Contemplation and Conversation

István

An exchange of numbers came after the exchange of stars and it was not happenstance that had them greeting each other a second time in this place Lux tried to warn him away from. Phone calls are much faster than letters though letters are all they have had for the last - what? Forty years?

Forty years is a long time to correspond. A year of letter-writing is enough time to know a person's personality. Their insides and where their eyes are cast. What their mind does when it has blocked out all other distractions.

István has a mind that churns as constant as a generator meant to power a block. As the generator that keeps this hotel running even when the rest of the city has turned out its lights. Though he did not call her immediately after the party he did still call her. Did still posit that if she had more questions that he might answer them for her. And he had questions of his own.

He and Kali had argued human motivation within the context of a eugenics war that ended nearly seventy years ago instead of talking about what's happening here now. They have much to discuss the two of them do.

So they check into a room at the Oxford Hotel. Or maybe it's the Brown. The writers haven't decided yet. He stands close to Lux as they speak to the night clerk and he is very charming and well-spoken and they can see in the woman's manner that she finds them a handsome couple. Probably assumes they're visiting from out of the country.

He gives her the name Stephen Andrássy and then they have their keys and their directions to their floor. Up they go. István does not wrestle with the electronic key. He is only an elder by guilt of association. Those of his generation go through their nights as if in a borderland with nothing expected of them.

When they enter the room he has no bags to drop down and yet he does wander the room assuring himself of the placement of furniture and the strength of their curtains. Without turning on the room lights he paces to the window and shucks the dressings aside to look down at the city.

They have cable and he'd rather stare out the window.

Lux

[Eh, what the fuck. Stealth!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )

Lux

István to the dark window where he looks down on downtown Denver, and he is framed by the curtains. An actor, staged. A shape, a suggestion of: what in the world does a man standing framed in a window, looking down at a city, suggest?

Lux doesn't follow him to the window immediately, if at all. Lux abandons her purse on a chair, giving the room a moment's cool and cautious regard. How quiet she has been; down in the lobby, certainly, standing near István without a word, just a speaking look once, and as handsome a couple as the night clerk thinks they are, the woman must also think her less charming (but perhaps more compelling, more distinct -- that profile, those lashes, the cut of her glance, the way she looks, something to look at in spite of one's self) than the blonde man with the faint accent.

After she has abandoned her purse, she begins to abandon her coat, shrugging it off her shoulders while unbuttoning it with one hand (oh, but no: the coat wants to stay on her left shoulder; the fabric is determined, so there's a long gape of fabric, and she has to shrug again), and she goes into the bathroom. The light clicks on; spills honey-gold out across the -- well, what? Did Stephen Andrássy splurge for a suite? Or is this room tiny, a bed, a flat-screen, a dark window with a view? Lux takes off her earrings, plink, and, plink, and then

Does it matter? István does not know 'and then.' He is not aware of 'and then.'

He does not notice any change, until:

Do you see? There is a window (again, a window), and there are 'dressings,' are long, whispering curtains, the folds of which Lux has slipped around and between; between the wall and the curtains, and then, and then, there: against the window's sill, she quietly takes a moment to study István's expression. It is true, they have written; they know each other through words, and words are revealing of some things, are so, but there is also a certain element of control on the page, isn't there? Lux knows István as well as he knows her; his expressions are still newish. 

And so, a moment, another, and then -

she makes the curtains sway, grips it like it's modesty and blows toward his face (a ghost - woo, woo).

"Boo."

István

[WITS: how startled are we?]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )

István

This room:

By Oxford Hotel standards this is one of the smaller rooms they have available. It is 250 square feet with a king-sized bed in the center of the room. Thick red curtains hang across large windows that overlook the city below and all the lights are still on and the sky overhead is pink from clouds and light pollution and yet the drama and surge of so many thousands of people going on about their nights without faces or voices this high up this distant as they are is enough to keep the creature occupied.

He is older than his hotel. Was born four decades before Colorado became a state and had been dead nearly thirty years by the time the Oxford Hotel was built and opened. He likes to think that he will still stand after it has fallen but no one can tell these things. He is not a seer.

Not a seer and not too aware of his surroundings. Vigilance is a virtue among their kind and in the absence of vigilance one has to be paranoid. Paranoid or lucky.

Lux has hardly said a word since they arrived tonight. The weather is bitter in its cold and he was bundled as he did bundle himself the night of the party. Stood at the window he has not yet removed his overcoat. He did not remove his overcoat the night of the party either.

This is a different outfit. A different pair of shoes and a different suit. He has combed his hair again and trimmed his facial hair again. In the silence where he does not know she's there Lux can read his backside. The iron in his spine and the stillness where he does not need to breathe. In his profile she sees the curse of eternal youth and in his eyes attention and interest in everything below them that he cannot see.

And then the curtains dance. It is not a haunting. It is a Toreador. But he jerks once. It's a reflex. He cannot help it. His brainstem seeks to protect his neck even in the absence of a heartbeat.

Boo.

Unlike a human who would feel surprise and perhaps panic with a flush of adrenaline through the veins István just lets his eyes widen and a smile stain his lips. He chuckles low and his smile shows teeth.

"My dear," he calls over his shoulder as if Lux were still in the bathroom, "I think we have a ghost in here."

He reaches for the curtain and rucks it back.

Lux

He rucks it back -- it leaves her grip; a billow! and a revelation. See? Lux's shoulders rise-and-fall: that's how she contains something like amusement. Presses her mouth together, surprisingly firmly for such a mouth: surprisingly sharp, that dredged-up hint-of-vibrance at the corner. Because why not? But -- she snatches the curtain again, quickly because what is Lux, if not a devotée of the discipline of quicksilver and grace? And pulls the curtain back, but see: she reaches for the other panel, too, so now her back is to the glass, and pulls the curtains around them both, so they are not on stage (unless, of course, one could see them from the street -- but they'd just be silhouette puppetry then, hm? and it is dark in their room, excepting the gold spilling from the bathroom), and she says,

"No ghosts. Don't even suggest it, István; you never know.

"What would you do if we did have one?"

István

Long slender arms haul the curtains shut not to keep him out but to contain them both and his laughter is an impression of a noise so near are they. Darkness hemming them in with the bathroom light blocked out and the window is thick behind her but cold.

