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Atalo is sat quietly at his counter, a sketchpad resting on it as the vampire draws careful lines, copying a few pictures of people and buildings. The lines are neat and accurate, and he has a steady hand, but anyone looking can see the pictures are flat, lacking any real emotion or presence.
The door chimes. A familiar face walks in. "Atalo?"
He's staring at the drawings and taps the end of his pencil on the counter. Normally this isn't a problem, but appearing distracted, he forgets to pay attention and the end splinters.
With a faint sigh the vampire tosses it in the bin next to him and looks up from the sterile drawings. "Good evening Mearcstapa." A polite smile without any real depth. "How are you tonight?"
He jumps easily when Atalo shatters the pencil so easily. "Better than you, it looks like. Uh, is now a bad time?"
"I look bad?" He cants his head, then looks down at the drawings again. "Can I ask what you see?" He pushes the image of a man's face forward, one devoid of any life. "I've had time to think since recent events, when you were last here. And I'm finding myself uneasy."
"You just kind of ogred that pencil, and your drawings express...mm. A hollowness. A facade of humanity. Do you feel guilty for what happened?" He walks over to lean forward over the counter and look at the drawings.
"No." He answers. "She threatened someone in my store, I responded and she chose to escalate it. I am simply.." He pauses, searching for words. "Trying to prove to myself I'm not hollow. I'm unsure if I am, if this is how my pictures are." He gestures at them. "And I'm also worried I admit, that I might have offended Rosalyn."
The rumble of Guy’s bike announces his presence before he makes his way into the shop, taking in any presences before he walks to the counter and nods to the two there. “Good evening,” he says quietly.
"I saw Rosalyn earlier today. She didn't seem to be holding onto the event very firmly. Her motorcycle might be another story, don't know how he'll feel about bringing her here in the future, but. She mentioned that she stayed out of it because it wasn't her dispute." He pauses, glancing up at Guy, a smile blooming on her face. "Evening, yourself."
"Yes, I'm curious about that motorcycle." He looks up as Guy enters and smiles politely, carefully gathering his drawings together into a neat stack. "Good evening Guy, it's good to see how. How are you tonight?"
“I am well...feeling a little...in my head. Thought I’d come see how you’re doing, Atalo,” he says, before looking to Mearc. “And since you’re here, you too, Mearcstapa.”
"Hm, between the three of us, there's a definite brain-fog in the room, huh?" He watches Atalo tuck the drawings away, straightening and tucking his hands in his pockets.
"A little what?" Atalo asks Guy. "I am.. well. Just, trying to gain some understanding. And are you feeling guilty Mearcstapa?" He pauses again, reaching out to gently pat Cerberus. "People." He comes out of nowhere, looking to Guy. "I am trying to understand people."
He nods. “I’m...sometimes I think too much, and get mired in it. It’s not bad, to do some good thinking, it’s just...heavy. I think about what I am, and am not. Maybe I can see Petra later and stop thinking a while. As for people...what are you trying to understand, Atalo?”
"Do you two need a referral to a therapist with whom you can be honest about your nature? Because, uh. There's one in town who I've seen in the past, for my anxiety issues. A changeling, like me." He smiles, but...he hasn't really answered the question about how he's doing either, has he?
A nod at Guy. "I can understand that. I am, we are, it's complicated. And people." He raises his hands, gesturing. "I loved someone once, and I keep hoping to find that again, but I'm unsure how." A look towards Mearcstapa. "You didn't answer." He notes quietly. "But, perhaps seeking advice is a good idea, yes. There are a few vampires I might talk to first though, to see if they can offer guidance."
Mearc gives Atalo a shrug. "I'm still trying to process my way through how I'm feeling about what happened. How I feel about her. I've never...I had never...you know. That was a new experience for me, and it didn't feel like a moment of triumph, really."
It might be unsurprising that a person with eclectic tastes and a menial retail job is deeply familiar with thrifting. Still - new city. Nevy can’t depend on her old (heh) haunts. This place looks promising - plenty of character, and nocturnal too? Be still her Goth heart!
She enters the store, glancing around in interest, her outfit as Goth Victorian Pirate as ever.
"It wasn't triumph." He moves out from behind the counter to stand in front of Meacrstapa. "It wasn't glorious, or right, or anything good. It was however.." And then someone unknown enters and he ceases the conversation with a faint nod to Mearc, looking Nevy's way with a polite smile. "Good evening, and welcome. Can I help you find anything?"
“Such things never are.” He glances to Mearc. “I’d say you get used to it, but I hope you don’t have to. Unless that’s what you want.” He turns to Nevy. “Fancy meeting you here,” he says blandly.
