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The Sakima has an office at each Elysium, since it makes for a good place to holding meetings with people who want to talk to her about anything they feel like scheduling time for. Important city business? Exchanging recipes for things so sweet it makes people's teeth rot out of their heads? If people ask for a meeting she usually grants it.
That's why she's here tonight, with her office door open in invitation for those on the schedule, or for people to poke their heads in and say hello until her official business arrives. She's seated on a sofa that's pushed up against one wall, looking as ordinary as she's capable of getting with jeans, boots, a leather biker jacket, and a black t-shirt with a logo on it for gothic rock band The Nosferatu.
Considering that she's meeting with two Carthians tonight, this is almost certainly a very deliberate choice to show that unlike some princes, she does not take herself way too seriously.
Artje is dressed Very Carthian tonight -- but classic Carthian. This is an outfit that Le General (her Le General, not the one who terrorizes Lost) would have been proud of. A neat faux-military jacket in black with gold accents, a sleek and swishy skirt, and sharp, heavy-heeled boots in a purple so royal that it would have made the average European king scream and slam his hands on the table in jealousy. She pauses just up the hall from the open doorway, looking back at Visigny with eyes subtly widened. It takes someone who knows her very well to know what a nervous gesture that is. She presses her hand flat to her stomach and then takes the last few steps to the doorway, raising the other to rap on the doorframe politely. "Pardon, Sakima," she greets. "Are you free at the moment?"
Visigny's a bit weary of airs. And wary of airs around the Sakima who has his blood in her possession. So tonight he is the everyman. The brown suit which disappears into the crowd. The wingtips. The plain front, the cuffed break, the cuff link, the tie bar, the full windsor, and the collar stay. He has perfected mediocrity, and brushed its shoulders with horse hair before sliding it onto his broad shoulders.
The bowler really caps it off. The driving gloves and topcoat, too. Makes the cane sell, quite frankly. He taps his cane to his temple by way of silent greeting to the Sakima, settling his cane down to the ground afterwards with a click.
Saagotchque had been lost in thought, holding a book but not actually looking at it. She's so painfully emaciated that she looks like she might be literally nothing but skin and bones without any muscles in there at all, so much so that when she's still and staring at nothing she looks like she could be someone who died while reading and then been left to decompose. Fortunately she doesn't smell like that, just looks like it, and when people arrive at her door she takes note.
"Oh, please," she says as her head turns to look at them and then she stands up. She. Stands up. For them.
"Come on in, make yourself comfortable. Sorry, I was daydreaming a bit. That's such an awkward word for us to use, isn't it?"
She curtsies courteously, well-practiced but not over the top, and steps into the office, making room for Visigny. Artje looks off to the side for a moment, not actually looking directly at the Sakima when she stands up for them, as if she's witnessing something mildly obscene or at least a little unexpected. People raised in European Lancea Sanctum and Invictus courts never do get used to the ease of Philadelphia, perhaps. Artje finds herself a chair and perches on the end of it.
"I have found some information regarding the VII who have threatened both yourself and the domain as a whole, and ... " her voice trails off for a moment. "Given what I have discovered, I felt it best to bring this information to you directly, rather than allowing it to pass through the hands of others."
"In Vienna, madame, most of the elders referred to what you were doing just now as 'plotting'. A terribly unimaginative bunch, if I may say so, madame." Visigny moves over to the chair where Artje is perched and unbuttons his jacket, resting onto the back with his elbow like the two of them are a Calvin Klein ad. He does not, however, attempt the smoulder at the Sakima. Especially not spelled with the 'u'. He just watches her flesh husk, respectfully.
Boy, when you put a man in a drab brown suit and drape him over a woman dressed like that, she really sort of takes on a whole new dimension of glamour. Isn't that interesting?
"No, no plotting, only plodding," Saagochque replies with a laugh, which sounds raspy in the way that dragging an actual metal rasp over bones might sound raspy. "You aren't in Vienna, though. You're in Sakimauchheen Ing," where she uses the Lenape words for what Europeans tend to call Shackamaxon. "As much as European kindred like to pretend otherwise, theirs is not the only culture in the world."
At least she doesn't sound angry or offended, just perhaps ever so slightly stern in her reminder. She sits back down.
"I would ask you to remember that my position is an elected one, and my job here is to serve the needs of the people, not to aggrandize myself. If I'm doing any plotting and scheming it should be about how to improve the requiems of my people."
Her smile is a little brittle, there, but she offers, "My apologies, Sakima. The lessons we learn in life stay with us." And that's all she has to say about that, apparently. There's no need to linger on Ghoul Trauma today, no thank you!
Artje turns her face up towards Visigny gratefully when he settles in closely, and she briefly touches his knee, as if reminding herself that he is real and not about to vanish, and everything is just fine. Or perhaps he's just pretty even in the plainest of suits. "Again, my apologies." She pauses. "How familiar with the Cacophony are you? I don't wish to bore you with tedious explanations if you understand perfectly how such a thing works."
"Forgive me, madame, you have mistaken my attempt at clever humor and found in it justifiable offense. Were one to take my words at face value. And as I must commend you for taking my words at face value, I must apologize for what first I said and then explain secondly what I meant by it. So. I am sorry, Saagochque, for the words I have spoken to you."