He can stand beside her or he can stand in front of her. Letters provide intellectual intimacy but not physical. Their bodies generate no heat. No pulse at the throat or wrist to distract from the conversation.

When her dancing and her curtain-closing has ceased István has not moved. He had stood with his hands clasped behind his back and then abandoned the stance to take back the curtain. Now he braces a hand against the windowsill beside himself. The hand nearer to Lux goes into the pocket of his overcoat. They stand close to each other.

Anyone on the street below would only see shadow. Her back and his chest. No light. This building only has five stories.

If they did have a ghost:

"I hear white candles will banish the young ones. Or sage. But I do not carry sage with me. Candles I hope would work. If it was an old one, yeah?" Here comes a joke. "We would have to leave without the checkout. I do not want to share the room with a ghost."

He turns towards her more fully. Even in the dark she can feel his curiosity.

"Ah, but are you so afraid that we might have a ghost, Viol?"

Lux

"The Oxford Hotel is old, for the west. It has ghost stories."

Her voice touches on a confessional quality; is saved from being confessing by a certain off-handedness, and Lux lets herself slide an inch or two down the glass. István has a hand in his pocket; Lux's hands, she tucks behind her - she is not earnest, but she is musing.

"I do not think candles would work. How strange; really? Were I a ghost, I rather think I'd be drawn to the candle's flame. I'd try to squeeze myself inside the brightness of it and -- ohh. Perhaps that's the trick of it."

"Then again, without nerves to give me a sense of anything without my own thoughts -- isn't that how you put it? -- I suppose I might not notice the candle's flame at all. But then whose bright marketing idea was the candle schtick?"

"What do you think?"

Of -- ? Oh. She means: Denver. She tells him she means Denver by turning her head to look over her shoulder, down at the streets. Dark winter, cold as a bone that never did sing anyway.

István

When she fires off her letters some of them rambling in their metaphor and rhetorical she does not have to watch his face as he sits by candlelight at the beginning of the evening. Not all of István's letters come back to her folded in on themselves and sealed with red wax. But many of them do.

Never has he sealed a letter with black wax. István is not a creature who mourns even when he does weather a loss.

Stood here now as she talks about candles and the parallels between being a ghost and being a star Lux has to talk with his eyes on her face. Not staring directly into her eyes the entire time but by the time she cuts a glance back out at the darkness that is where they are aimed.

"Hmm?" he asks. A light noise. Like he isn't sharp enough to follow the conversation without prompting. They're looking out at the city and now he takes his hand out of his coat pocket to plant it on the sill. To lean his weight on his forearms as he considers this move he's made.

What does he think.

"You know René, yeah? At the party, he did light your tobacco."

After all this time he doesn't call the ghoul 'his' anything.

"It appears, yeah, that a Cainite has claimed the hospital for his hunting grounds. I do not know who it is. But this Cainite, he attacked René as he did walk to his car from the hospital. Ah, it is not the city's fault, but I do now have a personal problem."

Lux

Eye contact is threatening, especially when one is presumed to be of a clan which specializes in the Discipline of Domination: the Discipline of Kings, of Emperors, or Generals and of Masters. Caine help whoever tries to command Lux using that art. (But he wouldn't, would he? Help. He doesn't like his family.) But Lux: she accepts István's gaze as natural; as a not-threat.

Hmm? he asks, and now she ceases any pretense that she might look down at the street again; she traces his expression, instead, with her gaze. It is not demure; it is, however, contained; a sieve, to catch-a-star, or maybe find a haunting. She folds her arms under her chest; her spine straightens, just a touch - and so - "Hm. René; was he injured badly?"

István

"Eh..."

As they speak of the incident István keeps both hands on the sill. No more tension in his form than the posture requires. No spark of rage or offense to tighten the cords in his arms but they are speaking of a violence against a person dear to him.

"He said to me that the Cainite did not stop his feeding after you or I would be sated. René, he is strong. He fought. He tells me he did treat himself in the morning, yeah? The attack, it was just before dawn."

She can hear the respect he holds for the ghoul. Can see the galvanizing of his resolve as he speaks of what happened. Fending off an attacker once fangs have pierced the flesh is an improbable but not impossible outcome. Most humans would have succumbed to the Kiss.

"When he did return to my haven, I helped him. He did not look so good. Very pale. If he had not fought, he would be dead."

He looks to Lux then and a wry smirk comes upon his lips.

"It is a pity that we cannot destroy those who act in this way. I would very much like to remove this Cainite's head from his body and leave the pieces out for the sun." His gaze goes back out the window. "I suppose I shall have to content myself with putting a stake in his heart."

Lux

[Even though it is a social roll, and that only leads to madness, I'm going to drop a Manip + Subt.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

István

[perc + subterfuge: knock it offff]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 3, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1

Lux

Lux watches István while he speaks of his ghoul. Her eyebrows loft when István says that René fought. That this attack happened just before dawn. That he would've been drained. Would've been emptied-out, was pale. They needn't breathe but Lux enjoys the taste of air on her tongue the feel of it in her lungs and she inhales. Her spine had straightened, and now she slides up the window, briefly touches the collar of István's coat, her fingers curled inward, a slight pressure: she fixes - precision - the collar according to who knows what visual aesthetic. Then: she presses herself back, stretching both arms up over her head, and dis-engages entirely from the window, slipping under or around István and out've the little curtain-world with a curtain-swish, they rattle on their hotel rod.

He wasn't looking at her so there's nothing for him to see, but something in her voice gives her away (or maybe just the giving-up of her place by the window tells). Thorn-prick of bitterness: hidden, but not well enough. So: István intuits or hears or notices and Lux doesn't know that he does.

And what does she say? A moment before the head-board thunks against the wall, a moment before she falls back onto the mattress, having -- fluid -- taken one of the Tyrant-coin pins that holds her hair ravelled back out, catches herself on her elbows. She says:

"Most Princes do enjoy their power over the Sixth; but, loveliest man, there are those who fall outside the purview of that law here in Denver. If your poor friend's," friend, she says, not ghoul, not thrall, "attacker was with the Sword, why, quarter the bastard to your hearts content. Fifth them, even. Sixth him, for a lesson."