"Nevermore." He recognizes the goth, clearly, and there's a moment where he sort of short circuits, because there is no way that previous conversation is happening with (a glance at the pronoun pin) her in the room today. He kinda goes blank for a moment, as he tries to work out how even what next.
She smiles. “Greetings!” She announces in her melodrama voice, before continuing more normalcy, “I wanted to see wh-“ she’s interrupted by the sight of Guy. She blinks a bit, looking... not upset to see him, but certainly nonplussed. Then Mearc speaks and she looks with a smile that pauses as she notices the blank look. “Hey, Two-Face,” she says tentatively. “Everything okay?”
"Neccesary." He states quietly in Mearc's ear, concluding his previous sentence. "And, Nevermore? A friend to Mearcstapa?"
His eyes take in the pronoun pin, and he leans on the counter. “Perhaps introductions are in order.” To the others, Guy is just in his resting Terminator face, to the new human, he comes across with a bit of a serial killer vibe, like he’s pretending to have emotions and isn’t good at it.
After a moment, he relaxes somewhat and then straightens to make proper introductions.
"Nevermore Lost-Lenore Usher, allow me to present Atalo Ceres, thrift shop owner and generally decent fellow; he does take 'hey can you look out for...?' requests. And Guy Dagenham, who's...pretty alright. Gentlemen, Nevy Usher. She's a friend of mine from Chicago. Atalo, if you want to know something about putting passion into your art, this is the person to talk to."
Alex and Guy creep people out for different reasons, which probably doesn't help the general atmosphere of Atalo's shop much when Alex slips in through the front door, wearing a knee length floral patterned dress and a denim jacket. She's a Nosferatu, which means she comes with a general sense of being really eerie and offputting, even though she doesn't have any of the physical horribleness that the Nosferatu often come with. She smiles when she enters to find not only Atalo, but also Mearcstapa and Guy in the store as well. "A whole array of people I've been interested in talking to," she delights, with an added smile of attempted reassurance Nevermore's way.
She also has her laptop bag over a shoulder, because she always has her laptop bag with her.
Nevy grins at the introduction and compliment. She gives an elaborate bow that seems as though it might be out of some 17th century royal court (it’s not, if anyone knows those customs).
A glance between Guy and Mearc serves to determine whether she needs to be as nervous about the man who looks like he’s got 3 names and was such a quiet boy, who could have expected?
“At your service,” she says, then turns to look at the newcomer with a smile that flickers as the effects of Nosferatu hit her. She also glances at Mearc to gauge the newcomer, because something feels off.
Atalo offers Nevermore a hand to shake, but his movements are a little rigid, seeming like someone simply following motions and manners he'd learned from books. "I do." He nods in confirmation. "And I would like to ask you for art advice if you're willing." Alex receives a slight smile and he nods her way. "Hello Alex. How are you keeping? It's good to see you."
“Oh thank God, Alex, Mearcstapa could use another normal person to help balance things out for Nevermore, here. I think we were about to scare her away.” He chuckles, grinning slightly. “Anyway. Good to meet you, Nevermore, it’s nice meeting friends of Mearcstapa’s.”
"Lex." He offers the Nos a smile, then steps a little closer to Nevy, offering proximal comfort (though no touch). "Nevermore Montressor Usher, allow me to introduce Alex Shaw. She and I used to go to all the same security conferences. Lex, Nevy. The Biggest Goth Dork I knew in my time in Chicago."
Alex pats her bag and answers Atalo, "I came by with some plans for the updates to your system, and a proposal for how long it will take and what it will cost for both the software and my time, plus ongoing support."
"What a day when I'm considered a normal person, and not the weird computer geek with too many fandoms," Alex answers Guy with a laugh.
"Nevermore Montressor Usher?" She pauses for a fraction of a second before saying, "your first name is as long as my entire name, including the space. That's quite a moniker you've got. It's nice to meet a friend of Mearcstapa's." And she steps forward to hold a hand out, where her eyes also catch Nevermore's pin and she silently files the knowledge away with a smile.
She shakes Atalo’s hand with a smile. “Well, you’ll want to see a copy of my work first - make sure our styles would work out. But if you like what you see, sure, I can work with you. Would you be paying cash, or...?”
Guy gets a smirk. “Bold of you to assume I’m normal. How’d the ice cream go after I left yesterday?”
Nevy’s eyebrows raise at Alex’s introduction. “So you’re the computer equivalent to two-face here?” She says, forcing her shoulders to relax and (after a moment) shaking Alex’s hand too. “Such insult, isn’t it?” she says with melodramatic exaggeration. “To be called normal?”
She bleps afterward to show that the insult is in jest
A nod and quite smile for Alex. "I'd like to take a look please, see what's there. I might not understand everything, but, I hope to learn."
