Lux
The party's at somebody's home but it's for somebody else's sure-to-be seminal publication on an obscure-but-vital critical theory in support of blah-dee-blah or maybe somebody else's gallery opening or maybe somebody else's divorce. The crowd's an interesting mix of faculty and student, professional and amateur, high society and low, and it's a good party. There're so many rooms and so many doors that're open and a few that're closed. Because it's winter, there aren't many people on the terrace nor are there many people on the upstairs balconies. They're scattered through the somebody's home in knots of conversation - little constellations spinning around invisible centers, because gravity is invisible. They're talking about one another or they're talking about sex or they're talking about art or they're talking about fucking Monday or they're being interesting, somehow, someway, or maybe they're just drinking, while they build up these castles -
The party's not a bad party. There's a certain low-key energy. There's enough booze and enough food to make people happy. Some people've made s'mores over the kitchen stove, encouraged by a young woman (yes) who is:
Let's follow her. Lux. Lux was in the kitchen, but she wasn't eating smores. Her right arm was slung loosely around a thirty-something man's chest, her left arm wrapped around his waist, and she'd come up behind him to do this - to say something in his ear, to (with a sensualist's pleasure) enjoy the warmth when he turned his head to answer her, to nestle her sharp and imperious little chin where shoulder met neck and to argue with somebody else. Then she abandoned that particular entertainment - see? To walk through a hall, stepping quite precisely over a game of cards played out on the floor, pausing at a cluster of people by the bathroom where the light is on and a warm butter-yellow, only to pass those people by too and to draw a cigarillo out of a clutch-purse, the very picture of languid insouciance when she finally makes it to a window and -
There. The window, looking out at a covered (and drained?) pool, at the density of darkness, looking through her own reflection - which is a haunt-of-a-thing, an, oh, please stay, my heart, sort-of-thing - as if she's considering going outside to smoke, though not many other people are bothering to go outside, judging by the smoke hanging in that or this room. Her shoulders are bare and so is her throat: no jewelry, just - sequins, or something, something that glimmers like little stars. Little stars, mirror-things, darked put stuck to her skin somehow.
Where the Hell is her coat anyhow? If she goes outside, she'll freeze to death. It'll be a perfect moment, but she'll still freeze.
István
It is deathly cold outside and no reasonable individual would go out there without so much as a shawl. One could not describe the temperature as deathly so long as one is prepared for the inevitability of winter but if Lux goes out there without her coat then Death who has been with her all this time will take her by the arm and whisper in her ear so warm and soft and that will be the end of her.
Two men stand outside despite the cold. By the pool which has no water this time of year. Both of them tall and both of them as bundled against the chill night as their respective physiologies call for.
Can she hear them speaking? She must be able to at least hear the impressions of their speech. The deep timbre of the men's voices. One of them dark of hair and complexion and smoking a cigarette. The other pale of hair and eyes. He wears a scarf and keeps his hands in the pockets of his overcoat.
Their backs are to the window and steam rises off of the dark man but not off of the pale man. She watches and seconds pass.
The pale man turns his head to look over his shoulder back towards the house. As if he can feel her stood there at the window all aglimmer like sentient starshine. They make no eye contact for the distance between them and the angle at which he is standing but Lux is a sharp thing and she knows he is looking towards if not at her.
Decades ago she saw him last. He went by István then. The man at his side was a ghoul then and it stands to reason he's a ghoul now. It takes the ghoul a scattering of seconds to realize his master is looking away and upon realizing he too looks away. Turns more bodily towards the window.
They see you, Lux.
Lux
Lux unblinking watches the pair.
And she is sharp, isn't she. That's her clan's one redeeming feature, isn't it. Their vision. Their ability to observe (the omens [Auspex]) so clearly the fine details: Say, the way the ghoul's eyelashes shadow his eyes or the cold brings the blood closer to the surface of his skin. Say, the lines around the fair undead man's eyes. The knapp of his coat and number of stitches visible on his scarf. Say, the precise distance between domitor and thrall, magnet and metal, a subtle shift of -
The way the mountains loom. Thick darkness. Breathe in. Lean forward and blow on the glass. But Lux is not (yet) warm enough for that kind've lie and the glass doesn't fog up: instead, the Toreador, deliberately, licks the tip of her finger, and draws a smear of a heart on the window - a suggestion of shape to match the suggestion of a smirk. But his eyes're sharp too, aren't they? They'll see.
And Lux straightens just after, holding her cigarillo in front of her mouth, the clutch a-dangling off her wrist. The clutch is dull: the only thing that glitters about Lux (stars [and stars]) is the gleam beneath the sweep of lashes, dark-dappled. But she, dextrous, two-fingered pulls out an eyeliner pencil with the hand belonging to the wrist the clutch is all a-dangling from, and writes:
Is't Ist?
Backwards, of course, so that he can read it.
István
She knows nothing about his clan and she never has. It isn't so much that he's lied about his clan but that it hasn't come up. It doesn't matter. His allegiance is to the Camarilla and it always has been. Rumors of his fraternizing with and his easy acceptance of Anarchs during his nights in Europe still surface even now but that was so long ago.
So long ago and yet nothing truly stays in the past when the end never promises to come. All they have is the rest of time. Fifty years is nothing when they could stay on this earth until the Sun collapses in on itself.
Her clan though. Eyes for detail and eyes for minute things others don't notice. Not so unlike this creature outside now. He dresses well and he speaks well. Stands easy on the eye so long as he stays in dim lighting. Harsh fluorescents make him look like the corpse that he is but he is a fresh corpse if he is a corpse at all. Blood can ease the steps of the masquerade. Among humans he makes the effort but Lux knows exactly what he is.