"But are you any good, István? What'll you do when you have your problem with a stake through his heart?"

István

And the presence of her fingertips at his collar is enough to draw his eyes away from the city glimmering outside. To turn his head at the outset and then turn his body when Lux quits the window and rustles her way through the curtain to find her way back to the bed.

For a moment he is not looking at her. He is looking at the darkness left behind and the insides of the curtains. He is wondering if the curtains will hold back the sunrise or if he will have to augment them. If they will be staying here tonight or leaving before they have the chance to checkout as is proper and expected. The hotel will check them out if they have not done so by 11a.m. anyway. But he has paid for this night and the next. No one will bother them tomorrow.

That leaves only the sun to worry about. The sun and the faceless nameless cretin who nearly killed his ghoul.

Is he any good, she wants to know.

István takes hold of either swatch of curtain and forces them back as if he were letting himself through a set of French doors. Pink illumination come through the window to offer up the edges of his body and she can see his face but just barely. Shadows where bone ought to be and the glinting of his icewater-blue eyes gone colorless in the absence of light.

In the dark she can hear him force a laugh out of his throat. A hollow sound given he does not laugh so much in his old age. As he steps away from the windowsill István closes the curtains tight just in case he does not come back to them again this night. Shrugs out of his coat and slings the scarf off of his shoulders. Both are set down on a nearby chair. It leaves him standing in his three-piece suit shoes still tied and then he walks from the window to the bed.

He sits down beside her and anchors himself on the mattress with a hand on the other side of her lower body.

"Well," he says, "if this place is so lawless as you claim it to be, perhaps I won't bother with the stake."

Lux

[I wanna stay up...]

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (2, 5, 9, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Lux

"Now I know you don't read my letters closely," Lux says (teases), lightly. His weight on the mattress does not shift her much. This is The Oxford Hotel. The mattress is firm, but not too firm: the give is just enough - see? - for most guests who actually use the bed to sleep in and rest their weary bones. Weary for Lux is an emotional state: rarely something she actually feels, if ever, because of the passage of time, so her bones are never weary. They're eternal too. "Denver does not suffer from lawlessness; oh no. It suffers from a surplus of laws; a competition of laws -- worse than a peacock of lawyers or a glittering of critics."

The tyrant-coin pin she abandons; reaches out so her fingertips find where István's wrist bends; becomes a hand. Is a suit-jacket sleeve, a shirt-sleeve, beneath that skin; touch there, then slip up fabric. And rest.

"But what will - what would - you do, if you did?"

István

Without a pulse to quicken or a breath to catch all Lux has to read the reaction of his mind to the touch of his flesh is the tilt of his head towards the contact and the splaying of his fingers upon the thick down duvet to give her fingers more room to rest above his wrist.

In life he spent his time hunched over graph paper and squinting into various scopes. Writing equations by quill and candlelight. Squinting when his eyesight began to fail him. His arm is not a pillar of muscle but neither is it nothing but bone and skin. She can feel the potential for strength in him but his strengths are a subtler thing.

"If I were to stake him?" he asks. Reaches out the hand not bracing himself on the big bed to find and smooth an errant strand of her hair. "Perhaps I could take him home and see how capable he is of intelligent discourse. We can debate whether the presence of two antithetical laws negates them both."

Lux

A beat. And then Lux laughs, and the elbow she is propped up by: she lets herself lie back entirely, though angles, angles, angles are for mathematicians but also for artists, and she is angled so she can still look at István's face. Toreador are nothing if not frivolous sensualists, indeed? Here is the frivolous sensualist - still 'sensate.'

"What would your stance be in that debate? Make your opening arguments, I am prepared to critique their style." 

István

"Oh, but I do not need to have such a sharp argument for one I intend to have relieved of his ability to walk by the time we have this talk, do I?"

That isn't the point. The only light in the room now comes from what filters out of the bathroom behind them. Enough for their eyes to acclimate and they both being beings capable of honing their senses they do not truly struggle to see.

Perhaps there is a reason István does not place stock in anything that requires his eyes to see. Many of his arguments over the years have been that art has cultural merit and yet what worth would art have if all on earth were to lose their sight. He squints so often it may be apparent by now that even if he's not blind he still can't see worth a damn.

He can see enough to tuck her hair behind her ear and brush the curling ends away from her throat.

"You anarchists wish for a world with no governing body, yes? The absence of laws would mean the absence of war. This is how you feel."

Lux

Lux tsks his first and rhetorical question; and isn't she an intimate thing, Lux? tracing the shape of his wrist-bone under his sleeve(s) with her fingertip.

Her response is brash and immediate and absolutely lofty: "Certainly; if we were all five year old children. But please continue," that, in the tone of: temporarily conceded (pretended), if it is a support of the argument to follow.

He has argued what worth art would have if all on earth were to lose their sight. Maybe then there was a call from a payphone; and a song. Maybe there was talk of poetry; of a time before written language, and anyway, a time when everything was dark; and when even sound has been taken some art-form would follow because form follows function and nothing is functional without art (oh yes), so people would create an art-form of touch, see, or smells, something, anything, until they were nothing at all. And then,

well, something would no doubt happen. Nothing would get bored.

István

This bed is huge. They could both sleep as if they wished to make angels out of the pillow top and the fitted sheet and do little more than brush arms and feet. When Lux tossed herself onto it she was careful in her aim and trajectory but she is not in danger of falling off. István has enough room to sit beside her without his feet touching the floor and when he decides as he does now to lower himself onto the duvet beside her he can lie on his side without feeling gravity tugging at his spine.

His right hand stays molded to the mattress beside her but as he lies down his elbow and forearm rest across her torso. The soles of his shoes hang so that he does not violate one of the oldest domestic laws and put his feet on the furniture. His knees are near but not right now touching her. His left elbow finds a bare space near her shoulder.

At least his voice lowers for the proximity of their mouths and ears now.

"If one law says No one may so challenge you while they are in your domain and then another law says You may destroy none of your kind, does not whatever happens in your domain fall under your own purview? If you decide to destroy another in your domain, how is that the concern of the Eldest? Yeah? The two, they cancel. This is not a clash."

