Lux
The bookstore is open 24-7 and it is also a coffee shop. It's name is for now unimportant. The important thing about the bookstore is --
No. First. The bookstore has a coffee bar, an espresso machine, mugs, a timeless gleam of copper and steel and wood again in one corner, where the night owls and students, artists and writers, who come to the bookstore during the wee hours can go to get a caffiene fix. There have been in the history of the world only a few perfect cappuccinos. There was the cappuccino made by a young friar living in the Ottomon Empire during on the same day Samuel Morse received a telegraph issued by Sultan Abdulmecid, who was thinking about getting another dog. There was the cappucchino made by Zara Morricone for her fiancée in 1989, just a day before she discovered she was pregnant, and two days before he discovered a new binary star. There was Niccolo in Venice who was in love and made a cappuccino in order to compete with the voice of his rival and there was Alice Cecil-Waverley who returned from Egypt with an illegal set of antiquities, a restless heart, and the ability to make a perfect cappucchino. And there was this bookstore, in Denver Colorado, and one of the baristas-cum-booksellers named Jobe, and a night in 2011. He made the cappucchino for a vampire who gave it to someone else and that someone else went on to paint an ardent work of fabulous longing, which was ruined when a cricket jumped in their face and caused them to knock turpentine all over the painting. The point is: the cappuccinos here are excellent, especially if Jobe's there.
The bookstore also has books. All manner of books, as long as they've been used. The books are worn and the books are read or the books were always meant to be read but then were given up because they'd never be read at that other place. The bookstore has a number of desks, walnut wood, mahogony wood, pine wood, a forest of desks in various veneers, some of them low, some of them regular-sized, a couple small and round desks high. There is a globe, of course. There must be a globe. And a fireplace, too. Antique, generous: books on top. There are a few couches and a few leather chairs and a lot more wooden chairs but seating never seems to be enough. There are rows of books and shelves of books and and an upstairs and a downstairs and comfortable chairs and it is a good bookstore for students and artists and writers and night owls. Sometimes the place is almost empty, sometimes it is crowded.
And it's this bookstore Lux and Natalya have arranged to meet at, which brings us to the important thing about the bookstore.
Guess. Go ahead.
Lux arrived first; now she is browsing for a book. Her profile - a delicate thing, finely-made, French - is to the door, but not her back. Her coat is folded neatly on a chair in a corner which is private-enough, though not out of sight, and it looks abandoned, because it is abandoned for now, also forgotten, ready for a thief to come and take, though no thief does. The book she's looking at is an old penguin paperbag, its spine ripping, its pages as yellow as tallow, as animal fat.
Lux
ooc: er, penguin paperback. stupid fingers.
Natalya
Cappucino is a thing that Natalya has never tried. It still has the ring of the exotic for her, even though she has been in this country for years; it used to be, those were a thing travelers drank in Italy, in far away lands where warm air blew in off the Mediterranean and where olive trees smudged the shoreline. And yet: also here, in this most common of places, except for the uncommon talent of one of the baristas, if the word around town is anything to be believed.
Perhaps she will bring one back for Patrick.
She has a peacoat worn over a loose, flowing skirt that obscures her feet and the effect almost seems to suggest that she is floating, which could be appropriate for her because there is something a little flighty, a little ethereal. There's a weary, solemn prettiness in her face that sometimes settles on women who are approaching middle age. Her mouth naturally curves into a not-quite-smile. It suggests a friendliness, a sort of safety, which often comes in handy.
She has come here hunting before. Not too many times, yet. She hasn't been here long.
She shrugs out of her coat and slides it over one arm, selecting a book from Politics, and she finds a chair. Private, but she can still see others in the room; she's here primarily to watch them, after all, not to read.
Lux
The door opens; Natalya enters. The cold does, too, like an ogre or a wolf or a creeping monster life-leeching life-drinking but doesn't get much further than a couple of steps where-upon the warm-swords of coffee-scent angels slash the cold into dissolving ribbons. The important thing about the bookstore is it is warm even without a fire in the antique fireplace. Under Lux's precise and careful fingertips, (oh, but this is a lie - Lux is not careful; she has been refined into this innately graceful thing, an intrinsically poised creature; she is not careful and) the brittle yellowing pages bend. Her attention flicked to the door when it opened and Natalya came in; it stayed sidelong, observant, a drinking thing, and Natalya took off her coat and wandered over to Politics. Lux closed the penguin paperback, went onto the tips of her toes to get another book from a high shelf, this one something clothbound, stained, the pages fox-marked, but a certain promising glint to the embroidered title, John Donne. A measure of time passed. Not a large measure, maybe a thimble, and nobody followed Natalya in that Lux could tell, and so with these two books tucked under her arm she approaches Natalya direct-as-a-knife, her path straight-as-an-edge, as a point, seeking to catch the other woman before she sits.