Beside him the ghoul's eyes are not sharp enough to see what she is doing to the window. He can call upon the scant powers that his binds offer him but not now. Not tonight. Lux can see the blond creature suppress an answering smirk with the movement of her fingertip in that cartoon pattern.
And then a question.
The blond creature nods his head Yes and then turns to his ghoul. They speak again and brief. The ghoul is not done with his cigarette and he is in no danger of freezing if he stays out here anyway. So the Hungarian leaves him there by the pool and walks back across the terrace and to the mudroom door through which he had left earlier.
A small whine of hinges. A scraping of debris from the soles of his shoes upon the mat inside the door. No hurry. The nights last forever in wintertime. When he appears in the doorway nothing of his body or what's left of his soul has changed from when they first met.
It has been a very long time. Her son had not yet met his future ex-wife. Her husband had not yet given up hope that she would come home.
All that has changed is the softening of what was once a very strong Hungarian accent. He still stands tall. Still combs his hair careful so that it does not hang in his face and trims his facial hair so that he does not look like a madman when he goes out at night. Still wears a neutral expression and eyes still appear interested and yet detached. Like he's more interested in observing what is happening around him than participating in affecting its outcome. Emotions are currency to creatures who have no use for worldly things.
"Viol," he says. Warmth in his tone like the last first swallow of brandy she can remember. Hands still in the pockets of his overcoat. Scarf still tied up around his throat. She knows he's wearing a tailored suit underneath all of the accoutrement. The overcoat does not go past his hips. "You are looking very bright this evening."
Lux
The living past is the living past. They all discard it or forget it eventually, even if it does not discard or forget them. Eventually, it does not matter what is remembered, because the inevitable transformation into a memory oneself comes quiet and then nothing.
István Jákob and Joséphe-Alix, now. They're different. They do get to remember, forever, and to also be memory, forever. Any wonder that they the plural Kindred (Cainite) they the Different They have got a complicated relationships with their own society? Other vampires are necessary. But difficult.
It's been Hellova long time but less've a Hellova since the last exchange of letters: intermittent, over the years - sometimes coming hard one after the other, sometimes a long epistle, illustrated, illuminated, sometimes just a note, sometimes a silence for months, a year, a brief silence after a note regarding her abandonment of the Camarilla. They've got unlives. Another silence after winter of 2012-2013, when war struck Denver, scattered its Primogen, destroyed the Elders of her clan, disappeared its robber baron Ventrue Prince, and gave the streets over to prowling war packs of Sabbat.
That silence ended, too, letters coming as they used to come, and no, she never knew his clan, and by the time she realized that she didn't know his clan, she just didn't bother to ask. Didn't someone say he was Ventrue, or something? Besides, her Harpy-sire would have been disgusted at the laxity, so there's that, not that that was relevant, oh no, because the Toreador Anarch would never -
But the letters came, and he wrote to say he was at last really really going to move to Denver, because war zones fascinate him, because convention - because something conventional - because -
Dearest Ist --
Awfully bold but my duty to inform the place is a tedious mess right now, know mess's your thing, though as I remember darlingest wouldn't think to look, but even the high falutin muckity mucks of mucksvilletown cant muster up a giggle at the abs O lute wooden entertainment they're offered -- dig? Buncha filthy animals but thats what you get with second-rate Salomes huh? I like it alright the city's always going to be a bright chip off the ol potential block but not too sure the new party drink's to be recommended. All to say, lovely man, if you do come it is against advisement the state of your people is in disarray but of course as I write that I also think well isnt this just his perfect party, will imagine you calmly dissecting strategies and lounging like Master of Manor in certain Masterful Manor that has shit shindigs and ha ha A Spoon In Action.
But really it is quite stupid to come to Denver.
xoxo no signature
--
Viol. You are looking very bright this evening.
"Go ahead, mark the constellation you like," she laughs, tapping her breastbone, "That's why the stars are there. And you," laughter fading. "You look like a sneak! When'd you get in?"
István
Even forty years ago he was like this. Stillness wired into his frame. An economy of movement extended to include even his facial expressions so long as he was not actively trying to seduce or otherwise sway a mortal in his presence. She had never been mortal in his presence.
Perhaps she can remember how he was not inclined to fidget or fuss with anything around him. How he did not bother pretending to breathe nor did he push a flush of blood to his skin as though it were a habit even when the Masquerade was not in danger of breaking. Things change when you spend a few decades tossing letters back and forth to someone.
This is how folks used to communicate. Via pen and paper. Long distance and in long form. It offered the same intimacy and connection as today's texting and instant messaging only there's a certain amount of time and thought that goes into composing a letter. István Jákob learned to discern the nuances of the Toreador's handwriting. Jósephe-Alix could tell if the letter she received had been fired off in a hurry or if he had sat squinting by candlelight until he had carefully transposed all of his thoughts.
He is not adhering to strict social mores or trying overmuch to appear motionless and eternal. The invitation to mark a constellation in the sea of stars on her collarbones is met with an inquisitive spark of light in his otherwise cold eyes and a cant of his head. What a way to greet him after such a time apart. And then the laughter fades and she says he looks like a sneak.
Now he suppresses a self-amused grin though not enough that it does not pull at his lips or crinkle the corners of his eyes.
"Eh," he says to the matter of when he got in. As he crosses the room he unbuttons his overcoat and unwinds his scarf and stuffs his gloves into his pockets. Not because he can tell the temperature but because it would look strange if someone were to walk in and there he would be still battened against a chill wind. "Not so long ago."
He'd mentioned that René was coming out first. To close on a piece of property he had purchased and begin his post at the hospital to which he'd transferred. Now he stands before her and looks at the star stickers and wears a curious expression a moment before he begins to rearrange them.
