Sire and Dam

Stuart

Stuart Hamilton is in New York City, at some seaside tavern which serves philosophers as often as it serves rabble, where the tracts and pamphlets and two-penny rags are plentiful, where debate is fervent and fiery and the whores are clean and willing to throw in extras now and again and you can't hardly tell the whores from the 'respectable' women who are brought by the tavern for whatever reason. Sailors wives goodwives preacher's wife always wives, never daughters for obvious reasons.

He appears to be wearing a long frock coat, somewhat dandified but also somewhat worse for wear. His eyes are deep-set and intense, his features fine and his bones somewhat fine and delicate too; he does not appear to be a man of stature, being rather lean and lanky instead. Boots are on somebody else's bench, a cain is being fondled idly; and there's an air of casual amusement about the downturned corner of his mouth. Stuart Hamilton, Scotsman; he is letting the humanity of it all wash over him.

Fortunately for Eliza, he is also rather easy to find tonight. 

Eliza

Daughter of the revolution she was not. Nor a mother nor a grandmother. They would have burned her for a witch at Salem. She was not a witch. She was a midwife and a minister's wife and a woman who knew how to read loved to read loved to discuss what she read and that is neither here nor there.

A woman not unlike his childe in build average height for a woman born on American soil trim built and face made up of sharp features comely features. Her hair is brown and her eyes are brown. To look at her a man could break her over his knee no trouble. Badgers have similar countenance and coloration.

She wears a brown-and-gold bodice overtop her petticoat. A high-necked shirt and waistcoat and petticoat and a hat. A mass of curls beneath it. Brocade shoes and an impervious expression that nonetheless draws the gaze. She is a handsome woman and she has always known this.

Stuart knows she makes her way under masquerade as a woman of the night these nights. Not so a century past but times have changed. Confidence with which she approaches him and confidence with which she comes to lean nearby him.

"Whenever shall my luck run out?" she says. "Stuart bleeding Hamilton. Have you a moment?"

Stuart

"Why," Stuart Hamilton lingers on the 'y,' leans heavy on it. He can make his accent thicken so's a wooden spoon would stand straight-up in it, but this isn't one of those times. Accent's just a lilt. "Look who 'tis. Is it the bonny gell who set her half-broke pup on me just a few short nights ago? Awnh."

Sharp features, sharp nose, even so sharp eyes, though they're merry right now with mischief and no offense. "What can I do ye for, mistress?"

"Or," he's up on his feet in a thrice, cane planted hard on the ground one arm somewhat held out lace dandified remember he does dandified well, "is this social call one which begs a more intimate setting, such as," and he glances toward the kine; some of them know him. He is friends with many, under one face or another. Difficult to be friends when you don't go out in daylight, "the alley?"

Eliza

who set her half-broke pup on me

And the ancilla's eyebrows sharp for they were fine in life honed by wit and intelligence and other attributes one will not grant to the Learned Clan in later centuries but as they are now they are hers and hers loft as if to ask if that isn't so their features are not so far from each other though hers are softer feminine as she is and there is no mischief in her eyes only menace.

Thomas has to learn it from someone. She does not look the part of a bruiser. Only in her eyes. She was a mother in life. Now she is a night walker.

He on his feet and her spine straightening to meet his height and her eyes glimpse that cane only as a matter of situational awareness. Strategy. She is a sharp smart bitch. Reputation. Mortal men think she is a whore only. Kindred know her to be a bitch on the surface.

"Why, Stuart," she says in a cloying tone before reaching to take his elbow will twine theirs together if he does not resist, "I cannot think of anyplace I'd rather be right now. Take me, now, or lose me forever."

God, she hates him.

Stuart

He looks absolutely delighted by this, and smacks her on the bum with his cane, or at least makes the attempt. Stuart enjoys having fun. Stuart is easygoing, in his way. When he is not being a hard ass, or intense. And intensely neurotic, and having a fit. He doesn't resist an elbow twine, unless of course she dodged his friendly cane swat; then he is deft enough (usually) in changing the physical subject, gesturing broad and smacking his thighs with the palms of his hands as he rocks back onto the table. If they are to sit here to converse, he does offer her his lap; there is a glint of wickedness behind the solemnity with which he does so. Pat, pat.

"Then shift in, light of my tackle-hook; tell me what's new with you?"

Eliza

If this were 1986 she would have ripped that cane out of his hand and either thrown it against the wall or hit him with it. Her childe if Stuart had hit him with it would have lost his damned mind. Fun is fun but Eliza's idea of fun and Stuart's differ a bit.

So he swats her. She flares her nostrils and reminds herself of where she is and when she is and what she is. A flare of nostrils and a grit of teeth and she smiles terse and thin like oh yes hah hah we're all having such a time and she tosses her hair off of her shoulders as if in answer.

They are attractive the two of them separate. Why ought they not sneak off together. It is not as if she still wears the ring that bound her to her man in life. She cannot even remember his name. His face. She is not so fortunate as some.

Anyway. Out they go. What's new with you.

