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Tahmina's house is not nearly as grand as someone might expect from an elder vampire. It's the kind of home that even a middle class person might call "quaint', not because they're using that as a polite way of insulting it for being small, but because that's what it is. There's a nice garden out front, which is starting to flower with the spring, and a couple of trees, and a house that's probably around 1500 square feet (above ground) in total. It's a nice neighborhood, expensive mostly by way of its location. It's just hard to find single family homes this close to the city.
Tahmina is there tonight on arrangement with Eyrgjafa, and the standing policy for family when they come to visit and are expected is that they can just let themselves in. Knocking and waiting on the front step is for people who aren't expected, and aren't related. By choice, if not by blood.
Inside, Tahmina is sitting in a large, comfortable chair with her feet pulled up and tucked under her, reading a book by the light of a lamp that's situated to cast illumination over her shoulder. She's wearing jeans and a comfortable sweater, and since she's inside and at home, not a scarf draped over her hair like she usually is in public.
Eyrgjafa is dressed pretty casually for her - skinny jeans and a plain teeshirt, with an open hoodie over top. It doesn't take her long after entering the house to join Tahmina, knocking on the doorway a couple of times to explicitly announce her presence. Even if her Beast will have done as much to let her family head know that this isn't some foolish mortal trying to rob the wrong house.
Tahmina looks up at the knock, then her face brightens at the sight of Eyrgjafa. "Hello, my dear" she says, before turning her wrist to glance at her watch. "It's time already! I guess I lost track of it." Her voice is its usual melodic mix of her French and Persian accents. She promptly fetches a bookmark from the table next to her chair, tucks it into the pages of her book, and then sets that aside on the same table as she gets up. "You're looking well," she says as she moves toward Eyrgjafa. She reaches to offer her usual light embrace and cheek kissing.
"What is a few hours to us?" Eyrgjafa smiles softly, returning the embrace and cheek kisses. "How have you been, Auntie?" The term of address is both affectionate and accurate. At least as Kindred measure blood ties.
"I try to remind myself to live in today as well," Tahmina answers with a soft laugh. "It starts to be too easy to lose too much if you start treating a day or a week as a triviality because you're a few hundred years old, I've found. I don't like who I became when I started to do that." She gestures toward the couch, which seems to be her preferred place to sit when she has company over. It's probably the tenth one that she's owned in the time that Eyrgjafa has known her, but they're always comfortable. She likes people to want to come and chat, after all.
"I've been doing well, though! Hm, the whole thing with that art show and the protests was an interesting bit of news, wasn't it? I hear that Shiri and Esme were there, as part of the protesting." She can be a bit of a gossip, but at least when she does it, she almost always means well, not ill. She just comes from an era of history when gossip was a primary means of passing the time.
"Yes, I heard the stage hands staged a walkout right as the show was meant to start. I imagine the organisers were rather embarrassed by that." Eyrgjafa chuckles as she takes a seat on the couch, crossing one leg over the other. "I didn't know Shiri or Esme were at the protest, though. Nothing happened to them, I hope?" Eyrgjafa might not be nearly as old as Tahmina, but she's no stranger to using gossip to pass the time either. There wasn't much else to do for fun in late nineteenth-century Iceland, after all.
"Oh no!" Tahmina says, but she laughs with delight, not dismay, at the news. "Did they? Someone has a sense of dramatic timing. Was it the union workers? That sounds like union workers. I hope that doesn't get them too much blowback." She says this with a familiar sparkle in her eye, the one that says she's probably going to look into it and see how much she can meddle.
"No, neither of them was hurt. I just saw them both the other night, to talk about Clayton." That would probably be Clayton Powers, who is the Keeper of Elysium for the Bala Cynwyd Elysium. "Apparently nobody seems to have heard from him in over a week. I don't suppose you have?"
It's no surprise to anybody who knows Tahmina at all that she looks worried, and probably no doubt in the minds of anybody who knows her that she's completely sincere in that. She's the rare gem of an elder vampire who seems to have managed to hold tenaciously to her humanity, or fought bitterly to regain it.