Natalya appears to be a kind woman; see how she wears it? Trustfulness.
Natalya feels to others like she should be immortalized(.) in stained glass.
"Natalya - "
Lux says, intercepting. The promise of a smile is a shadow; it dredges something vibrant out've whatever it is that keeps her moving, night after night. They are wrong, who say that the dead are all passionless. Lux is [Morning-star, gleaming in the Dark] one of those people.
"Hello! My jacket's been keeping a solitary guard for this quarter of an hour, and it would be too too bad to reward it like this." This isn't breathless. Lux isn't careful about her speech, either, or doesn't seem so. Her words aren't headless, heedlong; she knows how to pace a conversation. Pleased, questioning: "You know, you present the tidiest revelation I've seen in the last month."
Natalya
Ah, yes. Lux, delicate, a sort of nightbird among the stacks. Natalya catches sight of her a moment or two after she starts to move and wander over, and by the time Lux is within easy speaking distance, she is already on her feet and straightening the skirt around her ankles. Her smile ripples outward over her features, a gentle thing, as she hooks her fingers into her jacket and folds it over her arm once more. She has already anticipated moving, even before Lux has spoken; her blood may be blue but she's quite accommodating for all of that.
"Of course," she says, and her voice is still crisp at the edges with her native Russian, faded a little now with practice but not entirely. She begins to float over toward the outpost that Lux's jacket has established, moving at the same pace as the other woman. "I'm sorry I didn't see you."
This is not the I'm sorry of someone who offers a lot of sorries; nor is it delivered thoughtlessly. It's just, perhaps: You are noticeable, you are worthy of notice, so the fault is mine.
There is a little amusement that lights on the corners of her mouth and her eyebrows at what Lux says, a query. She is not passionless, either, though some could make that mistake early on - those who conflate calm with emptiness, composure with a lack of, quiet with fear. "Tidiest revelation? I like the sound of that, but I'm not sure I take your meaning."
Lux
This is neat - as neat as a dent in silver cream: as neat as cappuccino foam: as neat as a switch-blade and as neat as the first drop of blood on tiles. There is always a first drop; it is always neat, nice, precise. Sometimes there is more. Sometimes it spreads. Sometimes it is messy, but the lines are lovely; messy things are often lovely. "Oh, well," and the neatness gives just a little. Lux hugs the books to her chest like she is a school-girl; the clothbound book is pressed against her collarbone. There is a sensualist's enjoyment in the press of the book's corner against her fingers; there is wondering, at the new sounds in Natalya's voice. Things she hasn't noticed before, perhaps - the way they are aslant, just so: the relation of tongue and teeth. Lux dampens her senses, then, so she won't be distracted; the new toy still distracts her, occasionally.
"What I mean by 'tidy' is you, the revelation, don't come at me messily. The revelation isn't leaving threads hanging. I'm glad to see you alive and well, and," here, they've reached the desk and jacket, and Lux gives Natalya a side-long glance again, dark lashes sinking briefly low, a pleased and teasing (light-lancing-through-smoke) sentiment there, echoed by the kissing curl of a grin. Nothing quite rueful. Any rue would be feigned, wouldn't it? Yes: "It's the kind of glad that starts in the bones. Do you always expect to be glad? Even when I expect it, sometimes it comes like a surprise."
Natalya
"It's nice when we can still be surprised, at our age," Natalya says, and her not-quite-smile mirrors the not-quite-ruefulness of Lux's. "Particularly by something like gladness." And they're both still very much tied in with that aspect of their being, and it can be seen in how they carry themselves - they've not given themselves, their identities, wholly over to the predators that they both really are.
"I'm glad to see you alive and well also. Especially with the rumors I've been hearing." She knows these are more than rumors, and so her words are dropped with a sort of wryness. Natalya isn't always a visible presence, and she was known to have been traveling, but she's confident in her sources.