First.
"Secondly, you are correct. As I said. They are a most unimaginitive bunch, madame. To Romans, everywhere was Rome. And the Inwictoose are little changed from those days, I am constantly reminded. In Vienna, indeed, they called what you did plotting. Because none of them would ever have ever thought to form a Praxis such as this one. All they knew was chess, chess, chess."
"So. In summary, I apologize for what I said when I attempted to compliment you and compliment you instead with slightly less artifice on my part." He straightens up from his lean and suggests to Artje, "Perhaps I had better go?" (edited)
"I apologize for my own defensiveness," the Sakima says. "I've had too many other people come through those doors who were less receptive to the cultural differences, and it's lead to me bristling easily. I don't expect immigrants to assimilate fully, though. I'd prefer it if can all be stronger by the meshing of the best of each our ways. Please, be welcome, stay."
She smiles with lips so thin they barely exist, and it's not a pretty expression even if it's sincere. "I'm familiar with the cacophony but no expert. Some others in the city do a better job of keeping up with its shifting landscape and keep me updated."
She nods her head once, twice, thoughtfully, and then rests her hand on Visigny's knee as if to say please don't go. There are some things which it is better if an Artje isn't left to handle alone, and one of those is talking with someone who she was required to give her blood to who isn't one of the Trio.
"I have been... concerned, to say the least, about the movement of the VII through the city, and so I began by examining the Cacophony. I found, to begin with, that there was a sort of -- dead area -- in the feeding patterns, and also when I was looking for who was -- or had been -- on their way up politically, that the first of the victims had been a mover and a shaker, or at least starting to be, before he died." Artje adds, "Also, I noticed that whoever was doing the killings seemed to be ... rather precious about the messages they were leaving. Sins Linger On The Harbor, God Remembers Evil's Every Design. The messages left seem to reflect the seven deadly sins, which was borne out later on in my investigation."
"I will spare you the long and winding road that I had to take to get to these conclusions, though of course I am very happy to explain my methodology should you choose to hear it, because I do not wish to leave you in the dark or have you doubt my work. However, to the best of my knowledge and research, the VII active in this city have been embedded here since at least the Nereid incidents began -- they used it as cover to move into the city without being noticed -- and I know where they appear to be headquartered. There is at least one Gangrel, if there are multiple individuals involved, and they seem to be passing themselves off as legitimate members of the city. It does make me wonder how they were able to do that and pass your blood-tasting requirement, but that is what the clues bear out to me."
"Also, they killed one of my reporters, and I'm terribly cross about that."
Visigny's face adopts the serene, neutral-pleasant smile of the true and ardent sociopath. There is a gracious little nod of his head, and he's back to attempting to be an artful set dressing. This time, however, he does not make the mistake of opening his mouth.
There's a little moue for the reporter. Or maybe over Artje's feelings about the reporter.
"I understand being cross about that. He's killing my family," Saagochque says, not in the way of trying to say her annoyance is greater. In actual sympathy. "That's a lot of information, and I appreciate you coming to me with it. I'm sorry if it cost you something personally to acquire the knowledge." She taps her fingers against her bony knees. "I'm curious what they've been doing to avoid my notice, too. I may have to revise some of the precautions I take."
She nods, and then flips her hand to one side as if to dismiss the things that it might have cost her to acquire them. "Other than the reporter, nothing I was not prepared to sacrifice for the sanctity of the city and the life of an elected ruler. In a place where we have elected a ruler, it suits the aims of the Movement very well indeed to make sure that she stays in leadership." Here, Artje actually looks at the Sakima, and as much as any true emotion burns in a vampire's dead breast, it's easy there to see the light of the True Believer glittering behind her hazel eyes.
"The point being, at least one of the Gangrel in the city -- though obviously not our wife -- is an embedded VII. It would be easy to assume that it must be someone who would have arrived around the time of the Nereid, but that would presume there is no way for someone to have picked up an identity from someone that they did away with in some fashion. So now I have made you aware, and done so without -- one hopes -- alerting those who would wish our elected leader harm." A small dusting of her fingers over Visigny's knee. "I will attempt to flush them into the open, if I can, but I believe that the next step might be -- if my gambit does not work -- open confrontation, though on our terms." A gentle taptap on his knee. "And this is why I have brought my husband along. There is no one I would personally choose for planning an armed assault upon a VII stronghold than my Jean-Louis." Using his first name in front of the Sakima? Oh the scandal.
He just can't fucking help himself. He could just shut up and be pretty, but no. He's too Daeva to stay quiet for long. Especially when he thinks he's being clever.
"I know how I'd do it," he mumbles down at his lapel carnation, flicking a speck of dust from his tie. "but I'm sure the Sakima will have thought of it already."
And then a beat, because he just cannot fucking stop.
"Only that it seems perhaps too obvious a thing to even be possible. So."
He considers, then dismisses his idea. No, I shan't. I shan't. It's not at all clever upon reflection.
"Apologies." He sniffs, looks at the lamp in the corner. Is that an Arredeloce?