"No, but I hope he's fine." That's also sincere; Eyrgjafa doesn't spend much time out at Bala Cynwyd, but she likes its keeper well enough. And is impressively close to humanity as well, for someone who's seen out a century since her Embrace. "Do we know if he was having any unusual guests before he went silent?"
"Keep your eyes and ears open, and ask around, if you wouldn't mind?" Tahamina asks, and she almost always does ask, rather than tell. When she starts telling people they should do things instead of asking if they will, it's serious. Something is probably on fire if she tells people they must. "As far as I've heard, nothing was out of the ordinary. Esme's going to step in and take care of the place temporarily." No surprise, since she's a Sagamore and Keeper for the Chocolate Factory already. It's not much of a stretch. "Anyway, you had something you want to discuss too, didn't you?"
"Of course." Eyrgjafa says, nodding as she uncrosses then recrosses her legs, this time with the other one on top. "I did, yes. Two things, actually, now, but the second didn't come up until after I'd asked to meet." She pauses for a moment, rubbing her chin as she formulates her thoughts. "Do you know anything about a Shelby Goldstein? I ran into her in the supermarket while I was getting supplies for Mina-" Eyrgjafa's de-facto ward, a fourteen year old she took in three years ago "-and while talking to her she claimed to have sources on us."
Tahmina leans forward and rests an arm along the back of the couch, clearly expressing her interest in what her family member is bringing to her as news. She's one of those people that engages visibly when people are talking to her, not out of an overt effort to make them feel seen, but because she always seems to genuinely be interested, and she has hundreds of years of practice at fending off distractions, even from her own mind.
"No," she says after considering the question for a moment. "I can't say the name sounds familiar. Do you think that I should?" Then she smiles, her face lighting up a little. "Oh, that reminds me! I have something for Mina. Try not to let me forget to give it to you before you go? How is she doing, anyway?"
"Not especially? She seemed rather desperate, so I wasn't sure how much to believe her, but, well. Better safe than sorry, and so forth." Eyrgjafa shrugs slightly, before smiling at the question about Mina. "Good. She's just about to finish her freshman year at North Penn High, so she's worrying about exams right now mostly."
"Do you have a recommendation for what you think that we should do about the situation?" asks the Daeva Sagamore, leaning in a little bit, curious for her cousin's opinion on this stranger who purports to know more than she should. "Do you think she was human, or something else?"
"For now? Just monitor, I suppose. She didn't register as anything other than mortal, though she did claim to be able to see - and talk to - spirits." Eyrgjafa pauses for a moment, chewing - fangs retracted, she's not careless -on her lip in thought. "If she does know more than she ought, and doesn't turn out to be one of the Lost, we stand a better chance of learning who split the beans that way."
"Not an entirely unknown talent for mortals," Tahmina replies with an understanding nod. "Not exactly common, but we've certainly had no shortage of documented cases." Then she laughs. "Or instances of the Rodriguez family mentioning one turned up at one of the places they keep an eye on, because they were drawn by the spirit or ghosts there. If you think just keeping an eye on her is the way to go, then I certainly trust your judgement. Thank you for coming to me, but I have every confidence you have things in hand, or will ask for help if they stop being that way."
"Thank you for your confidence in me." Eyrgjafa seems genuinely grateful to be trusted like that, even if she has known Tahmina more than long enough to have earned such trust. Moving to stand, she hesitates, then settles back. "Before I forget - I ran into a new Inwictoos, Anna-Marie Cordray, at the Chocolate Factory Elysium last night. I'm not sure if she's genuinely incompetent at gathering allies or just pretending to be unable to tell who might be interested, but it seemed as if she might be attempting to plot a coup against our Sakima."
Sharing a sly smile at the pronunciation of the covenant's name, Tahmina raises a brow slightly at the mention of what brought this topic of conversation up. "Is that so? If she's new in town, and her efforts have already made it to the ears of the Caucus, then I suspect we don't have too much to worry about, but I'll let the Sakima know. I suppose we're about overdue for another attempt and the resulting round of deaths." A fact which she seems to regret. "If you can do anything to dissuade her from rushing headlong into her final death, it would be a service to her."
With Eyrgjafa moving toward standing, Tahmina does the same. "If you're going to go, I should get that gift for Mina. I saw it for sale and thought of her."