Lux
Nice when we can still be surprised, at our age, and the colour of her eyes goes through a minute shift, more smoke and gloom; a shadow-play thing; a line of poetry, made visual- lifts at gladness.
Lux can be faultlessly polite. There is an echo of that here- as she lifts her jacket from the chair, crook-of-finger, come-hither jacket, then drapes it over the chair's arm. See it hang in long folds sluiced with sweeping lines like an ink drawing smeared with water, smudged with charcoal- and she waits for Natalya to get situated by her own chair; to sit. Then she seats herself, bonelessly, gracefully; instead of poised precision, she collapses immediately into a round-shouldered and comfortable slouch, her knees turned toward the (saintly [reverence]) woman.
"Oh, dear," Lux says, like an echo. "The Rumors," foe-yay dripping from the word like icicles; warmed by the faint upturn of her mouth; the expression her eyes hold now. Thoughtful, and interested, and intent: "Did you hear the one," she pitches her voice low, "about Rasmussen, uprooting the Sword's bishop or pope or whatever it is they have in this city, shaking hands, and declaring Denver to be a city of equals?"
"Have you just returned?"
Natalya
Natalya follows Lux over to where her jacket is draped like a cloak over the chair's arm (and ah, hopefully there are no daggers in its folds, because one can never be sure with the Kindred, she's found.) She neatly arranges her peacoat over the back of the chair and slides into her seat moreso than she sits down, crossing her legs. She arranges her skirt and smooths the folds before she settles her book into her lap, and then her eyes (clear smoke gray) lift up and focus on Lux once more.
She answers the question first, because she did hear about Rasmussen, and the way her lips thin a little - the expression at once disapproving and perhaps, a little sharply amused (though not at Lux's expense, no) - indicates as much, and also indicates that she is still framing a reply. Perhaps as much to herself as to the other woman, if the truth be told. "Yes. I was in San Francisco helping my grandson sort out a bit of a mess," she says.
The words are delivered fondly, but in them there is some hint, some essential Ventrue-ness, perhaps a sense of noblesse oblige or responsibility.
Her mouth presses together once more, and she offers a nod, a little curt. "I did hear about Rasmussen. I haven't been to see him, though. Have you?"
Lux
"You did!"
Hear about Rasmussen handshaking with the Sabbat Pope and declaring a city of equals -
- and then she notices the set of Natalya's mouth, the essential bluebloodymindedness, unexpected in a Ventrue Anarch. "Oh, you mean something nearer the truth; I like the idea of a handshake city of equals so much better," and her own mouth quirks up briefly; the luminous edge of a burning thing, silver rilling dark water; a precise snick- and then she puts her elbow on the chair's arm.
Rests her chin on her knuckle- had sharpened her senses once more [discipline never ceases if one is to truly master it], because while it won't catch out all listeners, all sneakers, all creepers and potential enemies or living men and women not invited to the masquerade going on around them, it'll help.
[And it just feels good, to see the world this way: to catch the depth of colour; to hear the resonance of sound; to know that it was always so is exquisite pain,] and Lux notices no one lurking nearby and hears nobody at all.
"Yes," she says, "I did. I went to see the whole noble retinue play out their scenes, had an orchestral seat with a cunning view, so I saw him - " a brief hesitation; she is frowning, and doesn't seem to realize it. " - crowned. Oh well, let's say instead 'his crown acknowledged' - that, and all the mess immediately following."
"I hope you left Nick well?"
Natalya
"So do I," Natalya says, of equality. Her smile is perhaps a little wistful as her fingertips trace the spine of her book. "That's the troublesome thing about idealism, I find, is the not altogether infrequent disappointment." Because, well. Things are never as they might be wished to be, and neither are people - mortal or not.
She sees that frown of Lux's. Natalya came of age in a time when people with crowns were being assassinated left and right, and in her mind crowned and mess are words that naturally go hand in hand. "That was something that Patrick - my employee -had a little less to speak on," she says. "I heard about the Sword leaving a bloody mess, but he didn't have much detail on any of it."
About Nick, she offers a nod. "He had some old debts," she says, though who knows of what sort. "I think he's still enjoying himself in California. I'm sure he'll make his way back here before long."