Lux

"István, István." Lux shakes her head without lifting it from the covers a silk-sound hair-against-fabric whoosh a suggestion of motion. Lux's fingertip stops circle-circling, slides further up his sleeve before withdrawing entirely; she puts her hand over his forearm. There. "Exactly. If one law says no one may challenge you while they are in your domain and another law says you may destroy none of your kind, but in gosh damned fancier language than that, for sheer style's sake -- which would be important, sweetest philosophe, which would need be sharp, even if the one you were going to have a talk with was incapable of much response -- "

a pause. Inhale for the fun of it. Exhale, and words.

"If the laws say that, you're half-right. It's not a clash, but it's not a cancel either. They fit into each other like one of those Russian dolls, like a hook through an eye, like..." A careless gesture; her hand leaves his forearm for a moment to cut it through the air, then returns to circle.

"If you have a domain, you are the eldest in that domain; unless, naturally, your domain is part of some elderest elder's domain, and then it is their purview, and you should not have thought yourself so big, hmm? Because who are you to decide anything at all?"

"But I didn't mean Tower itself is inflicting on Denver a surplus of laws, you know. I meant now that there is the Tower law and the law of the Sword, which I am unfamiliar with, so cannot argue much about, but it does seem to involve an awful lot of soul-sucking and shovel-plying and I imagine religious chanting around chalices of blood and so on and so forth, and so the city is not lawless but it does suffer the pains of law times two." 

István

As he grows comfortable in this new recumbent position István reaches down with his left hand to unhook the buttons on his suit jacket. He is still wearing a waistcoat. She can see the glint of a pocket watch's chain as it catches what little there is in the room. His tie does not flop about for he has it tucked beneath the waistcoat.

"The Sword does not have laws, my gem," he says. "They have a code. They have perversions, yeah? Ah, but they say the Tower is full of delusionals clinging to their humanity. That that is a perversion. This surplus, it is not just here in Denver. The two sides do war in so many other cities. I do not know about the soul-sucking and the shoveling. Maybe not so much with them writing it down. They speak of strength and unity until they are caught. Then their code means nothing."

Lux

Lux doesn't reply immediately. She slants her gaze downward; watches his fingers without watching them, see. Then - she shifts, restive; lifts her head, un-pillows, just enough to comb her fingers through her hair, begin to pull what hasn't already fallen out've braid and twist out've captivity.

"A code, a law, surely in this instance it amounts to the same thing. Rules to live by." Half-glance; spark of a smile, and it is impulsive, this -- transformative, edged-gleam, and she sets her head back down, turning onto her side as well. "If I wanted to know, I suppose I could find a soul-sucker, or I could ask one of the warlocks. Did you know they've come to Denver, too?" 

István

"I did not know that."

They're lain on their sides now. With her rolling towards him his hand is still on the mattress beside her only it's behind her now. His elbow hooked across her hips. It's an awkward position. He has to do something about that. So he does. His hand slides across the mattress and finds her middle back. Rests on her waist.

And she does not know his facial expressions near as well as she knows his verbal expressions but this one is transparent enough. That half-a-smile that means he's fascinated or charmed by what she's saying. It crinkles the skin around his eyes in the dark.

"Is that why you wanted me to stay away, my darling? Because of the soul-suckers and the usurpers?" His hand comes up to find her shoulder. To traipse on down the length of her arm in search of her wrist. "Maybe I thought to myself, Oh but if she will not leave I will have to come. So many monsters out there. Why should she have all the fun?"

Lux

[I try an impression?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Lux

"Oh, I see," says she.

Lux is a fine-made thing, isn't she? Fine bones. Fine skin. Fine, delicate eyebrows -- they know how to arch with precise inflection. Fine clothes, too. The hell is she wearing? Something with three-quarter sleeves and a boat neckline. Something with texture.

Then she laughs, again, or nearly does (restraint [and so, gloom-shadow thing, shaping her voice as it comes after, defining where and how it is brilliant]), because if you can't laugh or enjoy the night, then what's the point? "I am not surprised if those were your exact thoughts, István. 'So many monsters out there. So much chaos, so much fervor. So much noise. Why should not I be there and note-taking, eh? Why should I stay in Chicago when I could be figuring out a jigsaw in the midst war and cacophony, yeah?'"

Her impression is not spot-on. But it is certainly recognizable, isn't it?

"But who says I wanted you to stay away? Was it I?"

István

That impression is close enough. Maybe she can't drop her voice deep enough or get the inflection of his accent perfect but the cadence of his speech and the imperfections of his grammar are all there and the longer the impersonation goes on the bigger his grin until she can see teeth shining in the dark and hear the rustle of his laugh in his throat.

His hand has long since completed its journey down to the bareness where the sleeve does not cover. Found her wrist and the pulseless flesh and bone that makes it up. It does not stay at her wrist but instead runs the pads of his fingers over the bones of hers. Presses his thumb to the palm to watch the tendons flex.

"Ah, no," he says, his eyes drifted down to watch what his hand does to hers, "there was none of this 'want.' You only said it would be quite stupid, and I did disagree. All is still right in the world, eh?"

Lux

"Oh, stupidity. The one right it is difficult to keep one from exercising; I should perhaps admire it more. Why do you disagree?"

Lux has a habit of letting people draw on her. Lux has played artist's model on multiple occasions over the many, many years. Lux doesn't immediately twitch when István starts manipulating her hand. Thumb-press, finger-touch, thumb-press, thumb-press, until don't blink she wiggles her fingers and closes them around his thumb, snap, tightening her hand into a fist, before it's away.

Her hand's turn to travel; she hooks a finger behind his tie, and begins to pull it out, and her gaze falls from his face to the tie, wide, absorbant, watching the shadows chase across silk, so she pulls it out slow-ly because the shadows chasing each other are lovely. And then, once the tie has been freed, she flicks the pyramid-shaped end up, presses it to her mouth and flicks her gaze back to István's face.

István

She takes away her hand that she might use it to liberate his tie and István watches her hand go but does not seek to delay its flight. The hand that had been probing her returns to her waist. And they are sensate creatures. Neither bright nor stars nor bereft of their ability to feel. When he runs his palm up the length of her torso the fabric of her shirt mingles in with the spun-fineness of her bones.

Easy enough to think him a Ventrue. They are creatures enamored with material and status. With arguing about law and politics and what it all means. Someone who met his mortal end in the nineteenth century would have had to have been a man of means to have been a man of science.

