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Click.
Where had the strange, pale lady gone? Who can say, but wherever it was, it was apparently someplace with access to the inside of the library whose doors were now swinging open to Henry in defiance of operating hours. Inside? The pale lady with the too-big smile, a touch of Halloween brushing past Henry as leaves swirl past his feet in a gust. "Come on in, the reading's fine."
Henry offers a polite, almost playful bow to the pale woman before stepping inside. "For some reason, I imagine you being big into horror and suspense novels. The build of anticipation, and the catharsis of a good spook. You're an interesting dame."
"I do delight in a good spook. One time I snuck into a hot spring and came up all bedraggled and scared the pants off a friend of mine." She holds the door for the moment then closes and relocks it after. "Thing is, I wasn't actually going for such a big scare. Kind of felt a bit of an ass for that one. But it's topical, so." It's dark inside, but she doesn't seem to be having any trouble with it. Not lightless, just not anything anyone would call well lit.
Well. Henry's a vampire; he's also fine with minimal light. He steps inside, leaning against one of the checkout desks and watches the dame quietly for a moment. "I, uh. Don't think I got a name for you, yet."
"Well, that's rather because you didn't, isn't it?" quips the lanky lass, twisting in place, planting a palm on a reading table and swinging herself up to perch picture-perfect on the edge of the table. "Not the wisest thing to go blabbing one's names about at the drop of a hat on the campus of a very recent extrajudicial ass-kicking, wouldn't you agree?"
"I suppose not. Do you think these books will snitch if we introduce ourselves here, or should I just think of you as 'that broad who makes me look clumsy'?" His smirk comes easily to him.
"Ah, well, if you like," crows the dame, beaming. "Though it's a disservice to yourself, sir, as I know perhaps two people total capable of keeping up with the sort of dance moves you had on display. It's not really fair, comparing oneself to me. For one, I'm cheating, and for another, I'm me. Now as for names, I think we've other questions best answered before we divulge such personal details. For instance, as a lady once in possession of her own set of fingermounted daggers, and likewise a significant time past her own era, I think I'd rather like to know how it is you came to be in the twenties the long way round?"
"I'm Kindred. And you're not human yourself; the way you move would be impossible for them. As you put it, you're cheating, and I'm definitely curious how." He pushes his glasses up his nose, catching one of the sparse glints of light like an anime villain for just a moment.
"Ah."
And here's the problem with being more or less completely guileless- when Johnnie hears that Henry's Kindred, her expression wrinkles in clear distaste. She sucks her teeth and sighs, nodding slowly, but it doesn't take much insight at all to tell she's not thrilled with the answer she got. She rolls her neck to buy time to think, then lifts one hand, letting her palm flop bonelessly upwards in explanation.
"Lost, here. Liberated plaything of the not-so-Kindly Ones, if you're not familiar. I'd still seem like I was cheating even if I wasn't cheating. I used to be almost this amazing all the time, but." She shrugs her shoulders. "It was overkill."
"Hey, I'm not about to turn around and try to neck you or anything. Alright? You're safe from me. Would be even if I could stand to drink Lost blood." He holds up his hands defensively, looking very, very sheepish. "It's not like I asked to be made like this, doll."
It's the last comment that gets her attention and has her roll her eyes back from where she'd been looking off to the side, playing off the loss of a significant portion of her power like it's no big deal. "... yeah?" It's a fascinating little concept, one she hasn't personally encountered. "Us neither. Though I sorta figured the whole undeath thing was a little more voluntary from the-" She stops, transparently opting to keep a slur of some sort tucked in her brain rather than on her lips. "-others I've run across."
"Some might be asked--some might even look for it. But I had no fucking choice in the matter. I was kidnapped by my sire because my brothers ran a rum-running operation in New York City, and my sire was pro-prohibition. She thought booze was a poison to the kine, and wanted to get rid of it however she could. And in the aftermath, she decided to keep me, Embrace me and train me up to be a proper servant of our covenant." There's a lot of bitterness behind the words, and he doesn't look at her as he speaks.
"..."
There's a long moment of silence. Then.
"... well, shit."
The word tumbles from the lady's mouth like poisoned rock, and she rolls off the table onto the balls of her feet, clearly agitated. "You know, it was a lot easier thinking of you fuckers like you were all the same sort of twisted, predatory bastards I've dealt with in the past. Same as the ones that've hurt people I care about, or hurt them in ways that the ones they hurt passed it on to people I care about. But of fucking course it's not that easy, is it? Of course if you've got a society with shit like that on top, it's gotta have someone to shit on." She's stalking. Fingers fidgeting, flexing.
He watches her quietly. "That's how it is a lot of places, people like that climb up the ranks, get rewarded for their ruthlessness and skills at manipulation. Here...not so much, a lot of the time. There's actually a law in this city that's not a thing in almost any other city around: 'People are not Property'. It's enforced, too."
"It's enforced when it's discovered, you mean," mutters Johnnie. "No law sees in the dark. Even if the ones enforcing it do." Something to note- she gets twitchy, the darkness gets twitchy. It's less subtle now that she's openly upset. It rolls in tides, like a cat makin' biscuits. A really big, really dark, really everywhere cat. "S'a good law. Don't get me wrong. And it'd be shitty of me to judge y'all on the failures of local law without any record of its successes. Your story ain't that different from a lot of ours. Something saw something useful. Took it. Changed it and Made It Theirs."
