Discourse, Part 1 of 3
I lead Brogan through the halls of Solon to a conference room that is sound proof, without cameras on the inside, and offers spectacular views. Since I do not yet know his intentions, it seems wise to meet in Solon’s sterile - and secure - environment. The added benefit is that Ashley will know I’m with a Kindred visitor and will be alert for signs of trouble.
He sheds his Obfuscated features in the privacy of the conference room, and I am once again struck by his appearance. He is not, perhaps, handsome by modern commercial standards, but there’s a deadly aura around him that I find irresistibly attractive, and his mesmerizing, iridescent eyes make up for the plain angles of his face.
He claims he wants conversation, but it’s a lie, though I suspect not a deliberate one. No. I think he is here to make a decision, though a decision about what, exactly, remains a mystery to me, and to him as well.
“Then allow me to indulge you,” I offer in return to his demand for discourse, spreading my arms with palms up, offering myself. I am curious how he will react to such blatant innuendo. His gaze flicks down to my hands, his emotions - if he has any - inscrutable to me, before returning to the middle ground of my face as I proceed to make small talk of no substance with him. It is not an entirely unpleasant way to spend a half hour, but I know that it will not put either of us closer to our goal. We are both too skilled and could traded inanities for hours unless one of us shoots first. I decide to take the gamble.
"And yet I have had little to no opportunity to observe you. I still do not know the source of your interest in me,” I press in response to his remarks.
"I should hope not! That would have made our conversations to this point less interesting."
I think he means to evade the question entirely, but he pauses with an indrawn breath, so I know he means to speak, and I have a moment to ponder just how much he knows about me. He studies me a moment, his head tilted to the side, and I note the small tell. "Is this something you would wish to know?" he asks me.
"Yes."
"The Kindred of these modern nights are, by and large, simple. This is also true for the culture that prevails in mortal society..." He rolls his shoulders in a small shrug and his hands settle to rest on the arms of the conference room chair, as if settling in for a long conversation. "You are an exception to this. That is my interest."
"A scientific curiosity, then," I summarize with a small smile, for I am exceptional, deliberately so, precisely to interest Kindred like himself. I wonder if he sees the paradox into which he has placed himself, calling out the truth yet remaining immune to it.
He laughs at my words, and almost genuine mirth, and then shakes his head in the negative. "No. Not exactly. The scientific curiosities of the Ordo are at times not precisely beneficial to the subject in question."
I am left to blink for a moment, so taken off guard by his easy honesty and by the simple inhumanity in the statement that I cannot immediately think of what to say.
"Well then...I shall count myself lucky.” It is a weak and witless reply, and I recover by forcing a change of subject. “And what about you, master Brogan? You are equally far from where we last met."
"A truth. I am more needed in this portion of the country than I am out east, at least for the moment."
"Your loyalties must be very strong, to pull you so far,” I observe shrewdly.
He grows quiet for a long moment, and I know I have hit upon something, and file the information away for future reference. I chafe at my ignorance both of the Ordo and of him, for I cannot even being to guess at the web of loyalties and disloyalties that could pull - or push - an elder so far from his territory. In addition I know simply from watching his interactions that he is a servant to the Ordo out here…whatever his rank or lack thereof, he is an elder dancing attendance upon others. It fascinates me, but I dare not press for details as he nods slowly, and his voice is quiet when he answers, "Loyalty is a trait I value very highly."
There is something in his tone that speaks to values that go much deeper than his words would indicate, something that resonates with me instinctually, like calling to like. I level my gaze at him, momentarily dropping all pretense and artifice, and speak with the deep conviction born of my own tribulations.
"Then we have something in common."
My voice is equally soft, my words equally plain, but with them I charge the air between us with a shared passion. He nods once, though his eyes never move from mine.
"I would expect nothing less of a member of your line," he observes neutrally, though he stares at me with a predator’s intensity, stalking his prey in absolute stillness while I am forced to blink. A violent hunger smolders beneath his shifting eyes, and for the briefest moment I do not bother to hide my own hunger, letting it show briefly in my face before I drop my eyes, turning my head and tilting my chin towards my shoulder and murmuring with false demureness, "And once again I am at a disadvantage, master Brogan, for you know far more about me than I know about you."
As I drop my gaze I hear a soft click, like the sound of porcelain tapping against itself, and I know that he has just snapped his own jaw. A thrill runs up my spine. He is a warrior: he knows bait when he sees it, and yet he cannot help himself.