What she does with his tie snags his attention but not enough that he cannot answer.

"Stupid is a lack of intelligence, yeah? Lack of common sense. If I tell you I did first begin to think of leaving Chicago to come to Denver when the century did turn." He taps his temple with the pad of his left middle finger. "It was no snap thinking, yeah? Many years of weighing."

His hand finds the side of her neck. His thumb her cheekbone.

"Foolish, maybe. I will admit to being a fool on some nights."

Lux

Lux does not take the triangular tip of his tie from her mouth. Because she likes the feel of it. Because it hides the ol' suggestion of a smile that's a shadowling thing, a darkling thing, dredged up but no: no. Of course it doesn't really hide it; her clear gaze darks right up, and the darkness accentuates the gleam of the expression that could be if she weren't keeping it behind his tie because the fabric feels good.

Lux did not (bother to) learn Auspex for decades and decades. Auspex: the Discipline that separates her clan from the Brujah, that separates the direction of their (cold [practiced]) passion from the Rabble. Now that she's learned it, though.

Lots of things are better. (Lots of things are worse. [There's a reason for Auspex.])

István's thumb on her cheekbone and palm and fingers against the side of her neck. Feels better. Strange, see: Lux does not feel ardent as she might've when she was alive. But she does feel ardent: a lick, see, of hunger - subliminated. That's their curse, maybe, that every want has the Beast shadowing it.

A line etches itself between her eyebrows when he says that he spent many years of weighing; right? And the line stays, and she purses her lips, then wraps his tie around her fist, then lets it slink off so she can unknot the thing. Lux does this with bored deftness, loosening the fashionable noose.

"You should have come earlier; the 90s were a blast. Best. Really. Or -- hah," soft, that; "Was it Winnie? you were waiting for him to disappear; for Rasmussen to - what do you think of the thing, Ist-y, baby? 

István

With no breath to hold or feel constricted by the presence of the tie around his throat István does still lift his chin for Lux to access the knot.

"What do I think?"

Oh the agony. As if she hasn't been asking him directly what he's thought all night and now here she wants to know what he thinks and it's so general a question. For all she knows he could have been thinking about how the surface of a diamond contains so many minute imperfections while being sharp enough and strong enough to lacerate other surfaces that to find them and exploit them could have staggering implications for the future of information technology.

Not while she's toying with his tie though. He does not help her to loosen it. If she wants to leave it where it is he does nothing to dissuade her. His thumb traces the sharpness of her cheekbone. His fingers graze the hairline at her next. Auspex good for more than just sharpening the vision.

"Oh, I think I will just tell you: René, he did not want to leave Chicago so soon. His wife, she was sick so long. That is what happens to humans, my darling, but he did not want to listen to me. When they did first meet she was not so old, but I tried to tell him time is not kind. The first wife, she did die when the Germans came to Austria, but he married again. She became afflicted, yeah? Dementia. But René, he would not leave until she did die. Ten years ago, fifteen, I say to him, Let us go, let us go west, this is America, this is what the people do, they go west, huh? Manifest Destiny.

"No, no, István, he says to me. I will go when she is buried. Natural death I want for her.

"Alright, alright, whatever you want, I say to him.

"So then she did die, and he says to me, Okay. We can go now.

"Oh, we could have gone anywhere. San Francisco I hear is very nice, San Diego, Los Angeles. California, the entire state is your people. But I thought, Eh. Let us see what is happening in this Denver. My artisan friend, she does make it sound fascinating. With the soul-suckers and the warlocks all around."

Lux

Lux does leave the tie where it is once she's loosened it; instead runs her fingertips down the edge of his jacket, slants the other vampire frozen-young forever-until-conditions a pleased look which coincides with I will just tell you, and she does not interrupt his storytelling, athough she does leave off playing with his jacket, tucks that hand between the bed and her cheek, shifting to get comfortable. Well: she is comfortable, but why be still when one can move?

"Artisan? Who is this 'artisan friend,' hmm?"

Toreador are flippant, too.

István

When she gets herself comfortable it traps his hand between her neck and the pillow but that's just fine. He moves it from the side to the back of her neck. That hand could find strength beyond its due if he were to call on his blood but Lux can feel the coolness in it. The only thing keeping him warm is the thermostat. The thickness of the bedding beneath them.

"Artisan, yes."

The night is still young for them. They've hours yet before daylight. Hours to be flippant with each other. So long as the Sun does not climb in through the window as they doze they could stay like this for the rest of its natural life.

"Artitus, eh? Latin. One who instructs in the arts. What is the word for this person in English?"

Lux

"'Art Teacher.' Endangered species."

There: she presses her mouth together surprisingly firmly, the corner of her mouth snicks up in a smirk like the point of a knife. "Artis." You instruct in the arts. "Artimus." We instruct in the arts. "Artint." They instruct in the arts. "Lovely one, would you like me to teach you how to paint properly? I will if you answer correctly this question: What is the first verb schoolboys learn to conjugate?"

István

"Ah, conjugation, you are bringing me back."

Or maybe she isn't. He can't remember whether he learned Latin before he went off to university or before. It isn't as if his parents were wealthy. Somehow he found the funds to study physics. It isn't important now. He can still remember and even if he can't how would she know if he was being truthful or not.

"In Hungary, the first verb we did learn was esse, huh? Ego sum, tu es. The first verb in so many languages is always being. I hear there is no verb 'to be' in Russian. They do not say 'I am.' But I did never learn Russian. Perhaps I shall, one night."

Lux

"Russian, perhaps! But not painting from me. I regret to inform you," and she is so casual, with her regret; handing it out with a nonchalant-edged drawl, "that your answer was not the one the examination board was looking for, however technically correct it was.

"Unless, of course," a sweep of lashes, down across her cheekbones, considering. She is not wearing mascara tonight but her lashes are still long. She is wearing eye-liner and eye-shadow, something that has a degree of dull shimmer, something that is shadowy, shadowy, Lux, she's never limned in light: always in shade, see? Etch her out with darkness.  See? Lux: when she was alive, the sun gave her freckles; they're pale, pale, pale now, just ghosts, but close enough or sharp-enough-the-eyes and one can still see them on the bridge of her nose.

