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Whenever Tahmina is in her office at the old Chapterhouse and isn't already engaged in conversation with someone her office door is open, and it's open right now. She's sitting inside reading on the room's comfortable couch in the sitting area, readily visible from the doorway if anyone stops to poke their head in.
Eyrgjafa is a frequent visitor to the Confessor's suite, even if only to gossip with her aunt. That's not the main reason she's making an appearance tonight, of course, but it is something she's more than willing to engage in for its own sake, not just as the price of Tahmina's advice.
Floretta arrives just a moment later, wearing a pair of dark blue jeans, running shoes and a white t-shirt with a rainbow fist on it. Her hair is dyed Neon green, her make up is heavy on the eyes, her lips are darkened and she carries her dog with her. She peeks into the suite, making sure Rena isn't here, then move inside. "Hey!"
Tahmina looks up when someone darkens her doorway, so to speak, and breaks into a brilliant smile when it turns out to be first Eyrgjafa and then Floretta who have come to see her. After a second she laughs and says, "you did something to your hair, Floretta, but I can't quite put a finger on it." She waves them both inside, closes her book, and puts it down on the coffee table as she stands up to start offering hugs. "How are you both tonight?"
Eyrgjafa is more than willing to accept the hug, adding the usual pair of cheek kisses to the embrace. "Good, thanks. You?" She glances at the book curiously.
"Pride month happened." Floretta gives a hug when offered. She doesn't put down Herbert while it happens, just so he can benefit from it too. She activate her blush of life as the hug goes on. "I'm doing okay, all things considered. We managed to acquire access the Moshulu with both ghost, spirit and humans on board. Which honestly is part of why I'm here."
Tahmina hugs everyone, kisses cheeks, and then greets Herbert special. "Hello Herbert, you handsome thing. You're such a good boy, aren't you?" Then she steps back, smiles at them both, and says, "happy Pride. It's wonderful how far people have come on that front, but there's still a lot of work to do, isn't there?" She waves over at the seating and turns to go sit down. "I'm doing quite well, Eyrgjafa. I'm eager to hear how things went with the Moshulu, though. You've all been doing excellent work, I take it?"
"We have, yes. Thank you." Her affection for Tahmina is clear in Eyrgjafa's voice, as she follows the other Septemi over to the seating area. "We made a deal with the spirits there last night, even, so we'll have a Crucible again soon enough."
"It went so well too. I'm eager to start working on the Great works again." Floretta nods and grins, she slowly puts her dog down on the ground and lets it sniff around. "Yeah he's been super understanding of the times I have to leave him in my office when Rena's around." then she gives a look about the room. "We'll have to pay the boat with stories and tales, the ghost with lighting candles and lanterns." A beat. "I got in a bit of a situation with the staff though..." she says nervously.
"I'm so proud of you all," Tahmina says in a totally sincere, non-patronizing way. "I suspect we're going to keep this facility here just because of its size and available amenities, but it's not going to hurt us to have more than one location available for us to use for studies or as a safe house." She inclines her head to one side and asks Floretta, "what kind of situation?"
Eyrgjafa nods. "This would be a good place to keep our library, and study things unrelated to the Coils." She shrugs slightly. "Also for use as a working farm, to help defray the costs of existing in modern society." The talk of a situation with the staff gets her glancing at Floretta, though.
"So, I investigated rumors and the staff when researching the place and found out how they were dealing with the weirdness of the place." Floretta spend a moment considering how rambly she's going to let herself be. "Long story short, in the process of helping them not getting burnt by the ghost I found myself guiding them on how to do occult things and now I think I might have started a cult." she sigh. "I was wondering how to do it safely for them, a bit like you'd do for your herd, I heard they were aware."
"Isn't there a fire spirit on the boat, or something that likes lighting fires?" asks Tahmina, like she's heard some of the rumors but hasn't really been sticking her nose in. Trusting people to get things done without elders looking over their shoulder. "Keeping our libraries somewhere else seems like a good idea, just from that perspective." The conversation shifts over to Floretta's problem next. "Do they know you're a vampire?" she asks, not sounding alarmed, just wanting to be sure she understands the situation.
"Yes and no? From my understanding, it was around in the days before electric lighting became standard, so took to lighting fires because there weren't the lanterns for it to manage anymore." Eyrgjafa sighs. "We've agreed to keep a supply of lanterns present in exchange for it lighting those and only those."
"I don't think they do, but I honestly wouldn't count on that remaining the case for long? They now know how to deal with ghost and deal with a bit of spirits." She comments with a shrug. "They hang out on a spirit boat with a fire ghost and we'll be having a lot of kindreds over there soon, which includes Rena, so I don't expect them to be out of the loop for long."