"What is it you would wish to know?" his voice is soft, but comes out over a suppressed growl, and the fingers of his right hand curl into a fist on the arm of the chair. I feel an edge of alarm, and shift my gaze to his, obscuring my jugular once again.
"Nothing that would be a betrayal of your confidences, master Brogan," I am quick to assure him, keeping my voice soft and truthful. I rattle off a handful of the most obvious and innocuous questions I can think of on the spot, and to conversation turns quickly to safer and more mundane topics. It comes out that he has brought a bottle of his own bred and brewed lacrima as a gift for Ashley, and I offer to deliver it to her myself.
"Thank you” he acknowledges. “But why do you ask if I grew mandragora?"
"You said you garden. I wanted to know more of what your grow, and why,” I answer with the obvious, then level a shrewd and fearless gaze on him again in a sudden revelation. "Or are you really asking me why I changed the subject?"
The sparks fly between us again, as I obliquely yet boldly own to the fact that I have been avoiding his questions even while pushing my own. He cracks a wry smile at my audacity.
"Both I think. Few ask after my more...intellectual pursuits.”
“Well you have already observed that my mind is not average,” I cannot help reply in a moment of vanity before yielding to genuine fascination. “And do you consider gardening to be an intellectual pursuit?”
"It is. A pursuit of creation as it were." He wrings his hands for a moment, then shifts in his seat. He is not a Kindred prone to wasted movements, and I note these tiny lapses in control, but I do not know what they portend.
"Tell me more," I beg, my fascination drawing me to lean forward, closing some of the distance between us. I have him off his guard in some fashion, but I don’t entirely know how or why.
"It is disappointingly simple,” is all he offers, looking at me sidelong for a moment as he weighs his words. He turns to face me fully and offers me an answer of such astounding simplicity and honestly that I am startled out of my own artifice. I stare at him, glimpsing for a first time something of the whole Kindred, seeing fault lines and vulnerabilities and desires hidden so deeply I wonder if he has forgotten them, and find myself pained at the thought, and I gripped by the sudden and overwhelming desire to validate the thin shreds of truths to which he clings.
"I am sorry I cannot taste your lacrima," I offer the gentle, truthful apology, hoping he hears it for what it is. "Your wines must be very fine indeed."
"It is something of an acquired taste…perhaps some night.”
I can think of no reply to a statement so obviously referring to my eventual embrace, not desiring to get mired in that particular debate, and so there is a moment of silence between us as he makes his decision, and I am suddenly afraid that I may yet prove to be an experiment after all.
"Do you remember New York? When you were still with Lorenzo."
I am thrown off guard by the question, not only for the sudden reference to my past, but by the inaccuracy of it as well. I hate contradicting elders, but I am too rattled to find a politick way to do so. I was never in New York with Lorenzo, and say as much, before it occurs to me he may be referencing the state and not the city.
"Do you mean our last conversation? At the gathering in Syracuse?" I ask, sounding slightly stupid and graceless and cursing myself for it.
"Yes, that was the time,” he confirms. “You were with Lorenzo most of the night." He tilts his head slightly to one side, considering me a moment, as if suddenly unconvinced of the veracity of his own memories, and truthfully my memories of that weekend were dominated by Evengii and Suriel’s staking.
"Yes,” he confirms, more to himself than to me, but it breaks us both out of our reveries. “But it is something that Lorenzo took from you that interests me. A gift. Though I do not think you remember."
I am now beyond recovery. I can count the gifts I have received from Kindred on one hand, for they are both rare and inappropriate. Being forced to face the fallibility of my memory has me questioning what other details of my time with Suriel have eroded, and that distresses me even more greatly than having to admit that I have forgotten that he ever gave me a gift.
"I apologize Master Brogan...I do not remember....what could I have had that he would have taken from me?" I question with dismay. He waves off my concern with a small movement of his hand.
"It is a simple thing...but I would have to ask your permission to gift it to you again.”
I am uncomfortable at his obvious advantage over me, and so retreat into familiar formalities.
"Of course, master Brogan,” I offer with relief. “I would be delighted to be of service in such a way."
He rises and leans over to close the space between, resting his hands on the arms of my chair trapping me as he whispers in my ear, “As you wish.”
I raise my hand to push him away the same moment that his fangs sink into my shoulder, and my alarm instantly gives way to the ecstasy of the Kiss mingled with the sensation of my flesh smoldering and flaking to ash, and instead of pushing him away I find myself clinging to his jacket, my hips arching as I push myself against him, forcing his fangs deeper as I cannot contain a soft cry of pleasure crossed with agony.
