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Cian has invited Phaedra to the hotel Elysium for her first history lesson with him - it's public, but close enough that he doesn't have to lug his books all over the city. And it's open later than the library.
It's a pretty basic lesson, and honestly a lot of is is prep - talking about the kinds of things that she wants to learn, the types of events she'd like to focus on, where she wants to dive deep. Because even if she wants to learn everything, she's gotta start somewhere.
For what it's worth, she's been less capable of focus tonight than usual, and there's times when Cian's had to repeat questions a few times. About the third time he's asked about geographical focus, she lets out (a completely unnecessary, considering she's not blushed) sigh. "My head's not here tonight. I'm sorry."
"May I ask where your mind is?" Cian eyes her without judgement. "I would not have minded rescheduling, if there is something you need to be doing."
"I don't think it's anything I actually can help with. A friend of mine was kidnapped by the rats. Also, Rihat's still out and about and no one knows where Adelgief's library is. And the Nereids are still lying low. And I just...stopping to learn about history, with everything going on, feels selfish. And I don't want you feeling like you're obligated to spend your time with me, because of...you know."
She shakes her head, sitting back in her chair.
"That...is quite a lot to be carrying, I don't blame you for being distracted in the least. But taking time for yourself in the midst of all that doesn't make you selfish, I don't think." Cian sits back as well, his posture open. "I feel no obligation. The dregs of some trepidation, but that will pass as we continue to go about our way, I'm sure."
Pause. "What does trepidation mean?"
Clearly the most important part of everything.
"Ah...the experience of being worried about the future." It takes him a moment to nail down the definition, so he speaks slowly.
"Oh. That's a big fucking mood." She shakes her head, letting out something of a laugh.
There's a moment, where Cian does a fairly good impression of looking confused by the turn of phrase. But it only lasts a moment before he chuckles, and nods. "There are a good few things to be trepidatious about, at the moment. I have not heard anything about Rihat, or Adelgief's library, since last we talked. Your friend...is Kindred?"
"No. They're not. It's...the rat problem Floretta's left notes up about. And I'm pretty sure, after some dreams and reading my tarot cards, that it's not something I'm meant to resolve. So."
"Oh Phaedra." Cian frowns in concern. "I'm so sorry. All you can do is wait and hope? The distraction of history might help, if you're able to focus on yourself."
She nods. "Teach me a history. Something that sounds like a story, instead of dry numbers and facts. That might be distracting enough."
"I'll do my best." There's a beat, and Cian eyes his bag. "I did bring a primary source. If anyone asks, they're mine." He carefully pulls a set of very old journals from his bag, and gives her a small smile.
"I will warn you, I'm not much of a storyteller. But there are moments in here, that are very much subjective, and all about the detail of the moment, rather than any particular historical event."
She reaches out, as if to touch one of the journals, stopping with her fingertips hovering a few inches over the cover.
Cian pauses, his hand tightening around the journal. He gives Phaedra a long look before he slides it closer to her. "Honestly, they can probably speak for themselves, and you won't have to listen to me fumbling through trying to make them into a story. But if you'd like me to read them to you, I will."
"Oh, I was going to use Auspex to learn more about them. But I do want you to read them to me." There's a bit of a laugh. "You put something this old and interesting in front of me, wanting to touch it to glean its secrets is kinda inevitable."
"Ah. Feel free." Cian gestures with a smile. "Maybe you can tell me something I don't know about them."
The beating of a human, mortal heart, hammering as blood flows through veins down to shaking fingers that scrawl words across the page...until the heartbeats stop, and the Beast rises. The slow ease of relief, that feelings are on paper instead of in the mind...and the faint shiver of fear. Fear of loss. Someone else's fear of loss. Dirty, inkstained hands, offering the last of their dinner to someone else, and later, a scrawl of a paragraph. The same paragraph, the same words, over and over and over, like the words won't leave one's mind. A gray fog, a feeling of futility. A snap of a ruler against an inkstained wrist. The inky blackness of deep, dark water.
The vision Phaedra sees keeps her rapt, silent for nearly a moment, eyes closing as she tries to focus--tries to see what the paragraph is that he's writing, her hands clutching tightly around the journal.
- Is this the legacy I want to leave? So be it. I will feel no guilt, and do what is necessary. May my fear make me - is all that's clear, but there's a deep sense that the writer was falling into obsession over it.