Lux
"What an intrepid boy. Let him enjoy it; I miss California," she says, of Nick, managing to sound both dismissive and like it is a heartfelt compliment. Nick, who might follow his great-grandmother out've the wreckage of the (former)Anarch Free States, into the besieged bastion of Camarilla Power. The clan of the rose has been stricken: petals, scattered; beauty, diminished - roughly-shaken - decimated. But there're always survivors: Lucille, who is Toreador Primogen now, who is Rasmussen's supporter, one of the first to step forward when he [Revolutionary, where were you in 1775?] made his now-famous speech in the burnt-out shell of former-Elysium, Lux herself, who has decided to weather the war.
But she sounds both dismissive and as if it is a heartfelt compliment because it is both. Nick is far away; California. With the Rockies between them, Sabbat war-packs on the road, the bloodied Sword in the West gleaming like a tacky Apocalypse Star (spangle and tinfoil and savagery, gore and ritual), and in the natural expanse of wildness between cities - in the mountains, along roads where there is no man-made civilization except the road - Other Things which are anxious to unburden vampires of their conditional immortality. Heartfelt, because she appreciates bravery; loves it; is passionately invested in determination.
Quite seriously, "And I'll be happy to fill in the details, and give you a clearer picture. But where should I begin?"
(What do you [want to] know?)
Natalya
Natalya does not need to echo Lux's thoughts and state that she also misses California; it is there in the manner in which her eyebrows arch, delicately almost, as she lets out a little sigh and reaches up to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. They have not discussed their politics, but it is still doubtless that they both were around more like minds there rather than here. "I rather enjoy the American West, as a whole," she says. "But yes, I've encouraged him to remain there a while longer."
It may say something of her that she's adopted this sort of role in Nick's unlife, given that she did not know him before his Embrace and that her finding him at all was chance. Some, even those that cling to and remember their humanity, might prefer to shed aspects of their past lives for one reason or another.
The strand of hair she'd thoughtlessly tucked behind her ear falls forward again as she tilts her head to the side, resting her cheekbone lightly on two of her knuckles. "Was he not all that well received by certain parties, or was there some other kind of trouble?"
Lux
Lux's gaze falls aslant, considering; it rests on a ring, gleaming on her thumb, on the flash of pale-skin at her wrist, the fork of veins there, and then on the glimmer of light on the brodarted slip-cover, a flex of dim effulgence. There is a loud clatter over at the espresso bar, and a sublimated flinch tightens the corners of her mouth briefly, flicks her gaze that-a-way, before her attention returns not to her ring or to the clothbound book, but on the Ventrue Anarch direct. There it fixes, rapt and curious. They haven't spoken extensively on their politics, which is why there is a certain wry care here.
"Some other kind.
"Do you keep up with the latest news of the more button-down traditional members of your family? Or have you found your views too impossible to reconcile for news to be either much cared for or regular?"
Lux asks this like it's a question that'll open a door to more detail; like, in some measure, how she delivers the information is dependent on Natalya's answer. There are Ventrue Anarchs who loathe the main branch of their clan, after all. There are Ventrue who claim there are no Ventrue Anarchs.
Natalya
There are Ventrue Anarchs and then there are Ventrue Anarchs, but there aren't very many of either or of any kind. Not enough to paint them with a broad brush or Venn Diagram them or however one prefers to categorize, and so Natalya rather intuitively senses that she is being tested in some way. Partially, this is because she does the same if she ever happens to encounter a Ventrue who does not claim allegiance to the Camarilla, to know what is safe, and partially because...well, if she were Lux, she'd think twice.
"I'm not in very frequent contact with them," she admits, again with a sigh that is more a certain emphasis on words than an audible thing. It's a weary thing, a thing that says without saying I wish it were otherwise but it won't be. "I've generally found that most of the more traditional members, to use your parlance - which, let's be frank, is most of them - find my views to be antithetical to their views, unfortunately."
Her tone does not offer an opinion on this one way or another. There is a little arch to her eyebrow once more though, and that suggests that perhaps she finds said Ventrue to be unnecessarily inflexible.
"I find that I often don't see eye to eye even with the less traditional ones, to tell the truth. I've an old friend back in Russia and that's how I come by most of the main news, but obviously it's become less relevant the farther I've strayed from the motherland." There's a certain wryness in her tone here, a sort of rakish irreverence.
