stranger however well intentioned is hugging her and she just wants to cry and then Verna's teeth scrape her skin and Neela makes a sound and then it is far too late because Verna is sucking and her blood is flowing. Her heartbeat picks up, scared rabbit racing, but she doesn't sound scared when she moans: quietly, in some confusion, whisked away by the exquisite --
David's right. Even when it isn't a blood doll, even when it isn't someone who has been prepped for her, they don't fight. If anything, it's quite the opposite, and Verna's victim would like to die this way.
Sure.
One.
Two.
Three, and Verna is full. She hasn't been full since her last day, though she's come close, and for once hunger abates completely.
(Lies. It waits. It lurks. It's always present. It's air now.)
Verna Gardner
She draws her fangs out, and then there's her tongue to seal the holes left behind. Verna keeps holding Neela, though. This is the part she's dreaded. How is she going to react to that? It can't be good.
Verna shakes. It's pretty obvious now how her own emotions won't be held back for long, how she wants to cry too. It's too intense, isn't it? Everything is.
"You'll be okay. I know it," she says, into her victim's ear.
Verna Gardner
"Just like... I will. Right?"
brat pack
Verna's breath on her ear now, Verna still holding her tight, and Neela who went loose and relaxed and just a moment ago couldn't keep herself from making a pleasure-sound if she wanted to, well, Neela feels light-headed and sick and trapped. Her heart is still hammering, trying to make up for her loss, and her vision swims. Just like... I will, Verna says, and Neela shudders. Right?
"I- I don't know. I- I need to go." Her voice is as tight as a steel trap. "I've- I didn't know I- I'm sorry I just," longing, too. "I feel weird."
"I- I don't usually like girls. I mean I- I haven't. My fiancée- he just died. He k-killed himself in the hosp- hospit- but he said he'd hold on until- and his br- his brother- just please let me go. I mean I should go. Or... I shouldn't? I- "
Verna Gardner
Verna lets go. The stammering, the sudden explosion of emotion, it hits her like a moving wall. She runs her tongue over her teeth, because the last thing she wants to do is try to talk this out while looking... freakish. She can still taste Neela in her mouth, the soft tang of copper, the freshness of her.
I don't usually like girls.
Well, you know, Neela... Neither do I.
My fiancée- he just died.
"I'm so sorry, Neela. That's... terrible. I don't know what to say. Just..." She knows how that feels, and it's awful, dying is.
I should go. Or... I shouldn't?
"Go," she says, and if it's a command, it's one she's trying to be gentle about. "Just, know that you can get through this. People can get through a lot of things."
Verna would know. There's a depth of sadness in her that mirrors Neela's. And she doesn't hide it now, who could? She looks like if she could go paler, she would be, and steps back once, twice, before turning around.
brat pack
As soon as Verna steps back, moves at all, gives Neela any space, Neela bolts. She doesn't actually run, because she feels too light-headed for that, but she goes as quickly as she can and definitely passes Verna on her way back to (if only she knew it) the ring of light a glow of safety, glancing back not a timid little mouse glance back but a worried concerned doesn't know what she's looking at glance back, and then with her head down and her arms wrapped around herself she disappears back into the lodge's ball room.
Music: Danse Macabre.
Verna Gardner
Verna, fists balled and body tense walks back to the room herself, but doesn't try to follow Neela. It's just, she needs to find David. She needs for him to know it went... okay. She didn't kill anyone. She didn't make anyone think she was a vampire.
She needs that. Or she is going to lose it right there by the staircase.
Part of her is so relieved. Part of her is so sated. And of course, most of her is entirely horrified over what she just did.
Surely he will be happy with her now? Surely. She did everything right. Everything. Right?
"I'm sorry, Neela," she whispers under her breath, low beneath the music.
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