"Why, unless of course you would like to be instructed. You'd probably enjoy it. I'd teach you with little lead cakes that look like fine goblets -- you know, the kind you want to just drink right up as soon as you see them, they're just so -- and I'd give you a box of hematite, lac, malachite, a vial of indigo, a mortar and a pestle. There would be three little dishes. Eggs. And the thigh-bone of a gelded lamb, although I suppose you could experiment with the thigh-bone of an ungelded lamb and see which one worked better, when preparing your parchment for-to paint upon."

Lux has pitched her voice to be low - an intimate thing, confessional and confiding, perhaps to replace the easy intimacy of messing about with his clothes, now that she is so settled. 

István

As she speaks of instruction and how he would probably enjoy it the creature with his tie all loose now and his jacket unbuttoned but his waistcoat still holding István hitches himself up on the elbow attached to the hand that is holding her neck. As he does hitch himself so does he untangle his hand from her hair so that he can sweep his fingertips along her hairline. Plant his chin and cheek in that palm and gaze down at her.

His right hand has been at her waist this entire time. She is not buttoned and draped as much as he is. Few articles to fiddle with and nothing to glint in the light now that her earrings have plinked on the countertop in the bathroom.

He traces her collarbone with the third finger of his right hand.

"You would like to instruct me on such things? I am a terrible pupil, my darling. You would find yourself maddened by how long it does take me to learn. You would say to me, István, you do waste my time so, be gone! A child can do with his fingers what you do with this brush."

Lux

"So?" Lux replies, and though she doesn't actually wave her hand in some insouciant and recklessly grace-edged dismissal, it's pretty much there in her tone, the angle of her chin lifting a notch like that. 

He has hitched himself up, but Lux sees no reason to match him; there is just a minute adjustment, the better for his hand to leave her neck without pulling her hair. Messy, or at least the promise of mess, now that it's been unpinned so carelessly, see. The Toreador seems to enjoy his fingertips there, and then there; seems to enjoy István, even if she isn't touching him, if the suggestion of another smile is anything to go by.

István

Lazy as they are this night he seems intent to dance around the subject of learning to paint as he finds the ridges of her bonework beneath the shirt and skin. It is easier to talk of the future and all of the things one does not know than to talk of the past. To talk of things like mortality and loss.

It was not István's mortality or István's loss and yet it was István's friend. Surely he felt some sympathy or compassion for the man.

"'So?'" he says. An echo. His fingertips follow the shadow of her breastbone beneath her shirt and trace the curves of her ribs. "No. I do not wish to learn to sew. Paint. We are discussing paint."

Lux

Lux who is quicksilver reaches out with the hand that's, for her, the side of her body in contact with the mattress. As if, perhaps, to circle István's wrist with her thumb and forefinger. Which wrist? Not his right hand, the one tracing ribs through fabric and flesh. The left, because his head is propped up with his left-hand, and it is time to knock him down: so, there. Lux reaches out, as if to circle his wrist with her thumb and forefinger, but instead she just slides her arm between his forearm and his head, and then pushes out. Fall, kid. That's what that 'sew' and 'so' pun deserves. She slips her other arm under his jacket, slides her hand across his waistcoat, to the small of his back as if to keep him still or distract from the knock.

"Which is a subject you do not wish instruction on, hm? Because you are so," a beat, "so terrible."

Did István feel sympathy or compassion for René?

Perhaps Lux assumes he did; perhaps she assumes that, if his story is true, he loves his ghoul, or treasures him, indulges him. What would she do if Gary Miller wanted to get married? He would probably ask her; expect her to say yes or no.

The idea of marriage is so cute.

Lux has to think that István is fond of his ghoul, wants him to be happy: or perhaps she is optimistic enough to think so. After all, he is intent on finding whoever fed from him, and -

well, they have discussed the Sixth Tradition and destruction, haven't they?

Elders. Lux hates elders. 

István

Distant dusty laughter as she knocks his elbow out from beneath him. Slides her hand to catch him so he will not roll away from her completely. So so terrible. Lain flatter now like this she can see his teeth flash with the laughter. The crinkling of thin skin around his eyes.

His right hand does not have far to travel to reach her hip from her ribs. It does reach her hip and then he's pushing the bone to flip her onto her back. To hoist himself back up onto his elbow, lock a knee between hers. Weight still on the left side of his body. Left hand toying with her hair again.

"So make me not terrible," he says. "Eh? Mademoiselle professeur d'art."

Lux

If he were a mortal, this would be when she drank him right up with a Kiss took enough to make him swoon and not care remember exactly what happened after. He is not a mortal, so this is when she studies his expression and then the shadows on the ceiling, closes her knees around his and it is comfortable, see. That hand of hers that's caught beneath his jacket and against his back; it slides when he moves, up to his shoulderblades, then down and down again to his waist and then freedom.

Here; a sudden, impulse, Compass-needle tugged smile.

"Very well. We will begin when I have the proper materials, and you will learn to be less maddening, though not too less - wouldn't that be boring, István?

"What did you think ... Oh, wait. Wait, if I ask you another question that begins with 'what do you think', I would like a solemn promise. The solemnest. And I am to ask you another question that begins with 'what do you think,' so are you ready to make a solemn promise?" 

István

That would be so very boring. He is smothering his reflex to smile as she asks him whether that would be boring. Of course it would be. Mortality is the time to care for convention and behaving in the company of others. The two of them are too far gone to think of things like Golconda and the possibility of absolution. Might as well stay maddening.

And then she asks him what he thinks. Again.

István lifts his eyebrows as if to affect offense but he is not offended at all. He is amused. Eyes laughing. She sees it and backpedals asks if he would give to her a solemn promise.

"Ah, but I cannot say if I am ready until I know the promise, yeah?"

Lux

"Promise not to answer with a question. No question marks to appear in the transcription of this conversation after I ask my question. Not one, from you. Promise." 

István

Before he commits to the promise he thinks about it. Think think. Can he actually make that promise. What will the consequences be if he does not. What if her question calls for a question?

István runs his hand over the ridge of her hipbone and nods.

"I promise not to answer with a question."

Lux

"What did you think of my friend the other night?"