Lux
Her smile begins as an offhand thing: lovely as the movement of shadow-over-silk as the lures that those sliding shadows cast: to touch it test it taste it. The smile haunts her eyes; it is not warmth, but a knife's edge gleam; something echoed in the just-because-she-can inhalation, as if her lungs needed oxygen, as if her heart needed her lungs, as if her veins needed her heart, as if blood was biology not eternity, and Lux changes her position. Instead of slouching in her chair, over her fist, a mix of delicacy and carelessness, she leans forward with both elbows on her knees, her pale fingers twined, the tumble-fall of her hair a sinuous femme fatale shadow-trap coil over one shoulder, baring the side of her throat. Her eyes are, when less full of shade, a tarnish-drenched crystalline grey-or-green-or-blue, capable of remarkable expression and, oh, compelling. What do you want her loveliness to be? What chains could a look slip-over - ? What possibility of. Do this. Do that. Adore me. Hate me.
"Then to tell it as briefly as possible: Adelaide of Geneva came in state. You know, Winthrop was her boy."
Cool dislike. Lux can be politic. Screw it.
"She entered in state, too. Would she stay? the peasants wondered. Would she lead them all to victory? Would she fail, as her child(e) had -- it seemed? Or would she only take the credit for what hadn't yet been lost? Swoop in, declaim, good job old boys, now get in line? What would it mean for us?" Her voice is light. And low-pitched, if not conspiratorial. They belong to a conspiracy: vampires are real. Shh. Don't tell. "Well. She, as voice of the first -- or is it ninth? -- circle of Dante's Hell," by which she means, the Inner Circle, though after she says so, she shrugs her shoulders slightly, "well, perhaps not Dante's hell. As their voice, she gave support to Rasmussen and all the rest and then was staked mid-word by Henrietta in Rags who used to be the sewer rats' primogen."
"Chaos, as you might imagine. Henrietta'd brought a whole fucking pack into Elysia and once they revealed themselves, outside, the rest of 'em started attacking.
"I'd gone with another one of ours. We were curious. He didn't make it."
"But Rasmussen did, and Henrietta didn't, and the moral is don't go to government-funded parties. They're the worst and have absolutely no idea how to deal with the religious right."
Nose-crinkle.
Natalya
She tilts her head against her knuckles and watches Lux as the other woman leans forward, leaving her other hand to rest, the arm casually folded across her lap. There is a thoughtful attentiveness in her demeanor, her face still but not blank (reminiscent, perhaps, of still waters - there is depth), the composure of a woman who has lived her life flowing in and out of chaos and letting it flow in and out of her.
There's talk of staking, of betrayals, and of packs in Elysia - fucking packs, Lux says, the profanity lending an emphasis there that isn't lost on Natalya. Because, after all, this is what brought her out of her domain on the hill; she had suspected something like this. "Oh dear," she says, once Lux has reached that point in her story.
The mention of the passing of another isn't lost on her either. Lux doesn't detail it deeply and that would make it easy to brush off, but there's a flicker in Natalya's eyes, a momentary dwelling on the loss, because it's better to lend a moment than nothing at all. "A friend of yours?" The inquiry is gentle, more of an opening than a probe - a way to gauge how deeply Lux is affected, perhaps.
There are laugh lines at the corner of her mouth that were etched before her Embrace - she wasn't young at the time, but not old either, just enough years for them to have left a mark on her - and they deepen for a moment at Lux's commentary on parties. "So it's now open hostility, in other words?"
Natalya
[Perception + Empathy]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 6, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Lux
[Oh, really?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Natalya
[Again!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Lux
[So help me, if this is a f'ing tie...]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 6, 7) ( success x 3 )
Lux
So now it's open hostility, in other words? That perfect gleaming coil of hair over her shoulder: it falls on the side of her profile that is turned more toward the rest of the bookstore; it hides the shape of her mouth (her words) from the few weary-eyed or jittery-limned caffiene-addicts who are present. "No more quiet Spring; no more silent Summer," she confirms.
"And," Lux returns to Natalya's gentle inquiry. Brings her hands up, rests her chin on them again. Her knees are pressed together, her ankles neatly crossed and tucked under the chair. Her book is resting against her hip. She is in control of herself, so she sounds perhaps a touch wistful or regretful, the way one is when something beautiful has gone to never come again. And it is not a lie. "Oh, certainly I liked him; his death was a shame; a waste."
But it is not the whole truth. Lux is still angry at the 'waste' of her Sect-mate; Natalya, who is perceptive, who is intuitive, can look at the Toreador who looks-so-young, and see the flare of that particular passion in the set of her so-fine jaw and the compression of her mouth; hear it in the way she says 'waste' like it's a filthy word.
