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Retired Moderator
retired moderator
Original Poster
#476 Old 19th Nov 2009 at 4:30 AM
Default Night #18
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(((ooc: Alright guys, as this is the last night that we are RPing before the upcoming 6 months timejump, it might be time to start thinking about what your characters will have been up to during those 6 months, so that you'll have that all covered in your mind once the time jump happens. Just a suggestion.
As a head's up, I'll also say that there is a joint event scheduled to happen on the first night after the time jump, for those players who may want their characters to attend. No one's character will be forced to. More on this later.)))

~ * ~ Volition ~ * ~
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Field Researcher
#477 Old 19th Nov 2009 at 4:20 PM
Default Beyonca- in the street.
Beyoncas eyes slowly opened. It felt like her eyes were clued together they were so heavy. It seems all this work she had been doing has finally taking a toll. Bee knew it was coming. She hadn’t been feeding properly and Ventures weren’t made to do work. They were made to sit behind a huge extravagant desk and give the orders of what is to be done with out actually seeing the place. That feeling did stir in her blood. She felt like she shouldn’t be doing anything. It what she wanted to do. She wanted to go to her office all those days and just bark at everyone. Except the workers came during the day and when she woke they were long gone. So her nights consisted of correcting what was wrong. Notes would go in places. Sometimes she would just get aggravated and paints the walls like she wanted. Not only that, she had a business to run. Money to look after and stock markets to play. It seems there wasn’t time enough at night but once the sun rises, her body feels like she is slipping in a coma she gets so drained.

Stretching her body as much as she could, she rolled and got out of her bed. She was trying to wakeup her muscles. They seem to not be cooperating with her this evening. Quickly she shower and dressed. Deciding on her black skirt and a red silk blouse. She ran her fingers threw her hair. Letting the think wavy locks fall freely threw them. Her hair was her most favorite thing about her. Always had been. Taking her time she went to her office. Making sure that everything she wanted done was exactly how she liked it. Seeing everything was in order, she went and sat in her big black office chair. The thing almost swallowed her little body up. Her desk was cherry wood and her floors were wooden. She had stone put in this room. A light stone on the walls. There was one wall though she didn’t put the stone. That was sheetrock and she had it painted blood red.

Opening her laptop she pulled up her email. She checked that and then went and checked her stocks. Satisfaction filled her knowing everything was running smoothly. House was fantastic, stocks were doing great, and her business was smoothly operating. Her Primogen hadn’t emailed her or sent someone calling to tell her she was wanted. Which was a good thing. Every time she was summoned more than likely it was because she was in trouble. The last time she went dawned on her. It was because of the scene she had made at the ball. Adrien de la Cour. The named echoed in her mind.

He fascinated her. She was told to stay far away from him as she possible could. But then the next night she had talked to him again. That brought on the memory of the last conversation she had with him. She had promised to leave him be. She thought she had been a good job of that. It had been a week since she had been out. A week since she had see him to talked to him. It was a good thing. Her curiosity had always gotten the best of her. She needed to be good or her Primogen was going to show her curiosity to the sun.

Wincing she got out of her chair and went to the living room.
She picked up the paper and oddly wished she could drink coffee. She checked the news and checked what was going on in politics. Reading the articles she grunted. Maybe they should just elect vampires to run the damn world. It seems the Prince, Damian, was doing a whole lot better job of running the vampires, who one could barely keep tabs on, than the humans could knowing where everyone lived threw their ss numbers. She threw the paper on the table and looked at the wall.

Everything was bare. She turned around. Her walls were bare. Could she really have been that busy to not notice that she had no artwork on the walls. Grumbling to herself, she decided maybe she could go check some galleries tonight. Then it dawned on her that they were closed. Well she needed something to do to keep her busy and out of trouble. Valerian came to mind. His artwork was a little dark, but he might have something she is interested in. Something that could go somewhere and that would keep her away from Adrien. But it seemed to turn to mood sour. Honestly, she enjoyed those conversations she had with him. It was like cat and mouse. He never was going to believe she wasn’t going to harm him. It didn’t matter whether he believed it or not. But his mind was something that just caught her attention and made her want more. The way he smirked and hid everything. The conversations were filled with unanswered questions that both had asked. It was just pure fun. Interesting, casual, dangerous fun.

With a grimace she grabbed her coat and walked out the door. Turned and locked it. While she left out her yard and started her journey threw the night she hoped Adrien was on the other side of the city, but then again she longed for the game that they played. An undecided mind is a dangerous thing, she thought to herself.

Strolling threw the dark and empty streets she came to the fire escape she had usually sat in. It had been while she thought, a smile slowly curved on her lips. It was still early and she had plenty of time to be observant. Quickly she jumped on the escape and sat in the shadows. Watching. It wasn’t hunger that knawel at her. These humans were not the blood her body desired. They would do nothing but make her sick. It was life her mind craved. This time she wasn’t watching the couple stroll together or the drunk one have sex in the alleys shadows. it was the ones that were alone. She usually hadn’t paid much time to them. Now she did. She watched as their eyes darted to others. How they quickly looked away from couples that were hungry for each other. It was interesting. Some had the look of disgust other you could see the hurt and loneliness shine brightly in the night. It was so marvelous to Bee. How awful they must feel. It almost made her want to comfort them, but she never did. Never would she interfere in the lives of humans. It was her rule. Stay away. Quietly she sat and watched, her hear cocked to the side resting again the brink building behind her.


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((ooc: someone is more than welcome to approach her. If not i will prolly put somewhere later.))
Field Researcher
#478 Old 19th Nov 2009 at 10:48 PM Last edited by Psyche_SC : 22nd Nov 2009 at 6:53 PM.
Default Noah & Valerian - The Haven, Valerian's chambers
#72 [Night #18]

This night, Noah woke up before the sun. He was sitting on his bed, fully clothed in his brown leather pants and a black shirt with long sleeves, waiting for the night to begin. Every thought and none occupied his mind, as he tried to sort them out in anticipation of his meeting with Valerian. He could just hope that the Toreador was available. He was an enchanting creature, many wanted a chunk of his time. Noah watched the walls, he knew the rays of the sun was still out there, as if he could see them through the concrete. It was just a feeling, something he knew as he knew his own name. It came with the territory, with being not only a Kindred but a Gangrel.

He took hold of his hair, still damp from the shower, but it was dry enough. He had his military green duffle bag beside him, all his belongings had been packed. Shandor had washed his clothes, as if he had known that it was time for Noah to go. He didn't know if Aeode would accept his company, but if she did he would be ready to stay with her. Strange enough, he hadn't been restless since he had sat foot in the city, not like he usually was. And he had no need to move on, he knew he had been right in following the abstract feeling that there was something in L.A. for him.
Though he didn't know if he was on the right path, or if he was missing his mark. Only time could tell. All he could do was what he always did - follow his instinct. It had taken him this far, guided him through a world that was far from safe. He was still alive, still the last one standing.

The sun had set, it was time. Noah left the duffle bag behind to pick it up later that evening. The Haven wasn't far away, but he walked fast as if he had no time to loose. He had important things to take care of, he had to make sure Aeode got the help she needed and also find out if Valerian was content with taking care of the kitten. Though it wasn't why he was rushing, why he was anxious to see Valerian. It all came down to one thing; he needed to see him, just talk to him. As he realized that he slowed down his pace. After all, he still had his quest, his search for peace, and Valerian was a big part of that. He had Noah's next clue. Noah had learnt as a human that in order to take care of someone else you had to take care of yourself first, so he couldn't just forget why he was in L.A. to begin with. Though there was no reason why he couldn't do everything, just one thing at a time. Rushing matters didn't help.

The Haven was busy as always, people waiting to get in, but Noah slipped in at the front like he had done before. The strange thing was that no one seemed to notice, he didn't hear a single complaint from the people in line. The inside was murder, filled with loud noise and bodies everywhere. Though the beat playing was actually something Noah could register without difficulty after a while, a strong drum held the rythm above any other instrument and he appreciated that. He made it to the middle of the club, surrounded by dancing men and women, some of the latter trying to lure him into the fun. He didn't notice, because he didn't care. He had one thought in his head, and one thought only; the whereabouts of Valerian. It seemed like insanity to try and find him, but Noah wasn't about to give up just yet.

The crowd parted for just a second, but it was enough for Noah to spot something familiar by the bar. Two men talking and one of them had a striking resemblance with Valerian. Noah moved closer, it felt like it took forever until he came close enough to determine that it was indeed the enchanting Toreador. At the same time, Valerian noticed Noah. A moment of stillness occurred, in the middle of a noisy club. Noah felt as if he was being drawn to the other Kindred, a force of nature, magic. Was it the Toreador allure, or was it simply Valerian? Noah would bet on the latter. When he spoke, Noah nodded, accepting his suggestion to go upstairs where they could talk.

He followed Valerian like in a haze, not even the door closing behind him could break the spell. He felt as if he had come from a cold night right into the warmth of the sun. His frozen heart thawed in Valerian's presence, his thoughts became clear as a sky without a single cloud. Though he did soon realize he was merely standing there, looking at him. Then he could hear himself talk, being polite, happy to be there. Thanking Valerian for giving him some of his time.

"I just wanted to see you", he said, like it was an important piece of information.
Retired Moderator
retired moderator
Original Poster
#479 Old 20th Nov 2009 at 7:41 PM Last edited by AtropaMandragora : 20th Nov 2009 at 10:04 PM.
Default Damian - The V
For having possible trouble currently brewing at the horizon (although frankly, was there ever a time for a Kindred Prince when there wasn't?) things were going rather according to plan. Even by Damian's perfectionist standards. The precautions he was taking were all coming along nicely, and would soon all be covered. The loose end known to him as Aeode Mallard was being dealt with by three seperate operators; firstly by Valerian and the charming Moira Sushill, secondly by the Nosferatu, from a distance, and last but certainly not least, by Alfmundr, in a slightly roundabout way. Three seperate operators with no political connection to one another, as far as Damian knew, and of whom the latter was also a part of dealing with the possible situation regarding the suspicious Toreador interest in the human girl. If there was indeed something fishy there, Alfmundr was sure to be successful in sniffing it out, and share his discovery with his employer. Namely Damian.

As for dealing with the Sabbat and their recent but less than subtle return to Los Angeles, Damian had quite a few resources already, but of which Lola was the most recent addition. At least judging by their apparent interest in her. For even though Damian wasn't quite sure yet what that interest in her was, he knew there was an interest, and interests could be exploited and used to his own advantage. True, the girl had slipped away from him, for now (the ungrateful little brat), but with all the aces up his sleeve, she was bound to return sooner or later. If not by her own will, then by his. Which brought him to the final but by no means any less interesting "project" of the young lady who had introduced herself to him as Cameron Harker. A false name, he had learned since, but had decided to let that particular matter rest for the time being. Her name mattered little to him at this point, since it was her talents that had him taking an interest in her, rather than the possibility of using her as leverage. Though that was not to say that he intended to remain unwitting of her real identity for very long; by using a fake name, not to mention offered the name of a dead Kindred as her supposed Domitor, she had let him know that there were things she didn't want him to know, and so he intended to find out what exactly those things were. Naturally.

Having met with her the previous evening, when due to his use of the nifty thing called Disciplines, she had found herself seeking him out, he had continued what he had started the evening before that, by feeding her his blood a second time. And under somewhat less dramatic circumstances than the first, too. Now, only her third drink remained before she would be fully bound to him, and much like evening last, Damian wasted no time getting down to business; if by any chance "Cameron", like Lola, had the poor judgement of trying to run, the sooner he called her back, the better. Though if he was to believe the reports he'd recieved from the security staff upon taking his seat behind the desk, she had not left the suite he had offered her the previous evening, and which she had accepted. According to them, she still dwelled on the floor beneath his own, and so shouldn't take long to appear in his office.


(((ooc: Alissa - Hope it works.)))

~ * ~ Volition ~ * ~
Alchemist
#480 Old 22nd Nov 2009 at 9:51 PM Last edited by Ghanima Atreides : 23rd Nov 2009 at 1:26 PM.
Default Aeode Mallard - the streets



Earlier that day...

A single beam of sunlight peeked through the tiny gap in the curtains, darting across the bathroom to rest on the navy tiled floor right at Aeode's feet. She was sitting on top of the toilet lid, slightly bent forward as she stared at the plastic device hanging loosely from one hand. Her wide, unblinking eyes were focused on two small pink lines in a circle of white, while the rest of her was quietly plodding through a sea of bewilderment.

Earlier that day, Aeode had rushed to the nearest drugstore and bought herself a home pregnancy test to confirm beyond a doubt that she was, indeed, expecting. When she'd awoken that morning in a sunlit bedroom and the previous night's events slowly returned to her, they'd taken on a distinct dreamlike quality, making them feel almost...unreal. Aeode spent the next two hours in a state of agitation, until the urge to banish doubt once and for all won. Now, beholding the “Positive” reading on the pregnancy test, the final confirmation that it was indeed true, the initial stupefaction she'd felt when Noah had first told her about the baby returned at full force. It took her breath away all over again.

A shower later, Aeode was curled up on the couch with a steaming cup of coffee under her nose and a million thoughts swirling about in her head. What was she going to do? She thought about Noah, who in a couple of hours was going to meet with Valerian and bargain with him for more time, even though, Aeode mused glumly, the decision was not entirely his...As it was to be expected, Aeode had wanted to be there when vital developments in her life were being discussed, but Noah had insisted on seeing Valerian alone. In the end she'd agreed, since perhaps he could accomplish more if he spoke with him as one Kindred to another. Not that she liked it, and a wave of anxiety prickled her all over at the thought: she could hardly wait until Noah arrived later to tell her how it went.

In the meantime, Aeode needed to do the responsible thing and make an appointment with a doctor for a checkup, a prospect which did not thrill her for one obvious reason: money. Still, even if it meant spending the last of her reserves, she had to do it, and ensure the baby was healthy, as well as inform herself on any possible complications. Finding a doctor on such a short notice was easier said than done, and after going through several phone numbers she'd picked off the internet, Aeode encountered someone who not only was willing to see her, but could even do so within a few hours, since the patient supposed to come that afternoon had cancelled her appointment. With time to spare, Aeode restocked her fridge and busied herself with various chores around the house, anything to keep her hands busy and her mind off things. To make the situation worse, the urge to smoke was unbearable, now that she'd decided to quit, and tossing her cigarette stash away proved quite the hefty willpower test. At least she didn't have to work, Aeode didn't think she could face a full shift that night.

That evening...

Aeode crossed street after street, allowing her feet to carry her with only a vague idea of where she was going; her mind was still back inside the hospital room where, for the first time ever, she'd seen her baby on the screen of an ultrasound machine. Something exhilarating and all-encompassing had filled her then and for a short while all of the worries that plagued her had faded away in a sea of breathless joy. The examination cost half a month's pay but Aeode did not mind parting with the money; as long as the baby was healthy, and from what the doctor was able to tell without some of the test results, everything was well.

Aeode was besides herself with tension; she was too exhilarated to go home and stare at four walls for the rest of the evening, but did not know what else to do. It was as if her body was too small to cope with the size of the emotional typhoon that swept through it, her mind about to burst with all the thoughts that pounded against its walls. She was lost in the haze of imagination, picturing all the ways her life was about to change forever, when she turned around a corner that lead into a narrow street between two buildings. She didn't realize a group of teenagers was approaching from the other side, walking side by side, talking loudly and laughing. It was only at the last moment that Aeode's head jerked upwards, her eyes going wide as they found themselves staring at a man's chest a second before the rest of her collided with it, ripping the purse she was carrying cleanly off her shoulder in the process.

“Hey lady, watch it!” he shouted after having ploughed past with the rest of his buddies; Aeode swivelled around, arms flailing as the horizon tilted and the ground rose within her field of vision at worrying speed. To keep herself from crashing she stuck both arms forward, managing to absorb the fall and steady herself; she remained there for a few moments, on hands and knees, panting slightly.

“How would you like to watch my boot go up your ass instead?” Aeode thought acidly and looked back at the now empty street; the boys were gone, so she saved her breath. Instead she got to her feet, dusted herself off and began looking around for her purse: she found it a few feet away near a woman's feet, some of its contents spilled onto the pavement: a lip balm, some money, and the ultrasound photos from the hospital. Feeling extremely peeved, Aeode stomped over and, having no choice, crouched down to gather her belongings and stuff them briskly inside the purse. It was only when she stood to her full length that she ventured a proper glance at the woman standing there: she was young and beautiful and elegantly dressed, not the sort of woman Aeode would have expected to find alone around street corners.

“Sorry about that,” Aeode told her a little dryly, her cheeks flushed with the remains of anger and embarrassment.


((ooc: innocenteyes - I know she didn't say much but I hope it's enough for you to work with. Lemme know if otherwise))

If wishes were fishes we'd all cast nets
Retired Moderator
retired moderator
Original Poster
#481 Old 23rd Nov 2009 at 1:03 PM
Default Connor - Moira's new condo
As the sun was starting to set, painting the city profile's backdrop in a vibrant mix of red, pink and blue, evening found Connor with an equally vibrant mix of emotions. The past couple of days had been... intense, although in very different ways, and even though they had ultimately left him in a fairly good mood tonight, it was a good mood that was sprinkled with worry, slight bewilderment, and that seemingly ever-present jealousy. The night before last, he'd had that rather dramatic and most unexpected run-in with one of his tormentors from under the bridge. Melissa was her name, that much she had managed to inform him of in a rare moment of clarity, when she was not speaking in riddles, or referring to herself as a fly or a bug or a domino, and whatever other metaphors she kept using.