István

"This is a trap. I do not recall which friend--"

Even as he's swatting the question back at her his mind is working. She can see the slow dawning of memory as he realizes that yes he does recall which friend.

"Ah, yes, the one who does not like Germans."

Lux

"This is America. Nobody likes Germans," Lux says, languidly. "Yes, that one."

István

"We did not have much of a chance to chat, you see."

Look at him making such an effort not to answer with a question that he does not even punctuate his sentences with a rhetorical as he is wont to do. No yeah to make sure she is following him.

"She did ask me how long I have been in America, em, when I did come to Chicago, and I tell her, and she does make a joke about keeping ahead of the Nuremberg Trial. Hah hah, very funny, laugh so. But she was not joking. We did sort it. I am not a Nazi."

Lux

"István?" 

- in the tone of a precursor; in the tone of, you know what I'm going to say next, don't you; here is a chance to guess at it; and Lux curves her hand around his throat; runs her palm up to his jaw; watches her hand as she does it.

István

[wits + empathy!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )

István

[LOL PSYCH + subterfuge]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 9) ( success x 1 )

István

With her hand rested against the side of his throat the inquiring cant of his head is a subtler thing but he does cant his head so. Does not make her repeat herself or remind him of the fact that she wants to know what he thinks. Teasing in his gaze but not in his answer when he does answer.

First he sweeps the hair off the right side of her neck with his hand. Exposing her throat. It does not pulse at him the way a mortal's would. He does not feel life and hunger in every contraction of the heart for the heart does not beat. It is still a lovely throat. He looks down at her for several seconds before looking back up at her face.

"I think she is smarter than she does look. I would very much like another chance to speak with her. Maybe I will stop by her establishment some night soon. I have not been to a gentleman's club before." Sly almost-smile. "But then, I am not a gentleman."

Lux

A sharp smirk at his denouement.

Tap, tap. A finger against his jaw, then just at his pulse(less)point. Thumb, then. Lux tonight is a carressing creature, isn't she? And why? Because it feels good; that's all. The skin is sensitive; it's got something of wanting in it yet.

"I think that if you find your quarry, your doctor quarrying quarry, and you keep him still, if you like I can tell you who he belongs to if anyone. But if I can't, she can. She's often around Elysium, you know. I imagine for the company; for the sheer joy of knowing people, huh? Cannot be for the photographs of supermarkets."

István

Just as he was stilled by the touch of her hand to his wrist does István lose his inclination to perform feats of conversational gymnastics as she keeps her hand at his throat and runs a finger along his jaw. No breath to take but he lets his eyes shut. Not entirely unlike an animal.

Only to have them open again when she offers to help identify this fiend even if she does not offer to help interrogate him. Kali can if Lux cannot. He considers this with eyes hooded from the caresses.

He turns his face towards the palm of her hand. Though he parts his lips as if in preparation to bite Lux feels no fangs grow out from behind them. No breath either. But they're talking. She's owed an answer.

István looks back at her and says, "Ah, good. When I have him, I will make sure not to scatter too many pieces. In case I do need the help."

Lux

One must be careful when one is an Anarch, mustn't one? The path of neutrality is a compromise - because, after all, if one is an Anarch, identifies oneself as an Anarch, even the least-politically minded have taken a stance, have said what is is not good we want something else we will search for something else; it is different from merely claiming independence, was the blood-seed the Sabbat grew sprawling-from (unless one's view is the blood-seed the Sabbat grew sprawling-from was actually the sins of the Eldest, Elders, their sheer arrogance, their wrongness, in which case - are you an Anarchist?) - and Lux is careful.

Lux is a precise creature: precise in her gracefulness, precise in her testing, precise even when she is carressing - which is to say, so much fineness of movement, see.

One must be careful; nobody cares what happens to the Anarchs, except other Anarchs, and even so, and even then.

" - how sweet you are," she says, a smiling again, suggestive again (magnetic: again), "In case, he says," a lazier impression of his accent, his mode of speech.

István

Another slow cut of a grin through the dark. Amusement at her trying to lower her voice and give her speech the same cadence as his. It doesn't hit the target like the slew of sentences she unleashed earlier but he gets the drift. She's mocking him.

Agony.

"Yes," he says.

His right hand has decided to trace her arm again. This time when he reaches her hand he does not probe the structure of it to see how it works. He lets his fingertips drift up and down the inside of her wrist slow for he has nowhere else he needs to be tonight.

"Do not going telling everyone. I very much like the idea of my reputation enjoying a foundation made of threat of dismemberment. How I will strike fear into the hearts of those who would harm my loved ones if they think beneath the fear I am sweet, eh?"

Lux

Lux doesn't twitch her hand or arm away this time. She does, however, let her other hand drift from his jaw, thumb graze his mouth (threat of dismember-) though lady come on he's in the middle of talking, trace the shape of a word (fear into the) or two, and then she plants her elbow on the mattress and props her head up with her fist. She turns her wrist just so, the better for his fingers to find it, and lifts her eyebrows - haughtily, maybe, or coolly.

"Is that your preferred method of wielding authority; terribleness? Crushing their inclination to harm with a heavy hand, and the threat of rent limbs?"

István

There's that word he used to describe himself as a pupil.

On the sliver of mattress nearer the outside he is in danger of toppling off if she decides to shove him again. Not so great a danger. He can move quickly if he sees it coming. But the night is long before them and maybe the other side of the mattress is better for this conversation.

István rises up onto his knees. Jacket unbuttoned falls away from his waist as he becomes vertical and so he returns the buttons one two to their places before he lets himself flop onto his back on her opposite side.

"No, my starlight," he says. Look at him - not answering her questions with his own questions now. Answering them straight. Perhaps he is not so terrible a pupil as he claimed. "I do not prefer authority at all. That was a, how you say." The word is heavy on his accented tongue. "A joke. I do intend to put a stake in his heart, but not so to spread fear, eh?"

Lux

Lux sits up too. Does not go to her knees, no. But Lux sits up, pulls her legs up so that she is sitting like a mermaid: knees together, ankles demurely (daintily, casually) crossed, braced by one arm or perhaps when she sits up and pulls her legs up like so she also scootches so that she can slouch (insouciant, rebellious-) against the headboard. Her knees are pointing that-a-way. István is flopped that-other-a-way. Lux watches the Ventrue or Malkavian or no not Brujah she has decided not Brujah in spite of the Anarch-friendly remark.