And the Toreador Anarch's feelings on the subject are not gentle as wistful regret might imply.
Natalya
Natalya's eyes linger a second or two longer than they otherwise might, if she hadn't noticed that inner flare contained, the way Lux tries to pass off the emotion as a pragmatic concern. A waste, she says, as though the other Anarch who was lost was a resource and that's all it was; Natalya knows better, and it's not only because she'd like to think Lux thinks of the others around her as more than tools. There's a grace in how she does this. Her gaze doesn't bore through or pull apart or penetrate - there's no crusade and no cunning. The impression that she gives is merely that of someone who Sees.
"I see," she says, her voice just touched with a softness that could be empathy and could also easily be brushed aside as merely part of her demeanor. "I'm sorry for his loss then. Are you planning any sort of counterattack, or are you letting the Ivory Tower handle it?"
Lux
Lux looks as if she means to answer immediately. She inhales deeply enough to give her shoulders a little rise. Her lips part. Her lashes sweep across her gaze, re-directing the kiss of light across tarnished grey-or-green to new and direct lucency. Lux is an immediate thing, you see [the brightest goddamned thing to rise on up out've blood and foam], and often she seems to live each moment immediately, to occupy it utterly, to speak it with her body in spite of the careless poise, so it looks as if she means to answer immediately. But instead she doesn't; curls her tongue against the back of her teeth, and considers how to respond to the question for a moment. For another moment.
And then she says, frankly, "That depends on what precisely you mean by 'it.'"
"If I knew whose hand was responsible for his end, I might go searching in order to teach that individual a lesson about regret. But I'm not planning a counterattack; it wasn't my party and I'm no St. Joan."
"But what about you? Are you planning to choose a side?"
Natalya
Natalya, too, sighs at that question - or more like, pulls in air, inflates, as though she still took life from the natural world around her. There are habits that the body keeps, even in unlife, and habits that are wired so deeply into the base of the brain that one could live centuries without untangling them. She sweeps the rogue lock of straight brown hair behind her ear once more.
"Not planning," she says, and perhaps it is clear by now that when Natalya speaks, she does so with intent. She's not a creature of impulse, so perhaps the words ring a little false, in a way - as though the decision is already made no matter what she might say about it. "But I will say that if I have distaste for the Ivory Tower quite often, I have even more distaste for the Sword, and so whether to choose is more of a difficult decision for me than what to choose."
Her eyes drift up and meet Lux's and she offers a little smile and a shrug of her shoulders, because Lux should know how it goes sometimes in this state of in-between. Neutrality is never a popular position when it comes to war.
Lux
"A fair point, fairly taken," she replies. "There are relentless degenerates on both sides of the equation, but only one makes a point of crowning their achievements with gore and calling it spiritual. But why is 'whether or not' a difficult decision?"
Natalya
Natalya tilts her head into her knuckles a little further and for a moment her eyes roll skyward as though she could find the answer there. There's a grace in her movements and her expression; if Lux had thought earlier that she looked like stained glass, there are certain expressions she takes on that would enhance that impression, as though she is a fragment of time, some frozen pious woman from long ago, cast up into a cathedral window.
"Joining with them implies an implicit sort of agreement with their beliefs and what they do," she says. "And the fact is, I don't support them - that's why I left. So I'm reluctant to give the impression of...ownership, I suppose. That I'll come crawling back when it's dangerous enough."
Lux
There is a phrase - '[his/her] passion cooled.' And it's wrong, if only because of the implication that passion needs to be a warm thing, that passion can be heated up like left-overs from a too-big dinner. Lux is a passionate creature though her skin is cold and her pallor is rarely troubled by a flush of personal (stolen) warmth. Lux hasn't ceased being passionate about things, and the set of her chin (from determined, to even more so), the neat compression of her mouth followed by the snick upwards of one corner, surprisingly sharp, a distant smirk, oh well, you know, you know it comes from the echoes Natalya's statement of support or lack there-of touches on. Passion can be a sound, a clear note, and when in chorus-
The infernal choir is lovely;so is the heavenly.Their tongues are silver-their tongues are without warmth.