Quite naturally, Connor had been wary of her at first, and made sure to keep his distance, but as it had slowly been made clear to him that what she was trying to express was some kind of remorse for what she had done, and a concern for him, he had lowered his guard just a little bit, and eventually even ended up driving her home to her "Angel"; a person that he didn't get to see, since he had refused to drive any further than to the main gates of the mansion, but whom he was certain had to be Melissa’s companion from the other night. The blonde one. The dominant one. The one that he really had no desire whatsoever to see again. Of course, he hadn't much desired to see Melissa either, and he still didn't know if he'd like to meet her again, even after her rambly apologies, but at least she had seemed somewhat reluctant to do what she had done to him under the bridge. He couldn't remember it all that well, since his head had been spinning with fear, confusion and blood loss at the time, but there were tiny shards of memories at the back of his head, that when he'd seen Melissa hiding behind that tree in apparent fear of him, had pricked his mind, and had him recalling what felt like blurred and fragmented impressions from when he'd been pressed up against that cold brick wall a few nights ago. She'd tried to run back then, hadn't she...? As though she didn't want to be part of what had been done to him...?

Well, either way, the encounter with her outside of the Museum had left Connor in a state of uncertainty of what to think and what to feel about it all. He was unsure of whether he had handled things the way that he should have, and possibly would've been expected to by Moira and her kind. Melissa had been acting quite bizarre, and had attracted some attention that Connor knew would have been most unwelcome to most Kindred, and so he had figured that he'd had to get her away from there. At the same time, he couldn't be at all sure that it wasn't just another game, another way for her to toy with his mind, or lure him into doing something foolish or forbidden. He couldn't know that it wasn't some kind of trickery, for reasons he had yet to figure out. The Kindred web was an intricate one, that much he knew, and so wouldn't try kidding himself that he would be able to see through it somehow.
But Moira would be.

That was why the following night, yesterday, he had been so very eager to talk to her, and tell her about what had happened, as well as make sure that he hadn't made some big error that might turn out to be disastrous or even fatal to her, to him, or to any of her kind. But, as she had soon informed him over the phone that she would be unable to meet with him, due to work (or was it "work"?) once again, he hadn't gotten the chance. It all wasn't something that he wished to discuss over the phone, and he very much doubted that she would've wanted to either. So instead, he had ended up just telling her about how earlier that day, he had met with Miss Litton, the charming owner of the condo Moira was interested in, and that since it had looked even better in life than it did in the pictures Moira had shown him, he had closed the deal. Moira was now free to move in at her earliest convenience.

It had made his heart swell with pride and with joy when he'd heard the gratitude in her voice; it meant a lot to him to know that he had been useful to her and made her life a little easier, and that she appreciated it. It had easened the blow a little, of not getting to see her, although he still had been nowhere near thrilled to learn that she'd have to spend the night working again. Still, just talking to her, even if it wasn't about the things burning his mind, had put him a little more at ease - the sound of her voice always seemed to have that effect on him - and he had eventually ended up turning the evening into a movie night with a bunch of his friends instead. Though he'd kept his cell phone handy, and checked it from time to time, just in case she'd had a change of plans.
She hadn't.

However, tonight he would finally get to talk to her face to face, at long last. It felt like forever since he had seen her, even though it had only been roughly 48 hours since he had stopped by her suite at The Ritz. Though in all fairness, that had been an all too short meeting, as he'd gotten there only to learn that she would be busy with work, and so technically it didn't count as getting to spend time with her. But, back then, she had also promised that the first free night that she had, would be his.

That night was tonight, and it found him waiting for her at the condo, where he had spent the majority of his day, overseeing and helping as her things were being moved in there. He'd only stepped away for a couple of hours around noon, to meet up with the reporter of a local but successful music magazine, who had arranged to do an interview with him, followed by a quick photo session. He'd been back at the condo four hours later, after grabbing a quick bite on his way back, and had been there since, eagerly awaiting the moment when Moira would be stepping through the door.

~ * ~ Volition ~ * ~
Field Researcher
#482 Old 23rd Nov 2009 at 4:28 PM
Default Beyonca with Aeode
Watching the humans always made her mind race. She could see their lives. Happiness and laughter. It was all around her here. Couples and lone patriots come to and from where she was located. Even when they argued it brought a smile to her face. At least they have a reason to fight argue. Bee couldn’t even remember the last time she got in an argument. There wasn’t really a reason to argue. I guess after living for all this time you figure out its not worth it. If you don’t like someone its not like you just have to stay away from them until they leave or something. Vampires don’t die, so they never leave. Its better to just stay on the better side of others.

With a sigh, Bee decided it was time to get on with her night. She slowly stood and brushed off her clothes and quietly jumped down. Just as she did, she heard a group of loud boys coming. She watched them as they joked around not paying attention to where they where going. Then something caught her eyes. There was a young woman headed for them not watching where she was going either. She wasn’t laughing and smiling as the boys, she was deep in thought. Apparently running something was off in her life. She didn’t look to happy, more concerned, and Bee couldn’t help but wonder why.

She saw it before it happened. The young woman and one of the boys collided. Throwing the young women to the ground. Her purse landed a few feet from her, which happened to be at Beyonca's feet. The contents were spilled around the purse. Bending down to pick them up from her, something caught her eye. It was ultra sound pictures. Bee froze not really knowing what to do. A child, she thought. This women was pregnant. Not very far from the looks of it. It was then she realized she hadn’t even helped the women up. Her gazed snapped to the women and saw she was up and not looking to happy. Rightly pissed off Bee thought. All of a sudden an urge to grab the young man went threw Bee. Her gaze drifted to the boy. She should go pluck him off the ground by his throat. Then thrown him at this young woman’s feet and make him apologize.

“Sorry about that,” the woman said.

Bee quickly snapped back to attention focusing on the woman again. She had short red hair and a pale lovely face. A face that looked innocent in Beyonca’s eyes. An approving smile spread on her lips. This girl was quite charming. Very easy on the eyes.

“Oh, don’t worry it. It wasn’t your fault,” concern spread on Bee’s face.” Are you alright, I saw what happened, those boys should have apologized for knocking you down.”

The baby drifted to her thoughts. She hoped the baby was ok. Though from what Bee knew, they are pretty durable threw the beginning of the pregnancy. She thought it would be lovely to go threw a pregnancy. To find out must be exciting. Even though the sickness wouldn’t be all that great. Still to know that a little baby was growing inside her would be marvelous. Bee could just think of all the emotions that would run threw her. Though the women did look a bit concerned. Maybe a child wasn’t the best thing that could happen to this women. Human lives were so very different. Children were often left hungry and without parents. Some were even thrown to the streets. Bee quickly put those thoughts aside. This women surely wouldn’t do such a thing. She would love the child and take care of it. Bee reminded herself. Not all humans had a nature to do such ugly things. This young women was concerned, so it already showed she cared.

Call me Sasha
Funny how when your a kid, you dream about your future and when you are an adult, you dream about going back to when you were a kid.
Scholar
#483 Old 24th Nov 2009 at 2:28 AM
Default Lola - summary of previous Night, #17
What was she even doing back in LA?

It will manipulate your feelings for him into being something different from what they truly are, and keep you drawn to him. The more you drink, the stronger it will become, and the longer the effects will last.

S***. No. That wasn't it. She was looking for her mom. That's it. It didn't have anything to do with Damian. Or Adrien for that matter. What a bust. Why did everyone treat her like some stupid kid?

Lola looked down at her cell phone. She'd gutted out the battery back in Chula Vista to prevent anyone from tracking her, but the temptation to click it back in and check, just check, to see if her mom tried to call her.

No. She couldn't do it here. If primetime TV taught her anything, it was that cell phones are easily traced. She'd have to take it back to Chula Vista before turning it on. And from there, send it--and whoever might be following her--on a wild goose chase south of the border.

She stood up, dusting the beach sand from her clothes, and sighed heavily. Hitch-hiking could be such a pain in the ass.


5 hrs later, at a diner in Chula Vista, 15min. away from the Mexican border


Lola dug into her pocket for her phone and its battery, snapping it into place and turning it on. One new message. She took a deep breath and dialed into her voicemail.

Damian. S***.

"Too bad. We have a lead."

Her blood froze. A lead? Her mind raced. What if they found her mom? What if she was already there?

She put her phone down and clutched her fists together. She was trembling. Must be the coffee. She always got jitters from the caffeine.

Don't be so fucking stupid. It could be a lie. And if they found her, wouldn't her mom try to call her?

Lola stared at her phone. It was too dangerous. Damian had already betrayed her once--she knew that now that she understood the blood bond better. What's more, when she heard his voice, she remembered his taste, and she wanted.... No! It was too dangerous to keep giving Damian a way to manipulate her and draw her back to him. But how could she cut off Damian and still leave a way for her mom--if she was still alive--to contact her?

She chewed her lip, boring holes into her phone with her eyes. She stared for several long minutes, working out a plan. And when she picked up her phone again, she set a new voicemail message.

"Mom? If you need to reach me, call me at: The number of fish I've owned. The number of weeks you quit drinking for. My age when my period started. The number of bones I've broken. Five. The number of friends at my last birthday. The last digit of your favorite sonnet. My age when we had my birthday at the zoo."

There. The only person she wanted to talk to now is her mom. Everyone else could go fuck themselves. No one else should be able to figure out her new number from that, right?

Lola set her phone down and sipped at her dark Ethiopian roast, which had gone tepid. Then she turned her attention to the men who scurried in and out of Rosie's Diner. They grabbed a quick bite to eat between the long hours of highway hypnosis and took the stools to her left and right, gruff and quiet and dizzy from road. But some of them struck up conversation, and Lola listened intently. To their turns of phrase. Their personality.

Where they were going.

As soon as she heard one of the truckers say he was heading south of the border, she left a few bills on the counter for her coffee. She quit the diner, found his truck in the lot, and pulled out her phone. Still on. Broadcasting her location sure as any homing beacon.

She sent a quick text message back to Damian. A simple "Thanks." And with a length of tape, she attached the phone to the truck's underside and walked away, stuffing her hands into her pockets.

Lola hitch-hiked out of Rosie's Diner and back into LA shortly after sending her phone signal south. She figured it'd be passing through Tijuana by now. She rode shotgun next to a trucker who made eyes at her until she casually dropped her age--her real age--in the conversation. He stuttered that she looked older and said he had a daughter about her age. From there, the ride got real quiet.


3 hrs later


He dropped her off along the 405 near UCLA, only a couple miles away from the Santa Monica beach. Lola was familiar with the campus, having visited it several times with her ex, an art student there. She walked to the nearest dormitory and slipped inside, finding the shared bathroom where she could take a much-needed shower. She stripped down, leaving her equipment just outside the stall and hoping no one would show up and rifle through her s***. Then, she cracked a dry smile, musing at how they might react to all the artillery she was packing.

Lola shivered under the cold sputter of LA city water and cleaned herself with soap from the public dispenser. When she dried off, her skin felt tacky with hard water minerals, but at least it wasn't B.O. She changed into another set of Goodwill clothes, crinkling her nose at their dusty smell as she pulled them over her body. Then, she threw on her artillery, trench, and hiking backpack.

As she turned to the exit, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and frowned like she just swallowed something bitter. Not only was her t-shirt tacky as hell, but the design over her boobs and the backpack combined to make her tits look ridiculous.

Normally, Lola didn't mind if men's eyes dived straight for her cleavage, but now wasn't a good time to attract so much attention. She fiddled with her clothes, trying to find a fix, and finally folded her trench over her chest and buttoned it up as high as she could. Then, she put on her pair of fake glasses and gave her hair a quick tousle. Being a modest, mild-mannered brunette would take some getting used to.

Outside, the sun was rising. As its light filtered over the horizon, a palpable weight lifted from her body. And in that moment, she understood why the Egyptians and so many others called it their god. Crafted mythologies around it. Worshiped it.

They were real. It was all real.


((Not approachable. Post for night #18 coming up soonish.))

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Field Researcher
#484 Old 24th Nov 2009 at 3:13 AM
((ooc:how long are the nights now?))

Call me Sasha
Funny how when your a kid, you dream about your future and when you are an adult, you dream about going back to when you were a kid.
Scholar
#485 Old 24th Nov 2009 at 10:39 AM
Default Lena - "End" of night 17
Okay, so there’s a fascist covert government that a) strips you of your rights and b) would disgust anyone who considers themselves anything lose to humane and now said fascist government likes to prance around and pretend it has a footing to lord over what you do with your fricking life and added to this is the fact that it’s done jack-squat for you and has had little interest in you up until those pre-evolutionary and/or anachronistic morons realised that hey, you might actually be elementary for their continuing their sorry existences. What do you do in reaction to this?
A) Give in, give the fascists their power fix and be a loser.
B) Tell the bastards to go screw themselves, show them individualist anarchism.
Duh, option B, but then again, maybe it was her fault for coming from somewhere where slavery is openly frowned upon. These guys were all “me, me, me” to an inordinate level. Well, at least Thatcher was right about society.
Screw it, they were going to pay.

Stephen Ashcroft wasn’t too good with presents; for Alexandria’s eleventh birthday, it wasn’t that puppy she was looking forward to, it was Sun Tzu’s Art of War, mind you, all leather-bound and pretty. Daddy wasn’t a bad person, he just… he wanted the best.
Nevertheless, essentially, this meant that warning bells went off every time she did something that didn’t compute with it. Like the one about not rushing into war half-assed, because it definitely was war now, and Christ, it wasn’t some honour crusade; Damian pissed her off. Epically.
Fine. You know, one level of crap is something to deal with when people have been messing with your family – with you – for so long that your life has become the bloody Truman Show and then for the next one to treat you, regardless of who you are and what you can do, like something he could acquire in a Goddamned yard sale….

First thing you need to do is acquire information and plan, and given that she was going to be out of commission for a month – wait, she could still kill ‘em in Mauritius at night… it’ll be day in L.A. then… it’d be just like being Robert Neville, except with a cat – why waste the time? Question was… how the hell do you gather intel when you’re half-way across the globe? Answer; you just observe how it functions, from a distance.
For a month. She was going to go insane, but it’ll be worth it when it does come together. Twenty-three and planning war strategies… Daddy should be proud.

For now, however, domestic problems to sort out. The sunset was nigh, and she needed to get out.
So, back in L.A., in her apartment, changed to make herself feel better - because you may feel like crap, but you never let yourself look it - pumped up on more caffeine pills – these things used to be a godsend during exams – she poured herself fully into work mode. She got the weapons she needed that wouldn’t cause problems at the airport, she got the documents for the money, she had her fake ID sorted, and she had her flight booked for Mauritius. Directly to Mauritius, because she didn’t want to be able to change her mind at a stop over destination.
Problem… the next flight left after sunset. After Damian was awake. You know it was firstly ridiculous to assume that he’d make his move tonight, and secondly… just a few hours and she’d be on a plane and even if he got to her, his powers meant nothing because it’s not potent enough to make her jump out of a plane. She could handle a few hours, right? She was a big girl.
So, during those hours, she packed, double and triple checked the things she needed, and also made arrangements for Sandler; she wasn’t going to leave him behind.
Weapons, weapons… exploding “cigarettes” (security checks, what’s a girl to do), the modified Nerf gun, the nozzle thing that she hadn’t really named yet, the BB gun… everything that wouldn’t look alarming.

Then there was the matter of Elle. Sphere had CCTV at the entrances, and Damian knew what she looked like. What if for whatever reason, DeWinter was able to point fingers? She couldn’t just disappear from the company for a month, and there was no way she’d give power of attorney to anyone and she didn’t know when she’d have communications sorted in Mauritius to make sure she couldn’t be traced. Best thing to do was to call Elle’s assistant, Fiona, and have temporary arrangements made now, while she was still in the country. Now, this could be very simple.
So, she called her up, outlined the instructions, who was to be kept in charge of what projects, the chain of command, everything… and making it clear that if a single thing was not as she outlined, heads will roll.
There was a reason why Fiona was hired; she was very good at her job.

“I'll send you updates as often as I can,” Lena assured once more over the phone, partly for the morale and partly to make it clear that if anyone misbehaves, they will be caught. “Until then I want you to follow my instructions. Is that clear?”

“Crystal,” Fiona confirmed curtly, and Lena didn’t have to ask again. “How long will you be gone?”
Oh, let’s see… depends on a multitude of factors, but it’s always a fun to keep people guessing.

“I'm not gone,” she firmly, yet calmly stated, walking around the apartment to check whether she was leaving behind anything she needed. “I'm delegating.”

“Alright,” Fiona conceded before pausing and Lena could guess what was to come; “I hope it's nothing too...?”

“Family problems,” she replied swiftly, closing the chapter on it; Elle was never one to talk about her private life much (oh, say because she didn’t actually have one?) and so it wouldn’t be some glaring change.

“Is that code for "No more questions"?”

“I always liked you,” she replied and couldn’t help that smile seeping into the tone of her voice for a moment before she carried on; “Alright – ARGH!
Oh, God that hurt. It felt like the force of a hundred migraines hammering into her head, the agony of someone scratching against the inside of her skull, the frenzied screech of an opera singer tearing through her ears, the nausea that brought her form down to it’s knees, making her retch.
This had happened before, she knew what it was. Christian did it, a few others had done it, Damian was now doing it. No… no.
Not now. Impatient, inconsiderate, cheating bastard.

“You okay?!” Fiona’s voice rang out in panic, searing through her eardrums some more.
Damian… where was he?
No. No… not happening.

Oh, God, it hurt. It felt like her brain would spill out of her head and she dug her nails into her scalp as if it’d stop it all, pathetic and lying on the floor, every muscle tightening, her voice only host to a mixture of whimpers and defiant groans against the pain and exertion of just fighting it.
She had to do something. Now.
Her nails scratched at the phone, dragging it back to her, giving her that sense of control back for a second, as her hand tipped over the car keys plate on the table, fingers grasping onto one, as she put a – any – plan of action into drive;
“Call LAPD. My car got stolen, 99W D47. It's an emergency. Do it. Quickly.”