"That one was almost Andromeda," he says. Rearrange. Rearrange. His fingertips like ice where they brush her skin. He steps back when he's finished. "There." His eyes start to move as if to seek out another constellation but then they find her face instead and he steps back again. Grants her her space. "'Quite stupid to come to Denver,' eh?"
Lux
The Toreador doesn't fidget when he re-arranges the stars. This one or that one wants to cling to his fingertips. This one or that one makes a dark-dazzle twinkle-fall for it toward the floor, but maybe it just gets stuck on the slink of her skirt or the wrist of his jacket or the toe of his shoe. That one was almost Andromeda. Patient and still: she watches the other Vampire's face. There.
There? Lux turns around to regard her reflection again, lightly touching her fingertips to the stars he'd just rearranged. No. Almost touching, with perhaps a sensualist's pleasure in the distinction: to feel the moment between. "Now it is Andromeda?"
She sounds thoughtful, but after a second turns once more. This time it is just to lean against the window and face István and haunt his face with her eyes, even as, see, her reflection haunts the edge of her: a bright and pale smear, otherworldly and diminishing, and through that René the smoking ghoul. The pool. Dark, dark, dark. Lux leans against the window like she doesn't care much about other people's property or about the ambient cold, like she's never been abashed by anything: precise -- but languid.
"Now go ahead. D'you think it's a punishment or a gift, a bestowment, to be strung up as stars across the Heavens for ever?
Yes. The quite-est."
Not the answer to punishment-or-pleasure. Quite stupid to come to Denver, eh?
"Unless you've got a great excuse. So what's the deal, really? Why now? I am prepared to hear arguments, especially if they're witty."
István
Now it is Andromeda?
"Mm," he says in affirmation. Stood behind her at the window he can see the twinkling of the reflective star-shaped decals against her flesh. Can see where one has clung to the edge of his sleeve and he makes no move to shuck it back down again. Can see his vassal outside eying the dying remains of his cigarette and pondering whether he wants to chain smoke or come back inside.
And his reflection stays behind her in the window as she leans against it. She wants to talk about the philosophy of stars and the punitive nature of existing forever and ever in the night sky.
He doesn't answer right away. They're on the topic of whether his coming here was stupid. Whether he's got an excuse. What the deal is.
With his overcoat unbuttoned and everything out of the way she can see he is wearing a waistcoat and a tie. Fully divested he would look very dapper. She knows René has been here all night or if she hasn't laid eyes on him yet she had known he would be here prior. This son of a bitch appears to have let himself in through the back gate.
"Well, kicsikém," he says. My little one. That is what that bit of Hungarian means. "I do very much enjoy arguing with you."
He puts his back to the window so that he is nearer to her and not looming behind her. Outside the ghoul abandons his post and begins to walk across the terrace towards the house.
"I must tell you, no one has ever become strung up as stars. Bodies come from the same stuff as stars, but bodies cannot become stars. Stars, they are shining because of the fusion between elements. Hydrogen and helium, yeah? Humans only gave names to the brightest stars. The rest of them, they grow old, they consume in their burning all of their helium."
The back door opens. René coughs as he adjusts to the warmth again after so long outside. So long as he stays with István his lungs will never blacken with the abuse he inflicts upon them. A heavy price to pay in balancing his addictions.
"I am so sorry," René says to Lux as he passes her. Sorry that his domitor is on one of his tears. Sorry that she's in the crosshairs of his tears. René does not seem to remember having ever met her but he is friendly enough as he bustles through the mudroom hanging up his outerwear so he can get back out to the party and continue schmoozing.
István watches his ghoul go and then lets his gaze drift slow back to the Toreador.
"And they do so die without ever having had a name. But even the bright stars, the ones with names? They will die too. There is no such thing as this forever."
Lux
He must tell her. Must you? Lux shapes the syllables without giving them breath. And listens, her regard side-long, the ol' tarnished-up crystalline gleam of her gaze en-shadowed, to István's answer and not-answer. René's passage and apology causes her to loft her chin in acknowledgment or in greeting. They are playing something with a lot of bass in one of the rooms upstairs, and just that, the bass, seems to drip through the ceiling, imbue the walls, the floors, with a fine vibration you'd not even notice it unless, a hum. "Hey," she says to René, "Got a light?"
Holds up that cigarillo again, like a sign, just at her shoulder. And he's got a light, well and good. If he doesn't, also well and good. Perhaps István does. Perhaps István does not and somebody from across the room, passing kitchen-ward, sees Lux all a-glimmer and a-darkness, all fineness, and tosses her their lighter, which she is then obliged to catch and does without difficulty or being too too bothered to move. Her chin stays up, and it's a sluice of a look just after, But even the bright stars, the ones with names? It has her regard at an angle that could seem quite careless, carelessly fascinated.
There is no such thing as this forever.
"And so I must tell you something, too," Lux says. "The question and its answer do not care whether or not there is such thing as forever. Whether any lucky or luckless wordy blonde ever really was strung-up. In the world of the question, punishment or gift, you might be strung up as stars.
"Perhaps those stars are light years apart and they burn themselves up, they die before ever we see them here, so Andromeda's really a ghost except for the star that denotes the finger of the hand of the arm etcetera she reaches away from herself with. Or perhaps the sky is a flat shade the gods paint on, or it's a river before real paradise, or it's the lid of an impossible aquarium that the Lord's tamped down in case of escape, and the stars are lights to sooth the beasts.
"Either way, you might get strung up as twinkle lights or gas giants or heavenly lamps, and is it thank you, ma'am, or to Hell with this?"
He didn't really answer either of her questions, did he?
That's all right. Lux is inexorable: she'll circle 'round back and in the meantime enjoy the journey. The nights are too short. There really is no forever, so enjoy it.