So. Mutual passion for freedom: evident. Flick of her lashes, the understanding curve of her mouth, echoed by the curve of her eyebrows over her eyes, and then -- this next said curiously:
"We've never discussed this before, so forgive my questions if they cut too close to -- oh, I don't know, anything. But what did they do that lost them your support and caused you to leave? What would you rather see in its place?"
Natalya
Forgive my questions if they cut too close, Lux says, and Natalya offers a small smile and a gentle wave of her hand, as if to brush the concerns away - or, interpreted differently, as if to welcome. The gesture implies an openness, a willingness to divulge. And then the question comes and her brow furrows for a moment as if in thought.
"I don't know if I can point to anything specific," she says. "It simply became harder and harder to reconcile their actions with things I have always believed very deeply in. I was in Saint Petersburg when the Revolution began, you know," and there's an air of reminiscence in her words, because Natalya is not above sinking into sentiment from time to time, "and involved in some of it. My clan's...how did you put it?...more traditional members did not agree with many of the ideas that led me to participate.
"As to what I would rather see in its place...I dislike the hierarchy, simply, and what it has become. I'd prefer an equitable distribution of power, especially since our younger brethren always bring so many new ideas with them."
Lux
The door opens again. This time a pair of patrons are leaving, having gathered their bookbags, paid for their final coffees, crumbled up their napkins and tossed them away. The coffee shop's comfortable light gleams on the metal trashlid as it swings, distorts reflections. Lux notices this right now even if it is a secondary thing, a thing happening over there that means nothing to her except that some people are leaving, and the cold bursts in at a sprint but once again doesn't get far into into the bookstore with its desks and its tables and its couches and oh, its smell, its smell of old pages, of old bookglue, of coffee and its fireless fireplace. The woman makes a soft sound in the back of her throat at Saint Petersburg [Petrogrard] when the Revolution began, of acknowledgment or mild interest or oh, the equivalent of an 'oh,' and listens on, and when Natalya has finished she slants a glance toward the espresso bar. It is a considering glance, a considerate one- as Natalya looked heavenward (saintly, stained glass) as if she could see her thoughts, Lux occasionally cuts her gaze that-a-way, her eyelids at halfmast now. There is something, when she sits up straight and properly in order to stretch, that is deliciously languid, and it stays there when she sinks against her chair's arm again, curling back up, this time slipping her feet out of her shoes which are either something delicate and ridiculous and heeled or some low and fashionable boot, and she circles her ankle with the fingers and thumb of one hand. Her gaze cuts back; or it already cut back.
"And how," she says, as if the word was a word to be tasted, her inflection a clear indicator that she believes the 'how' is the trick, and doesn't necessarily expect Natalya to have anything more than a pet theory, "would you effect such a thing in our society? Would it be more important to you that every voice was heard, or that every body was equally as powerful as the next?"
Natalya
Again a thoughtful look, and Natalya has to weigh the words next, because she doesn't really speak of these things often to other Kindred. At least, not nowadays - perhaps when she was in California, among other Anarchs more frequently, then. "I'm not sure you could have one without the other."
She crosses her legs at the ankles and, though her attention had momentarily drifted when she heard the door open, her gaze returns to Lux. "I don't believe you've ever shared with me why you left either, come to think of it."
Lux
"You probably could," murmurs she, to Natalya's surety, though 'could' lilts out longer as if some foreign accent moved beneath it, something svelt and sword-smooth, something that knots the consonants up - but is actually just a lilt for liltings sake; because that word required a lilt. And then?
She laughs; it's not loud laughter, but seems impulsive, is a sound that has its root in the back of her throat, nearer the heart. "Are you asking me?"
Natalya
"Perhaps," Natalya agrees - she'd said she wasn't sure, after all. But it's a perhaps that doesn't carry the weight of conviction behind it; she is not someone who would deny the possibility of anything, particularly when it comes to something as largely untested and subjective as social theory.
There is a smile, then, at the laugh, a quick thing that crinkles the corners of her eyes and her mouth. "I am."
Lux
"Mm, est-ce que tu parles français?" - she asks, her mouth a bright thing, her voice smoke-softened, knotted; her eyes as dark as they ever are, in flux- eyes narrowed with the question.
Natalya
Another quick smile, though this one tinged with a touch of regret, and a shake of the head. "Only English and Russian, I'm afraid."
Lux
"Pity," she says: "It's such a good language for this subject."
The language universally known (yes, universally; even those who disagree have heard) of love, the best for talking of rebellion: why, of course Lux would think that. Of course it would be true.