She gave in. For now. It was just like last night, like being there, but not being the one in control and if she’d learned anything in life lately, it’s to bide her time. She let herself casually take the elevator down to the car park, mindlessly get to the car, get in and drive, and drive and drive until she got to a junction where it was a choice between driving into the city and driving out and… this was it.
Her hands gripped the wheel; turn left and it’d go to the airport or to the V and God, she wanted to, and hoping that the density of police patrol in the area would intercept a stolen, expensive car wasn’t enough, turn right, keep driving and get away.
She could hear the cars blaring angrily behind her and she didn’t give a damn. It had to be right, she knew it had to be right because there was no way in hell she’d let him have her, but it just felt…
NO.
She gritted her teeth and turned. Right. Relief washed over her and for a second she almost believed in God. In faith, anyway. It didn’t matter.
She kept driving and driving away from the city’s lights and ebbing nightlife, bathed in the dance of the stroboscope of the streetlights, not daring to take her hands off the wheel nor her eyes off the road and he was there, in the back of her head, calling, enticing and threatening, but as long as she keep her damn hands on the wheel, and her eyes on the road and didn’t stop thinking about… just thinking instead of feeling, it’d be fine.
Right?
It wasn’t a straight road and she had it steer it, she had to turn and she knew that the second she did, she’d do a U-turn and go straight back… and no… her trembling hands gripped the wheel in a moment of resolute determination; she’d rather drive off the road than go to him. She’d take her chances with the obsidian hurtling at her.

(((OOC: Will post for beginning of Night 18 soon
Innocenteyes - welcome back! And about 2 months each )))

"Life is just a chance to grow a soul" - A. Powell Davies
Scholar
#486 Old 25th Nov 2009 at 2:22 AM
Default Lola - day/Night 18
Lola descended down the dormitory's stairwell, out the front office, and onto the campus during the small hours of morning. There, she was surrounded by old stone, bricks, and greenery--experiences she'd never have.

UCLA.

She'd planned on going here when she graduated. Be an art student. Maybe f*** a few art dudes. After all, that's the only way female artists ever became famous, right? Frida Kahlo? F***ing Diego Rivera. Georgia O'Keeffe? F***ing some hotshot art critic. And Lola Dmitriev?

She sighed.

One day....

She wandered the campus, deep in thought, and eventually made her way to the Astronomy building. She took the stairs to the roof, where she sat on the edge of the building and looked over the long drop down and the campus vista. The early morning classes were about to begin, and a spatter of bleary-eyed students were making their way to class with coffee thermoses in hand.

She envied them. How they carried on with their lives as if all was right in the world. As if vampires didn't exist. As if they hadn't been brutally wrenched from their ordinary lives. They looked happy, if tired. (Thanks to Damian's little "gift," Lola wasn't--despite being up for almost 24 hours now.) When the bell tower rang, the first class started, and the students suddenly disappeared inside the buildings.

Truth was that she'd probably be dead before she was old enough to graduate--let alone go to college. The Smiler would get her, or some other Sabbat goon. And if not them, then it'd be Damian. He wouldn't let her get away--not when she knew so much about his secret society. Not when he'd been feeding her his own brand of cultist Kool-aid.

She figured when you live a few hundred years, you probably start seeing people as disposable. So, if Damian didn't kill her outright, he'd probably doom her to a life as a slavering blood junkie, and f***ed if she didn't know which fate was worse.

And then, there was Adrien. Hmph. She grimaced. She did a fine job of burning the only bridge she had that might help her out of this, but how long would he have been able to hide her anyway? Someone would find her--eventually.

She would die. She always knew death was nearby--elusive, yet impalpably there. Cold and reaching to her from her dreams. She would die, and the most harrowing thought of all? No one would remember her. At first, maybe. Her friends would mourn her. But years later? Her name would be a distant memory. A dull ache in the heart, beyond inconsequential. Was she really so small? What would she leave behind?

The first class ended, and the students flooded the sidewalks. The campus was alive for five glorious minutes. The bell rang again, and they disappeared inside. Dead silence, isolation, the heartbeat of the university.

Lola looked around herself, at the endless blue skies, the deserted campus below, and the empty brick walls. Her mind drifted to the flammable aerosols she'd bought for her makeshift flamethrower. She'd been up here for well over an hour, and no one seemed the wiser. There was a can of spray paint in there.

She stood up, pulled the can from her backpack, and a slip of paper fell from her bag.

Regardless of what you want, my offer still stands.

An address and phone number.

She squinted. Adrien? He didn't hate her? Wait, how did he manage to slip her the note? Had he been following her? That's kind of... nice. And... um... stalkery. But he cared enough to stalk her and give her the note. That meant something, right?

For a moment, she felt a wave a gratitude. She wouldn't have to find a bench to sleep on tonight. Maybe she could even have a real shower. Then, she folded up the paper and put it back into her bag.

She turned her attention back to that empty wall and found a section concealed from the view below. And she wrote her words, a mish-mash of different poems and pieces, ideas she'd scrawled in the margins of her sketch books. When she finished, she realized she needed a name. What was the point of tagging without an identity?

She couldn't use her own name... what about her initials? LD? No... still too dangerous. What about one of her nicknames? Lulz? Too obvious. Serial Killer? Too long. SK? S.Killer? Skilla? Ugh, that sounds completely lame and "home-skillety." After several minutes of agonizing, she decided she didn't give a s*** and signed it "Skilla."

When she finished, she stood back, arms crossed, and surveyed her work. She tilted her head sideways. Her tagging style could use work--in fact, it was kind of s***ty, and her handle was stupid, but at least it was something. She existed.



Now, what would she do? She couldn't go to Adrien now. It was light outside, and he might burn up if she broke in.

Wait.

She knew she didn't stand a chance against vamps in a "fair" fight. Not with their crazy powers and Jedi mind tricks. But they had to live somewhere, right? They had to find shelter from sunlight. And buildings didn't have superpowers. Buildings could be destroyed with dynamite and wrecking balls and a lot of planning.

That's it. She was not going down like some scared Romanian peasant. Not while her mom was missing. Not while Damian [maybe] had a lead. Not while she had the internet. She had to figure out a way to strike back at the Sabbat. She was going to die anyway--might as well go out in a blaze.

She hurriedly put away the spray paint, slipped through the roof access door, and down the stairs. She exited the astronomy building and hustled over the open campus to the library, a grandiose brick building lined with large, arched windows. She bounded up the library stairs and inside.

Lola passed through the front atrium, up the stairs, and onto the third floor, preferring to do her research in a more secluded area than the main floor. She settled into a workstation where her back was to the wall and she had a good view of the room around her. Then, she slung her heavy backpack off onto the floor, signed into the computer using her ex's username and password, and began her search.

Hours later

Lola sighed and looked out the window at the sinking sun. Night would be coming again soon. Around her laid a morass of books, journals, magazines, and papers--the product of a whole day at the library. She had photocopies and print-outs of newspaper articles detailing any suspicious murders, disappearances, or assaults in the area--anything that sounded possibly vampy. Near that, a stack of books detailing Hollywood special effects, demolitions, and building implosions. And when her mind became numb from all the information, she had several trashy vampire novels on her desk, just for kicks. She didn't really give a s*** about them, but she enjoyed flipping to the good parts where the spine had been worn away by lonely nights. The sex parts. Nothing lifts the soul like bad erotic fiction.

After resting her brain by reading a fascinating account of Marjolane's quivering receptacle, Lola turned back to her computer. Googling "soap explosives" brought her to a website with a quick rundown of several different homemade bombs. As if the site couldn't be any more questionable, it was littered with porn ads.

Hottest Lesbian Webcams. Barely Legal Teen Whores. Click Here To See Me Getting F***ed. Lola tried to ignore the flashing titties and read the articles.

Hmm... urea nitrate explosive? Popular with terrorists... boil down ten cups of urine to one cup.... Ew, gross.

She kept clicking through the site. Her eyes flickered over the screen, and she adjusted her glasses as they slipped from her nose. Hmm... nitromethane... combine with methanol and ammonia with heat. She frowned in thought. The article didn't have any more details than that, and she needed something more exact.

Using the chemical names she found on the website, Lola ran a search for them in the scientific journal database. Bingo. She pulled up the call numbers for different articles detailing the synthesis of several different explosives-- 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, nitroglycerin, and more. She quickly scribbled down several of the call numbers, scooped up her backpack, and marched out to find them.

((approachable by someone who knows who they ARRRRRRR *pirate*))

.:Kitty Klan:.
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Scholar
#487 Old 25th Nov 2009 at 2:46 AM Last edited by Alissa888 : 25th Nov 2009 at 10:35 AM.
Default Lena, eventually with Damian - the Penthouse
“They just walk around, warped...?” she said it out slowly as if it might make more sense, be more… fathomable if she heard herself say it. Didn’t work. It still sounded perverse, like Orwell on an acid trip. And… Oh, God. Her eyes snapped up to him, her panic clasping onto that blank look on his face. “What about rights – these people could get abused....,” and it clicked. Of course they get abused, of course this entire thing was a secret, because the humans weren’t the impending psychopaths who’d get the pitchforks, these guys were. Alexis and all the other little humans weren’t people; they were food.
Christ, how long before there are so many of them that they feel assured enough to come out and farm everyone. They already figured they were entitled to everything, they already had a society that stripped people of basic rights; we were pets now, but it’ll escalate. How many were there already? Given that they’d got this whole “First rule of Fight Club” gig going on…. Jesus.
And he didn’t make a move to stop it, he was part of it, he revelled in it.
Bastard. Sick, twisted bastard. How could she have loved this… thing?

“We're going to get past this,” he assured with that velvety voice of his and she wanted to scratch his eyes out the moment his cold hands smoothed over her skin. “You love me, I can see it –”
God, please let this douchebag be entirely delusional. Please. No, she couldn’t pull that trick, the very sight of him disgusted her. Right?

“It's not love, it's revulsion,” she acerbically snapped, pulling away from his touch, yielding to how much he made her flesh crawl, her eyes still accusatory and burning sharply into him. In stupid way, it felt wrong to hate him, to reject everything he wanted her to believe. And she knew it wasn’t right, because… this is slavery and human trafficking, this was appalling regardless of the reasons but deep down, she felt ashamed for disagreeing with him.
But she knew he was the one in the wrong, it was just… so weird. “How do you live with yourself, knowing what you're party to?”
Fair enough, he was a part of some other social code, but he used to be human once. Why do people tell her she’s wrong about moral nihilism when they all turn out like this?

“No-one of it matters anymore,” he soothed once again, bringing his form closer to hers, his pale blue gaze locking into hers, as if his mere presence and reassurance would solve everything. What the hell had be been doing, reading Catherine Cookson?!
Fabulous. Not only am I apparently a mind slave, I’m the mind slave of an idiot.
…Not that it had absolutely no effect on her, but… no. No, he was wrong. This was wrong. And what, there’s no-one to stop them?

“It never mattered to you, did it?” she asked far more calmly, almost resigned as something else made sense; he’d done this before, and he’d do it again. If you could have any kitten you wanted, would you just buy the one? “How many others? Where are they now?”
Amusement flickered through his features and clenched her fists, keeping herself from throttling him, keep the rage down, keeping the pokerface; no need to make this aggressive… she didn’t know what he was capable of yet and there’s no point expecting civil behaviour from someone like this.

“They weren't as special as you,” he evaded, eyes still bearing into her, and at this point, she had to wonder whether he was actually expecting that to do some magic trick. It wasn’t. But she didn’t want him to know that; two can play with deception. She looked away. “You’re the one I want.”

Want?” she echoed, trying her best to keep the sardonic bitterness out of it. “Want”. He said it like it was something romantic, but no… no, this was right up there with “Daddy, I want a puppy for Christmas”, you’re at Waitrose and it’s “Ooh, I want a jar of olives”, “I want a fricking slave to luuurve me”.
Screw you, you pig. I hope you get AIDS for your bloodswapping and that Strep pyogens eats away at you every day.
Her heart seized in panic. Did he –?

“Some people want this,” he decided to ram in the idea and she struggled not to laugh as just amusement fused with the adrenaline. “They choose it, for love, Alex. You know –”
Oh, come on! How stupid do you have to be to fall for this tripe? You’d have to be so dense that you’d have your own satellite! Jesus, what was wrong with this guy? What did he think was wrong with her?

“I refuse to believe anyone in this day and age could be that stupid,” she rebuffed before thinking it though, and fairly enough, you’d think that people in the twenty-first century might have the idea that slavery is just a tad bit inadvisable. “Besides, aren't you supposed to want the best?” she gesticulated, voice cutting and yet flippant at the same time. “Or... does quality not matter in terms of transient playthings?”

“Stop being childish and selfish –” Oh, he disapproved of her behaviour? What?! What, it didn’t matter that she trusted him, loved him – she wasn’t going to take this crap. “You really need to look at the big picture –”

“Don't you dare pull the high and mighty crap,” she shot down, aggression seeping in through frustration. “You people need to protect yourself, yes? Then don't tell others! Duh!”
But that was it, wasn’t it? It wasn’t about protection, it was about stealth.

“I love you,” he reiterate and she hated herself for it, but it felt good. It felt… right to have him say that, like everything would fall apart if he didn’t. “I wanted you to be – I wanted to take care of you.”
She pressed her weight onto the table through her arms. She felt sick, wronged, wrong.
Oh, God. What did he do? What had he done to her? Wait, what?! Her fire rose back in her; she didn’t need to be taken care of, she wasn’t some helpless little girl and it’d be a cold day in hell before she was anyone’s dependent damsel in distress. Life wasn’t perfect, but she was doing just fine until this freak wandered onto the scene.

“If you'd had an ounce of respect or concern for me, you'd have kept your distance,” she mustered out after a few seconds. It made sense. He looked at her and he couldn’t see a person. After all, how much respect can you have for something you can bend and break?

“You're angry, I can understand that,” his velvety voice wrapped around her again, threatening to ease out her flame. “But how do you think things will go if everyone knew?! If there were no rules, no masquerade....” She could figure it’d go worse… for a while. The night is darkest before the dawn, right? “We're protecting you too, we keep in touch with our humanity.”
No… no, this was a survival tactic. They were scared people – with their guns and flamethrowers – would win if this every gets out, is that it?
“We’re doing the best for you.”
Was this guy for real?

“Then go stop Joseph Kony,” she suggested flatly, shooting him down. Mind powers, right? “Hey, there's a whole list of people we need protecting from. Your cells are in stasis, you regenerate - go cure cancer, Alzheimer’s, ALS, Parkinsons, make custom organ transplants....” A sharp scoff escaped her throat as she leaned back on the table, her fingers playing over the bitter upturn of her lips as her contemptuous, disappointed eyes locked onto him. “Humane? Don’t be so transparent. It’s not like you don’t help yourself to everything anyway!”
No, six hundred years of indulging in his fetish for late teen girls. Nice.

Oh, God. Oh, God… these people can do what they wanted and she could only imagine… He was telling her this because she had no way out. End game.
What a plank. What, he thought that just because he and his fricking shadow government laid down the law, that she’d follow it?
Screw you all. I don’t have to do a single thing you tell me to do. I don’t care. I’m getting out alive, I deserve to.

“Always seeing what could be isn’t the way forward,” he advised – no, instructed again. He lavished his attentions on her, his hand smoothly caressing her cheek, brushing away the hair strands dangling over it. “Someone as beautiful and smart as you doesn’t want to wither away, Alex. It’s why you always have to be the best, isn’t it?” What? That didn’t – Okay, that was completely different to….
“You don’t want to be ordinary like them, you never were,” he pointed out and… it was true, and in all honesty, right or wrong, it makes you feel special to have immortality offered to you. And God, the things you could do with time on your side. It was tempting through everything that’d happened, held up by the fact that her future was gone… she was clinically insane and so her career was shot to hell, no-one would touch her with a bargepole again and at the end of the day, she was right and they abandoned her and she felt so alone. He didn’t. He was still here. “There’s nothing for you there….”
His voice compelled her to him again, but something else just clicked. It was because of him.
And thank God he didn’t see it.
And thank God it hadn’t changed. Any of it. It was still wrong, it was still perverse and it didn’t matter three years on and all the times that’d passed from that girl to this figure basking in the twilight that flooded the room funded by an egomaniac’s blood money. She hadn’t fallen asleep and she couldn’t stop thinking about it.
How many ghouls did he had to use up and dry out to get him this? How much dishonour and disgrace is his high and mighty Lord Damian Alexander III guilty of?
They say the measure of a man is what he does with power, so….

See, it’s not fair, but ask yourself, would you rather be one of those deluded frontal lobotomised freakshows, or would you rather know? Because knowledge is power and if you know at least you can do something about it. If ignorance is bliss, then why seek knowledge, right?
Hence, she liked the things she could remember, but people like it otherwise; “forgive and forget” for starters. Not that these people didn’t take it to a whole new level. There were blackouts and weird… memory warps where everyone else remembered things differently to how she did. He did that didn’t he? Christian.
And last night… she couldn’t remember much after the accident, but the taste in her mouth, the dried blood clinging to her hair, and scattered over her shoulders left little mystery to it. No doubt unpleasant, but it’s nice to know what happens to you. Self-awareness isn’t a privilege, it’s a right.
Hence she liked the things she could remember properly, the truth, because it’s a part of who you are, it’s real and not a fabrication, not a consolation and it’s irrevocable.
And that’s why it’s a secret.
That’s why no-one knew about Alexis, about any of it, because it was none of their business. Because they couldn’t taint that, they couldn’t take it away and make it theirs. Because deep down, that girl, the scientist, the dancer, with her lecture banter, Starbucks moments and essay crises, she wasn’t theirs. But Sabin had the last laugh on that one; even her history wasn’t hers.
How do you abide by the fact that everything you despise crafted you?
How do you abide by the fact that everything you loathe is taking control of you?