He sheds his Obfuscated features in the privacy of the conference room, and I am once again struck by his appearance. He is not, perhaps, handsome by modern commercial standards, but there’s a deadly aura around him that I find irresistibly attractive, and his mesmerizing, iridescent eyes make up for the plain angles of his face.
He claims he wants conversation, but it’s a lie, though I suspect not a deliberate one. No. I think he is here to make a decision, though a decision about what, exactly, remains a mystery to me, and to him as well.
“Then allow me to indulge you,” I offer in return to his demand for discourse, spreading my arms with palms up, offering myself. I am curious how he will react to such blatant innuendo. His gaze flicks down to my hands, his emotions - if he has any - inscrutable to me, before returning to the middle ground of my face as I proceed to make small talk of no substance with him. It is not an entirely unpleasant way to spend a half hour, but I know that it will not put either of us closer to our goal. We are both too skilled and could traded inanities for hours unless one of us shoots first. I decide to take the gamble.
"And yet I have had little to no opportunity to observe you. I still do not know the source of your interest in me,” I press in response to his remarks.
"I should hope not! That would have made our conversations to this point less interesting."
I think he means to evade the question entirely, but he pauses with an indrawn breath, so I know he means to speak, and I have a moment to ponder just how much he knows about me. He studies me a moment, his head tilted to the side, and I note the small tell. "Is this something you would wish to know?" he asks me.
"Yes."
"The Kindred of these modern nights are, by and large, simple. This is also true for the culture that prevails in mortal society..." He rolls his shoulders in a small shrug and his hands settle to rest on the arms of the conference room chair, as if settling in for a long conversation. "You are an exception to this. That is my interest."
"A scientific curiosity, then," I summarize with a small smile, for I am exceptional, deliberately so, precisely to interest Kindred like himself. I wonder if he sees the paradox into which he has placed himself, calling out the truth yet remaining immune to it.
He laughs at my words, and almost genuine mirth, and then shakes his head in the negative. "No. Not exactly. The scientific curiosities of the Ordo are at times not precisely beneficial to the subject in question."
I am left to blink for a moment, so taken off guard by his easy honesty and by the simple inhumanity in the statement that I cannot immediately think of what to say.
"Well then...I shall count myself lucky.” It is a weak and witless reply, and I recover by forcing a change of subject. “And what about you, master Brogan? You are equally far from where we last met."
"A truth. I am more needed in this portion of the country than I am out east, at least for the moment."
"Your loyalties must be very strong, to pull you so far,” I observe shrewdly.
He grows quiet for a long moment, and I know I have hit upon something, and file the information away for future reference. I chafe at my ignorance both of the Ordo and of him, for I cannot even being to guess at the web of loyalties and disloyalties that could pull - or push - an elder so far from his territory. In addition I know simply from watching his interactions that he is a servant to the Ordo out here…whatever his rank or lack thereof, he is an elder dancing attendance upon others. It fascinates me, but I dare not press for details as he nods slowly, and his voice is quiet when he answers, "Loyalty is a trait I value very highly."
There is something in his tone that speaks to values that go much deeper than his words would indicate, something that resonates with me instinctually, like calling to like. I level my gaze at him, momentarily dropping all pretense and artifice, and speak with the deep conviction born of my own tribulations.
"Then we have something in common."
My voice is equally soft, my words equally plain, but with them I charge the air between us with a shared passion. He nods once, though his eyes never move from mine.
"I would expect nothing less of a member of your line," he observes neutrally, though he stares at me with a predator’s intensity, stalking his prey in absolute stillness while I am forced to blink. A violent hunger smolders beneath his shifting eyes, and for the briefest moment I do not bother to hide my own hunger, letting it show briefly in my face before I drop my eyes, turning my head and tilting my chin towards my shoulder and murmuring with false demureness, "And once again I am at a disadvantage, master Brogan, for you know far more about me than I know about you."
As I drop my gaze I hear a soft click, like the sound of porcelain tapping against itself, and I know that he has just snapped his own jaw. A thrill runs up my spine. He is a warrior: he knows bait when he sees it, and yet he cannot help himself.
"What is it you would wish to know?" his voice is soft, but comes out over a suppressed growl, and the fingers of his right hand curl into a fist on the arm of the chair. I feel an edge of alarm, and shift my gaze to his, obscuring my jugular once again.