"How long has René been with you?"

István

If they aren't going to turn on the television and see what's going on on cable they might as well talk about such safe topics as ghouls and why their safety and health is worth the danger inherent in hunting and staking one of their own.

He isn't a Brujah. Some of them liken themselves as philosopher-kings and some of them found their way towards an education but he does not have the shell of a fighter.

As they find themselves in new resting states István puts his right hand behind his head and cants his gaze so he can see her in his periphery. He does not have to turn onto his side with her sat so high up on the headboard. Stretched out like this his left arm lies across his midsection. His thin ankles cross one over the other at the end of the bed. He has not yet taken off his shoes.

"Since the Germans did come to Austria," he says. "Strange time to be in Vienna. The Tower and the Sword, little men in uniform marching everywhere. Seventy-four years, it has been."

Lux

Now why would Lux turn on cable when she has such an interesting show here before her? Lux finds him interesting. Lux finds his presence in Denver interesting, and timely perhaps. Lux finds the shape of him in the dark interesting, and her lashes are low, as she regards the Tower's newest dashing captain, low and lovely, and while the fingertips of one hand rest on her ankle, she tucks a messy curl behind her ear with the other. Gloom-hair, too. A density of shadow, tumbling over her shoulder and her collar.

"Are you hungry?"

István

"You read my mind."

No hurry. He was hungry when they arrived and he will still be hungry even after he has fed from and released his meal. Immortality would not be a curse if they could drink themselves sated each time without killing.

The Ventrue Malkavian what-have-you uncrosses his ankles and sits up on the bed. Swings his legs off over the side and stands. With his suit jacket returned to rights already he does little more than tighten the knot around his throat and tuck it back down beneath the waistcoat. He stands on his side of the bed while waiting for Lux to find her feet and then he holds out his elbow to her. An escort.

"The bar, yeah? Downstairs? I have never been."

Lux

Lux is a study of stillness (and shadow, of course. That spill of amber-flux from the bathroom just suggests contours, just suggests a submerged brightness). Stillness when her pen-pal stands. Stillness when he adjusts his suit jacket. Stillness when he tightens his tie.

"It's nice enough," such casual dismissal, followed by a spark of enthusiasm. "Steve's a pal. A heart like coral, know what I mean? A whole eco-system," and now, all right, now Lux does find her feet. No trouble; she's a long-limbed thing, and gravity digs a duet like no other, huh? She slips her arm through his, but leans against him too: touches her forehead to the edge of his shoulder, then bites his shoulder (no fangs; suggestion, of course), holds it for a moment in her teeth [c'mon, darling: Fall down].

Then she glances toward her coat; decides she does not need it.

"You're dashing, darling; what's your preference?"

Lux

[While Jamie's figuring that one out, let's see if it's easy seduce some prey. App + Subt. Specialty, yes.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 6, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )

Lux

[#2, why not. Wits + Subt + #1s dice.]

Dice: 8 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 1, 3, 7, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )

Lux

[And now #3, Char + Emp. Specialty, also yes.] 

Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (6, 6, 7, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )

Lux

[8 successes: Prey acquired.]

István

[jess wants me to roll to seduce some poor schmuck this should be hilarious app + subt]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1

István

[wits + subt]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 3, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6) ( success x 2 )

István

[char + emp]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 8, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

István

[another 4 dice for #2]

Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 3, 6) ( success x 1 )

Lux

[Oh hey.]

Dice: 1 d10 TN5 (10) ( success x 1 )

István

"I am not so picky these nights."

He has the plastic keycard tucked into an interior pocket of his suit jacket and he does not pat at it to make sure it's still there. He remembers tucking it there and he can feel the negligible weight of it. More so he feels Lux leaned against his arm and the lingering of her teeth set into the shoulder.

Through the door they go. Out into the corridor. Other people's voices jostle in the distance and they can hear clinking glasses and laughter in another room. Not so loud for the other guests but their hearing is sharp.

"And none would be in a bar, yeah? You do not see so many small ones in American bars. I used to think I would not go for French." This would be the spot to dig but he does not. Any joke he could make here would be too obvious and he is a sophisticated creature, dammit. "Tastes change, no?"

Lux

[Eh, hide things, attempt ten thousand.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

István

[pft.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1

Lux

There is a flicker of surprise. He's not so picky? Lux would've thought him to be. Lux indeed tries to hide that she finds his blasé attitude surprising, but is betrayed by the sharpness of his perception and the quickness of her glance or some speaking cant of her head. But it doesn't matter, does it? What matters is hunger -- hunger is the price they pay for immortality, specific and immediate hunger. So: They go to the bar.

And they are such a lovely couple, too, aren't they? An inversion of what is the usual fashionable thing: the dark and handsome man, the blonde and beautiful woman. Lux gives the bar a sluice of a look, a knife's edge sharp sort-of look, alert, alert, alert, she will continue to force herself to be alert. They choose their targets.

Perhaps they make it simple and pick up a couple who can be convinced to have a little fun. An adventure. Maybe the couple's on their honeymoon (to Denver? In March?), or maybe it's their ten-year anniversary, they're celebrating something personal and private, and they're not going to forget (even if they are also not really going to remember) going up to the foreigner's room where it is dark and they are just so thoroughly seduced and anyway they're good or bad people they're not sharp or perceptive people

although Lux's personal choice is for the wittier one, one needs to exercise some standard, eh?

Or maybe they don't make it quite so simple. Maybe they split up and find themselves talking to people who have never met one another, with very different backgrounds, very different desires, very different ideas of what constitutes a vacation, and yet even so: István charms, and charms, and charms, and his tall drink'a allows themself to be talked into going upstairs, and Lux is just so, a compelling creature, when it comes down to it, down to the line, down to the end:

Sure, why not go do anything?

Whatever happens, whatever they think happens (how, how could it feel so good?), it is an adventure, and it leaves them exhausted, and pale, and pale, but Lux at least does not take too too much. Maybe they lose consciousness, and wake up in their own rooms, having been put there along with a thank you note; manners are important. Maybe after, István tells them to Go and they do without any questions. 

Tastes change, sure, but blood is always blood

is always a pleasure.