Frankly, you do it because you must. Because whining about it won’t change anything, because… because she couldn’t let them win, let them have that last laugh. Because living well is the best revenge. Because if you have to go down, you go down with a fight. She wasn’t going to be anyone’s victim. It stood out under the haze of the concussion, under the vigour of the caffeine pills. It stood firm because it was true to her. It’s really one of the few things.
If she didn’t get to keep anything, neither did he. Plus she was an Ashcroft; they weren’t born to be anyone’s Cabana boys.
Running was out of the question now; two steps bound and she wasn’t wasting six months of her life for this guy. Some of us don’t have eternity to waste.
So… kill or be killed.
Ha… it’s… it’s sick how that made her feel guilty for wanting to that simple self-defence.

She had to do this. She had to. Because otherwise she really did mean nothing.
Right. Right, she was totally unarmed, she couldn’t leave the building and come back armed and not get caught with weapons. And she was still too weak. Better to stay here. He’d either come here, or she’d have to go there. Why not set the perfect stage in case he decided on being chivalrous? She pulled herself up off the floor, and activated the bug scanner on her phone. Nothing. Then, she took a decisive look around the room; nothing outwardly capable of igniting a fire, no built-in lighters or anything and yes, she could dismantle a few things, but there was nothing to make an actual bomb with and she just didn't have the equipment to synthesise things... which was a shame, given the bleach and soap in the bathroom; Damian wasn’t that stupid. But that’s okay; it wasn’t like she had any problems innovating.
Most of domestic violence is committed in the kitchen, the bedroom or the bathroom (now, it isn’t specific whether this is true because in some parts of the country, those are all the rooms a house does have, because let’s face it people, not everyone has a music room to beat up the spouse in) and this is probably because – with the exception of the bedroom, one would hope – this is where all the sharp things are housed.
This place didn’t have a kitchen, because everyone here liked rare, alfresco dining, so onto the bathroom. Water. She filled up the bathtub with water and whilst it accumulated it’s liquid, her eyes darted around the bathroom again. Ventilator shaft had a metal guard and those blades could be made pretty sharp with that pumice. She wasted no time in climbing over to dismantle it and got to work on two of the blades while the bath filled. She didn’t have to wait much longer.

The ring she always wore was more than sentimental. Another Ashcroft gem is “Don’t get attached to anything that isn’t of use to you” and one begins to wonder why this isn’t on the family crest. Or alternatively, if you do get attached to something, ensure that it is of use to you. The ring on her right thumb was actually the pendant of a necklace that Mother and Daddy got her when she got into Oxford; probably one of six times where they both expressed that she made them proud. So, of course she couldn’t just let it go. But distinctive jewellery is recognisable and so it had to be modified. In more ways than one.
Holy Water can be made any day of the year, and by anyone, just as long as you have three key ingredients; water, a blessed object, and the right words. There was a heck of a lot of water in this place. The ring was... well, if you pay a Catholic priest enough, they play along to all sorts of rituals without asking questions. As for the right words… she was British. Most schools teach Latin, hers certainly did. No-one’s ever sure why; it’s as dead as disco, but hey, why complain at times like these? So yes, she remembered the incantation perfectly.

Okay. Knives, and a bath full of Holy Water. And a lot of electricity going to waste.
First things first, the water in the flower vases was replaced with Holy Water and set them around the room. Electrical stuff… a lot. She used the knives to fray exposure in the red wire – the live wire; exposed electricity + flammable things = not a good mix.
And there was another alternative. She used the foils to make little cups to hold the body butter – it’s essentially fat, it’s fuel – and rolled up the cotton wool buds to make a wick. Makeshift candles.
Radiators contain a hell of a lot of oil. She drained it and lined major exits with it; once he was here, he wasn't getting out. Vamps won't jump through fire. They go axe-crazy, yes, but he was going to kill her anyway, so same odds, really.

And now for the fire… thank God for A-level Physics. She dismantled one of the lamps, kept the wiring intact, but left it looking not so pretty and carefully broke the top of the bulb – it’s like cracking an egg – to expose the filament before turning on the electricity. If exposed to oxygen, the filament burns. Fire. Just don’t look straight at it.
She dismantled another one of the lamps as an emergency set up.
Those air freshener cans would come in handy for this.

One of the candles could be put to better use. Tin has a pretty low melting point and there aren't ways to tell you how ubiquitous it is in the world. She dismantled one of the soap dishes to produce a metal rod and made the tin malleable enough. She then crafted it over the makeshift knives, fusing them at the edges, but leaving a small canal in the middle and stuck it all in cold water to make a container. Then, she seeped in the Holy Water into the canal, sealing it off with the wax. At impact, that seal would break and release the holy water. Rinse and repeat with the other makeshift knife.

Right. Get him in position, short-circuit it and the pyromaniacs can have fun. If he makes this worse, there’s a hell of a lot of holy water in the room and she had Holy Water knives.
She knew she’d most probably die tonight, but she could take him down with her. It was the very least she could do for him, after everything.

…What if she was called up to the office? What then? Firstly… she couldn’t remember anything from the last time she was in that place and secondly… anything she took with her had to be light and unnoticeable. Okay….
She breathed out as a sinking feeling of entrapment crept back in. No.
Okay. The knives were still game. Wait, she had a small perfume bottle in her purse… empty out the contents, fill it up with Holy Water instead and she could spray it in his face when the time was right. You know, it sucks not having a lighter. Eitherway, it’d give time for the knives; one for Damian and one for Lurch. Being a PPPist means you know how to be efficient with deadly blows.
That aside, there was fun to be had with whatever he had in the office.

…There was nothing more to do for now and her heart wouldn’t stop racing and her breathing wouldn’t stop it’s sudden shallow hitches. What if she couldn’t stop it…? What if he did it? What if – would spending so long with him be that horrible? What if she could actually earn his affections?
Stop it. Stop.

God… she felt so tired and the caffeine pills… they weren’t helping as much anymore and tiredness pulled at her body, fazed out her thinking and drew her eyes slowly shut.
No. Not now. Do something.
Alright, she really needed a shower; if you’ve got to die, don’t you want to be presentable at the time? The hot water seared down over her skin as if it might just help her shed it and grow herself a new life. Wishful thinking never did much, huh?
Didn’t exactly have a change of clothes, so it was back into that dress she’d been wearing last night and she couldn’t wear the shoes because it just hurt, but… hey, it’s all about making a statement, right? Where would she be without her signature heels?
Jesus Christ, it’s hilarious.
No holsters or anything, so the hair bands she kept around her wrist easily became a faux-garter and she could secure the knives on her upper thighs. The “perfume” would remain in the purse just in case he called instead of visited. And all that was left to do was wait.

He called. It scratched through her brain again, and made her feel like a puppet on a string, but she didn’t fight it; there was more to gain by complying for now. If she stood her ground and made a show, he might send his goons down here, and the whole thing was a bust anyway. She wanted to kill him, everyone else was just foreplay and collateral damage. Then again, having vampires come down into the room with weapons wasn't such a bad thing; she'd take their toys. But no... he was playing her game for now and not resisting made it easier, like she could keep that inkling of consciousness beneath what he wanted her to do. It’s not something you should compromise for, but she did and she went, took that elevator ride up to the penthouse floor, barely shot that mousey bitch behind the desk a look – when someone’s that pathetic, you just don’t bother – and slowly stopped right before the doors of the office.
It sank in like a weight draining through her body. She was actually going to die, it’s no daredevil act, it’s no getting away by the skin of your teeth, it’s the actual finish line. Her countenance threatened to break as she struggled to keep the stiff upper lip and something inside her heart gave way to everything she’d spent so long suppressing; memories, special moments, drive, hope and love.
Her eyes moistened brought with it the acute awareness that she was being watched. Well, they don’t get to see this.
She cleared her head, straightened up her posture, making it look nothing short of self-assured and regal when she made her entrance into the office, her eyes swiftly drinking in it’s details before clasping onto Damian.
There was something about his posture, some sort of infusion of ancient, irrevocable command reminiscent of an alpha lion standing proud over a domain he’d conquered and all the little people tasting the fear and awe he’d instilled into their souls. She couldn’t help the way it kept drawing her to him, the way his magnificence defied the reasoning –
No.
No.
Right. Credit where credit is due, sexy egoistic bastard, but egoistic bastard nonetheless.
She steeled herself against it, she wasn’t going to become one of them. It was wrong, this was wrong, for anyone and for any reason. So she tore her captivated gaze away from him and threw a rather acknowledging glance towards Lurch, letting the assurance in her stately posture seep into her eyes, and her tone taking nuances of it’s usual calibre as she said:
“I believe you were expecting me.”
For once, she wanted him closer, and she knew exactly why.

(((OOC: Lot of character exploration, but I just haven’t RP’d her in a while
Hope this works?)))

"Life is just a chance to grow a soul" - A. Powell Davies
Alchemist
#488 Old 25th Nov 2009 at 11:15 AM Last edited by Ghanima Atreides : 25th Nov 2009 at 11:44 AM.
Default Melody Hart - Her apartment, later near The Haven



The soft amber glow spilling from the single overhead lamp cast irregular shadows upon the bed below, its crumpled sheets creating the illusion of an ocean made out of soft blue fabric that stirred lazily with movement from within. Melody drifted into awareness little by little, her eyelids fluttering the haze away as they gained focus along with the rest of her senses. She wasn't alone; another body lay pressed against hers, one arm side by side with hers on top of his abdomen, chocolate brown tresses spilling over her neck, mixing with her pale blond ones. His name was Dimitri, and their relationship was...unusual.

Laying there in those first few moments of wakefulness, Melody was tempted to close her eyes again; she did so and for a short while she was content to simply feel around her surroundings rather than look at them, the soft touch of skin on skin, Dimitri's narrow frame joined with hers in sleep igniting a stream of memories that sent a wave of heat rushing from her head down to her feet. At first they began with the two of them and how they ended up in that bed to begin with but slowly the fantasy progressed and, like so many times before, Valerian's face appeared, so achingly lovely that she burned with yearning. Melody's eyes snapped open just as a throbbing sensation pounded through her midriff on its journey downwards: No, she whispered very quietly, sobering herself up. It was nearly over; she would see him soon. Her head fell back onto the pillow, on the same level with the curve of Dimitri's shoulder: she could see the bruises very clearly then, and the bite wounds which contrasted darkly with his skin.

“They haven't even bothered healing him afterwards.”, Melody thought with worry in her heart. Dimitri was a blood doll, a human addicted to having his blood drank by Kindred, lower on the scale than even most ghouls were. The only thing that kept him alive was his very addiction, but for the rest he was nothing more than food, and cheap entertainment. Melody hated it, and her heart sank each time she saw Dimitri and found fresh proof of all the different ways his “patrons” used and abused him, but the young man was as vulnerable as any junkie.

Dimitri stirred and awoke with a soft moan, turning his head to one side so that he could look at Melody, which is when he saw what she was looking at. He gave a sigh, and to Melody he seemed...resigned.

“It's what I am”, he murmured, as though telling her there was no other way for him to exist, and he'd made his peace with it.

“It doesn't have to be that way,” Melody countered, gazing intently in his eyes. “You don't have to let them do this to you. Dimitri...one of these days you're going to die.”

The young man lowered his head beneath a cascade of brown tresses; he didn't seem surprised by her statement.

“I go to them when I'm lonely. When they take my blood, I feel as though I connect to something in a deep, powerful way, that I'm part of someone.”

Melody chewed on her lower lip; who was she to contest his decisions, when she herself shared her blood? Ah, but that was different. Valerian cared for her, he did it gently and never took too much or without her permission. The Kindred who fed on Dimitri however...they just used him, plain and simple. She knew that they...hit him, among other things, and as to what else went on during such sessions, she didn't like thinking about it too closely.

“Just give me a call, whenever you feel that way. I'll come to see you, or you can come here. Just...please, promise me you won't go there so often. And that you'll see a doctor, I think you may be anaemic.”

Dimitri nodded weakly, and promised he'd try. That was all Melody could ask for.

***

Two hours later, Melody was stepping out of her car which she'd parked near The Haven, excitement burning in her veins. She could hardly contain herself until her reunion with Valerian, who for the past few days had been absent from her company. Work, responsibilities, Melody knew the story, and she accepted it in spite of the growing suspicion that perhaps there was more to it than just...work. Connor's words came back to haunt her time and time again, with that seemingly coincidental link between Moira Sushill's own work schedule and Valerian's, so perfectly coordinated...Melody couldn't help but wonder. She berated herself for it, but she couldn't help it.

Right now then, those worries were subdued by a feeling of elation, of finally being with her Domitor. It was a hunger no amount of friends or lovers could satisfy (distract from, yes, but that was about it) and which for the past few days had been given room to grow, but release was in sight. Melody strolled over to the passenger seat door, opened it and removed the pet carrier box secured there, hearing a soft mewl from inside as she lifted it. Oscar the kitten entrusted in hers and Valerian's care was doing well and was also on his way to see the young Toreador; Melody had taken care of his needed shots and deworming and given him a thorough medical check at work, but the biggest challenge had been to reconcile her own cat, 3 year old Cleo, with the new addition to the household.

Melody wasn't going to enter The Haven through the front door – partly because of Oscar, but also because she intended to surprise Valerian while he was still in his bedroom – hence her getting there as early as possible. Knowing him, he would indulge himself in some lounging about or perhaps a spur of the moment painting session before gracing the club with his presence, so her chances were good. And if not, she could still settle Oscar in the room and go look for Valerian downstairs. Therefore, Melody veered off to one side, slipping through the gap between The Haven and the nearing building and following the alley all the way to the back where the storage room entrance was located. The energetic clicking of her heels resounded in the silence as she made her way towards it, draped in one of the usual black dresses she wore to The Haven, partly because it coordinated with Valerian's look and partly because she didn't get to dress up much otherwise. It made a striking contrast with her skin and hair which trailed down her back in natural waves.

((ooc: Approachable by: you know who you are ))

If wishes were fishes we'd all cast nets
Alchemist
#489 Old 26th Nov 2009 at 8:56 PM Last edited by Ghanima Atreides : 2nd Dec 2009 at 8:33 AM.
Default Moira Sushill - leaving The Ritz, and arriving at her new condo (with Connor)



As the shroud of darkness descended upon Los Angeles, Moira Sushill awoke in the same hotel suite that for the past weeks had been her home, but was now stripped of all the belongings which had given it a sense of familiarity. Packed the previous night, they already awaited at her newly-rented condo, and the atmosphere within the suite was one of imminent departure: it had reverted to being just another generic, albeit luxurious, hotel suite. Moira had kept only a small suitcase containing her laptop, the documents pertaining to the Aeode operation, her private papers and, laid out onto the couch, one set of clothing for that evening.

After showering and dressing, Moira took a few moments to check her email and read the latest update from Silas, including photographs of Aeode's recent whereabouts, the latest depicting a large hospital in the background. Whether the young woman had visited it or just happened to pass by, it remained to be seen; human concerns such as illnesses were not on Moira's list of priorities. What she did intend to discover, however, was just who this girl actually was and what was known about the exact circumstances of her attack. Valerian had been reticent about revealing her full name out of loyalty, but in this day and age there was nothing one couldn't find on the internet, particularly when it concerned the massacre of an entire party. With a combination of “Los Angeles+family massacre+party”, it only took a few clicks for Moira to uncover the information she sought. “Prominent L.A. family gunned down at daughter's engagement party” sounded about right, and if further proof was needed, a picture depicting several people among whom one Aeode Mallard, stood just underneath the headline. Aeode's last name was then Mallard, and hers had been not just any family, but a rich and influential one: Joseph Mallard had his hands in many a successful venture, not all of them legit, the article strongly implied. The professional, execution-style of the murders had lead investigators to believe it was some sort of retribution from a crime syndicate, something Moira happened to agree with – it was just a very different sort of syndicate, and far more dangerous than any human Mafia.

There was nothing more to be learned from the article, so Moira shut down her laptop and placed it along with her other papers in the suitcase, then folded the previous night's outfit and her nightgown, stuffing them in one tote bag she had put aside for that very purpose: she was ready to leave. She checked out and handed in her key ten minutes later and, with the desk clerk's polite words of farewell, Moira set out for the cab already waiting in front of the brilliantly lit entrance to the five star hotel. As the neon-splashed streets of L.A. rolled by and cars sped like blurs of colour up and down the busy, winding avenue, she allowed herself to relax, and envision Connor in her new condo. Moira was looking forward to spending some quality time with her ghoul, and the fact that she now had all the privacy she could desire only made the prospect more attractive. Living in a hotel had taken its toll on her, slowly but surely increasing that sense of wariness any Kindred taken out of their territory tended to experience. It would be good to have her own place again, and she felt reassured by the fact that Connor had been there to oversee the process and ensure her belongings were handled with care. Though she usually avoided making use of his capacity as a ghoul, Moira couldn't deny there were times when it came in handy, and, the irony was, he'd enjoyed it.

At last, they arrived. Moira climbed out of the car with the bag and suitcase in her hand and her eyes fixated onto the brown brick façade of the one story building overlooking a well tended front lawn, with its modern, flat roof and white stone path leading up to the front door. The ground floor windows illuminated the surrounding darkness, yellow electric light escaping through the blinds which covered them, and Moira knew Connor was in there, waiting. She slipped the cab driver his payment along a generous tip and with even, steady steps, commenced the short journey to the front door to her new, if temporary, home. She set the bags down when Connor answered the door and she slid forward against his frame, entwining her arms around his neck and smiling contently before leaning in for a kiss: a deep, exploring, tender kiss unlike the brief ones they'd managed to exchange during the past few days. It was a kiss that said “I'm here, and I'm staying.”

