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."