István
The question holds up René and delays the course of the argument another few moments. He does in fact have a light and he not only extracts it from his pocket but lets her keep it. It is a cheap plastic thing. The bane of the lives of those dedicated to the habit but not enough so to purchase a refillable butane lighter. It hasn't aged much. The wheel does not turn easily when she eventually lights her cigarillo.
Then they're alone again.
Sidelong and distracted as she was during the course of István's scientific evasion of the question's impact, István does not allow his attention to wander as the Toreador parries. She must tell him something too. His eyes trace the bones in her cheeks and brows on their way back to her eyes and at the very corner of one side of his mouth Lux can see the tension that betrays an escaping smile.
"Ah," he says as if he understands now. "Well then, in this impossible fairytale scenario, when I am turned into stars and strung up so, it is with my mental faculties intact, or no?"
Lux
There are a number of vampires who smoke because it's a cheap way to give the impression of breathing. Because it's a vice that needn't be enjoyed while hunting. Because it's a habit that eats up the march of dark hours. Because it's a good way to hunt. Because what else are you going to do? But Lux isn't one of these -- tonight. Lux enjoys the taste of the cigarillo, see. René's lighter, kept, finds a home in her clutch, the ravel of cool chains tink-tinking against the window when she maneuvers her wrist and hand to open it with sheer minimum of movement. Lux never keeps lighters for long. So while they argue, Humanities v. Hard Sciences, Lux enjoys the heated air. Holding the smoke on her tongue. Enjoys not breathing in. Enjoys that she still enjoys it. Enjoys the things she didn't used to taste until her senses expanded.
"Yes," she tells István, not rising to the bait of 'impossible fairytale scenario,' in a tone of satisfaction. "They will be as intact when you are strung up in stars as they are intact now. Madness needn't be immediate, unless you rather think being stars would drive you immediately mad."
Lux is not smiling, but there might be the suggestion of (shadow of) something like a smile tucked away at one corner of her mouth, and of course her eyes are expressive.
Toreador: what are they, if not decorative? Frivolous.
István
"I do not think being stars would cause the madness."
As he watches her smoke so does he remember that the star stickers are on her chest. As if he could have forgotten. They have been there this whole time and he already realized that he can move them around. So he does now. The side of her body nearest to him becomes the proving ground for Perseus.
All of the stars in that constellation revolve around Algol. He does not move its brightest star.
"The becoming, though. Can you imagine? We are sensate creatures, even in this. Our nerves still send impulses to the brain. The brain still catches them, goes 'Ah yes I know what to do with this.' It cannot do this without the nerves."
There. Perseus is done.
"Perhaps I would grow accustomed to the madness, and if you asked me then, I would say to you, 'Ah, no, my darling, it is no punishment at all. It was but now I am seeing so much more clearly now, only me and my thoughts until the end of my time.'"
Lux
They're not easy to manipulate, those stars. They're the kind of silver that get stuck beneath the fingernails, and don't some of them try to cleave to István's index-finger or thumb, instead of being pressed again onto Lux's chest or shoulder or throat? Lux keeps her chin lofted, provides a still canvas, though she does not angle herself to make Perseus' creation any easier. Hums, subliminal, at: we are sensate creatures even in this. She also does not breathe smoke in István's face like some kind've demon-woman Lilit Liru Lilim nope. Lux is an Anarch; she is not rude [ - for no effect].
"You're no fair, István, so I'm going to play no fair too."
A pause; a deliberate pause. Lux's lashes lower, and she straightens, does cheat her body so she is leaning one shoulder against the window, is facing István directly - conspiratorial.
"Hold this." The cigarillo. If he does, she picks a star off her right shoulder, teases it away with her thumbnail, carefully, carefully, and then another, looking at the work as she does it. Perfectionist.
"The becoming. Don't you rather think whatever it is the spirit feels would supercede those silly ol' nerves and their silly ol' hints and tricks, as soon as the body were shucked, one for the other? Don't you think it'd be so pleased to finally get to call the shots without using an intermediary?"
István
Hold this.
How can he say no to her. It's a quiet request and one that requires no effort. His fingers are long but not particularly deft. Solid but not strong. He eyes the cigarillo as if he has not seen one before. As if he does not know what to do with it.
He smells the smoke and feels no desire to taste it. It is enough to know that it is caused by the combustion of the tobacco inside of the paper and that the kine inhale it so that they will feel stimulated by the chemicals carried within the smoke and the ash.
Doesn't he think -
"Madness is a sort of pleasure, no?" he asks. "If we are to argue that the loss of a physical body through conversion into pure energy while retaining one's sentience then can we not argue that the very act of losing one's body, the nerves, everything that lets the brain know what is in the vacuum around it... all you would have are your own thoughts. No input, no imagery, nothing."
He considers the allure of oblivion a moment longer and then turns the cigarillo in his fingers. A rakish half-a-grin as he looks back to Lux.
"Eh. It might not be so bad. So many gifts appear as punishment when they're first given, do they not?"
Lux
"They do not." Lux gives István a sweep of a glance again. This time: she is looking for something quite specific -- the perfect spot for. As she searches, suggestion of a frown, shadowling thing, considering if not considerate. There. Briskly and then precisely: Lux rescues her cigarillo, and uses her thumb to be-star the corner of István's half-a-grin, and also his jaw there, and she would be quite surprised if he didn't allow her. Lets her temple almost touch the window; a dreamy cant.
"They -- " Lux appears to arrest herself. He knows her well through her letters, and they are often full of dashes and tangents, well-expressed and lovely, but running off to explore this new thought or become a beautiful picture or cartoon or transforming into a weird riddle-knot of words that's just a joke to unriddle. This might be the physical equivalent? A full-stop; and an air that's a smidge irreverence wrapped around gravity.
"But, darlingest darling, wait. Your meditations on madness and on stars; these are a gift. Is it given, to soften the punishing -- gosh, what should I call it? The punishing edge of unsatisfied curiousity you've seen fit to inflict, are inflicting right now, cool as you please, and damn it?"