“How are you?” she whispered when their lips parted and she was able to withdraw a little. “And don't hold back: I want to hear all about it!”



((ooc: I kinda ran out of steam towards the end, so...I hope it works, and what I wrote about Connor is ok.))

If wishes were fishes we'd all cast nets
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#490 Old 26th Nov 2009 at 11:10 PM Last edited by AtropaMandragora : 27th Nov 2009 at 2:47 PM. Reason: Forgot to include pic of his outfit
Default Valerian and Noah - Valerian's chambers in The Haven
Steam filled the small but elegant bathroom on the second floor of The Haven's sturdy brick building. Hot streams of water were hammering against the tiled floor, drowning out the faint sound of the club below as they poured their warmth over the pale, slender youth standing underneath the shower head, eyes closed yet face turned upwards to welcome them. Flat along his back rested his soaking wet mane, thick, black and glistening in the soft light above, as the last remnants of lather coursed down the curve of his back, and followed the length of his legs with their caress, only to finally be swallowed by the drain below the small metal grid in the floor.

Valerian often didn't willingly abandon the comforts of his massive bed and the silk sheets therein, but if he had to do it, a long hot shower was usually the ideal way to start his venture away from that beloved piece of furniture. The jets of hot water just seemed to kiss his senses awake, even though they were usually already alert since the moment he had opened his eyes that evening. There was just something about it... Fragments from his human days perhaps, when he would rise from the creaking cot in the hole in the wall that had been his home after he'd lost his benefactor, or from the grand, luxurious canopy bed he'd shared with the same, before the real world had imposed itself on their blissful little twosome... From both he would rise and venture over to the pitcher sitting on a nearby side table, pour some water into the small bowl next to it, and splash it on his face to rouse himself and shed the final shreds of slumber, to ready himself for facing a new day, whether it would be filled with frolicking and enjoying himself, or with working and slaving however and wherever he possibly could, just so that he would be able to eat come evening.

Good times versus bad, yet the days had all started basically the same way, and regardless of the hardships and the regret that stung his heart when thinking about it, he cherished those memories. He was sentimental, he knew that. But he didn't care, because feeling, no matter if it hurt or if it warmed his heart, was one of the things he still treasured the most, and he was set on doing it for as long as possible, until he no longer could. For while right now it might seem an alien concept to him for such a day to ever come, when he would feel no more, he was never arrogant enough to believe himself able to escape the fate that he had heard many of his elders speak of; of boredom and apathy, or of alienation from the world around them.

That world, however, Valerian was still very much a part of, for now, because he always kept himself in touch with it. If blood was a necessity to Valerian the Kindred, social interaction was a necessity to Valerian the person. He simply craved the company of others, and thrived when surrounded by people, each person with their own beauty and unique story; a story not always spoken in words, but still told nonetheless, by things as simple as a look or a gesture, by poise or even by the vibe of the air around them. He had lived for over a century, and still people fascinated him, they never ceased, for each story told was new to him, or at the very least had been added to since last he had seen the holder of said story. And he simply loved to hear them all, and to be, in some small way, part of them.

Thus, it was with a smile of excitement forming on his lips that he stepped out of the shower, as with the sound of pouring water no longer filling the room, the faint beat from the club below welcomed him, called out to him to join the people there. He never had seen to it to have the walls made soundproof, because he wanted to hear the sounds of the club below. He found it comforting, and in a way, it had come to represent the very pulse that his body now lacked. It was a constant reminder of life and of humanity, and allowed him to not loose touch with any of it.


Once out of the shower and into an outfit that, as usual, made for a testament of his gothic tastes, Valerian finally made his way out of his chambers and down the stairs, half hoping and half expecting to find Melody there waiting for him. He knew how disappointed she had been when for the past couple of nights he'd had to give priority to business matters, and so now wanted to at least exchange a few words with her, to reassure her and soothe the insecurities that he knew regretfully came with his blood, and slowly poisoned her mind. Though as it would turn out, for some reason she wasn't there. Valerian didn't spot her over by their usual booth, nor in the bar, or anywhere else in the crowded club for that matter. And, knowing how eager she usually was to see him, if only for a few minutes, he couldn't help but to wonder... But then again, considering he gave her as much freedom as a ghoul could possibly have, she was at liberty to take on responsibilities and commitments not having to do with him or with the Kindred realm, and so it was of course a possibility that she was currently engaged in other obligations. Either way, he was likely to still hear from her before the night was over, and so for now went on with his usual business of meeting and greeting anyone that wished to share a little bit of his time. It wasn't long before he was engrossed in a conversation with Antoine Kerr, a friend and fellow Toreador who had just stopped by The Haven for the first time in weeks, after a trip abroad, and seen the new painting above the bar; something which Valerian was of course only too happy to discuss.

However, even though the topic had already brought a smile filled with enthusiasm to his face, it still seemed to light up with an even brighter one, when nothing more than vague feeling compelled him to shift his gaze a little to the right, and it ended up locking with the gaze of none other than the quiet but so very intriguing Gangrel he had met several times over the past few days: Noah. Just as his form was freeing itself from the mass of bodies around him, ready to approach. And Valerian wouldn't have been who he was, if he hadn't immediately picked up on the silent request in Noah's eyes, and so with the current conversation incidentally just drawing to a close, or possibly a change of topic, he politely excused himself from Antoine, to move on to meeting Noah halfway across the distance that had previously separated the two of them. For a split second, the thought had crossed his mind that Noah might be there as the bearer of bad news - the matter of Aeode weighed heavily on his shoulders still, and so it was only natural that the first thing he thought of was her, since he and Noah did have her in common - but as the look in Noah's eyes truly registered in his mind only a moment later, he felt himself relax. There was nothing too ill-boding in those dark embers he gazed into, nor was the Gangrel's posture touched by reluctance. It would seem the visit was indeed if not strictly a friendly affair, then at last one mostly so, yet one still desired to be held in private.

Thus, with the initial greetings taken care of, Valerian wasted no time inviting Noah up to his chambers, to "talk somewhere less crowded and loud" as he put it, and Noah wasted no time accepting. Within minutes the two young men entered through the doors that had seen Valerian pass in the opposite direction not too long ago, and the latter waited for them to fall shut, before turning his full attention to Noah, smiling vaguely but expectantly as he found the Gangrel simply looking at him at first. Then he suddenly seemed to snap to, and after offering yet a few more pleasantries, finally concluded;

"I just wanted to see you."

At that, Valerian's smile widened slightly, and he inclined his head as though accepting a compliment. For indeed, to him it was one.

"I'm glad", he said, and then motioned invitingly towards the corner where the couch and coffee table were sitting. "Please, feel free to have a seat."

Then, as the two of them both sank down onto the soft cushions of the couch, he allowed himself to study Noah's face a little more closely, mostly with curiosity, but also with a hint of concern, in the form of a tiny crease wedged in between his dark brows.

"I have to ask though, is anything the matter?", he said. "You seem as though you have a lot on your mind?"

~ * ~ Volition ~ * ~
Alchemist
#491 Old 29th Nov 2009 at 3:03 PM
Default Aeode and Beyonca - The Streets




Within the span of a few seconds, Aeode's mood had taken a nose dive, going from bewilderment mingled with concern to downright irritation. She could feel it prickling just underneath her skin at the thought of all the arrogant wastes of space who behaved as though they were the only ones in the world, like those snotty-ass kids who'd just shoved their way past her – and people actually wondered why she was a recluse? Ha!

Okay, that was a very nihilist way of looking at it, but Aeode was in a nihilist disposition. With curt, brisk movements, she stuffed the fallen items back into her purse, but when her fingers clasped around the ultrasound photographs, she glanced briefly down at them before replacing them more carefully inside. Aeode's eyes then darted upwards at the woman standing nearby as she straightened her jacket, not really expecting more than a short platitude in return for her own, if at all. Anger was passing, too: the whole thing was simply not worth the aggravation. Aeode was preparing to set off again, when the brunette spoke:

“Oh, don’t worry it. It wasn’t your fault,” she said graciously, a shadow of what looked like concern touching her pale features. Aeode assumed she was trying to be polite, so her lips curved briefly her way. "Are you alright, I saw what happened, those boys should have apologized for knocking you down.”

Aeode glanced down at herself: she had no injuries save for a slight throbbing sensation where her palms had collided with the concrete and the knees of her pants seemed to have survived intact, so in the end the hardest blow had been to her pride. A soft, derisive snort formed in her throat at the thought of receiving an apology from those meatheads – it had been obvious the concept of manners was entirely alien to them. Aeode still had something that resembled one however, and figured she might as well make use of it.

“Thanks, I'm okay, nothing torn so it's all good”, she said casually. “I should know better than to walk around without looking where I'm going anyway, this is L.A.”

“I guess that's what happens when you've got too much stuff going on in your head,” Aeode muttered as an afterthought, more to herself than the other woman. It occurred to her then that she might have seen the ultrasound pictures before she'd picked them up...well, it didn't really matter. Soon enough her pregnancy would be impossible to keep a secret anyway, she'd best get used to the idea.

If wishes were fishes we'd all cast nets
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#492 Old 30th Nov 2009 at 7:01 PM
Default Adrien encountering Melody behind The Haven
He had to find a new place. Having offered Lola the small and frankly rather shabby apartment that he had recently acquired, Adrien was aware that it might just be a matter of time before it was compromised. Evasive manoeuvres to dodge his own stalkers might no longer matter, since he couldn't know for sure that Lola wasn't being followed, or that the blood bond to Damian hadn't compelled her to reveal to her Domitor everything she knew about Adrien, including the address and the telephone number he had slipped her. He didn't know where she stood, nor could he, because even though she had seemed perfectly genuine even to his trained eye, and even though she had stormed off with no apparent concern regarding the likelihood that he wouldn't follow her, he still couldn't know that it all wasn't just an act, a stunt pulled just to suck him in. There was no way that he could.

Had he been human, it would have been so much easier to keep an eye on her, and figure out her intentions, as he could have simply followed her wherever she went and seen what she was up to. But, as a vampire, sunrise drove him to find shelter from it's deadly rays, and many hours passed during which she could do Lord knows what, Lord knows where, and he wouldn't ever have a clue. Therefore, as a precaution, he now had to consider his hiding place compromised, and act accordingly. Which would have been fine, if it hadn't also meant that his connection to Lola, which he had tried to play down as much as possible, was likely to be revealed. If it hadn't been already. But at this point, it was a risk he'd have to take, because he couldn't just leave her to take care of herself. A fifteen year old human girl, caught between the Sabbat and the Camarilla... Alone, she didn't stand a fighting chance. And maybe he was risking making things only worse for her, by possibly having the Camarilla realize that there was a connection between the two of them, but at least as long as they thought she might be useful, they'd keep her alive. And as long as she was alive, there was a chance. Adrien should know, since it was pretty much a personal motto of his.

At this point, however, there wasn't all that much he could do for her, until he heard from her. IF he heard from her. The only thing he could do, was to keep his cell phone handy, and check the apartment on a regular basis to see if she either was there, or if she had been there. Even when people tried hard not to, they still left traces of their presence, and so even if she had stopped by the apartment but didn't want him to know about it, odds were he still would.

Although, just because waiting was pretty much the only thing he could do in the case of Lola, that didn't mean he would stay idle. There were plenty of things to busy himself with, one of which he had actually been waiting for a chance to do; getting himself up to date with the who's who and the what's what of Los Angeles. It was time to start preparing for fighting back, and the only way of doing it properly, was to gather information. In secret, of course. Just like when he'd still been a hunter. Information was the key, after all, because it tended to open up a myriad of possibilities, where before there might have seemed to be none, or very few. Knowledge is power, as they say.

A good place to start, was the number one Kindred hot spot. Every city had one, and since every city also had it's own set of guiding principles, customs and unwritten rules if you will, it was usually ideal for picking up on anything from trends to whatever political winds were blowing within the domain. Three years ago, the Kindred hot spot in Los Angeles had been a club called The Haven; a fairly new establishment at the time, but one that had skyrocketed in popularity among the local Kindred (and humans too for that matter), and that also seemed to still hold the title to this day, judging by what Adrien had overheard in Kindred conversations here and there since his embrace.
Therefore, The Haven was where he would start.

As usual he left the Museum immediately after showering and dressing, but was surprised to find that this evening, he wasn't being followed, and that consequently, he wouldn't have to spend the next hour or so confusing and eventually loosing his appendage. Hmmm... That could mean good news, and it could mean very bad news. Good news if they had decided to simply give up, and bad if they had found some alternate way of keeping track of him. Though he wasn't quite sure how they would manage the latter. No one had gotten close enough to him to plant some kind of transmitter on him, and no one had been into his room at the Museum while he was there, and so they hadn't been able to plant something among the things he carried with him. Though just to make sure, he ducked into an abandoned building a couple of blocks away, and checked himself for any hidden bugs, but found nothing.
How odd...
And that only meant that something was definitely up.
Though what, he didn't know, and as much as it annoyed him, it would seem only time would tell what it was. But even so, he would prepare himself. When it - whatever it was - happened, he would be ready for it. The Kindred had already managed to take him by surprise once in the past century and so in other words, they had filled their quota.

He arrived at the block where The Haven was located twenty minutes later, after a short cab ride and a number of blocks on foot, just so that he would leave as little trace as possible, if someone was going to try and track his route afterwards. Though he didn't approach the building, with the neon sign cutting through the darkness along with the nearby street lamps, and the crowd standing in line outside. It wasn't his intention to venture inside; after his "outing" at the Ball the other week, chances were there might be Kindred inside that would recognize him instantly, and he'd stand no chance to probe them for information. Instead, he would hover nearby in the shadows, watch who came and went, see if there were any familiar faces, and also observe whether there was some special way or code for the Kindred guests to enter.

As it would turn out, however, there didn't seem to be any front door system specifically reserved for Kindred guests, because while there were people who were apparently prominent and immediately let in without having to stand in line, some of them were definitely human, with a cancer stick casually between their lips upon arrival, and smoke filtering out of their lungs.
Although that didn't mean that there wasn't a system at all. There might be other ways into the club, that did not include the front entrance.

It was with that thought in mind, that Adrien began making his way around the building, still at a distance, choosing the streets on the other side of the buildings next to The Haven, and stopping briefly nearby a few crossings, from which he could observe the dark back alleys surrounding the club. And what do you know? From one such angle, overlooking the back of the building, he spotted two alternate entrances; one on floor level, suggesting that it lead to the storage area, and one on the second floor, with a black metal staircase leading up to it.
Obviously, it was a spot worthy of keeping an eye for a little while, and so after seeking out a suitable nearby spot with a good view, Adrien settled into the shadows there, and waited. And much to his satisfaction, he didn't have to wait long, because it had been no more than a couple of minutes when suddenly he saw a lone figure freeing itself from the busy street in front of the club, and venture down the alley leading towards the back. A woman. Even if he hadn't seen it, the sound of her heels would have announced it to him loud and clear.

In complete silence, and with nothing on him moving except a thin black tendril dancing slowly in the slight breeze, and the eyes following her movements, Adrien watched as the young lady drew closer, drinking in and analyzing everything he saw. Blonde, dressed in black, carrying a box typical for transporting small animals, moving with a natural grace, and a purpose in her step. She definitely knew where she was going. And while it didn't necessarily have to mean anything, the carrier box in her hand did suggest that she had a closer affiliation with the place than just any random guest.
Hmmm...
Hadn't the owner of the club, some young Toreador dreamer type, Valerian, had a partner? A prominent Ventrue female? A blonde Venture female? Adrien had seen them together once, when they had met with one of his previous targets. Or rather, his last target, since no more than a week after having disposed of said target, he had been ambushed and embraced by the San Francisco Tremere.
Could that be her? The co-owner? Or possibly the female ghoul that Valerian was known to keep? If she was still alive, and in his service? The Toreador were notorious for losing interest in their toys as soon as something shiny and new came along, so there were no guarantees.

Still, either way, regardless of what it was, and regardless of who she was, she obviously had an affiliation with The Haven, and so was likely to hold quite a bit of information about it, and possibly the owners as well. A small chat with her just might yield something useful...
However, if he was to talk to her, he'd better hurry, because she had now reached the back of the building, and seemed to be about to enter. There was no time to lose.

Therefore, with the young woman currently facing away, Adrien ran a hand through his hair to bring it out of his eyes, then slid out from the cloak of shadows that had kept him hidden, and started towards her, the sound of his steps growing gradually as he progressed. He wanted to allow her a chance to hear him coming, so that she wouldn't be as spooked as one would be by having someone appear seemingly out of nowhere. He wanted to leave her feeling collected and assured, like the au courant one, because as long as she felt comfortable and like she had the upper hand in a way, she might get careless, or at least relax enough to not be as much on her guard as she ought to be. And the easiest way of achieving that, was through contrasts. For someone to feel like the confident one, there had to be someone who seemed to feel less so, someone who seemed uncertain and slightly awkward.
Thus, the stride that carried Adrien ever closer to the young blonde, was not his usual strong and purposeful one, but instead there was a hesitation in his step, as if even though he had decided to approach, he was still unsure of whether he should actually take the plunge and address her.

"Uhm, excuse me, Miss?", he finally said, when he was certain that she had noticed him, his voice completely lacking his usual faint French accent, and donning a modern American east coast one instead; the first step in portraying a young Kindred new to the city. "You seem like you're familiar with this part of town? I'm looking for a club, The Haven...?"