He looks between Alex and the others. "I'm unsure what would count as normal, everyone is different."
And for Nevy, he offers her a stack of his drawings after the handshake, mostly of people's faces. They're neatly drawn, but they seem empty, hollow. There's no apparent emotion in the sketches. "I am just, learning to express." He admits quietly, manner a touch withdrawn.
He nods at Nevermore. "She's pretty much the best digital gun in the west, Alex is." And then his gaze shifts to Atalo, and his expression turns thoughtful.
He laughs softly, patting his chest. “Ok, we’re all not normal, sure.” He pulls his phone out, a new model for him. It’s a smart phone, even. He sends a quick text, and then models his phone for Alex and Mearc. “I got an upgrade.”
"Most of the time I'd say it is, but once in a while I feel like I'd love to be normal," Alex says candidly, since that's frequently the kind of person that she is. She takes Nevy's hand with one that continues the same eerily perfect symmetry of the rest of her. Her red painted nails, for instance, look like they might have been given a flawless manicure just hours ago. "I am the computer equivalent, but..." she looks at Mearcstapa and asks, "two-face? As in Harvey Dent?"
She turns as she flips open her laptop bag, then unzips it and moves to Atalo to offer him a small binder. "Here are all the details," she says. "You can call me at any point if you have questions. If it looks good, I can get the process started next week."
"Let me know if you want some help with some tweaks for security," she tells Guy. "In case it gets lost or stolen, for instance."
Nevy looks over the artwork. “Hmm,” she says. “Your line work is good, but the expressions are... a little off. Did you draw these with a reference, or freehand?”
She suppresses a shiver at Alex’s touch, which somehow reminds her of a mannequin or a corpse (and not in the good way). She forces a smile, though. “Yep. Or as in Janus, two-faced god of Rome.”
Atalo nods, taking the binder and carefully looking through it. He glances at Mearc in response to that gaze, canting his head before studying the binder once more. "I'll see about finding good questions." He tells Alex with a nod, before turning his attention to Nevy. "They are, with references. From pictures. And yes, they feel hollow. It's hard to capture their emotions."
Mearc glances at Guy's phone and grins. "Welcome to 2020. Have you installed Signal on it yet?"
And then he lightly touches Nevy's sleeve, trying to offer his comfort and support without being too 'loud' about it, flashing Alex a somewhat apologetic smile.
“Of course,” he says to Alex, nodding. “I’d never turn down an expert’s advice.”
“I have,” he says to Mearc, eyes taking in the touch in a flicker of his eyes, withholding any comment. “Thank you for telling me about it, it’s been really useful.” He tucks the phone away, looking at Nevy for a brief moment before turning to Atalo. “I was never much of an artist, but I’m sorry to hear you’re struggling.”
"Oh," Alex laughs when Nevy explains the nickname. Her laugh is beautiful and warm and, to mortal ears, as creepy as the rest of her. "I forget you have a given name most of the time, Mearcstapa." She tries her best to act like everything is normal, even if she's clearly creeping out the mortal in the room. Unfortunately she's not great at acting, so it's probably not hard to tell she's a bit bothered by the effect she has. She shifts a little closer to Guy, ostensibly to look at the phone, but mostly to give Nevy some space. "I'd like to sit down and talk to you about your employer too, so maybe we could cover both topics some time? I've talked to Eyrgjafa and Floretta, but I'd like your perspective too, before I really consider applying for a position."
Mearc smiles. "Well. Chosen, but it's a first name, at least. And seriously, the only person in town who ever really took to using it...won't be around to use it anymore."
The comment starts lighthearted, and ends devoid of tone.
"Thank you." He tells Guy with a nod. "I'm planning to work on it." He gives Mearc a troubled look but doesn't comment.
He chuckles after Mearc speaks, then gives Alex a brief and hopefully reassuring touch on the arm. “Of course I’d like to talk. No matter your thoughts, I’ll gladly share my experience about it with you. Hopefully it will at least help you make a decision.” He nods to Atalo, then looks down at the floor.
Alex winces and nods at Mearc's explanation. "I got the impression you didn't really care for people using it anyway, and I like Mearcstapa as a name choice. It's certainly more unique than anything I've got going on, appellation wise."
When Guy touches her she seem surprised, but not bothered. It just causes her to pause a moment and glance at his hand, but then the smile she offers him is appreciative. "That would be great. I can repay the gift of your perspective with a little bit of security consulting. Sounds like a business date to me."
"Lex, I could disprove that pretty easily, but you don't use that moniker in meatspace." He brightens back up as he teases the Nos. As you do.