"Nothing that would be a betrayal of your confidences, master Brogan," I am quick to assure him, keeping my voice soft and truthful. I rattle off a handful of the most obvious and innocuous questions I can think of on the spot, and to conversation turns quickly to safer and more mundane topics. It comes out that he has brought a bottle of his own bred and brewed lacrima as a gift for Ashley, and I offer to deliver it to her myself.
"Thank you” he acknowledges. “But why do you ask if I grew mandragora?"
"You said you garden. I wanted to know more of what your grow, and why,” I answer with the obvious, then level a shrewd and fearless gaze on him again in a sudden revelation. "Or are you really asking me why I changed the subject?"
The sparks fly between us again, as I obliquely yet boldly own to the fact that I have been avoiding his questions even while pushing my own. He cracks a wry smile at my audacity.
"Both I think. Few ask after my more...intellectual pursuits.”
“Well you have already observed that my mind is not average,” I cannot help reply in a moment of vanity before yielding to genuine fascination. “And do you consider gardening to be an intellectual pursuit?”
"It is. A pursuit of creation as it were." He wrings his hands for a moment, then shifts in his seat. He is not a Kindred prone to wasted movements, and I note these tiny lapses in control, but I do not know what they portend.
"Tell me more," I beg, my fascination drawing me to lean forward, closing some of the distance between us. I have him off his guard in some fashion, but I don’t entirely know how or why.
"It is disappointingly simple,” is all he offers, looking at me sidelong for a moment as he weighs his words. He turns to face me fully and offers me an answer of such astounding simplicity and honestly that I am startled out of my own artifice. I stare at him, glimpsing for a first time something of the whole Kindred, seeing fault lines and vulnerabilities and desires hidden so deeply I wonder if he has forgotten them, and find myself pained at the thought, and I gripped by the sudden and overwhelming desire to validate the thin shreds of truths to which he clings.
"I am sorry I cannot taste your lacrima," I offer the gentle, truthful apology, hoping he hears it for what it is. "Your wines must be very fine indeed."
"It is something of an acquired taste…perhaps some night.”
I can think of no reply to a statement so obviously referring to my eventual embrace, not desiring to get mired in that particular debate, and so there is a moment of silence between us as he makes his decision, and I am suddenly afraid that I may yet prove to be an experiment after all.
"Do you remember New York? When you were still with Lorenzo."
I am thrown off guard by the question, not only for the sudden reference to my past, but by the inaccuracy of it as well. I hate contradicting elders, but I am too rattled to find a politick way to do so. I was never in New York with Lorenzo, and say as much, before it occurs to me he may be referencing the state and not the city.
"Do you mean our last conversation? At the gathering in Syracuse?" I ask, sounding slightly stupid and graceless and cursing myself for it.
"Yes, that was the time,” he confirms. “You were with Lorenzo most of the night." He tilts his head slightly to one side, considering me a moment, as if suddenly unconvinced of the veracity of his own memories, and truthfully my memories of that weekend were dominated by Evengii and Suriel’s staking.
"Yes,” he confirms, more to himself than to me, but it breaks us both out of our reveries. “But it is something that Lorenzo took from you that interests me. A gift. Though I do not think you remember."
I am now beyond recovery. I can count the gifts I have received from Kindred on one hand, for they are both rare and inappropriate. Being forced to face the fallibility of my memory has me questioning what other details of my time with Suriel have eroded, and that distresses me even more greatly than having to admit that I have forgotten that he ever gave me a gift.
"I apologize Master Brogan...I do not remember....what could I have had that he would have taken from me?" I question with dismay. He waves off my concern with a small movement of his hand.
"It is a simple thing...but I would have to ask your permission to gift it to you again.”
I am uncomfortable at his obvious advantage over me, and so retreat into familiar formalities.
"Of course, master Brogan,” I offer with relief. “I would be delighted to be of service in such a way."
He rises and leans over to close the space between, resting his hands on the arms of my chair trapping me as he whispers in my ear, “As you wish.”
I raise my hand to push him away the same moment that his fangs sink into my shoulder, and my alarm instantly gives way to the ecstasy of the Kiss mingled with the sensation of my flesh smoldering and flaking to ash, and instead of pushing him away I find myself clinging to his jacket, my hips arching as I push myself against him, forcing his fangs deeper as I cannot contain a soft cry of pleasure crossed with agony.