"Ah, New. A few News, as it happens." After they've passed into the darkness of the alleyway and she can retrieve her elbow and her selfness does she go on, "Are you aware, my favorite, of what your childe has seen fit to amuse herself with of late?"

---

Stuart Hamilton unbuttons one of his coat buttons and rests his forearm against the side of the building, high up around the level of his eyes. He leans, and his other hand stays busy with the cane, a gentle, gentled now and again twirling, which ceases with a tick as if a clock just shut down when Eliza mentions Stuart's Childe. "As I wager you have discovered, not much amuses the Childe." He means the Childe in general, not his specifically; his tone is an academic one, distant rather than fond (but that is a lie, there is always a rake of fondness to Stuart's mischief when he is considering his friends). "But she is coming around, has laughed often enough that I am almost out of fingers to count the laughter on. I don't mind telling you I'm glad of it. I'd hoped she'd be resilient and you see I was right! I often am." "But why do you ask after my Eleanora?"

---

"Well, one of us must, must we not?" Pointed. A point to their meeting besides the pleasure of his company and she makes no attempt to suppress the desire of one brow to wing upward. She is not afraid to meet his gaze. She knows him for a madman and she knows of what they are capable and she is not afraid. No more afraid of his madness than he is of the ease with which she could frenzy. Stuart has never seen Eliza frenzy. She has more self-control than her childe ever will. She cares less for her humanity than she cares for her reputation. "She is causing trouble for Thomas." A setting of her jaw and then exasperation: "You must know they have a fondness for each other, Stuart, you wield that information with as much precision as your blasted tools."

---

"I do know it. I think it rather touching, truth's told, don't you?" The cane is moving again; tap, tap against the side of his leather boots now. They're salt-crusted and salt-stained, worn from travel or other activities would wear a boot down and keep it from fineness. Every man's boots shows where they've been.  "Pisshhhh, how could Eleanor cause trouble for a strapping lad like your Thomas, enough so you'd come 'round to see sweet ol' me?" [Quoted text hidden]

---

Were she a live woman she would take a breath and blow it back out to check her rising temper. She is not a live woman. Breath will not help her. She has her brains though. Brains and grit and self-control. She crosses her arms over her bodice. She does not need a corset but she wears one for the extra layer it provides her. Another lost thing to lament as the centuries fly past. Layers can be minutes for some men. Not for women. Women are quick with the undressing. "Sweet apple at the bottom of my barrel, perhaps I ought to have said they have a taste for each other. You are aware they've met in rendezvous?"

---

He is quick. Quicker, truly, than many people give him credit, trickster that he is rattle-mouth (rattle-brain? Never), that brittle luminosity comes to his eyes so often heat lightning to warn of nothing heat lightning belongs to no storm. No brittle luminosity now; this deep dark stillness. Taste for each other. "I'm aware they've met in rendezvous; I thought little of it. What could they do? They're babes in the woods, lost lambs, and it is good for lambs to gambol. I do not particularly like the way your lug looks at my Ellie, but I have forgiven him his trespasses; it was a fraught moment I am sure." Beat. "A taste, you say? Tell me of this." [Quoted text hidden]

---

Her nostrils flare. Otherwise she does not move. Refusal to believe that he is this obtuse reminder that he is a childe of Malkav and she could be talking to any one of them right now mercurial moods as they have and that flaring is the only sign that she has no patience for this. Not Stuart's fault. Part Stuart's fault. She cannot claim to have kept a watchful eye on her childe either and it took her so long to find him again. "Oh. I will. After I tell you, sir, that I do not particularly like the way your Ophelia looks at him. Or speaks to him. Riddles, Stuart. I do not have time for riddles and yet that appears to be how they arrange their rendezvous, in front of us, nonetheless, and I would turn a blind eye to the whole affair, but for they have a taste for each other." Eliza's is not a subtle face. She lifts her eyebrows again stares right at him and if he does not understand yet she will spell it out for him.

"My dear woman, I understand what 'they have a taste for each other' means," Stuart says, dripping sarcastic condescension. He is very good at it. When his eyebrows arc, just so. Loft and he looks down his narrow hawk nose and lifts his chin and could be a Ventrue in that moment. Or some mad king, long gone. He might've had royal blood before his Embrace. He might've been some gutter trash dragged into the misery of night after night. "What I want to know is how it is you have come to know this." He frowns, suddenly, internalizing. "I have not spoken to her yet of the bond and its many levels; it has been challenging enough to get her to feed regularly." Brief pause; sliver of a smile. It's not a comforting smile; there's something unhinged, foreboding; a premonition behind that smile. It passes though and he devotes his attention to here and now and Eliza. [Quoted text hidden]

---

"She resists feeding." This seems not a revelation to her but at least an elucidation. As if it causes her to think of the arrangement between the two in a new light not that it needed any light new or otherwise not that an explanation makes it any less of a concern but she hears him and she considers it and isn't that the mark of an Idealist that they are capable of such at all. Deduction: Thomas has been a quick study in feeding. He wants to stay alive. If he has to feed off of the innocent in order to remain so well he was a soldier once. He fought in a few battles before deserting the British Army. He spilled blood without benefit in life. Eliza had had to comfort him after his Embrace. He would not take comfort in the way she could have offered it. That she will not ever understand. "It does not concern you, then, that they may meet again." She does not think him dense. That would be a mistake. She does think him capricious though and easily distracted. She lets him fill in the blank where her own concern lies.