István
Beyond the mud room the party keeps going. Clattering glasses and jingling laughter and the sound and heat of so many people living all at once and together. No one else has wandered past this way to seek the chill and the solace of nicotine.
René has not come back. This is a time for him to interact with other people who have pulses and to pretend that he is a man who has no secrets. That he does not keep concealed an addiction that he can never kick for knowing once he does he will die. Not an instant painless death leading into the sky and the oblivion of incorporeal starriness but the encroachment of a hundred years of servitude creeping up on a body once it's finally come to stand still. Here he can just be a handsome doctor from Belgium who answers questions as to what he's doing here with something near enough to true as to keep folks from asking too many more: his wife died after a long illness and he came out here to start over.
All there is is starting over when your domitor will stay alive so long as conditions beyond his control allow.
István lets her put the star-sticker at the corner of his lip and then tilts his head so she can find a place to affix another to his jaw where it will not hit dark-blond hair. He rests one hand on the windowsill nearer to her and frowns a teasing frown as he tilts his head toward it.
"Ohh," he says, a noise both mocking and soothing at once. "What unsatisfied curiosity might that be, my gem?"
Lux
René has not returned. The Toreador does not seem to find this remarkable. Who knows what (Ventrue? Malkavian? Brujah?) ghouls do at places like this? Live their lives, such as they are. Gift-lives.
Aw, look. István's being a sport about being all starred-up, so Lux takes advantage and -- delicate precision, again -- neatly lifts another pair from her shoulder. This one goes there. That one goes here, near his collar, on his throat, where it will be rubbed-off by the scarf.
Tch. "Why now?"
A beat. And, see, Lux meeting István's eyes, folding the hand that had been a-fixing stars across her ribs, support for the elbow of the hand that's got the cigarillo. Which she is about to breathe in, again. But first: There it is: an impulse-driven smile; sudden, as if it came on a whim.
Imperfectly (which is to say: perfectly) hidden, when she breathes in. Mm, smoke.
István
Yet he sees the smile and he himself is resigned to the fact that he has been smiling more in the last several minutes of the conversation's lifespan than he had when he first walked in.
The warmth of the place does nothing for his bones and meat. His hand is scarcely warmer than the window but the flesh has not begun to freeze. Blood does not shunt away from the peripheral vessels if one does not have a heartbeat and he is not trying to impress anyone anyway. Not with stars stuck to his face and neck.
Why is he here. Why now. Why when she's told him this place is a disaster area and everything is burning and the stupidest thing he could possibly do with this unlife of his is to throw it away in this place.
He lifts his eyes to the ceiling as if to appeal to the stars above:
"Why have I come, she wants to know. Why does she stay?" He looks back down. Finds her eyes again. "So well and good for you to stay but not for me to come, eh?"
Lux
Lux curls her tongue behind her teeth. Her chin lifts again: just one stubborn notch. Then she re-settles more comfortably, less insouciance, more nonchalant elegance, using the re-settling as an excuse to blow smoke away from his face again, and thence to twirl the cigarillo around, paper nearest her fingertips just beginning to hint at coming warmth, almost almost used up.
Then she laughs at him: "So between us," and this is the most conspiratorial she has been yet, leaning an inch forward, flick-of-a-gleaming-look up-a-ward, "Do you really think that line's gonna work?"
Can't misdirect Lux with a parrying question, baby.
She taps his wrist, "Wanna go upstairs?"
Kali
A house party full of drug-happy empty young adults with nothing better to do with their nihilist time than get high, screw each other and screw with people? One would think that's Kali's version of an ATM. And that may be the case, but you'd rarely (if ever) catch her at one of these places on her own. She's a distributor, not a dealer. Her dealers do all the street-level work for her and she has more important things to do. Like keep tabs on Bo and teaching the ghoul how to properly run Kali's new strip club, and making sure that pipelines from other markets remain open so she can keep her supplies steady. Hanging out at Elysium so they remember she exists and perhaps remember that she has a few boons, not to mention the work she does for the Cam on the street level. Those kinds of things.
Tonight though, she's here. And it's not to deal, but because one of her dealers has misbehaved. So she marched herself right over to this place, dressed only as Kali can: black leather bustier with lip patters on the front, a pair of tight black pants, fuck-me heel boots with a one-size-too-small leather jacket over it all. She's just walked on into the place, a cigarette between her lips, and started looking. She's already had to ask one too many times and her patience is running a bit low...luckily it's not out yet, or the last guy who tried to grab her ass would be missing a hand.
And that's the mood she appears to be in when she opens the door to the mud room, already saying "Dixon, I swear to whatever god you pray to that if you're hiding, I'll divirginize your orbital socket with my--"
And that's when she sees that Dixon, whoever he is, isn't here. And someone she does recognize is. She blinks. "Lux? Small fucking world..."
She looks over at Istvan a moment, then back.
István
Wanna go upstairs?
Three words every man responds to in just about the exact same way. Even when that man hasn't had a pulse since the century before last. This particular man lifts his eyebrows slow like to ask her what she thinks is going to happen to his answer if they're upstairs instead of standing beside a large window overlooking the back terrace when they aren't alone anymore.
And Kali has never met him before. Has never seen him or spoken to him. At least not in the state of Colorado. It's entirely possible she's seen him in Chicago or Vienna. But not a lot of their kind were visible in Vienna during the days of the Third Reich. Only their names traveled the streets at night. Their names and the things they wanted kept hidden but could not. Word moves faster than boots some nights.
The individual sat on the windowsill beside Lux started to react to her presence before she breached the threshold. By the time she has come in swearing and threatening violence to some unfortunate named Dixon the creature has pushed himself off of the sill and come to stand on his own. His weight is evenly distributed between his feet and though his face and body language betray neither thought nor emotion he is no longer at ease in his flirtation and verbal sparring with the Toreador beside him.
