Go Party: A Brief Phone Conversation

Lux

The night after the blood moon and its eclipse that happens in the early morning hours of April 15th: as soon as the sun vanishes, gloaming still contained in the evening sky, vampires wake immediately; with immediacy; and it is very strange. They wake regardless of humanity or path, and as the night spins on, there's violence and madness on the streets (war, war, war), and eventually toward the wee wee hours Lux calls István. Ring, ring, ring.

István

When he answers the phone she can't hear screaming or mayhem in the background and she can't hear much of anything in his voice. The Tremere sounds cool on the phone but love keeps it from going to ice.

"Allo?" he says.

Lux

"Hi there, Kitten!"

István

"Ah, mon coeur, hello. How does your night pass? Safe, so?"

Lux

"Comme ci comme ça," she says. The ambient noise tonight isn't worth mentioning, even to someone whose hearing is sharpened up by auspex.

And he can hear the narrow query in her voice: "Did you wake up early too?"

István

"Yes," he says with a shift in his tone. Piqued interest in knowing it wasn't just him. "This is curious, no?"

Lux

"Uh huh. Apparently it's everybody, you know, not a local event." A beat, and then the narrow query shifts into a still-curious but offhandedly hopeful (Lux doesn't truly believe in hope), "You don't have a theory, do you?"

István

Now isn't the time to get pedantic. He doesn't correct her vocabulary. Just makes a low thoughtful noise as he thinks. He thinks quickly.

"Gehenna," he says. "Or maybe a curse. I need to gather more data before I say if it is a curse that lifts or settles. It could also be a, em, how you say... side effect of something else happening. Some ritual maybe. I do not know. Whatever it is I have no good feeling about it."

Lux

"Sure. Yet; isn't it nice to get an extra hour?" There is: a suggestion of laughter, moving beneath those words; tidal, see, beneath and below. Back to serious business with - "But oh, good, you're going to go out and gather more data. How're you going to do that, dearheart?"

István

An extra hour. Immediate awakening. A glimpse of the sun's last fading before the planet tilts away from it too far for the rays to truly reach. Plenty of positives and yet. She can imagine he is troubled by the implications. Troubled or fascinated or both or something else. This isn't a blind optimist she's talking to.

"I don't know," he says in a slow voice. "I do hope in doing so I don't upset one who may have in his night an extra four hours, yeah? I did never learn how to skulk about in the dark."

Lux

"Skulking is good fun," Lux tells him. Drawls, even. Indolent. Not amused, because: she thinks he already knew this but she's going to make a comment anyway because she wants to know what the mystical non-fanatical Sabbat contingent thinks:

"I don't know how it works with your clan, but going to a salon and discussing a body of work in the prayer of new insight isn't skulking. Of course we don't chant in Latin or wear funny robes or whatever the fuck your people do, darling. You should go party!"

"But not on the streets if you're no good at skulking. The fanatics are being particularly fervent. What is it about astronomy, huh?"

István

Her stereotypical interpretation of how his people pass an evening brings a warm noise that could be a laugh out of him. But István does not laugh often. Not unless he's mocking someone or Lux has said something especially amusing.

"The alignment of the planets is not to blame here," he says, "nor are the stars, nor are the moons or the tides or the pull of gravity. All fanatics like to think it's something bigger than the planet and it never is. When I do learn something, I will call you, yeah?"

Lux

"You sound awfully sure for somebody who doesn't know; why couldn't it be the stars and moons and tides etcetera?" Devil's advocate, Lux will be wearing your shoes tonight. Anyway: "I will enjoy waiting exactly half as much as I'll enjoy hearing your voice again. Do be careful, hmm?"

She doesn't hang up on him immediately; that isn't polite. Or maybe she's expecting him to diligently boy scout swear that he'll be careful before she does.

István

He may not be diligent about it but then again he was never a Boy Scout either.

"I will be careful, yes, and you as well," he says. "Goodnight, my starlight."

Click.