The Gangrel hums thoughtfully, shuffling his drawings and then stepping back to listen and patting Cerberus lightly.
“Sounds good,” he says with a nod. Looking to the others, he raises an eyebrow. “Meatspace?”
"The various handles I use on the net are just the results of a teenage computer geek with a dictionary file and a working knowledge of the 'grep' command," Alex says with a quiet laugh. "Back in the days when I had weird notions about being edgy or whatever."
She explains to Guy, "the real world. As opposed to cyberspace, the internet. Which, for the record, is not an actual place, no." With a circle of her red lacquered finger she indicates the shop. "This is meatspace." Then she slides over to Atalo and asks, "can I see your drawings? I'm curious."
"You honed that edge just as you ought to have." He chuckles, then looks at Guy. "What, you've never jammed with the console cowboys in cyberspace?"
"They are not very good.* He tells Alex quietly, but produces them all the same." I'm trying to get better at talking to people. I thought this might help."
He tilts his head at the explanation. “That’s an interesting choice for referring to the physical world....is it really dominated by meat in people’s minds?”
When Mearc speaks, he blinks, the meaning of the Changeling’s sentence completely lost on him. “Um...no?”
He laughs. "It's more about...existing physically, in a shell of meat that serves as a container for the person you are online. I can give you a reading list for some of the concepts underlying the topic."
Nevy returns from the washroom. “Mearc, I think what you just described is illegal in 3 states and only possible if you have a very intelligent horse.” They wink.
"I think Mearc has the right of it," Alex says as she takes the pictures from Atalo and starts looking at them. "People mostly are just a bunch of grey jello in a meat suit that squirts air through itself and flaps around in the right way to make sounds, which makes us all pretty ridiculous when you think about it."
“Ah...so there are others who understand,” he says cryptically, with a nod. “Sounds like they’re still giving their meat too much credence,” he murmurs, eyes wandering a rack of shirts. “It is ridiculous...”
"No." The Vampire states with sudden certainty. "We aren't just flesh. We are deeper than that, greater than what forms us would make us seem." He blinks. "Or so I believe." He mutters.
Nevermore nods, her expression unexpectedly serious. "There's flesh and there's spirit. They're intertwined, but we're made of both."
"It isn't that we're just meat. It's that in this world, our meat is what people see of us, whereas in the nebulous realm of the internet, that's not what's visible; it's our words and the avatars we express that are seen and known, and in some ways that can be more misleading. And in some, it can be much, much more honest." There's a pause, and he touches Nevy's sleeve again gently.
She glances at him, looking curious.
"I've never really been sure how much it even matters," Alex says with a shrug. "Whether we're just meat or there's something greater to us, it doesn't really change anything to me, anyway. The meat isn't the most interesting part, or the most important part, it's all the things we decide to do while we're here, right?"
He glances at Nevy, then back at nothing. “The flesh is a lie,” he says simply.
"Guy, you're getting awfully philosophical tonight. I didn't know you had that in you." Mearc seems amused to hear it.
Nevy glances down at herself. "Some of us are more untruthful than others," they say with a rueful half-smirk.
"A lie?" Alex asks, like she's genuinely interested in the perspective Guy might have to share. She finishes flipping through Atalo's drawings and tucks them away with the folder she had brought him. "I think that it can lie, but it isn't necessarily one in and of itself, is it?"
“Hasn’t come up before, and it’s...important to me,” he says in answer to Mearc.
He chuckles at Nevy, grinning. “Indeed.”
He looks to Alex for a moment. “Is this body me? If I had another, would I still be me? It is merely a vessel, and that vessel is a lie, because it can’t be me.”
"Do you believe in an afterlife, Guy?" The question comes with a bit of a crooked smile.
Nevy shoots Mearc a cautious look, at that question.
"Oh, I'm with you on all of those things," Alex says as she leans against the counter. "Your body isn't you, any more than a car is you if you drive it around town. But that doesn't make the car a lie, it just makes it an instrumentality of your will." She turns her gaze toward Nevy and Mearcstapa, then back to Nevy. "Sorry, if this topic is making you uncomfortable we can change it."
They blink. "Oh - no, that's not... no, it's fine." They give a lopsided smile. "Trust me. The Goth has Opinions about life and death."
“No,” he says to Mearc. “At least, not for myself. Heaven or whatever waits on the other side is simply not my concern.”
He seems to be about to respond to to Alex, then bites it back. “I’ll explain what I mean later, this isn’t a good time for it...”
Nevy chuckles. "Well, the Afterlife - if there is one - is going to affect all of us sometime. Nobody lives forever."