"That makes sense," Tahmina tells Eyr. "I think that when it comes to a facility where kindred might sleep over night, a lot of us would prefer it be one that's not both made out of wood and also supplied with sources of fire, though." She says this with a smile and then gives Floretta's concerns her attention. "The way I've handled situations like that in my personal life is to stress to the people who know that I'm invested in their safety, but that their safety also depends on their discretion. That telling people is likely to get both them and the other people they tell hurt, even if it's not by me."
"Fair enough," Eyrgjafa chuckles. "I certainly don't intend on making it my home, even if others might want to." The discussion of the cult gets her attention, then. "Those seem reasonable points to me," she nods. "Do we want to bring Saagochque in on knowledge of the cult's existence, or try to keep it in-house?"
"I'm not feeding them my blood and I think I can manage to make this more like a ritualized partnership there. I don't think like I'm breaking any laws? So I don't have that much issue about telling the Sakima." Floretta run her fingers through her hair. "At the same time, I'm not sure why we'd make a point of telling her specifically about the cult?" She then turn to Tahmina "I think It'd be easy to work the secretive part into it."
"I don't think we need to tell her unless there's a problem," Tahmina says with a shrug. "She's usually happy to stay out of people's affairs when she doesn't need to be involved. There are some things to keep in mind moving forward with this, though." She pauses before she starts bringing things up. "If they start to learn vampires exist, it means employees who leave will have to have tabs kept on them. You're making a long term commitment when you let someone know what you are. Also, it's probably good to do everything you can to ensure people leave on bad terms as rarely as possible. People have disagreements and leave jobs under poor terms, but minimizing how often that happens means fewer people to track. Make sure pay and benefits are great, make sure the people in charge treat people well, and so on."
Eyrgjafa nods again. "We can certainly do that. Treating people well is important in general, after all." She glances at Floretta. "Do we know who the legal owners are? It might be worth buying the boat from them, so that we are able to ensure those things happens without having to spend Vitae."
"I did make a mention of pay and remuneration in what I've done so far, I think it might be worth maybe focusing on that a little more." Floretta run her fingers over her hair again. "I'm a Shepherd so, I think I can at least have a feeling when things like that are about to happen." She pluck out her phone from her pocket and tap at the screen and takes a note or two.
"Ultimately, making sure that the people who know also know the risks, and then doing what you can to minimize the chances that those risks will come to pass, is what's most important," Tahmina goes on. "Anything you can do to ensure everyone involved is content with the situation makes a difference. Or not just content, but that they feel they benefit from it."
"Do you have suggestions for how to do that? Obviously what counts as benefiting will vary by the person, but in general."
"I'm guessing pay increase, day offs, not getting yelled at. I'm pretty sure a few of them could eventually learn to manipulate some occult forces, especially if they escort the ghost around or speak with the boat to tell it stories." She crosses her arms as she considers. "I'll have to keep in touch with them, but that's sort of already the idea."
"As Floretta says." Tahmina favors the Gangrel with a smile. "Making them feel like they're part of something more than just a job can help. That being a part of it makes them special, since people are prone to not realizing they're each special regardless."
Eyrgjafa nods, then. "Perhaps setting up something similar to our society? I don't think they're as common now as when I was Embraced, but secret societies with complex rank structures were popular then."
"Maybe if this was a different group of people, maybe if it didn't start out as a restaurant staff, that would be easily workable." She tilt her head to the side. "As it is, I doubt pushing for a lot more structure would work particularly well, or at least, better than a more. But, I think I could see where or who to give particular ideas too." it's clear Floretta is at least getting some ideas on how to actually work this now
"I haven't met any of the people involved, so I can't do much to speculate about what might work best with them. I'll leave it in your capable hands," Tahmina says with what seems to be genuinely the fullest confidence in them both. "If you need any other advice or guidance from me I'll offer it, but I think you both can figure out how to proceed."
"Of course. Thank you for your time, Auntie," Eyrgjafa says, smiling at the older vampire. "Do you have anything you need to ask us about, or should we get out of your hair?"
Floretta spends the next few moments trying to retrieve Herbert from beneath Tahmina's desk. "No, don't eat the chair leg." the playful scolding to the dog result in a single loud bark. "You're right, I'm the Worst." she grins at the dog. "Thank you, by the way for receiving us, I really appreciate the advice."
"I need to start keeping some chew toys in here for him when you come to visit," Tahmina says as she stands up. "I think I'll let you both go, and get back to my reading, if you don't mind? If you had other questions I'm happy to give my time to you, but I'm enjoying this trashy romance novel and was just getting to a good part."
Eyrgjafa chuckles at that, also standing. "No, I can think we can give you and your trashy romance novel some alone time." She gives Tahmina one last hug, before turning to leave.
Floretta chuckles "Alright!" She head for the door, having exchanging a goodbye hug "Happy reading!" she wiggle her fingers as she leaves.
Tahmina distributes goodbye hugs. "Good luck, both of you, and good work! Let me know if there's anything else I can help with."
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