She opens her eye and carefully opens the journal, searching for those words--she starts toward the end, and pretty much seems to ignore Cian's presence as she hunts.
"What...did you see?" Cian sounds concerned, but doesn't stop her from searching. The journals are well-thumbed - delicate, but not brittle and crumbling. The writing is scrawling and cramped, like she saw in her visions.
It doesn't take her long, searching from the end, to find the page. Pages, really, two back to back, covered in the same few sentences over and over and over.
The implications of what S has informed me are horrifying. But I cannot stay silent. Still I wonder. Is this the legacy I want to leave? So be it. I will feel no guilt, and do what is necessary. May my fear make me stronger, and may my knowledge keep me safe.
Cian leans over to see what she's looking at, and his frown deepens.
She looks up after reading it. "He was...obsessed. Frantic. Like...like a dog gnawing at a flea bite. And afraid, even though writing down what he thought gave him relief. A...a generous, kind man. And a scholar. He was afraid of the sea. Deep, dark water. Or maybe afraid of drowning. But vampires don't drown...no, afraid of the water. I don't understand all of it yet. Who was he? What did...S inform him of?"
The mention of vampires makes Cian shakes his head. "He was one of my ancestors, a grandfather a few greats back. I believe S was his wife Sarah, he never does say what she's told him."
"Even if he was your ancestor, sometime after he fathered your one-less-great grandfather, he became a vampire. He had a Beast, at some point. I felt it. He had a Beast." She sounds very certain of this fact.
"He..." Cian blinks, unnecessarily. "There is nothing in there about that. I can recite some of it by memory, and there is. Absolutely no mention of that."
She shakes her head. "Perhaps he didn't put it on paper outright, but...maybe that's the thing in here. That's horrifying. Maybe after he wrote this, he was Embraced. Maybe he sought out the Kindred, because he'd learned they existed."
"...Christ. This is...not how I'd planned this lesson going..." He lets out a nervous sort of laugh. "A part of me wishes it were easier to disbelieve you."
She flips back a few pages in a journal, looking at entries near that one. "Cian, you need to learn. Nothing that happens around me ever goes as people plan."
"I suppose you're right." He sighs - unnecessarily - and shifts in his chair. "You won't find anything - or perhaps you will."
According to the writer, previous to this entry, there was a string of sunny days, which was all anyone cared to talk about. S had family over for dinner, and the writer once again plead illness to spend time with his research.
"He reminds me more than a little of myself. This is the only journal of his I have, though I'm told he wrote them all throughout his life."
"And perhaps even after life ended." She hands the book back. "I wonder if you could find him now. If he's still around. He sounds like Ordo, if he is."
CIan takes it back, clutching it protectively for a moment before slipping it back into his bag. "I have researched my family's history, his death was not a suspicious one, as far as I could tell. He..." Cian frowns. "I suppose I'll have to look into him again. More closely. Phaedra, I...I'm not sure whether to thank you for this or not, to be honest."
She reaches out quietly, touching Cian's shoulder very gently. "When you are sure, let me know."
"Heh. I will try." He doesn't shrug off the touch, but he gives her a bit of a confused look. "This man - this journal...helps to remind me of who I am. That I didn't know this fact about him...is disconcerting."
"Because you've got this picture of him in your head that you now know isn't accurate?" She traces a box mid-air, with the word 'picture'.
"Yes, exactly. It will take some time to re-frame my thoughts, surrounding him. As one does, when one learns new information about something." He shakes his head slightly. "I don't know that there will ever be a time where you won't surprise me, one might think you make a hobby of catching others off guard, but I don't think it's your goal, usually. Is it?"
She tilts her head to one side, and puts on the world's most patently fake innocent look. "What sort of person would set out with that goal?"
"A person with more wiles than I am sure you possess..." Cian gives her a sharp smile.
"I am far too weak and not nearly smart enough to cleverly outwit someone like you." And then a grin blooms across her face. "I think that's why my distant cousin Carla and I get along so well. She pretty much adopted me after the death of my sire, and she's always been kinda delighted when I catch people off-balance."
"I'm sure it's delightful, when I am not the one being caught off-balance." He chuckles quietly. "I do hope I can witness you turning your sharp eyes on someone else some day."