"All the more reason to keep doing the work on this end, Guy. I was raised Jewish, there's a concept in our culture about the purpose of this life being to...mend or repair or heal the world. We've never really put as much emPHAsis on the afterlife, compared to Some Religions I could speak of." There's a tiny glance at Nevy, and a bit of a humorless chuckle. "Well, that's a reassuring thought."
"Later then," Alex answers, smiling like she's looking forward to the discussion. Apparently the geek enjoys philosophical conversations. "You're probably right," she tells Nevy with no irony or dissembling, since the fact of the matter is that eventually even all the vampires will die. And most of them actually have shorter lives than the average mortal does. "I just figure that at the moment that's unknowable to me, so there's not much point in worry about it much." She points Mearc's direction. "That's pretty much the stand I take, even if I'm not Jewish. I feel like I should make the best of this world, in the sense that I should try to make it the best place I can."
“That’s a good philosophy to have on life. The world would be a better place if more people thought that way,” he says, nodding to Mearc and Alex.
Nevy nods, looking distant. "It's important to make the world a better place for the people who are, uh... living on it."
"Tikkun olam, if you want to look it up, Guy. 'The repair of the world'. Which extends to more than people, if we're honest."
Alex briefly considers Nevy before she asks, "and the dead? I wonder how much ghosts might care about the state of the world after they've left it." She laughs, not at the idea, but at herself. "If they exist, they're definitely well outside of my own area of expertise. I wouldn't know where to begin answering that question." She's definitely not bringing up vampires.
Nevy considers the other young woman curiously. "Well..." She says. "In the stories... not all of them can even think to care. They're... like memories, sometimes? There, but not really there."
He glances at Alex, then at Nevy. “Shades left behind by what was once a person,” he says with a little nod.
"Nevermore? Do you remember what I said about extrapolating the other day?" There's a mild sidelong look.
She looks at him, brow furrowed in confusion, then she blinks.
"Has anyone here actually seen a ghost?" Alex asks, in a way that suggests she's curious more than dubious. "They're one of those things that, like the existence of an afterlife or a god, I'm ready to believe if there's some evidence, but I've never actually been provided any of that evidence."
“What, you’ve never seen a ghost?” he asks Alex, apparently genuinely surprised she hasn’t. “Maybe you haven’t been to the right spots...”
Mearc shakes his head. "I've never seen a ghost myself. I'm not sure if I'd want to, either. No disrespect, but. I have enough strange in my world."
"I mean, we goths all talk to ghosts. My hairdresser died in the 40s." Nevy says with a smirk.
Alex peers at Nevy for a couple of seconds, contemplative, and then just moves on. "I haven't," she admits to Guy with a shrug. "I'm a computer geek, not a ghost hunter. If I drive around town with weird equipment it's because I'm wardriving, not looking for specters," she adds with a smile before looking at Nevermore and asking, "which 40s?"
"All of them. It's a large team."
He looks between Mearc and Nevy for a few moments, and then smiles to Alex. “Nonsense, don’t need that crap. I can show you a couple spots you mind find something if you’re around enough.”
Mearc sticks his hands back in his pockets quietly. "I bet there's some interesting ones in town, huh?"
Alex laughs and replies to Nevermore, "infinite, when you get right down to it! All of the 40s would include the ones yet to come, right? 2040, 2140, and so on." Sometimes she is such a nerd. "Can you even get ghosts from the future?" Then again, this is the woman who was wondering if vampires could serve in Starfleet. She looks at Guy. "Is it safe?" she asks, like she's definitely taking his offer seriously.
Nevy glances at Guy, then at Mearc, but doesn't say anything. She tugs at one sleeve of her coat.
“Safe? Sure. I haven’t come across anything dangerous in the places I’m thinking of. And I’d be there,” he says with a shrug.
Mearc shrugs slightly. "Safety is an illusion."
Nevermore has fallen silent and thoughtful, playing with the sleeves of her coat and with brow furrowed.
"I'm interested, then." Alex gives Mearc a glance, frowns a moment, and then shrugs. "True, though sometimes it's nice to forget that for a while."
“True, but I’m operating from ‘nothing is safe’ as a baseline there.” He shrugs. “No point in that stopping us from doing something interesting.” He turns to Alex, thinking. “Mind if Petra comes, if she’s available?”
"Nothing is safe, nothing is secure. All barriers can be defeated, and are only truly a request for a boundary to be respected. The civil will, but not everyone is civil. All one can do is try to help others feel safe, and continue on knowing that they're not. That none of us are." He glances up at the ceiling, then at Nevermore. "I'm sorry. Do you want to leave?"
She takes a breath, and looks at the people around her. "I... do you think that would be a good idea?"
