(Untitled)

[ol_yellow_eyes]

Data is in the bar with his cat today, occupying one of the booths. Spot is standing on the table with his face in a bowl of (apparently delicious) cat food, next to which is a datapad that his owner is currently studying

Comments

[hoopsonfire]

The dead watches.

The cat probably will be uncomfortable with a dead thing watching.

[hoopsonfire]

"We dipped a tow in the blanket of stars half a lifetime ago, and touched the edge lightly. Still a dream of new worlds."

[ol_yellow_eyes]

"May I ask what time you are from?" Data asks, then adds, "I am from the year 2369."

[hoopsonfire]

"A hundred and sixty-seven dozen have passed since the imagined birth of the Son of Man." No, a straight answer is not easy for her. But the math is simple.

[ol_yellow_eyes]

The math is just as simple for Data. She is 365 years before his time, then.

There is a short silence, during which Data almost does not seem to know what to say.

"How did you come to be a vampire?" he asks finally.

[hoopsonfire]

"A man. The Man Who Was Not There. He was hollow, full of echoes, of... darkness. He seemed different from the others. I hoped he was better." The vampire shrugs. "He seduced me, then stole my life."

[ol_yellow_eyes]

Data's face seems to show something a little like sympathy. Clearly this was not her choice. No one should be forced to become something they do not want to become.

"Do you know why he chose to do so?" Data asks. "Did it benefit him in some way?"

[hoopsonfire]

"I don't know. The Jester-Prince, ruler of the City of Angels, was enraged... the Man Who Was Not There brought me over into the Fold of the Kindred without permission. And was destroyed for it."

[ol_yellow_eyes]

"Do the vampires in your world have some sort of government?" Data asks, intrigued.

[hoopsonfire]

"The strongest, the most shrewd, the most influential, or the one who seems to be that one. The Prince. He upholds the Laws of Blood, and demands as much obedience as he thinks he can extract."

And then, a sudden shift from the sedated tone of before, to a normal, sharp voice. "The Big Cheese, the Head Honcho, by Force and Power."

[ol_yellow_eyes]

Data detects the change in tone; in fact, he is almost surprised by it. He has found her speech pattern until this point to be somewhat strange, and it is an interesting shift to terms that sounds more familiar to him.

"Too often that is the way of things," he observes. "Strong beings often feel it is their right to assert their power over those who are weaker."

[hoopsonfire]

"He lets me exist. If I work for him." She rubs her temples. "Everybody seems to have something for me to do: dangerous things, because I'm expendable."

[ol_yellow_eyes]

The sympathy returns to Data's expression.

(Perhaps it is not sympathy so much as understanding-- Data is familiar with the term "expendable." He once sat and watched as others decided whether or not he fit that description.

He is lucky, he thinks, to have received the decision that was made.)

"Why are you considered expendable?" Data asks.

[hoopsonfire]

"I am a 'fledgling'. Have no master, no teacher, no guiding hand. Nobody wants the responsibility of teaching me, nobody will speak for me." And her voice returns to that sedated tone. "Set adrift in the Seas of night, pushed this way or that to serve the puppet master's interests."

"They expect me to fail. To be destroyed soon. Until then, they want to make use of me, with baits, promises and threats."

[ol_yellow_eyes]

"And I assume that they will destroy you if you attempt to escape, correct?" Data asks.

Again, somewhere in the back of Data's mind he is noting how lucky he is.

[hoopsonfire]

"The Jester will hunt me, surely. I play a dangerous game, hunting among the predators for the right to exist."

"I might have to hide here soon."