Since this is the first time Kali is seeing him: he is a tall man fair of hair and eyes. He wears Oxfords and a tailored three-piece suit and an overcoat with his scarf unwound but still dangling from his shoulders. No fewer than three of the stars adorning Lux's upper body are also stuck to the corner of his mouth and his jawline and his neck.
He won't speak until after Lux does. Introduction time.
Lux
"You are not saved," Lux tells István, although she is already looking at and smiling for Kali. Another just-for-a-whim, impulsive, impossible thing smile, a vibrant edge in her shadow-darked eyes, pleasure, pleased. Neatly pleased: sharply so. Glad. "Kali, love!"
Lux straightens, too, reaching out to greet the Ravnos with a touch on her arm and then perhaps a slide-up and a side-kiss -- provided she comes closer. "Why are you threatening the virtue of somebody's orbital socket, when really, darling, orbital sockets are so anxious to avoid penetration? Have you met István yet, or do I," linger, savor, and the slow kissing curl of a grin, "get to make-up the introductions?"
Oh ho. Her tone implies that the introductions would be fanciful to the extreme; or maybe it's just the knife's edge of -- we cannot call it mischief, but a will to be pleased by people perhaps. And: Yet, she says, and that is telling, because it implies Kali and István would (will) meet.
Kali
Kali is many things, but above all she is adaptable. She's a social chameleon and a pragmatist, for the most part, and she lives and dies by her ability to navigate the distinctly treacherous waters of a Ravnos within the Camarilla. That applies to all kinds of social situations, and so when Lux touches her arm, she does indeed come closer with a warm smile and leans in for a side-kiss. Her attention never once completely leaves Istvan though; this new alament is something that she isn't giving her back or any other vulnerable spot to.
"I'd better be careful, or I'm gonna steal your stars, O Luminous One." She chuckles a little and returns the touch (friendly, but brief) to the other's arm as she pulls back, shaking her head. "Then again, it might add to the creepy factor when I'm tarring my shitstain of an employee. You just can't find good help among drug dealers these days."
Her eyes orient more fully on Istvan now--but then again, they never fully left---when Lux asks if she's met him. There were few cities she didn't visit in Europe, but Vienna was one of them and she hasn't spent much time in Chicago either, so they have missed each other. As much as information is their currency, Istvan's identity is a sum she's never found herself in possession of.
"Mmmm...can't say I have." She cocks her head to the right, a bit of a curious grin lighting on her face. She's intrigued already. "At least I don't recall. If we have met and I did something to you, my bad. It wasn't personal...well, unless it was."
István
"Kali."
Lux knows that musing tone of his well enough. It means he's about to pull out some random fact that's sprung up from the depths of his encyclopedic mind and has been bobbing about in wait of rescue. For the Ravnos meeting him the first time this is an introduction to his speech patterns and his accent.
He speaks in an Eastern European accent. It could just as easily be German as it could be anything else for that sharp quality that the vowels have but it also has the same lilting cadence that the Polish language does. He's Hungarian. Maybe she recognizes that region's dialect for what it is.
"Ah, like the consort of Kala, yeah? The Goddess of Time and Change. Very good. No, I do not believe we have met. Hello. My name is István." A beat, and then he looks to Lux. "I do still have your stars on my face, yeah?"
Lux
Ah. Lux clicks her tongue at the conjuring up of bad help, although she also looks concerned. If they weren't entrenched in introductions right now, she'd pursue it - pursue something - pursue stars (oh, darling, I'd give you at least seven), but as it is one can take the Harpy's childe out of Elysium but cannot take Elysium out of the Harpy's childe, so:
They haven't met. It wasn't personal, unless it was. That earns: a sharp smirk, tucked away at the last second.
Then: Kali. That musing tone. Oh, Ist. He gets a gentle elbow in the ribs around the time he's saying Hello. My name is István. Nudge. My introductions. Mine. And then a one-shouldered shrug, another suppressed shadow-smirk thing. Does he still have her stars?
"Kali," she says, "István's adjective is 'refined,' but is a sneak because it can also be a verb, 'refining,' 'refine,' or - no. I'll come up with a better one later. István, Kali's adjective is - " she dips her chin in thought. " - perspicacious. That's also sneaky, because it's not a very lovely word, perspicacious, bit fun to say, yet still."
"The important thing you have in common is, unless something has changed since our last conversation, you are both breaking my heart by supporting a medieval form of government, instead of ditching that party to hang out with me all the time outside the mighty walls of Hasn't Fallen Yet."
More seriously, she says, "I've known Ist for years; he's from Chicago."
Kali
It just so happens that Kali does know her Hungarian from her German. It's an important distinction, especially to the Ravnos and she tilts her head curiously as she takes in the new face's vocalizations and speech patterns.
The mention of her name's origin causes that smile to quirk. Consort of Kala. There's a light chuckle, sincere and not mocking, though there is a bit of slyness therein. "Consort of no one, in this case. You've got a few little Walk of Fame facsimiles hanging in there, yeah." She reaches out a hand to extend to the other. The grip, if Istvan takes it, is firm...that of a businessperson who knows how to handle herself in initial meetings.
"A pleasure to meet you, Istvan. Any friend of Lux's is...well, I'll say it's a good start." Hey, it's something. She regards Lux's comments and grins when she's called perspicacious. "Lux, sweetie you say the nicest things." A pause. "No, seriously, that's fare nicer than what almost everyone else calls me."
She looks back at Istvan when Lux says (without saying) that he's Camarilla. "Another solider in the Tower, eh? Welcome to the club here in Denver. How you finding it so far?"