Eyrgjafa nods, rising completely. "Nobody there seemed interested in joining her, not even Henry. Quite the contrary, in fact. As I said, she was either incompetent or doing an excellent pretence of it." She smiles at the reminder of the gift for Mina. "I'm sure she'll love it. Shall I pass on your love to her as well?"
"You never do know for sure, so we'll have to keep an eye on her. If you can remember what she said more precisely, that might help," Tahmina says, then she rises to her feet and holds up a finger. "One moment, I'll be right back." At which she hurries off on her bare feet, before returning not two minutes later with a small wrapped gift. "I remember you mentioning a couple of months ago that she'd taken up a new hobby, so when I saw this at a shop I thought of her and had to get it. I hope that she likes it." She offers the gift to Eyrgjafa. "If you'd let her know that I was thinking of her, I'd appreciate it."
"Of course." She takes the box, placing it in her bag carefully so she won't lose or damage it. "Feel free to visit any time, if you'd like to talk to Mina. She does enjoy meeting you, even if she's getting to the age of feeling obligated to pretend otherwise."
"I'll have to come by soon," Tahmina agrees. "She can pretend she doesn't care if she likes. I was her age once, I understand how it goes." She grins. "Even if that was half a millennia ago, I still remember my mother's frustration with my attitude when I was that age. It's surprisingly vivid, of all the things to remember so well now." She puts her hands on her hips and adopts a disgruntled expression.
Eyrgjafa nods. "I do wonder what became of my mortal family after I left Reykjavík, sometimes. Not that even their children would likely still be alive, at this point."
"I hope that they fared better than I fear mine did," Tahmina says with a touch or sorrow, letting her hands fall back to her side. "The Safavids weren't kind to Mazdayasni. It's why I first fled my homeland in the first place. Later they started forcing those of my faith to convert or face execution, though that was centuries after I had left. It's possible my family still exists in some form or another, or those descended from my relatives, but..." she shrugs. "At this point I have to all but assume the answers are lost to the shroud of history."
"I'm sorry to hear that." Eyrgjafa hesitates for a second, then moves to offer Tahmina a hug. She'd never faced religious persecution herself, but that doesn't make it impossible for her to sympathise with those who have.
Tahmina returns the hug gratefully, and allows a soft sigh to escape her as she does. "Thank you," she says. "Do you think there might be a chance of finding the answers to your questions? I don't know what kind of record keeping they had in Reyjkavik at the time, but I suspect that it has probably been razed to the ground fewer times than Shamakhi has, just given its relative remoteness."
"Possibly? I'm not sure what if any digitisation has been happening to the records there." Eyrgjafa admits. "And, well, the limited pool of traditional names and use of patronymics wouldn't make it easy even if they have been put on the World Wide Web." Yes, she still calls it that.
"I suppose it depends on how much value you put on knowing those answers," Tahmina says with a gentle smile. "Not too unlike the study of the Coils, and the things we're able to achieve, right? Let me know if you think there's any way I could help. I don't know people in Iceland, but I can always reach out to see who I know who knows someone."
"True enough, I suppose." She hesitates for a moment, chewing on her lip. "If you could, I would appreciate that."
"Of course," Tahmina says, before reaching out to touch Eyrgjafa's arm lightly. "I'll see what I can do. It's also possible that one of the Circle's seers could glean something if you asked them, though they might want favors in return for whatever they could scrounge up." She offers an encouraging smile. "We'll see if we can find something together, though. Was there any other news?"
"Not for now, no." She returns the smile. "Before I go, though, do you have anything you would like to ask of me?"
"Do ask around about Clayton, please," Tahmina answers, with her worry returning. "And keep an eye on the other parties you mentioned, in case they need to be dealt with. Especially the mortal. If she knows anything real, and tells other people, she might be putting them in danger as well."
"As you say, so will it be done." Eyrgjafa murmurs. "Thank you for taking the time to host me, Tahmina. I hope the rest of your night goes well."
"Yours as well," Tahmina answers, as she steps forward to offer Eyrgjafa another hug. "It's always so good to see you."
Eyrgjafa returns the hug briefly, before turning to go for real.
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