"Well, you could have a different elected ruler. A Carthian one. I'm not suggesting that you should depose me, but it's something you could certainly work toward if you desired it. If you find someone you think would be better suited, I might be able to retire." Does she really mean it? She seems to. It doesn't seem to be a trap.
"The timeline wouldn't be right for it to have been your wife, or I wouldn't necessarily strike her off the suspect list," she continues. "Since you could both be in on it too. Possible, if the timeline was right, but not likely."
She gets distracted by Visigny. "If you have something to say, please say it," she says gently. "I don't have a fragile ego. I make mistakes and I miss things. Sometimes obvious ones. Not as often as I used to, but it happens, and it's only more likely if I pretend it isn't possible."
She stretches out a hand. "We could be, and I would of course expect you to inspect my responses and to suspect what I say, Sakima. We aren't, of course, but I would expect you to suspect us, given the circumstances, and came here with every intention of submitting both my information and my motives to your inspection." Artje rests that hand on Visigny's knee again, and the look she gives him is absolutely adoring. For a lightning-fast moment, she forgets to conceal the way that his blood acts upon her. Here, and then gone again. She waits to hear his brilliance.
That's as close to 'No, Visigny, you're very clever and I'd very much like to hear your expertise' as he's likely to get any time soon. So he makes the most of it and looks up from his tie with a blank expression and a hand on his chest. Moi?
"Oh? Oh! Well." Breath. "I'm sure there are ways you could falsify vitae at the point of donation, but it would be almost pointlessly complex. Obviously that's when you're at your most vigilant for fakery, and you do not strike me, madame, as a woman easily fooled."
Beat.
"It's far easier, really, to recruit or to merely replace individuals in your praxis who have already given you blood. Unless you are doing something with that blood to verify our authentic whereabouts on some Marauder's Map of your own devising, I should think you remain laregely unaware after our donation if what you have in your vial still matches what's in our veins any longer. Or that our loyalties remain what they were."
"If it's the first, it's nothing a second blood test won't verify. If it's the second, an interrogation. And I will happily apply my considerable talents in the latter on all those who refuse the former. I can even imagine several clever and amusing ways of gathreing much of your praxis into various locations on various nights. For us to close the doors and have our little chats."
"We will tell our own how delightful it will be to flush out traitors in the other covenants. And cheerfully, madame, will we thereby deliver you our own."
"But I do not presume to know how you handle your affairs here in your Praxis. Only that such methods won us the Prater where they only think of chess."
The Sakima seems to catch that moment. Picking up on the lightning-fast reaction could suggest a part of what's made her good at her job for so long. Her only reaction to it is a curious back and forth look, and she doesn't even try to hide that she noticed something.
It's neither here nor there at the moment, but it might need addressing later.
"There will be a second test due eventually, so if a second test would be enough to spoil their game they're going to either try to complete their work before then, they have some way of deceiving me, or perhaps they don't know or care. You're right that I don't have any way of tracking people on a..." She stops. "There must be a comparison that doesn't maintain the cultural relevancy of a transphobe. Shiri told me that Rowling is antisemitic, too. But I get your point."
Did the Sakima just say trans rights?
"I'm not interested in tracking people. That's not the kind of city I intend this to be. I'm also not subjecting my people to interrogation. No. As long as you follow our laws I can't and won't stop you from doing what you think is best, but I'm not obliquely hinting you should do it without my saying it out loud. People here have rights, and if you make the Caucus and I have to go through the severe pain in the ass of writing up a comprehensive bill of them I'll be irate. Whatever you can do without causing headaches for us, go ahead."
This is Visigny's part of the show, and now Artje gets to sit around and look pretty. She does cast a quick look out of the corner of her eye at the Sakima's curious look back and forth, and the smallest smile at the commentary about Jowling Kowling Rowling.
"If a second test is due eventually, madame, what bother is it to you if I get my confederates to consent to give you their samples now? And then I will go have polite and civil discussions with those who seem recalcitrant. Perhaps there will be some small matter I can assist them with that will then free them up to come and obey a simple, lawful, obligatory, perfectly reasonable request. And maybe one of them will need a bus ride, madame, and I will reach into my pocket and say. Here. Go. Give the Sakima blood."
"I will very politely and legally put as many of people in a room for you as I can to get that business out of the way for you so that you can at least look at us and not fret overmuch that we'll suddenly leap out and murder you. More than usual." They are Carthians.
"Empirical evidence is often required in capital cases, is it not, madame? I have some friends who dabble in blood science by which I do mean my other wife. Surely comparison is possible, madame? For the safety of your people and praxis?"
"Or do I overstep there, too?"
"If you can convince people to donate early then I would gladly welcome it," the Sakima answers. "It has a chance of narrowing down the pool of suspects," She ponders things before continuing. "There isn't a guarantee that what I do with the blood will reveal our infiltrators, but the implication it does might make some kindred extremely resistant to the very idea. Not evidence itself, but a path to it, maybe."
She makes a gesture to encompass them both. "I appreciate the work you're both doing to try to help the praxis in this, and your coming to run ideas past me."
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