István
That elbow to the ribs does not rattle a smile out of him but Lux can feel his amusement jostle free as he makes a blind but no less assured grab for the joint like to keep her still. He cannot pin her down but his fingers do find her upper arm above the hinge and they are warmer than they were when they first began to rearrange the stars on her chest.
If Kali knows her constellations she can pick out Andromeda and Perseus.
How is he finding Denver.
"Ah..."
Besides cold and dark and not quite the heinous wasteland that the letters he received prior to coming here made it out to be. Besides the same as everyone else finds it. Full of opportunity and loot. Some kind of lawless city where there's still enough law left for fires and fights to break out but he wouldn't know that yet would he. He just got here.
And he frowns now. A quiet soft frown people with so many thoughts they never voice are capable of frowning.
"I have no conclusive opinion, just yet. So far, yes, it is very much a pleasure to be here. Not so windy as Chicago."
Lux
Perspicacious is better than what almost everybody else calls Kali. Lux can guess some of those names. Lux has probably heard some of those names. Ravnos. Gutter-trash. Gypsy-bitch. Thief. Deceiver. Worse, too, Kali's politics being what they are, condescending little jabs which get voiced less and less often the more valuable and clever and yes perspicacious Kali proves herself to be. Still: people can be terrible -- and a vampire's favourite passtime is often a game of malice.
Kali's orbital socket-threatened employees probably think a few (more terrified) adjectives of their own too. Let's not forget the living. So for that: a quiet smile, and murmurs - "Their fault."
István's got Lux's upper-arm, and Lux remembers that she should stub out her cigarillo, because its warmth is about to burn her finger-tips, a hintful smoulder-smoulder, and she may write on a window with eyeliner, but she won't drop a used cigar butt on the floor inside. Casts about, finds a lone shoe (welcome to the mud-room) which looks promising, so reaches over to: plink! drop it in.
"D'you hear that? A pleasure; isn't it shocking? I warned him." She doesn't seem to think 'not so windy as Chicago' deserves attention. Says, "How are things back at the ol' clubhouse? Have you been yet, Ist-y? Oh, excuse me a moment, I'm going to leave you two together, I'll be right back -- should I keep an eye out for your drug-dealer, darling? Dixon?"
Thus: does Lux extricate herself, smoothly enough, for a time, disappearing toward the kitchen.
Kali
Ist-y. Lux called him Ist-y. Thats the kind of name Kali loves to try and get away with but usually can't until she knows someone well enough to have some kind of dirt that acts as a disincentive for taking hostile action, or at least knows what she's deadling with and how best to respond in the case of sudden attack. She instead of using the name or laughing or even grinning, she sets herself to just a faint smile.
"Ahh, it's not all their fault. I am kind of a bitch from time to time. They almost always started it though."
Istvan is diplomatic in terms of his response in regard to Denver, and Kali smiles a bit at Lux's response. "Hey, I can agree with that. It's a pleasure to be here, at least compared to other places. It's all about perspective, my Illumination." As Lux makes her way out, Kali wiggles her fingers in that direction and looks back to Istvan. She takes a lean against the wall, left foot rising to rest the heel against the surface, as she watches him.
"How long have you been on this side of the pond, Istvan?" It's a curiosity question. Really, it's just that. Honest.
István
When Lux moves the refined creature at her side releases her elbow and does not gaze as wistfully after her as a person who has just been called Ist-y without retaliating might be expected to gaze after her. His cold blue eyes do watch her go but only so that he can surmise that she is going off to grab herself a beverage.
Then his attention his back on Kali. Hard to gauge how old any of them are based on appearances but he was not much older than she was when his sire came for him. That isn't the type of age their lot care to learn though. They need to know specific dates.
And Kali for having been younger at the time of her embrace seems younger even by comparison of her mannerisms and her energy. István stands as if he's about to deliver a speech. The Ravnos has no one to impress and nothing to hide even if she did. To look at him she would have trouble gauging what he's thinking. Without Lux next to him some of the - hah - light has gone out of the room and what is left is a cold creature with no reason to trust anyone.
"Sixty years," he says in the tone of one who's not quite sure, "nearly seventy."
Translation: after 1945. After the Second World War. Nobody would blame Kali for making a snap judgment about the blond-haired blue-eyed German-sounding individual Lux left her with. He has no reason to consider the question anything other than one of curiosity.
Kali
There is, of course, a sudden brow raise at that. She knows the difference between Hungarian and German accents. But she also knows--very well, in fact--that Hungary willingly sided with the Nazis and sent people to death camps. She's not leaping at him and trying to claw his eyes out, but she's looking at him much more closely now, doing her best to keep the casual grin on as she tilts her head to the side, unnaturally-colored hair falling straight down behind her.
"That was a good time for people to leave." She chuckles a little. "Not keeping a step ahead of Nuremburg, were you?" It's said as a joke, made to lighten the mood.
[[Man+Sub: I'm totally just trying to keep the mood light with a joke and not doing anything different! Spec: Silver-Tongued]]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
István
[perc + subterfuge: YOU LIE]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1
István
He knows the history of his country of origin as well as anyone else does. Perhaps better seeing as how he has had nothing to do the last 150 years but read and study and conduct experiments. Not so much social experiments but one does have to remain abreast of current events in order to make any progress in one's intellectual advancement. Knowing how to talk to other denizens of the night is as important as knowing which country did what when.
Nuremburg has both of his eyebrows lifting and there is no threat or slight perceived even as he clearly sees through her joke to the searchlight beneath it. But he does absorb the realization's blow. Were he still human he might have scoffed or made some other noise on the laughing spectrum to indicate he did see the humor in the accusation.
Kali just sees a tension in the muscles around his mouth that almost becomes a smile.
"That would be impressive, no? The books, they say I did die in '64." He means 1864. Not 1964. "You do not like Germans."