"I figured- assumed- the gal I read about was a one-off. You guys are-" She takes a long, deep breath. "Really fucking unpopular with folx from out of town. 'We don't do that here' only flies so far with folx who've lost like some I know. But when the bosses say someone, even one of you, is alright, I take them at their word. But figured that one chick, just one, okay, fine." She rubs at her temples.
"I mean. I'm not perfect, certainly no saint. But...what you saw me do in that dance studio, that wasn't some sort of game or ulterior motive or anything, alright? That was because some twit ought've stepped in to help, and I was the nearest twit who could."
He watches the shadows, trying to remain still, to show he's not freaked out, but...he's kinda very freaked out by the way everything is fluctuating.
She takes another deep breath and huffs it out slow. "... I mean, nobody's perfect, right? But there's not perfect, and then there's like. The full-blown suite of undermining of autonomy that y'all got access to. I might not know the serial numbers and bar codes for every trick, but I know there's at least three entirely different ways y'all can just- choose how someone else is gonna feel or act. And there's a damn fair number of y'all ain't got bones about putting that to use. Not-" She stops moving and jams her thumbs in her pockets. "... not that that's topical in the least with what you actually just said. You helped. Didn't have to, did. That was good of ya. Ya probably saved a good half of them an ass beating, too. I go pretty hard and I ain't too subtle when I do. By the time someone's earned my attention, the only consideration they're getting from me is a lease on life. S'about it. So... g'job."
The shadows have relaxed as she did. It's not hard to connect the two.
"Ah. The mindfuckery disciplines. Yeah, you're not wrong, those are some bullshit. I, uh. Know my word probably doesn't mean shit to you, but. The closest I get to those is talking to animals. Most of my stuff is concentrated on me. You, uh, noticed the 'fingermounted daggers'. I can do a few other things, with changing my own form in ways." He shrugs. "Become an animal, shit like that."
She nods. "Yep. Those're the ones. Thoughts, feelings, and addictions. The whole concept is just- fucked, for us. So it's not a surprise most of us haven't got much patience for y'all." At the mention of claws, she lets her hand drift as she starts to pace again, dragging it through the shadows like fingers in a stream. Startlingly, the "stream" ripples, and clings to her fingers as she draws them up, leaving her hand a very interesting, very dark set of literal fingerknives, apparently with the edges lining the knuckles, not the palms. She studies her hand a moment, then releases the shadows again to dissolve without further fanfare. "I've started branching out. I used to focus solely on making myself a weapon. The sort that nothing could stand against. I did pretty well at it, but apparently one of the downsides of being an idealized weapon is that you sort of become a shitty-ass person. So. Kinda been rolling that back. Investing in some other shit. Like knowing about the brands of mindfuckery Kindred pack, for instance."
"It was fun watching you fight. I miss having hands that lethal. Even if they did suck for massages."
Henry does inch back from her when the fingerknives appear, clearly unsure whether to take that as a threat at all.
"Y'know, you don't have to have patience with me. I don't need you to approve of the fact that I exist. All of that's optional. Sure, yeah, I'd like for you to like me, because that's kinda how things are, who doesn't like to be liked? But. It's whatever, doll."
Thankfully, they're gone, now.
"No, I don't, but of all the things I am, I try very hard to never be unfair. At least not more than once, anyhow." Oddly specific. "It's not about approving your existence, it's a challenge to a previously assumed Fact that seems very much not Fact. Just coming to terms with the fact that I might have to find out whether or not bloodsuckers, in fact, suck. Not as much of a given as previously assumed, which is a little staggering."
"We suck blood. Some of us suck as people--I'm not gonna blow smoke up your ass and say all of us don't. But. We're fucking individuals, doll. That's what you stand to find out for yourself." He lets out a bit of a laugh. "Bet you Lost are the same way, mm?"
Fair point. She acknowledges it with a bob of her head. "I mean, we aren't all as incredible as me, after all. For the best, really." She straightens up and sighs. "Yeah. Individuals. I'll try to keep that in mind. Cuz you're right, of course." Her mind flits to Robin, the Bridge Burners. "Too right."
"The world would break under the strain of an army of you, I think. You're one hell of a dame." He chuckles, and then holds out a hand. "My name's Henry Moynihan, of Clan Gangrel if that means anything to you."
"I am thoroughly convinced that the world could break under the strain of so many as two, but that's my ego talking," she admits, taking his hand and shaking it. There's no strength to the grip. She's all grace. "Call me Vorpal. Or Jackie, if I'm stuck pretending to be An People in public. Of Autumn, as it happens, though if you didn't pick that up on your own, I'm not responsible."
"Vorpal...wasn't there a poem about some sort of a vorpal sword or something?" Henry's also got a totally weak handshake--they're really built similarly, these noodlefolk. "Nice to meetcha properly, I think."
If there's a response to the last comment, it's lost in the temptation to put on a bit of a show at the mention of the poem. She does love that poem. "’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves," she cries, throwing a hand out towards one of the rare patches of moonlight. Little shadowshapes slither into the light to play out the nonsense poem as she imagines it. "Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe." She looks back to Henry and waggles her brows. "Ring any bells?"
He seems fascinated by the shadow-puppet show, laughing. "Something like that, yeah."
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