"No," Alex says after a moment to think about it. "Definitely not. I'd be glad to meet her anyway." She turns to look at Nevy for a second before she asks, "are you alright? I hope I didn't say anything wrong." She glances at Mearc, looking both a little confused and guilty.
"Naw, these two are cool to hang around with, even if they wanna go ghost-hunting. Just...don't get too nosy with them, as a rule."
Nevy looks at Alex. "No. No, it's not that. It's just..." They give a strained smile. "Well. It's been a long day."
He tilts his head, listening to Mearc’s little rant. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” he says softly, before looking to Alex. “Yeah? Thank you. I’ll ask her, and then reach out to you to find a time.”
"Sorry to hear that," Alex responds, with just a glance at Mearc and the things he says, before she continues to Nevy. "If you're going to take off, for what it's worth, I like you, so I hope we run into each other again." She looks at Guy and admits, "I have pretty much the same perspective Mearcstapa does. Working in security gives you that kind of view, and so do... certain life events. You remember my experience with him, I'm sure."
Nevy takes a deep breath. "Maybe... I ought to go, regardless." She glances between the others with an uncertain smile. "It was nice to meet you. I hope I haven't intruded."
"Nevy...text me later?"
She nods. When she gets to the door, she recovers a touch of her normal elan, sketching an elaborate bow before she heads out.
"Bye!" Alex calls after Nevermore, and when she's gone Alex looks at Mearc. "Sorry," she says.
He sighs softly as Nevermore departs. “Sorry if I made your friend uncomfortable, Mearcstapa.” He looks to the two, eyes sad. “And I’m sorry so much was taken from both of you. I can’t...agree with your line of thinking, but I don’t think either of you are interested in my path...”
"Nevermore...she's still human. She's not like us, even if she can see ghosts. She's not part of the world the three of us know. But she's curious, and I've...hinted that I know more than I've made explicit, and that what I don't tell her is for her sake. So. That's where some of my tension in that conversation was. I didn't want her to ask too many questions and get in over her head with you." He glances over his shoulder at the door, then back to Guy. "What is your path, then?"
"I could tell she was," Alex agrees with a nod. "Even if just by the way she reacted to me. I tried to put her at ease, but..." she sighs.
“The world is full of horrors. Safety doesn’t exist, security an illusion. So I fight. I fight because I won’t die quietly. Because it’s only fair that those I care about have a monster too...”
Lethia, back in her casual goth mode, strolls in smoking her usual cloves. Before she comes in she makes sure the bells above the door ring, and only after nothing happens does she enter all the way. "'Hello all, you kill Atalo and stuff his ashes in the back?" She asks as she stubs out her cigarette on the sole of her boot.
"No, no. He's going inventory things in the back. I have a personal rule to only kill one vampire a week, maximum. The Sakima might get pissed off otherwise." There's a sour note to the joke.
"He hasn't even paid me for the work I'm doing, yet. That would be bad business," Alex jokes to Lethia, in a similar tone. As she turns to look at Guy she says, "that's not really an incompatible philosophy. I work to teach people to be a little less unsafe, to close some of the openings in their defenses. I don't have much talent for actually fighting, physically, but I also specialize in the sorts of attacks that physical defenses aren't much use against, too."
He waves to Lethia before looking over Mearc. “How are you doing? I can’t imagine that was easy for you, not matter how you hated her...”
He nods to Alex. “The work you do is important, I’ll never say otherwise.”
“Hey, Lethia. Visited your Club. It’s a bit much for me, had to leave in a hurry. But Petra didn’t mind my reaction, so I guess it all worked out.”
"It can be a bit overwhelming, yeah, but I'm glad you had an okay time, Guy. And I'm glad you didnt, I would have had to get revenge if you did!" Lethia says with a smile. "But congratulations on your kill Mearc! Did you do anything to celebrate afterwards?"
"No. But I have kept her ashes. Is there anyone who'll want those back?"
"Thanks," Alex says to Guy before moving on. "Lethia, I should come check your club out some time. I'm not sure if it will be my thing, but you know what? I might have better luck finding people who are into the creepy thing, if you don't people looking for dinner dates there." She looks at Mearc and winces. "Definitely not me."
“Yes, well, eating a sex club isn’t high on my priority list, I have a stable life and a firm grasp on my humanity and everything right now. But....no, I certainly don’t want them. I’d say dump them in the river, but apparently doing that with toxic waste is illegal now.”
"Sure, I know some people who'd want them. I can even deliver them if you want. And feel free Alex, there's a group of people that're totally into being fed on that hang out there." Lethia shrugs at Guy's comment. "Humanity is overrated my dude."
"I mean, any of her people who'd want them. If she had family, I'd offer them first dibs. Otherwise, I might keep them." He takes a deep breath. "I should head out. Text Nevy. You all behave?"