(((ooc: Ghani - Hope it gives you something more to work with than just "It's right there. Okay, bye." If not, let me know, and I'll try adding to it.)))

~ * ~ Volition ~ * ~
Field Researcher
#493 Old 30th Nov 2009 at 7:06 PM
Default Bee and Aeode
Nothing could have made her night any better. She hoped that maybe she could get a long conversation out of this. Bee would love to hear more about this women. About her life, her pregnancy and what she intends to do. Her hopes and dreams have Bees mind reeling with curiosity. Images of children fill her thoughts. One child stands out the most. The child she wished was hers. She knew she should get him out of her head. The boy has long since died. He lived a good life. A happy life, that was all she could have hoped for. Every few years she would check on him knowing it would cause her much pain. It caused her so much pain. She could still remember it like it was yesterday. His funeral. It had felt like she had lost her heart. Twice it had happened to her as a vampire. Twice had her unbeating cold heart fell to pieces. Once for a child that wasn’t even her and another for her sire. One had know her, her sire. She knew Bee inside and out. So many happy memories with her. The only time she was happy was with her sire. The boy though, he hadn’t know her. Didn’t know who she was. Never could he. He was human and had a life to live. He had to grow old and die. Bee never would have that luxury. She would never grow old. Never die, never have children. That little boy was the closest she would have, and he was never hers. Only once had he meet her. That one meeting haunted her mind. Though it was over 200 hundred years ago. With a sigh she let it go. Let the sadness out. Torn the pain from her eyes and focused on what she had now.

A truly lucky women she was. This young women didn’t even know of the gift she carried in her. The miracle Bee would never have. The only thing she wish for. It would ease the pain in her now. The loneliness carried in her heart. Bee just wanted this night to talk to her. She wouldn’t bother her again. She just wanted to see what the women was feeling. The emotions that was flowing threw her. She just wanted a taste of it. Just a hint of the one thing she would never have. Closely she examined her. Watched as she brushed herself off and checked herself for any damage done. She herd the snort and knew the girl was thinking of the boys apologizing. Again Bee took in appearance. She loved her hair, the wavy red locks suited her pale face. Bee hoped her child would get those same locks.

“Thanks, I'm okay, nothing torn so it's all good”, she said casually. “I should know better than to walk around without looking where I'm going anyway, this is L.A.”

Bee let out a small chuckle at the statement. It was true L.A. was so crowded. So many people, so many lives. None knew of the danger that walked right beside them. This young innocent girl didn’t even know she was talking to someone who was above her in the food chain. Just more of a reason for this young women to protect the angel that she had growing inside of her. Bee knew that instant she would do anything to protect this women in front of her. Do anything to make sure this women was safe and her young untouched.

“I guess that's what happens when you've got too much stuff going on in your head,” the young girl muttered.



Bee’s smile slowly faded at her statement. She had already known the women was deep in thought. She could see the worry on her face. Apparently this women had just found out. Maybe she was still deciding on what to do. Her plans must have not included bringing a lovely young life into the world. Bee wondered if she could support it. Bees eyes drew together on the thought. She wished she could do something to help, but the laws stated she stay away. Maybe she could do something afar for her. Bee knew she was jumping to conclusions. She didn’t even know this women or but what means she makes her money. Maybe she should find out first. Bee finalized her thoughts on that and preceded on choosing her words carefully. Humans were more cautious than vampires. They had something to fear. Where Bee had nothing. She healed fast as long as she feed fast enough.


“Well sometimes our thoughts can do that to us sometimes. They muck our brains up. May I ask what has you so deep in thought?” Bee asked with a smile. She hoped the women would take to her and maybe open up so Bee would get more of an idea of her situation.

“Oh I am Beyonca by the way. I am truly glad you are alright.”

Call me Sasha
Funny how when your a kid, you dream about your future and when you are an adult, you dream about going back to when you were a kid.
Field Researcher
#494 Old 30th Nov 2009 at 11:37 PM Last edited by Psyche_SC : 1st Dec 2009 at 10:21 PM.
Default Phoenix Bane & Lola Dmitriev - University
#1 [Night #18]

There can be only one.

If there was ever a dark place, darker than the deepest pits of hell, then that would be the place for Phoenix's heart and soul. If there was no hell, no place on earth dark enough, then hell resided within him. He had once been a lighthearted man, balanced and selfserving. That man was a distant memory, a part of him he used to serve his means. Sometimes it felt real, even natural, but he hadn't been himself for ten years. He had sold his soul to the devil; he had become a devilish Djinn and Prince Damian Alexander was his Iblis.
In his Ghoul youth, he had visited churches and holy men in order to find some answers that he did not dare to ask his Domitor for. He asked them about demons on earth, curses and Caine's fall from grace. They told him to repent, but he never understood just what they meant. If he ever sat foot in a church nowadays, he found it quite comical. The man on the cross, the collection for the poor and the sermons. It was all amusing. He could sit in a pew, with his head down, laughing to himself - paranoid that the others could hear him.

He had started out as a rebel, his first drink of Vitae had scared him senseless and he tried to run. Though it was pointless, more like crawling in chains with his Regnant reeling him in. The second taste had a calming effect on him, until his flesh cried out for a third batch. That one sealed the deal, closed the door to his past and opened a new one to a life in the fast lane. Though all of this was more of a haze to Phoenix, something he knew in the back of his mind, but wasn't really aware of. Asking him about when he had become a Ghoul would be like pushing a button that erased his conscience and replace it with an sequence of images of his transformation. Like an old movie with scratches, but he wouldn't be able to recall it in words. It was overwhelming, it was when he had found the devil and lost himself.

Nonetheless, Phoenix was a happy man, filled with bliss. He was every man's darkest thoughts, every wish they wouldn't tell a living soul and all the dirty deeds they had done or dreamed of doing. He was the shadows, the son of the father of lies and he was on a journey towards breaking all the deadly sins. He couldn't help himself. He was addicted to Damian, to what flowed in his veins. That crimson delight consumed him, occupied his thoughts and embedded his existance in this world. Without Damian, he was nothing. He would, literally, do anything for his Prince and to be able to stay in his good grace. Though when everything was counted for, he would rather have Damian's wrath poured over him than to be ignored.

To be shunned was his greatest fear. To fall like Caine was a night terror that would have him wake up, seemingly without a heartbeat, feeling extreme panic. He would sooner have Damian kill him, than turn his back on him. Words could not express his devotion to his Domitor. His God. His world.

Despite this, Phoenix was unusually cool when he went before his Regnant. Ten years had taught him what to do, and what not to do. The latter was just as important to have down. He had done his best to be like he thought Damian would have been, had he been his own Ghoul, though without trying to copy him. He was, after all, an intelligent man. He had to be, otherwise Damian would never have picked him. Had someone been able to read Phoenix's mind, they would notice just how obscene his belief in himself was. He was high on the fact that the Prince of the world had choosen him. He could laugh like a mad men whan he was alone, just thinking of how awesome he had to be.

There was only one obstacle between him and the Prince. Or two, if you counted the Sheriff, but Phoenix didn't. He didn't dare to. Whenever he visited with Damian, he wouldn't even meet the Sheriff's gaze if he didn't have to. He had never heard him speak, it was as if he was some unhearthly creature that had evolved out of thin air to serve their Prince. He was quite creepy in Phoenix's regard, he wasn't sure he was even a vampire.
The obstacle to reckon with was the Ventrue Primogen; Lord Archon DeWinter. His Domitor's best friend. Oh, how Phoenix loathed him... He was of course civil, cordial, whenever they had to meet. It wasn't often, but it was enough to burn a hole in his head. Whenever he greeted the Primogen, he would imagine what to do with him if he would have his way. String him up, torture him for ever thinking he was Damian's right hand. Cut him into tiny little pieces that he would run off with and hide in different cunning places - that was hard to recover from even for a Kindred. Phoenix was sure the Primogen didn't care that much for him either. Lord DeWinter wasn't precisely known for having a warm personality - and since he didn't keep any Ghouls that Phoenix knew of he assumed he didn't care for them at all.

Phoenix's hate list was very long. Practically every Kindred he had ever met was on it. If they weren't, they had been or was under consideration. Sometimes he was a pitiful, smallminded little man. It all had to do with Damian. Since everything Phoenix did was for his Regnant, the people he met was usually somehow connected to him. And Phoenix wanted to be the one and only. Of course, he was Damain's favourite Ghoul, but that wasn't enough. If he couldn't be him, he wanted to be the next best thing, his closest man.
He didn't discriminate, he had no empathy or patience for anyone who stood in his way or posed a threat. If you didn't aid him in his quest, you were simply a nuisance. He couldn't even stand the owner of The Haven. That man had been running in and out of Damain's office lately. It didn't matter that Valerian's visits had been few, reality had little to do with Phoenix. To him, one was one too many. He hated Valerian for his kindness - the very same thing everyone else seemed to love him for. Phoenix wanted to prod him with a red hot poker to see what he would do. No one could be that kind.

Of course, Phoenix was a master of disguises, he held his contempt behind his mask. Though he allowed himself to think and feel aversion to the extreme, otherwise he would implode. There was nothing different about his recent task, given to him by Damian. When his cell phone rang, playing Damian's favourite sonata, he had whisked it up from his jacket pocket posthaste. It was a Luminoso by Mobiado, a phone made of sandblasted aviation aluminium with ceramic coating. Luxurious, hard to break and perfect for Phoenix who didn't exactly tend to slow down - and to be perfectly honest, he sometimes hurled the phone into the wall when the news was bad. His former phone hadn't survived it. This time, the news had been interesting, to say the least. Damian wanted him to find Lola Dmitriev, the runaway Ghoul. Stupid girl. She should be shot like the deserter she was. He had been crossing his fingers for her demise along the way, but no such luck apparently. His mission was clear: find her, keep an eye on her and report back to Damian.

A lucky break. That was how Phoenix would describe how he finally cracked the case and found Lola. He had been on the brink of madness many times, though he always had a foot on the ledge. As just a human, Phoenix had been a balanced man with great self control, as a Ghoul, all bets were off. However, he was talented in mirroring the man he had once been as if it was the real deal. There were moments when even he believed it. Though Damian always resided in the back of his mind, like some dark life force.
He had started off looking for her in Santa Monica, where she had been tracked online by a contact of Damian's. Maybe the Nosferatu. It didn't matter, Phoenix took what he could get since nothing else had panned out, not even his own trials online. Though that didn't produce much more than a stark mad Phoenix, about to break the keyboard at one of the computers at a local internet café, until an employe had stopped him. He walked out into the streets as though nothing had happened. Away from his benefactor, he had to let out some of the steam than kept boiling up inside of him.

It was obvious the girl liked to play games. Phoenix had a hate-love relationship with that kind of thing. So when his computer indicated that her cell phone was on, and stayed on, he felt something was up. But she was just a little girl, she might be making a mistake. Investing his hope on that notion, Phoenix got into his Camaro and drove as fast as he could without attracting attention, all while scanning the police radio. Phoenix had his hand deep into the government cookie jar, tapping into everything and nothing, hoping to find a lead on anything that would benefit Damian. This time it was Lola, or more precisely; her cell phone.

He did find it and at the same time exited his sanity. She had placed it on a truck, in a box where the chauffeur kept his tools. Despite his supicion, he almost refused to accept the failure into his conscience, he kept pushing the buttons on the phone to somehow detect that it wasn't hers at all. Finally, he snapped. A deep yawp, as though from some remote abyss, came out of his throat as he went mental on the truck. Kicking and screaming like the men with the straightjacket wasn't far away. The dust from the ground whirled up around him and he didn't have any intention on slowing down, hadn't it been for the chauffeur himself. For some reason, he was more startled by Phoenix, than mad at him for what he was doing. Phoenix had turned his wild gaze at the man, almost ripping his expensive jacket apart when reaching for Lola's picture inside of it to show him. Luckily, the man had seen her and could even describe the truck she had left with. At this, Phoenix drew a deep breath of relief and looked like he has just found Jesus. The man stepped back, when it seemed as though Phoenix was about to lash out, instead the slender man grabbed him and gave him a quick hug before he bolted away to his car.

His hacking skills came too good use as he located both the surveillance video from the diner and via DMV records the truck Lola hopefully was still on. He even called the company, using one of his fake accents, making up some bogus reason why he needed to know the route. Well, what did you know - it was heading for Los Angeles. Still annoyed she had sent him on a wilde goose chase, Phoenix took off in such a hurry he drifted along the road long enough to feel as if the tires would loose their grip.

Tracking the signal on the chauffeur's cell phone, Phoenix had no other choice but to hope Lola stayed with that truck until he found them. Back in L.A., he did just that. Seeing her, alive and kicking, made him wanna bash her head in. She seemed without a care in the world. How could she not feel Damian's Vitae in her blood, how could she resiste the temptation...? It was beyond Phoenix, who lived and breathed Damian.

He stayed on her tail, followed her to a university where she apparently decided to linger. Though she had turned out to be a cunning little girl - whose life expectancy hadn't looked good had it been up to him - she had her limitations. Phoenix, on the other hand, acted like a shadow. Her shadow. Though at one point, his heart stood still, since he felt he had lost her. Soon, thankfully, someone familiar walked by. She had changed her apperance, but not enough to avoid detection. When his heart had started back on, he walked in her footsteps and soon found himself standing in a library. It was a large building, filled to the brim with books - and there it was; the lovely smell of those old ones he hadn't had his hands on for far too long.
It turned out that Lola intended to stay at the library for quite some time. Phoenix was watching her, through bookcases, changing his position ever so often, to avoid suspicion. At one point, he knew he couldn't just be standing there. He had to do something. Now that he had actually found her, he could try and approach her to see if he could learn something useful for his master. Though he had to look like he belonged there, like he was one of the students. Going into the university in the first place had inspired him to take his backpack from the trunk, filled with books for when he ever got the time to read, and other useful things. With that on his back, he fitted right in. Suddenly, Lola got up from her seat at one of the computers and walked off. She had been studying the screen rather closely, so when the coast was clear Phoenix casually walked by her station, glancing at the screen. He didn't exactly have photographic memory, but some lower intensed version of it, thus he could remember what he had seen. She had looked up call numbers for certain chemicals. It didn't take more than a split second for him to realize she was looking for the books with the articles. Once having been a student for real, Phoenix found his way around a library like a second home, therefore he didn't even have to hurry to find them before her. She had gone in the wrong direction. He did find all the books, but only took a couple to avoid being obvious. Then he sat down at one of the tables next to the computer she was using. He placed the books in a pile, with a history book on Greek Mythology on top of it from his backpack. The books with the articles was easy to see, but not too easy. Then he sat down, leaned back like he had all the time in the world, and started reading the Iliad. Another cherished, well used, book from his collection. He loved the feel of old handcrafted books. The pages was pure art.

This was completely magnificient. She was going to come to him. The plan was as simple as it was flawless. But then again, Phoenix was a brilliant man. Made from human flesh, perfected with top quality vampire vitality.
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retired moderator
Original Poster
#495 Old 1st Dec 2009 at 11:28 PM
Default Damian and Lena - Penthouse office at The V
As the Kindred Prince of a city as large as Los Angeles, keeping himself well informed and on top of what went on there was probably one of Damian Alexander's most imperative (not to mention compulsive) tasks. A Prince who didn't keep his ear to the ground and stay one step, preferably two, ahead of everyone else, wasn't ever likely to last very long, and Damian was enjoying his seat of power far too much to be willing to risk having to let it go. Especially because of some error on his part that with a little effort might have been avoided. He had his spies everywhere, and didn't take anything for granted. Among the Kindred, things usually weren't what they seemed to be, deception was the name of the game that most everyone played, and if you didn't keep that in mind at all times, you would eventually be made a sitting duck. If the kine couldn't be trusted, it was tenfold so with the Kindred.

And as for those stuck somewhere in between, the ghouls? Well, only a fool would ever trust them. The few that Damian had had - as actual ghouls, and not just cannon fodder - he hadn't trusted. Not with vital tasks or information anyway, because despite their zeal and loyalty, they were ultimately bombs just waiting to go off, with all that pent up frustration and fanatism surging through their mortal bodies. There was always the risk that they would snap and throw a fit at the worst possible time, and make a grand mess of things, a mess that their Domitor would have to not only clean up, but take responsibility for as well.

Currently, Damian had only one ghoul; Phoenix, who had been in his service for roughly a decade now, and whom despite his loyalty and grit still hadn't earned his Domitor's full trust. A significant amount of it, yes, as he was allowed to carry out important tasks (but not vital ones, mind you), and was trusted to do so with discretion. But after ten years, Damian still didn't trust him enough to allow him into his Domitor's suite during daylight hours, when he was vulnerable. He would never expose his jugular like that, he would never invite people to witness his weaknesses, or give them the opportunity to exploit them. Yet even with such precautions taken when it came to his ghouls, it still wasn't enough. There was yet another step taken in the name of security: The ghouls were being watched. They were kept a very close eye on. At least initially. After ten years, Phoenix had done his time in those particular trenches. He had passed that test and earned himself a bit of trust, and so now was at liberty to do what he was supposed to be doing without it all being closely watched by Damian or his people. He was still under constant scrutiny - Damian didn't tolerate mistakes, and made sure to catch those that were made - but he was now considered one OF Damian's people, the people who had moved up in the hierarchy, as far as Damian's confidence in them was concerned, and who now helped keep an eye on things, rather than being kept an eye on themselves.
But it had taken it's sweet time.