Very perceptive of you, István.
Kali
Her brows knit together, and she realizes...she doesn't bother to hide this reaction. She's annoyed that she was so transparant. It's a quick recovery though; someone not paying attention to her could miss it.
That being said, only a blind deaf-mute could fail to notice the change in her stance after he brings it up. It becomes less playful, more direct. There's not an overt hostility there; the hooker chic-clad body is stgll relaxed in its lean against the door, she doesn't narrow her eyes or harden her tone. She's still relaxed--she's just not playing around.
"Well, since you asked..." She shrugs. "My peeps weren't exactly treated well by the Reich, is all. New faces from the vicinity come into town, and I start to wonder who they might bring with them." She taps the cigarette, ashing onto the ground. "And, not to be too on the nose about it, dying before an event doesn't preclude your involvement in said event." She shrugs, watching him. "You know?"
István
Hmm.
She can see him studying her not as if he would very much like to get her onto the vivisection table and split her open but as if he isn't quite sure what to make either of her forthrightness or her justification for her suspicions. Nor does he react to it. Kali explains herself and he does her the courtesy of actually listening as she speaks.
It isn't as if he doesn't have time. All he has is time. Lux hasn't come back yet and he has no idea what René is doing and the sun won't be up until seven o'clock tomorrow morning.
"Well," he says. "I do not think that the Gestapo were very much friendly towards the Jews from Hungary, yeah? I was in Vienna when the war did start. Very bad time to have been a Jew from anywhere. Lucky for me, I was already dead. Nothing they could do. Corpses, they do not subscribe to religion."
Must be they're laying all their cards out on the table now.
Lux
There is a certain finesse to 'grabbing a beverage' when the beverage is literally inside living people and to tap into it you've got to sharp your teeth up and poke little holes in them. If they notice, they're likely to have questions. If they don't notice, well, that really is the only option: but how to hide something so potentially obvious from somebody who's about to swoon? There is a certain finesse, and hunting within the boundaries laid-out by this Masquerade all vampires - all - nod to once in a while, however grudgingly - well. It can take time. Lux's investment tonight is the thirty-something, forty-something fine art dealer whose shoulder she'd been peering over earlier. He has a paler band of skin around his left ring-finger, but there are no secrets here.
What they talk about is private. They do talk. First by the kitchen's island and then by the sink and it doesn't matter what they say. Large parties are the best for stealing an intimate moment. Witness, back in the mudroom, Kali and István, engaged in the most intimate of moments: politics - water-testing - air-tasting, centuries old (nearly) scars stay after all.
Finesse in all things. Lux doesn't intend to leave alone too long the Ravnos and the whatever it is he is( something that's not Caitiff, Lasombra, Tzimisce or probably Gangrel or, gosh, what else is he not, Nosferatu, right, don't forget them. He's probably not a Nosferatu).
So she and the man part ways, but it is a temporary parting. He heads to the study on the second floor; Lux, well.
She will return to the mudroom. She will schmooze on the way. She's a decorative thing, social and [magnetic (star-heart)] after all what else is there for her to do, night after night? But she will return.
See? Return.
Kali
She smiles a little bit when Istvan identifies his faith, or at least his former faith. It's not a warm smile, just one of acknowledgement. "Yeah, no they weren't too nice to Hungarian Jews." She puts her hands up, as if to say she gives up. "And fair enough. You understand, I had to check and see. If not about you, then about whoever may have come with you. But if you're good, you're good."
She looks like she might continue down that road a bit, but that's when hears Lux making her way back. Her attention is directed that way and she griuns as the incandescent Toreador comes back inside. "There you are. Didn't happen to find a Dixon, did you?" It's said in a joking (but also hopeful--you never know!) manner.
Lux
There you are.
"Mm. There is a 'Dicks' - or Trix? - holding court in the master bath's jacuzzi. Not the first master when you go up the stairs, but around the corner, you know, the one that overlooks the front garden. Anyway, perhaps that sounds like your man? His pants are leather; this," she holds up one hand, as if to demure, "is all I know."
István
And Kali like so many before her concedes defeat in the face of István's staggering show of logic and turns to see that they have been joined again by the luminous Toreador. So does the newcomer turn to watch her.
She hasn't found Dixon but she did find the first half of the name. She isn't sure if she has or not.
In her absence István still has not removed the stars from his face. She can see them glint in the light when the corner of his mouth threatens to cut up into a smile.
Kali
"A leather-pantsed Dicks?" She rolls her eyes a little and nods. Yes, the woman who looks like she should be taking the stage at her own strip club is rolling her eyes at one of her dealers' choice of garb.
"Yeah, that sounds like him. Dipshit wouldn't know a style that fit him if it was a Hoover attached to his junk." She pushes off from the wall. "That's probably my cue then. Before I go, though..." She reaches into the pocket of her jacket, pulls out a couple of business cards with the Rapture logo. "Here's my new business. I'm expanding. Istvan, if you ever need anything feel free to drop by. And Lux, oh thousand points of light..." She grins. "Drop by any time. You know I'll hook you up."
Lux
"As punishing as fashion can on occasion be, let us hope it retains a degree of mercy, and the hoover attached to junk look is never actualized." There's a little vibrant rill of laughter in her voice. Kali takes out a card and Lux lifts her chin to read it as she accepts it and then - see, the shadowed suggestion of a smirk. "I will stop by," she says. "And soon."
It is not a threat; it is, however, quite deliberately said: a promise - she wants something from Kali. "Tell Bo I said hello."
One isn't to take from this that she is ignoring István; au contraire. He was included in the sweep of her gaze when she was just returned; he is the recipient of another gaze, now, as Kali takes her leave, gifting business cards.
They totally became best friends while she was gone, right?
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