He looks over Mearc for a moment. “Have a good night, Mearcstapa, be well. Feel free to to reach out if you need anything.”
"Oh, Nevy was here? Say hi to her, or whichever pronoun the wheel is set to, for me!" She says with a small grin. "And be careful out there Boundary, shit is getting weird."
"Shit has been weird, Lethia. Just hold onto your harness." He chuckles, and then walks out.
“You know Nevermore, Lethia? Somehow I’m not surprised,” he says with a chuckle. “I think I scared her.”
"She came to my bar the other night. She seemed nice, but I had to deal with some drunk rambling about fishpeople so I didnt get to meet her for long." Lethia says with a sigh. "It's not like I know every goth in town."
Alex gives a parting wave to Mearc and then tells the vampires, "I'm sure I didn't help with the frightened, thing. She actually shuddered when she touched me."
“I...hope you didn’t mind that I did after. People nowadays are so weird about it in general, and people who’ve been through certain things...yeah. So sorry if I overstepped. But I wanted to be reassuring.”
Lethia pats Alex's shoulder consolingly. "You're gonna have that effect sometimes. It's just part of the Beast. But I'm sure you personally didnt scare her too bad, if anything Guy probably scared her more with his face."
Alex seems to take a second to figure out what Guy is referring to, and then she remembers his touch to her arm. "No, actually," she answers him without hesitation, once she figures out what he meant. "I didn't mind, and it was reassuring. I'm a really tactile person, and people not wanting to be close to me most of the time has been one of the hardest parts about adjusting. You have my permission to keep doing so if the mood strikes you." She smiles wanly at Lethia and admits, "I got jabbed pretty hard in that same sensitivity last night, when every decided to sit across the table from me instead of next to me at Elysium. It was probably silly, in retrospect, but..." she shrugs.
He frowns at Alex’s words, and pats her other shoulder. “Least your fellow Kindred can do is reassure you that you are wanted, even if your Beast frightens mortals.” He fixes Lethia with a look, though it’s clearly in jest. “It’s because I’m tall, clearly.”
"Ah, yeah, sorry, learned behavior on my part. You had your notes and laptop arranged, and when my girl does that I'm supposed to sit on the other side of the table." Lethia says apologetically. To Guy she returns the look in jest. "That can be half of it, sure. The other half..."
"The other half is the jawline. Who wouldn't be intimidated?" Alex adds with a smirk. To Lethia she adds, "like I said, it was probably silly. Especially since vampires don't get creeped out by me the way that mortals do. I just deal with it everywhere else I go, and it's pretty annoying. I can't go work in a coffee shop without it slowly emptying of people."
“We should go out and have a Starbucks to ourselves, sometime,” he says with a small smile. “But really, I’m sorry you’re stuck in that situation; my situation is slightly different and I’m used to it, but...well, I understand. I can only imagine how much of a pain it is for you.”
"Eugh, coffee. I still dont know how people drink that stuff." Lethia makes a disgusted face. "Like Guy said though, my situation is way different, but I can still grok how you might feel. And dont call emotions silly. Like Sappho said, 'If something is not said, it will be wept.'"
"I used to like coffee, but it's not worth it any more," Alex tells Lethia with a shrug and a smile. "For one thing, everything that goes down comes back up, so ew. For another, one of the few good things about the change in physiology is that there's no such thing as nights where I didn't get enough sleep, any more. I rarely need coffee any more, and the addiction to caffeine is gone, so it's easy to do without." She looks between the two vampires and sighs. "I know all of the clans have their own struggles, but I feel like I would have struggled a lot less with any other. I'm trying to be stoic about it, and just accept that I can't change it, but fuck."
“You can definitely talk to us about it. I, at least, will always lend my ear. You don’t have to suffer quietly...”
He takes a breath. “Sorry, this all got so heavy. Probably because I blabbed about philosophy.”
Lethia shrugs. "It's the pathos phase, every new Kindred has to go through it. I still remember my own phase of 'Woe is me, I ate my own sire, how will I survive in this world'. So it's not your fault Guy. And yeah, you probably would've had an easier go of it a century or two ago Alex. If you need a shoulder to cry on, I'm pretty available."
"It's definitely not your fault, Guy." Alex reaches out and touches his arm this time, just briefly, and then she tells Lethia, "oh, I know how I'll survive. I'm just going to to take a long time to get used to this, I think. Either that or some way around it, which I'm sure ten thousand before me have said."
“I wouldn’t say everyone goes through a pathos phase, but.” He smiles to Alex as she touches his arm. “Ah, I should be going. But thank you both for the chat, really, and I hope you both have a good night. Alex, could I get your number so we can meet up later for business?”