So then, if one took all that into consideration, with the obviously resourceful and about to be bound "Cameron Harker" in one of the suites downstairs, it really was no wonder that Damian had taken precautions to learn exactly what she was up to. He favoured his own theory that she was a previously independent ghoul, but he didn't leave out the possibility that she was not; that she was a ghoul already bound to a Domitor whose existence he or she didn't want Damian to know about. That it was some kind of an attempt to infiltrate. For even though they couldn't have possibly predicted that Damian would go for her back at the Sphere, that didn't mean a setup couldn't have been concocted when it had turned out that he did.

So yes, the lovely "Cameron Harker" was indeed being closely watched, and Damian had, upon his arrival to his office, been given a detailed report of what the young lady had been up to during the day. And my, what a busy little bee she'd been... Tampering with the lighting, smearing things on the door frames, engaging in general vandalization. Although not for the sake of vandalizing, for sure. He'd been told that it had appeared that she'd even changed the water in the flower vases, and while it did seem a little far fetched, he was no less clever than being able to easily figure out why she would do that.

Tsk tsk tsk. Now was that any way to reward and honour the generosity of the person who had offered her a place to stay and rest, after she'd had an obviously hard day? By breaking things, and soiling them? Such an appalling lack of manners.
Although, there really was more to it than that, because beside the displayed lack of manners, her behaviour also constituted one of the reasons why Damian was leaning towards the theory that she was already bound to another Kindred, because what she had been up to during the day, in no way agreed with the typical behaviour of someone who was only one step away from being fully bound to him.
Yes, something was indeed rotten in the state of Denmark.

However, since he was curious to see just what was her agenda, he had decided to play along, for now, and so as he received the report from the security guards on the floor below, that the young lady had left her suite, he ordered them only to investigate the suite and find out what else she might have been up to that his spies might not have registered, but to leave everything the way it was. And to report back to Damian when they were done, of course.

Once that order had been given, it wasn't long before he received yet another report informing him that she had reached the penthouse floor, soon followed by Cynthia announcing over the intercom that the young lady had arrived in the outer office. Though apparently she was too eager to see him to wait, and so entered without Damian having given the go-ahead.
Bad ghoul.

Still, he said nothing, but merely watched calmly from beside the large panorama window as she approached, scrutinizing everything from her hair to her shoes, before his gaze settled on her comely face. His piercing eyes bore into hers when they met, as though the power of his being was reaching deep inside of her, to her very core, to drag out every last one of her intentions, kicking and screaming if necessary, and lay them out in front of her for all to see. Though it lasted only for a few seconds, before a faint smile - brought on mostly be the strength he sensed in her, and the dignity she managed to maintain under the intensity of his gaze, but also, to a small extent, the way that she had looked at him when she had first entered the room - softened the look in those eyes, and he gave a small inclination of his head, as a way of acknowledging her arrival.

"I believe you were expecting me", was her somewhat blunt greeting in return however.

No starting pleasantries there.
Then again, while Damian was a big fan of formality and courtesy, even when faced with his enemies, he also did appreciate it when people were direct and to the point, and since clearly this young lady seemed to have her little human heart set on not liking him very much, he'd make due with what she was willing to offer. For now. With him, disrespect didn't really tend to live long and prosper. People usually saw fit to soon learn their place.

"Indeed", he thus simply said as he stepped away from the window, towards his desk, and then motioned towards his trusted bodyguard; "Though before we go any further, would you be so kind as to hand over your weapons to the sheriff?"

After all, considering the resourcefulness she'd shown already, not to mention the reports he'd received of her activities earlier today, he had to assume she hadn't come unarmed. Regardless of whether she'd come with the intent of trying something foolish or not.

~ * ~ Volition ~ * ~
Scholar
#496 Old 2nd Dec 2009 at 1:47 AM
Default Lola & Phoenix - university library

Fifth pass through the southeastern stacks and still no dice. Lola scours it through and through and asks why for f***’s sake are university libraries arranged so confusing. Elementary school lied. Apparently, you only used the Dewey decimal system for a few years, then you forget about it. Like cursive.

By the time she returns later, she’s finally managed a decent haul of books—not all of them, but enough of them to keep her occupied for a while. She hunkers into her spot again and flips one open. “Improved Synthesis of 3,5-Diamino-2,4,6-Trinitrotoluene.” Great, she thinks sarcastically. Sounds like a cakewalk. She digs in.

Like expected, it’s all written in that jargon scientists use to make everyone else feel stupid—dense with mile-long words and meandering sentences. And on top of a whole day of brain-fry at the library, she can’t make heads or tails of it. So she reads. Reads until she forgets what she’s reading and has to double back to re-read. She props her head against her hand, and it bobs lightly with her heavy lids. Christ, she was tired. Had she even eaten today?

---

“Mom?” the little girl asked. In one hand, she had a cake cone of strawberry ice cream, and in the other, she was holding her mother’s hand. They strolled along the boardwalk, and there were gulls in the distance. When she looked to her mother, the sun shone through her golden hair.

“Yes, sweetie?”

“I don’t want to go to Mandy’s birthday.”

“Why not? Did you have a fight?” Her mother squeezed her hand gently.

The little girl licked at her ice cream and let it melt to strawberry milk on her tongue. She still hadn’t told anyone what happened when Mandy’s older brother took them hiking out in Topanga. Afterwards, he tried to buy her silence with a pocketful of gumdrops, but truthfully he didn’t have to. She was too ashamed to tell anyways.

“Sort of.”

Her mother jerked her hand and snapped her around in a steely grip. She looked straight into her with cold, severe eyes.

“Maybe if you hadn’t acted like a little slut, you’d still be friends with her.”

No. This isn’t how it happened.

Suddenly, everything disappeared, and the little girl was surrounded by blackness. She squinted through it, and at the end was a single door cracked open. A single blade of light shone through it and limned the long corridor before her.

A chill whisper echoed in the hollow of her bones.
She’s been here before.

She took a reluctant step forward. One after another. Something compelled her to that door. As she grew closer, she heard a rhythmic noise, the scratching of wood against stone, and a woman gasping.

Ten steps away. Five. Four…

She reached the door. The pink of her cheek grazed against its frame, and the shaft of light fell across her eye. Beyond it, she saw twisting sheets and two pairs of legs that writhed against each other.

Damian.


---

She wakes up with a start and she’s hot all over with light sweat on her brow. Her fingers fumble for the buttons across her breast, unclasp them. She tugs open the top of her coat, careful to keep the bottom half—along with her guns—concealed. Then, she flips her auburn hair up in a messy bun, grabs a few nearby pencils, and jabs them into place to secure it. Cool air hits her thin, cotton t-shirt and her open neck, and she feels the heat rising from her skin.

Lola takes off her glasses and rubs her eyes. Then, she massages her temple, but it’s her heart that’s tied in knots and her body that's filled with treacherous desire. It felt good, too good, when she was with him. It wasn't like her to fall head over heels, to need something so badly, and there was that eerie sense of contentment, of perfection and bliss, when he was around, and that's how she knew it was fake. It's the same way everyone knew pornstars had fake tits--nothing was that perfect. No, she didn’t want him.

But oh god, Damian. He knew when to go slow and when to pound her senseless, and it was so f***ing good, and she hated herself for wanting it. Get a f***ing grip, Lola. He’s a total bastard. Normal dude gets vampiric superpowers? Of course he’s gonna abuse them for pussy every night of the week. That’s probably why he lasted so long—a different chick every day, and with that skanky blonde vamp-twat too! He’s probably grown calluses from all the action! The guy’s a f***ing jerk, a totally typical f***ing jerk. Besides, it’s not like she couldn’t f*** other…

... other…

... other...

...vampires.


S***, how could she tell Adrien? And if she did, would he even care? It was so goddamn complicated and confusing. He didn’t even look at her that way. Did he care about her that way? She wanted him to, and at the same time she was terrified that he did because what would he think of her then?

No. He couldn’t know.

From the corner of her eye, Lola spots some guy staring at her. Her chest was big enough alone, but with her jacket cinched closed right underneath her breasts, she looked like she was busting out like crazy. She turns her chin an inch and glances back at him with tired gray eyes, slightly reddened from her nap. She holds her eyes there long enough for him to look up from her tits to her eyes, realize he’d been staring, and avert his eyes to the floor--er, or something.

Then, Lola scans around in case there are any other gawkers. Blonde, chinless nerd at 11 o’clock with his eyes glued to his laptop. Irritating red-head at 12 o’clock who’d been nervously tapping her pen for the last two hours. And at 2 o’clock, something—or someone—catches Lola’s attention.

Underneath a Greek Mythology textbook with a picture Medusa--by Caravaggio from the looks of it (she could recognize his Tenebrist chiaroscuro and fascination with the grotesque a mile away)--was a book compilation for The Royal Society of Chemistry. One of the articles she needed was in one of those compilations, but she hadn’t seen it on the shelf. She squints her eyes to read the call number off the spine—QH545.A25 A37 1996eb. Holy s***, that’s it.

Lola checks out the guy with the book. Curly dark hair, sculpted cheekbones. Kinda hot. She nibbles at her bottom lip and glances away.

Sex in the stacks. That had been the ultimate rite of passage at her ex’s fraternity. The library stacks were extensive and labyrinthine, with many small nooks and side rooms that offered moderate privacy. And while Lola had never given her ex the pleasure, she had wondered about what it would be like--preferably with a guy who was less of a total dick.

Not that she had any intention of whoring around now. She felt gross enough as it was.

She glances at him again. He looked familiar... curly hair wasn't a common trait to have, and Lola never forgot a face. She'd seen him meandering around the university from her perch atop the Astronomy building and a couple times earlier as she was searching the library. He looked like a student, and she had seen him during the day time, which made her feel slightly more comfortable about him. At least he wasn't a vamp.

There was something else about him that was hard to put her finger on. An air about him that was mysterious, self-assured, and perhaps brooding, though his jacket gave him a slightly more polished look than the rest of the students she'd seen--certainly a far cry from her own recycled from Goodwill clothes that were probably bought from Walmart in the first place. At first, she thought he might be a model or actor (this is LA, after all), but he seemed too reserved and intellectual and he was at a library, reading, at that. And from the looks of it, his book didn't have a call number on the spine, so it was his own book. And it was old, so it wasn't a text book. He was reading for fun. Probably not a model. Maybe a rebellious rich kid? Or a post-grad? They tended to have a little more money than undergrads.

After appraising him for a few seconds, Lola nudges her backpack across the floor to the opposite side of her table, gets up, and circles around to sit in the chair closest to his table. She sits side-saddle, turns halfway in her chair, and reaches across the narrow aisle to place her dainty hand on his table to get his attention. Then, she levels her light, gray eyes flecked with blue into his and asks in an unforced, natural voice:

"Excuse me. Could I borrow this book?"

She touches its spine with her finger curving over the top, rotating it slightly out of the stack. She holds back from outright flirting with him, but she lets herself glance at him with imploring look in her eye as she checks if he's okay with it and with coy smile ready to spring at his first sign of interest.

.:Kitty Klan:.
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Scholar
#497 Old 2nd Dec 2009 at 3:03 AM Last edited by Alissa888 : 3rd Dec 2009 at 12:00 PM. Reason: Because apparently, I can't spell at 4 AM and I can't actually write either.
Default Lena and Damian - Penthouse at the V
She felt weak. Not just physically, because she was used to that one. She hadn't slept, she hadn't eaten, she hadn't drunk anything - she wasn't going to give them the opportunity to drug her. Ha. Not that stupid. Right now, it was worse. She had a dancer’s frame with it's small, delicate structure; it was made to do little else but look good in clothes and be pushed around by others. That was literally the one real perk to being a ghoul, being physically strong, being tough enough. Well, she definitely wasn’t the strongest of ghouls either, but it was something. Knowing that should your wits fail you for whatever reason, you can still defend yourself. It’s a nice feeling to have in a world where you think everyone’s about to kill you, and chances are, you’re absolutely right on the money.
Losing the ability to defend yourself is one hugely scary thing, even if you weren’t in an office full of people to whom you look like the Angus burger.
Speaking of said office, didn’t count in the great décor, the gorgeous view or the air conditioning, but that aside, this looked a lot like Hell.

Well, there’s the Devil standing over the hapless plebs down below and – Jesus Christ, honestly, what in God’s name did Lurch’s mother feed him? He had to have been some boxer or gangster muscle man of some sort beforehand, and underneath all that calm, wordless exterior was a hell of a lot of aggression, she could tell. He was like her size, cubed, and he could probably just sit on her for a while to kill her. Forget any idea of a gentle giant. And here he was, playing guard dog to Damian. People who made Damian pull at the leash didn’t fare well, then. Ghoul?

Right now, Damian didn’t need Lurch to have her on her guard; he was doing perfectly well at that himself. It's probably not just human life he was willing to throw out the window, his kind too; otherwise, why would he need her? Lurch did the dirty work... Damian's not the type to get his hands dirty. Well, he had her down for joining the household staff and he was probably on the lookout for more. She could tell there was a hell of a lot of dirty work to do; Damian doesn't play fair, right?
He’d use her against everything she’d ever believed in, and he’d used her for everything she’d ever stood against. Then he'd kill her the moment her usefulness came to an end, or once he got bored, and he'd sleep peacefully after it. She meant nothing to him, and right now, she was almost too weak to do anything against his dominance. If it wasn’t for what happened the last two nights, it was the way he looked at her, like his gaze alone could ravage the inner sanctum of her soul and there weren’t ways to describe how exposed it made her feel.

Despite her social nature, she was inordinately private; no-one had even seen her get angry before that night at her party. No wonder they got scared witless; to go from being a paragdim of emotional stability to psycho in five seconds.... Not that that emotional stability was all real. She’d learned at a very young age that her feelings weren’t for public consumption; people will chew you up and spit you out. You don’t show what’s really going on. So, she held her ground, but from somewhere within, a previously fleeting realisation snaked its way into her immediate consciousness; what if she talked? What if he made her take the third drink, and it just finished? She wouldn’t be here anymore, but the ghoul, it’d talk. It’d tell him everything. What then? He’d probably kill her for everything she’d done and we’re all back to square one, or worse, he’d keep her around and punish her for it. Oh, God, she’d tell everything… the ghouls that escaped, the ways the hunters kept tabs on these guys, Adrien’s ability to kill… so much more.
There are certain things in life that are important enough to protect at all costs and those things were amongst them. She’d intended to take those to her grave with her, he had no bloody right to them.

And this was so incredibly, ridiculously trivial in comparison to everything else, but… she hadn’t really trusted anyone before, she hadn’t ever felt safe enough to really open up to someone, let them know her as she was. Parents, friends, ex-boyfriends, acquaintances… they all either bought an image she’d sold them or knew some small fraction of her. It was a first to open up and let someone in, and she didn’t want it to be him. She didn’t even get to choose. If it were up to him. Which it wasn’t. It was up to her, and no-one else.
It just sank in to strengthen her resolve a little more; she wasn’t going to let him cheapen her. This wasn’t going to happen.
Come on, baby, don’t fear the reaper. She almost smiled.

"Indeed,” he replied simply like everything was at ease in the world, as he stepped forward, just reiterating how… frivolous this was to him. He didn’t even know her name, he didn’t know her age, he didn’t know that for a long time she’d wait up for as long as she could for Dad to come home or call to say goodnight, to know that he was okay… eventually she just called him. He didn’t know how scared she’d been when she took the Blackpool Tower Walk of Faith, aged eleven. He didn’t know that the only person who ever made her feel something like protected was Grandma, whose funeral she couldn’t even get to. He didn’t know how she rushed home to open her acceptance letter and then back again to make it to the next class. He didn’t know a damn thing, and you know what the biggest joke is? If he knew all of that, he wouldn’t give a damn.
It’s fair enough. No-one really cares about the next man, but if enslaving someone’s will is bad enough, to do it knowing you don’t care about who they used to be…? Where does that rank? It’s not like she expected anything better, but it’s still reprehensible.
…How weak are you if you can’t even protect your own psyche?

"Though before we go any further,” he started, gesturing towards Lumbering Jack lingering in the corner, looking like sucking the marrow out of her bones would be an entrée to him. “Would you be so kind as to hand over your weapons to the Sheriff?"

Oh, yeah, because I’m not at a disadvantage already.
She couldn't help the way her eyes clung to every movement, every smooth shift of the muscles she'd once been held down by, every sliver of wisdom, intelligence, cunning that must have been embroiling in the brain housed under those golden lush to get him this far. Would it be so awful to be with him? Wasn't it something that he considered her
good enough for his attention? Was that really that awful?

YES! Christ. Listen to yourself, woman. I swear to God, I did not work myself to the bone for you to end up like this.
He doesn't even respect you. He doesn't even care. You try romanticising this, you're a plank who deserves to get shot for the good of mankind.


Wait. How the hell did he know? She’d checked for cameras and bugs, zilch. Her eyes slowly drank in the room again, taking in the locations of potentially sharp things, and noting the mirrors about the place. Okay, this room was big enough to fit a small tribe in; it wasn’t decorative. Damian wanted a full exposure of his guests, then. Paranoid… made sense, keeping the BFG around, sitting in this huge tower, which was probably some phallic connotation… and that ring on his finger for the Ventrue clan…. Pretty damn arrogant too, then. D'awww, poor baby, must get lonely at the top. Well, unless Lurch had a Brokeback routine up his sleeve.
How the hell did he know? He had her watched. Two-way mirror? …Windows?
Oh, you idiot.
Wait. How much did he know? How much could she play with? Alexandria gave up obedience when she was three, she sure as hell wasn’t going to reprise it now.
Right. Put him in a comfort zone.