"You'll have to hang out with me often enough for that to happen. Because it's a regular thing, but with you, it tends to be the really personal things, things I wouldn't call out around other people. Like. Personality things, I often do publicly. People being hypocrites or such. Secrets, I tend to try to be a little more careful with. And you buzz with them like a beehive. Which is a little sad. I want to know who you are, Cian."
"You really don't." The response is automatic, paired with a small smile. "I appreciate you keeping what you know about me close."
"No, I really do. Especially because I think...I think this city's going to change you. Slowly, or quickly. I want to see who you hate yourself being melt away, as you step up to become someone you can be proud of."
"I came here because I wanted to start over. No one knows who I was, or who my line is. None of it matters here." Cian shakes his head. "No one but me."
She leans in close, her voice a steely little whisper. "It matters to you. You're ashamed of your past. Of yourself. Who you know yourself to have been is someone you really don't like."
"I..." He grimaces. "It's rather complicated. So much of Kindred life is tied to who your family is. I don't choose to be tied to who I'm tied to. Does that make sense?"
"Okay, but. That's true for a lot of the Kindred in town. Look at Finley, who despises zher sire and what he made of zhem. Or Eyrgjafa and her loathing for her sire that drove her to another continent."
"Why not remake myself, set myself into the history I've spent so much time with?" Cian doesn't quite meet Phaedra's eyes. "I don't want to be burdened with others knowing my history."
"Burdened." She repeats that word quietly. "Do you wish that you could forget?"
"Every day." Now he's looking at the table. "I don't believe there's a way to do that without letting someone else see what I remember. And I...think it would be dangerous, to forget."
"Almost certainly, someone would have to see it, yeah. Most likely another Mekhet, too. And you clearly can't trust us Shadows in your head." She nods.
"I've gotten to know another Shadow - Jasper. I wouldn't trust him in my head, either." Cian gives her a small smile. "It's bad luck on my part, to manage to find the Shadows here first, when secrets are something I prefer to hold close."
"Sorry-not-sorry." She lets out a bit of a laugh. "Maybe you ought to be getting to know more members of your own clan?"
"Perhaps." He doesn't look all that thrilled about the concept. "I have been considered a failure of a Savage, by some. I've never been built for hunting anything but information."
"I mean, I've heard of worse Gangrel. Like the dancer-y one?" She shrugs. "Maybe you got Embraced by the wrong clan. You should have been one of us, if you wanted to hunt for information."
"My sire was convinced I'd come 'round, eventually. And it's not as if I can change. I've embraced a few of the disciplines, but I don't tend to use them casually."
"Your sire was probably a dick." This is said with conviction.
"She is rather well-liked among Boston Kindred. How I feel about her had no merit." He shrugs.
"It has merit now. Your sire was definitely a dick, and you deserve to be treated better, and I hope like fuck your family here does. And your covenant. And your friends."
"Anthony has been quite good to me. I don't currently have much to do with my covenant, though I'm sure he would be happy to bring me more into the fold, should I so choose. My friends..." He gives her a quick look. "I don't tend to have friends who don't treat me well. I have been burned too many times in that regard."
She leans forward, elbows on the table, and looks up at Cian. "Are you counting me among your friends?"
"Would you like me to?" He cocks his head.
"Well...yeah." It comes out a little sheepish.
"I suppose it's settled, then." Cian gives her a small smile. "You have treated me well, I daresay better than I deserve."
"You need to get that word out of your mouth, Cian Doyle. Your obsession with what you deserve, based on your past actions, is what's holding you back. I'm treating you like I treat anyone, because your past doesn't define how I see you. And never will."
"That's...very kind of you." It's pretty clear he's not sure what to do with what Phaedra's said. "I appreciate it."
She continues to watch him quietly. "I'm going to keep blowing your mind regularly. Dumbfounded looks cute on you."
He arches an eyebrow. "I...don't know how to respond to that. I don't know how to feel about that - though the moments in which I learn something that dumbfounds me can be enjoyable."
"I know what you mean. Almost everything everyone is teaching me has been dumbfounding me little by little. It's pretty cool." She grins, standing and pushing in her chair. "Anyway, I think that's enough brain-breaking for one night. Call me when you want to have another history lesson."
"We can only hope that you'll end up learning more than me, next time." He smiles, and nods at her. "Have a good night. Thank you."
She reaches out to lightly touch his cheek, as she did the night he walked her home, before she heads out.
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