"It's pretty common, yeah." Lethia says to Alex. "I think at least 20 of mine have said it at one point or another. You've got an advantage being in Philly though, no one is going to actively work against you for the most part."
She rolls her eyes at Guy as she takes a seat behind the counter. "Fine, most do though."
"Oh, Sure!" Alex pauses and then opens her bag to take out one of her newly printed business cards, which she offers to Guy. "We have a lot of things to talk about, it seems like. I look forward to catching up with you soon, so don't hesitate to call." She tilts her head at Lethia. "Twenty of your what?" Then she glances around. "Should we go somewhere else? It's starting to feel weird to still be hanging around here."
“See you two later, and yes, we can talk soon, Alex. Lethia, don’t get up to too much trouble,” he says with a nod, slipping out.
"Hm? 20 vampires that I've Sired." Lethia tilts her head at Alex, as if this was obvious. "And if you feel weird we can leave, but where would you want to go?"
Lethia raises a middle finger at Guy's parting figure as a loving gesture.
"See ya, Guy!" Alex calls after Guy, and then when he's gone she smiles at Lethia and points toward the door. "That Guy, huh?" She shrugs. "Doesn't matter to me. Elysium? Your club? We can hang out here if you prefer. Where are all those vampires now?"
"Elysium seems like a safe bet for more vampires." Lethia says after thinking for a moment. "How about the Chocolate Factory?"
"I meant the twenty, but I'm okay with the chocolate factory," Alex says with a shrug, heading toward the door. "Do you have a car here, or do you want a ride? I drove over here, this time."
"Oh! All over, some in Asia, some in Europe, some in the Americas, one or two in Australia, and one completely mad one who lives in the Arctic. A few fell prey to plots, a few walked into the sun for one reason or another, and a few died fighting for what they believed." Lethia stands and follows with a sigh. "I wonder if any of the ones that died hate me for offering eternal life."
"Possibly," Alex admits with a shrug. "Did you talk to them about what you were planning to do to them, before you did it? Or were they just surprised with suddenly being a part of this world, which they hadn't wanted or asked for?" She walks toward her car, figuring Lethia will either come with her or go off on her own.
"I follow my Sire's example." She says, getting in the car with Alex. "I'm upfront about what this life is like, and they could always say no. But even forewarned, a few were surprised by the viciousness of other Kindred."
Alex starts the car, buckles up, turns off the radio, and then pulls out to head toward the Chocolate Factory. "That's more of a choice than I got, for certain. I don't think I would have said yes, but what's done is done at this point, right? I've just go to figure out how to move on." She stops at a red light right turn, makes sure there's no traffic, and then goes. "So far I haven't found most of the other kindred here to be all that vicious, with some exceptions."
"It used to be different." Lethia smiles wanly. "Sakima and a few others made Philly what it is today through a lot of blood, sweat, and dead Kindred. Before we were all just as vicious as the rest, and some of us still are. And there are groups just hiding in the dark, waiting for Saki to slip up so they can retake power. I hope, unfortunate as your circumstances are, that you'll be one of the ones on Saki's side in the end."
"I've heard enough stories from other people about other places to prefer the way things are here," Alex explains as she drives. "There are things that could be better, but when is that not the case? I don't know enough to feel like I want to get involved in those squabbles, but I definitely can't see myself siding against her, at the very least. Were you here when she took power, or did you come after?"
"I was here. I've been here basically since Philly was founded." Lethia smiles warmly, remembering fond memories. "Saki couldnt pronounce my full name at first, so she called me Addie." She shakes herself from her reverie and continues. "I helped all I could to get her in power, gave her everything I had. But I needed to sleep to thin my blood so I couldnt help directly. Which I regret immensely, by the way. And it's good that you're willing to be neutral at least."
"I'd rather make an informed choice and take a stand, but I don't have the information to do that, yet," Alex says with a glance at Lethia. "Did she really call you Addie? Why?" Since Alex doesn't know Lethia's real name, she can't make the connection.
"It's short for Adosinda, which is my actual name." Lethia says cheerfully. "I picked Lethia Rose as a name back in the 80's when I got really into goth culture, and it just kind of stuck."
"Yeah? Do you prefer to go by Lethia now, or would you like to be called by your actual name? I've got not problem using the other one for you if you'd like." Alex turns a corner leading up to the chocolate factory, then heads for the parking lot as they talk.
"It's not so much preference as it is a habit of 40 years." Lethia says non-chalantly. "So either one works. Though you might turn a few heads if you call me Adosinda out of the blue!" She says with a giggle as she steps out of the car to head into Elysium.
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