She held her pointed gaze at him for a few moments as if she was deciding whether to comply or not and then let her eyes flick to the Lurch, hesitance seeping in; she didn’t want him near her. She wanted Damian near her – to kill him, that was it – and that was scary enough because she knew that the moment he felt he wasn’t getting his way, he’d just go ahead and take it, but that fricking Sphinx in the corner… overkill. She got the Holy Water spray out of her purse and set it down on the table, then stepping back to lift the edge of the left edge of her dress to reveal the black bind over the smooth, toned flesh of her thigh, firmly housing the makeshift knife, her fingers decisively breaking the bind, grasping the knife to put it down over the table, a taut look seeping into her features from her neck.
There.
Two down, one to go. She didn’t want to let them go. Her fingers lingered at the desk before she could pull her hand away far enough to lent her fingers rest on the edge of the polished wood.
Come on, Ashcroft. Get it together.
She swallowed tightly, the muscles in her swan neck pushed and her eyes closed and a memory trickled into her head... against the same desk, his seasoned body pushing against her arched form, her fingers claiming fistfuls of his soft hair and the gasps that escaped though the sensation rippling down her body.
Did she like it?
Oh, God, what's happening to me?
Okay. No, now's not the time. She took a sharp breath and flicked her eyes back up at him, doing her very best to keep her cool, and if not that, then at least her poise.

Well, if he took the weapons away, it meant he was going to give her reason to want them, and she definitely wasn’t going to like what was coming… one way through a bad situation is to just grit through it.

“Is there anything else you’d like me to do, Lord Alexander?”

She hated the way her voice, the lure of her eyes, her entire demeanour came out like some invite, some reminiscence of a siren song, promising him everything just to have him. To have him where she wanted him. The way she did to all the other men who tried to use her, the way it always worked like a charm; you use or you get used. Pick a side, it's not Buddhism. She was comfortable with her choice, it worked out well.
But not this time, right? How could it when he didn't even see her as a person? As if this wasn't a huge joke anyway. This was different and there was no real point in trying. But then, she'd never really had to put effort into it, she was just aware of when she did it and right now, teasing Damian looked like an acutely stupid idea.
Or was it? Why not have a bit of fun, right? Or did she really want him to make moves on her?
And wait, what? What was that, subservience? Really? No. No, sarcasm. Definitely. Right. She needed to believe that.
He’d like her to do a variety of things, didn’t mean she'd do them. Fat fricking chance. She just knew what to do, how to make it work, that was all. ...Right?

"Life is just a chance to grow a soul" - A. Powell Davies
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#498 Old 2nd Dec 2009 at 12:20 PM Last edited by AtropaMandragora : 2nd Dec 2009 at 12:33 PM.
Default Connor and Moira - Moira's condo
Good things come to those who wait, they said. Patience is a virtue, they said. Yet, as Connor sat waiting for Moira in her new condo, neither of those two popular sayings sounded much like anything but empty words to him, sayings that were meant to coax people into suffering through what otherwise might have had them climbing the walls. Not that Connor was in any way that high strung just yet, but he was anxious to see his beloved Moira, and was getting quite impatient waiting for the moment when she'd arrive, from time to time even fearing that something would have come up that would prevent her from seeing him this evening. But, with his common sense still intact, he figured that as long as he didn't hear from her, there was no point in fretting, and so instead of driving himself crazy, for the past couple of hours he'd tried his best to keep himself occupied. He'd scribbled some lyrics for new songs - though he didn't harbour much hope that they'd get a different reaction from the guys in the band than the other lyrics he'd written lately; "too dark" - he'd talked to a few friends on the phone, he'd watched TV a bit, and he'd played a few of the games that were on his cell phone. He'd even spent a couple of minutes standing in the doorway between the living room and the bedroom, staring at the covered painting nearby the bed; the painting that he had never been allowed to see, and that kept taunting his curiosity for that very reason.
However, he was determined not to give in to it. He respected Moira's need for privacy, and would do his darndest to honour it. Even when he'd been carrying the painting - since he'd simply refused to let the movers touch it, partly in fear that they would be careless with it, and partly in fear that they would sneak a peek at it - he had refrained from nudging the cloth to the side to catch a glimpse of what was underneath. Though it didn't stop him from wondering and speculating, nor did it stop him from standing there in the doorway, staring at the covered easel as though he thought that if he tried hard enough, he just might be able to see through the cloth, and see what it was that Moira was so unwilling to share with him.

Of course, just as was to be expected, even by Connor himself, he had no such luck, and so he had eventually returned to the couch in the living room, and the TV with it's endless cavalcade of American sitcom reruns. He was still sitting there, restlessly zapping from one channel to the next, when the sound of a car outside made him freeze for an instant, and listen intently. It was her, wasn't it? The car hadn't passed by, but instead stopped on the street right outside. He could hear the engine still running, and then the slamming of a car door as someone - Moira, please, let it be Moira - exited the vehicle. Yet he remained sitting on the couch for a few seconds more, even if it was on the edge of his seat, but rose in the same instant that the door bell sounded. He hadn't been sure that the footsteps he'd heard hadn't been just a figment of his imagination, his wishful thinking playing tricks on him, and that the car hadn't been for someone else. But with the chime of the bell sounding throughout the condo, all such doubts were wiped from his mind, and he hurried over to open the door, not wanting to seem eager to the point of suffocating her, but too excited about seeing her to loiter. Although even if he could control the speed of his movement, there was no mistaking the pure joy in the smile that greeted the Toreador as the door swung open. It was the kind of smile that would've surely lit up the front porch all on it's own, had the porch light not been on.
She was there.

Man, was she a sight for sore eyes! It didn't matter how vividly Connor was able to picture her face when she was not there; every time he saw her in flesh, she still always took his breath away, with the coppery locks that looked like the smoothest satin when they caught in the light, like fire burning hot against her pale skin, and those soulful eyes of hers, so deep that they could pull a man down into their depths, and he'd be forever lost.

Without a word, she slipped close to him, into his arms as they wrapped tightly around her delicate frame. Rose red lips met with pale pink ones, in a kiss filled with such slow, consuming passion, sending waves of warmth and electricity through the young blonde's body, that when they finally parted, his head was swimming. With relief and with lust, but most of all with the mere ghosts of the thoughts that up until now had haunted him. For those first few seconds of the lovers' reunion, all was well in the world, and there wasn't a single worry plaguing his mind.

Though such notions tend to be short lived. As was this one. Everything was soon nudged back into to focus for him, when as she pulled back a little bit, Moira spoke:

"How are you?", came her soft voice, and with their lips parting, their gazes locked instead, as she urged him to speak all that was on his mind: "And don't hold back: I want to hear all about it!"

With those words, everything came surging back to him, but with her presence smoothing out the ridges, and making it all seem less threatening somehow. Still confusing and possibly ominous, but less like something that might bring about imminent doom. Moira would know what to make of it, and what to do. If anything at all. Even if she wasn't prepared for what he had to tell her, even if all she was really referring to, was how he was faring in his attempt to come to terms with everything she had told him the other night. Though in a way, everything that had happened since last they met, was related to the greater understanding of the Kindred that her confession had left him with.
But, where to begin...?

"I'm okay, I think...", he started, mostly as a pure reflex, while his mind was busy trying to sort out what to tell her, without rambling. "I really need to talk to you", he then continued once he found one end of the thread to pick up. "See, something happened the other night, and... I'm not really sure what to make of it. Or if I did something wrong..."

Taking her hand, he tugged gently at her arm to get her to follow him over to the couch, to sit down and have the conversation that was to follow face to face.

"I ran into one of the women who attacked me", he started, and his gaze dove briefly to the floor as he tried to recall the encounter in as much detail as possible, despite his distress and his confusion at the time. "The dark-haired one... I was at the museum, and when I left she was there, outside. She started wailing things, about how she didn't mean to 'break' me, and how I please shouldn't hurt her. She even hid behind a tree, as though she was afraid of me..."

He paused again, and looked up at Moira with something akin to hesitant pity in his eyes.

"To be honest, she didn't seem quite right in the head", he said. "And, I guess maybe I should have gotten out of there, but I had company, this girl Izzy, and I didn't want them to go after her, so I told her to go and that I'd take care of it, and... Me and Melissa started talking. At least she told me her name was Melissa. Though she kept referring to herself as a fly, and kept calling me 'dolly'... She seemed really remorseful, and so very lost. Almost like a little kid. And she was rambling on about the Beast and being chased by snakes, and God knows what, and I kind of felt sorry for her. So... I kind of took her home, to this mansion that belonged to her 'Angel'."

Pausing yet again, hesitation and doubt stained his eyes when they sought to lock with Moira's, before there came a tentative, uncertain;

"Was that a stupid thing to do? I didn't go in, I just dropped her off by the gates."

~ * ~ Volition ~ * ~
Alchemist
#499 Old 2nd Dec 2009 at 2:45 PM
Default Melody and Adrien - Behind The Haven




She was there. As the industrial metal frame marking the entrance to The Haven's storage area materialized through the darkness, a contented little smile blossomed on Melody's glossed lips and her heart bounced lightly in her chest. Arriving at the club always had a kind of homecoming feel to it, and indeed Melody considered it her secondary home. It was the place where she could be simply Melody Hart, without the mantle of secrecy and evasions she otherwise shrouded herself in, always careful to maintain that invisible curtain between her world and the rest. She knew every nook and cranny of it, its minor peculiarities and nightly rituals, who was a regular and who was a troublemaker, but the true reason for that wave of enticing heat flowing through her body at the moment was Valerian. Their upcoming reunion. If it were up to Melody, she would lock the two of them up in his bedroom and take the entire night to show him just how much she'd missed him, in every way possible...it took effort to even keep herself from sprinting up there right then.

But she did contain herself. There was Oscar to attend to first of all, a tiny but impatient mewl coming from the pet carrier reminded her; the poor little thing must be growing restless in that confined space, considering the energy he was capable of. Her cat Cleo had never known what hit her, Melody recalled and smiled privately. Careful not to rattle it, she placed the cage on the ground at her feet and began fumbling around the small purse she carried for the key to the storage area. Cluttered as the contents were, it proved a mildly frustrating task, one that kept Melody from paying much attention to the set of footsteps approaching from behind. It was only when she victoriously wrenched the key from the depths of her purse did she realize that the sound was much nearer now and the steps uneven and further apart, gradually coming to a halt just behind her. Melody spun on her heels to face whoever was there, tensing just a little as she gave the young man the once over: tall, dark and handsome would have been a fitting description, hovering a few feet away with an air of indecision about him. He didn't look immediately threatening, so Melody relaxed, curving a polite smile his way, but as he obviously meant to say something, she waited.

"Uhm, excuse me, Miss?", the man began in an accent that only vaguely captured her attention, since it was American and L.A. housed such a mixture of people, "You seem like you're familiar with this part of town? I'm looking for a club, The Haven...?"

Melody's lips parted into an even wider smile, one that revealed a row of even, white teeth: he had no idea how close he actually was, had he? Well then, whether he was a newcomer to the city or just never been to that part of it before, it didn't particularly matter since all Melody had to do was point him in the right direction, and she might have been content with doing just that had The Haven been just an ordinary club. During the years Valerian had been running it and its rise to popularity, especially among the Kindred crowd, Melody had grown accustomed to seeing new faces around all the time, and to expect any one of them to belong to a Kindred as much as to a fellow human. As Valerian's companion and representative (the term ghoul didn't tend to be the first to spring to her mind when she thought about it), she often met with them, delivered messages and set up encounters when necessary, or simply did her part in welcoming them to the club. It wasn't all for Valerian's sake either; Kindred never failed to fascinate her, each in their own way, a fascination mingled with caution for she remained aware that even her...affiliation to Valerian couldn't fully guarantee her safety. He impressed upon that fact often enough, and Melody had been witness to some of the terrifyingly destructive force an angry vampire was capable of to know he was right. Still, she tended to feel safe around The Haven, it was her territory which she knew well, Valerian and others who would come to her aid were just beyond those walls, and at the moment her curiosity was stronger than her vigilance: after all, it was just a helpful gesture, and he seemed fairly uneasy himself.

“Well then, you've just found it!” she announced brightly, gesturing towards the building behind her. “Just go 'round that corner and you'll come up to the front entrance. Great big neon sign, can't miss it!”

Melody paused and moistened her lips; she could just as easily have left it there, but a mischievous little voice at the back of her mind kept coaxing her further:

“If you don't mind me asking though, and feel free to tell me it's none of my business, is there a specific reason why you're looking for the club? I come here all the time, and maybe I can help.”


If wishes were fishes we'd all cast nets
Field Researcher
#500 Old 4th Dec 2009 at 11:55 PM Last edited by Psyche_SC : 5th Dec 2009 at 12:06 AM.
Default Noah & Valerian - The Haven, Valerian's chambers
#73 [Night #18]

The mind of the gentle Gangrel was wide open, taking in every sensation there was to find. And in a Toreador lair such as this one, there was an abundance. From the resident himself, the ever unearthly Valerian, poured a myriad of impressions. From the smallest hint to the most overwhelming ocean. His kindness being the most evident of them all. Though he had showed Noah he had another side, a somewhat darker, when he had stood up for Aeode that night in the alley not far from The Haven. But it was still a benevolent darkness, risen from a place where he had love for those around him and would protect them at any cost. Noah appreciated it and was thankful he had been stopped. Who knew what would have become of her if he hadn't?
The art on the walls was a given source of inspiration and sensations. Noah might not understand everything as an art collector would, but he knew what he felt. What Valerian's paintings made him feel. He had a hard time sorting all the feelings from one another, the sorrow, the happiness, the hope and the comfort. Maybe what you felt had as much to do with who you were as it had to do with the actual painting, and the artist behind it. Maybe you saw what you wanted to see, felt what you hoped to feel. Or, as Noah saw it, you were simply captivated by the artistic creation and had no choice but to surrender to it.

There was one feeling that was lacking, the one that informed him that there was an animal in a close proximity. Where had the kitten ended up, maybe it had been moved to another home? Or his senses played games with him, but he couldn't detect a kindred spirit, or a heartbeat, however small. Whatever the case was, he trusted Valerian. He had no answer as to why, since they didn't really know each other. It was a feeling, an instinct, that guided him and gave him the courage to jump. If he would fall, so be it. He had lived for too long, he couldn't back down now and it wasn't in him to be a coward. No matter what or who he faced, he would do so with his head high. As they said, it wasn't the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog. The fight in Noah was absolute, he would keep going until he whirled around as dust.

A chamber like this was not found among the world of humans. To Noah it bore signs of an ancient past, a time when the world was more inclined to accept beauty as more than a trip to the local museum or let a slick cover of a magazine suffice, although it was probably not real. He remembered the past as more than a journey of pain, his Sire had taken him around the world, introduced him to one vampiric society after another. In Vienna, in Paris, in Oslo. There were many, hidden, small Kindred communities that was accessible if you knew the signs to look for. There were the ones that almost any heartless body could enter and the ones where you had to belong to a certain clan. The Gangrel were very hard to find, impossible, if you were not anointed or invited. Noah enjoyed many of the gatherings, remembered many a Gather that warmed his soul. But he had often found himself enjoying the journey from one location to another more. As the wanderer he was. A city was not a home, not even the outback though it suited him more. But L.A., in all its confusing glory, seemed to offer what none other had: clarity.

Valerian was the vessel. Though there was something about him that had Noah on his toes, there was something more to the mix, something he couldn't see. He was eager to know, but had to let things run it course. It would reveal itself to him in due time, he had to trust in that. Whatever it was, Valerian was a good man.

"I'm glad", Valerian said as he motioned towards the couch in the corner. "Please, feel free to have a seat."

Noah didn't really acknowledge the invite, he just went over to the couch and the table with crumpled up sheets of paper, that Valerian probably had discarded in his artistic processes. Since Valerian sat down beside him, the Gangrel turned slightly to face him.

"I have to ask though, is anything the matter?", Valerian said. "You seem as though you have a lot on your mind?"

Noah's mind wasn't occupied, it was blocked. He had too much to think of to be able to sort it through. He had to find something to start with, something that would be strange to leave to the very last. Since his involvement in the city, things had become confusing to say the least. Noah was used to simplicity, he was a hunter and the thrill of the hunt was logical and it remained the same as it had been back when he enjoyed the sun. But now, he was forced to handle many intricate things at once. This was why he wasn't a man of the people, a social being that navigated with ease. It was why he still could wonder what he was doing, if the universe played him for a fool. Noah was a giver, not a taker, and what did he have to give to Valerian? It had yet to come to him. He didn't have much more than his life to offer.

"The city is on fire", Noah began, after a moment of silence, the kind of silence the Toreador was probably used to by now and halfway expected. "Since the last time I saw you I've learned that here are both the Sabbat and a hunter I wish I could forget. Though I try to remember why I came here in the first place instead."

A new moment without a word. The Gangrel was looking for his. The constant battle he fought whenever in company of someone else, especially Valerian. He had such a way with his, that Noah wanted to live up to his standard, to make himself understood even though he didn't play in his league when it came to social skills.

"You see, I believe Mother Earth has brought me here. To you. This is what I know, I know very little of anything else."

There it was, the truth, the heart of the matter. This was why he had lingered, in a city that brought him hardly any peace. The earth wouldn't forgive him as long as he wouldn't forgive himself. And with the Sabbat around and Adrien de la Cour, the rivers would run red soon enough. Something had to give, Noah could feel it in his skin. His age became apparent, he had been around when there were clan wars. He didn't trust the Kindred to keep the peace. All he could do was to trust his instinct, believe that Mother Earth had shown him the way to a peacemaker. The one who would bask his soul in tranquility. And if all hell broke loose, Noah would stay grounded, because of Valerian.
It was all clear in his head, but it didn't quite reach his conscience. He still had an old war inside of him and the noise prevented him from seeing Valerian in full light. There was still smoke between them, still fields of dead indians that seperated them. Still a woman and a boy that held him back.

Noah was like a blind man, not seeing what was right infront of him.
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