"J'ai dû quitter ou périr. I left because it was the only thing to do. I did not want to stay in a Court where new was always new, the exact same level of new, forever and ever, until out with the old; and there would be no out with the old. I did not want to stay somewhere the ground bred tyrants; where nobody ever had any godamned fun because nobody would trust anybody unless anybody had something on somebody who used their influence to cheat nobody out of their agency. Where you could raise your voice, certainly, but only to cut your throat. That place glories in a lack of liberty; it glories in its traditions and its rules and, as amusing as those rules could be, it all began to seem rather hollow and pointless and unfair."
"And it grew so tiresome, hearing sympathy voiced for those idealistic suckers down the road, but no one with the spine to go stand with them, so..."
A shrug.
Natalya
Lux is Toreador, and you can hear it in the way she speaks in poems, in riddles, almost naturally; they fall off of her tongue in a way they would not fall off of Natalya's. "Well said." They didn't have the same experience of the Camarilla in some ways, it sounds - those experiences will differ with the time and place, no matter how traditional the organization remains - but the basic principle is the same.
"Well, for all that I hear that those of us that stand on the outside can't ever agree on anything, I'm glad we've found some common ground at the very least."
Lux
[Subterfuge. So secret. Right, dice? Right?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )
Lux
[No, screw you subterfuge. +1 diff.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (2, 6, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )
Natalya
[Perc + Empathy]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5) ( fail )
Natalya
[Screw you, dice]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 4, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Lux
Again, laughter; this time subsumed, just the suggestion of, contained.
"Tell me you've found a club where all of its members are in perfect agreement, and I'll show you an oil painting of a crowd and say 'they all agree that they are oil paint, no more, no less,' and probably perfectly brainless as well."
A pause; and, although Lux's voice doesn't betray her personal interest, a certain keenness of her gaze, or maybe the subconscious way she leans forward again, the way her gaze fixes - these tell the tale. This next question is not just philosophical wondering.
"So how do you deal with disagreeing voices when you're trying to make a decision?"
Lux
ooc: Hmm. No. Make that the far more clear: "So how would you deal with dissenting voices when you and they were trying to reach a decision?"
Natalya
Natalya catches something in Lux's manner that gives her pause, and she has to take a moment to think - and perhaps Lux will think she is merely reflecting on her answer. She is, but it is perhaps from a more defensive standpoint; it is a few seconds of mental acrobatics, of gauging what Lux might want out of this question. It isn't that Natalya feels threatened, precisely; it's that she has to take a mental step back to decide whether she should.
But this question, it leads, and it isn't hard for her to figure out where it might go. Not when they were just talking about dissenting voices. Does that trouble her? Not necessarily.
"I think the best first step is always to discuss to find out what the disagreement hinges on and compromise," Natalya says. "Of course, it depends on the voices and it depends on the decision. In leadership...well, there will be times when I or they will end up unhappy, but I'd do my best to reach a satisfactory resolution with them." There's a wry little smile, at that. "Which probably doesn't fully answer your question, but the question is so complex."
Lux
[Hmm. Does Lux notice or intuit this mental step back? Probably not, but the ol' college try. -1 diff for Auspex.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (2, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 3 )
Natalya
[Ah, subterfuge...]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
Lux
"Sure it does, or nearly," she says, almost languid (decorative [strictly ornamental, this creature, really]) again; and the music - in the background, something with a plethora of strings, stately airs, something baroque and old, something that is not sleeping, will never sleep, no matter how often it is called tedious or boring by certain hipsters - swells, then ends. Leonard Cohen replaces it; mellow-voiced, low, crashing against them in the background like it'll wash the marrow out've their bones, and Lux closes her eyes briefly in pleasure at the change-
When she opens her eyes again, her expression relaxes into something natural, friendly, but at rest, and she says, not changing the subject precisely but leading it elsewhere, "So have you had any difficulties settling in? What do your evenings look like this next month- anything exciting?"
Toward the more (perhaps) mundane.
[ RANDOM ROLLS, FOR HYPOTHETICAL FUTURE POSTingness
Natalya
[Hypothetical Charisma + Leadership w/ specialty]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 5 ) [WP]
Lux
[Hypothetical Watercolor Painting Roll. + Specialty!]
Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 8 )
Lux
[Aw yeah, 9 suxx.]
]