---

He is capricious. He is distractable, too. Although never quite as much as people think him, and he usually returns to a point. If he wants to. One is forgiven many things when one is thought mad. An excuse, a crutch. A useful tool. He is capricious, but he watched Eleanor for years. He made time with her in a variety of guises, and Thomas Brant too while they were carrying on. He'd've let Eleanor stay with her children a little longer (that is a lie he tells himself) if he hadn't had to move quickly, snatch her up before somebody else did. Somebody else of Eliza's clan, as it happens. And now the Brujah are, once again, providing complications. His frown remains, lower lip pushed outward and chin up. What a profile, Stuart. The cane is motionless. "Of course it concerns me." The light in his eyes is a sincere one, the way they meet Eliza's. Sympathetic, in that they seek sympathy or have sympathy. His mind is of similar make to hers, at least in this: the concern. "I shouldn't want your rattle-pated clunch of a childe to get his tenterhooks so firmly in her." He pauses. "But it is not as if they are civilized, after all, even if they are young. Vitae is certainly a prize swan of delight and well I know its enthralling qualities, but I also know - " a bit of peevish accusation in the tone of his voice, though the sympathetic light in his eyes has not changed; remains solemn and grim " - Eleanor can resist taking a second drink or a third." "Unless you have heard otherwise. Beat it out of your boy, did you?" Tap, tap goes the cane against his thigh. [Quoted text hidden]

---

Jessica P. Wick <bone.lyre@gmail.com>	Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 12:10 AM
To: Jamie Dorn <dorn.jamie@gmail.com>
((er, it is not as if they are NOT civilized.)) [Quoted text hidden]

---

One of the surprisingly many things they have in common: Eliza would not have chosen Thomas Brant for her childe until some time had passed. He was well into his thirties by the time she decided she could take him as her own but if she waited a while. That was her hope. If she waited a while then he would have honed his beliefs about the world and maybe he would begin to see that the affair he was carrying on with his brother's wife when he returned home from the wilderness ran opposite to his ideals. Now the husband is alone with four children the youngest a towheaded little hell-raiser and Stuart thinks the childer civilized. Cold stare without humor and Eliza does not dignify the accusation with a response. Of course she beat it out of him. Thomas is stubborn. Thomas is stubborn and he cannot lie worth a damn and he would take the truth of his relationship with Eleanor to the grave with him but the grave is not his fate. She releases her arms' fold and plants her hands on her hips. "I find myself disinclined to trust two youngbloods who - may I remind you, sir? - could not resist a second or third tryst in life."

---

"Arranging their rendezvous in front of us," Stuart says, sounding fond and indulgent. Like he'd cluck Eleanor under the chin if she were present at the moment. "Now that is ingenuity!" "Does your boy know now what the bond will do?" [Quoted text hidden]

---

If they were present at the moment Eliza would have to tamp down the urge to slap Thomas upside the head. She would never do so in front of the Malkavians. Even if she was prepared for him to frenzy afterwards and she is always prepared for him to frenzy. Decorum, see. She wishes for an ill reputation as much as she wishes for a stake in her heart. "I have quite thoroughly explained the effects of the bond to him." A cant of her head to one side. Consideration in brown eyes that would have been warm in a kinder-hearted woman. Fierce instead. "Oh, you beautiful tailor's-yard, has it been so long since I've told you how much I prefer bandying words with you than with the wall?"

---

"Indeed, my bonny mouse-tart, many have said I am preferable to a wall, it is one of my chief charms," Stuart says, with a twinkle of the eyes. "Now if you have quite thoroughly explained the effects of the bond to your boy, why do you persist in believing he will pursue it? Is he so thin-witted? Give him to me for an hour and I'll see he not drink again."  [Quoted text hidden]

---

"If I give him to you for an hour, that lesson won't last five minutes." Ignore the fact that all it took for Stuart to wreck Tam's frenzy was taking on the face of his beloved. She's referring to Stuart's unique ability to infuriate the nascent Brujah beyond the point of intelligent discourse. "Pursuit has nothing to do with it, my sweet creature of bombast, and if you know your childe half as well as I know mine, you'll heed me. Agree, even, if I am so bold as to dream whilst still awake. Damn your high opinion of your darling's self-control, they two are in no fit state to meet unsupervised."

---

"Then what is it you suggest, Mother?" [Quoted text hidden]

---

"I want very much, sir, that one childe not see the other until such time as they are their own concerns, not ours." This with her hands on her hips. Her eyes bored straight into his. Ferocity versus madness. She expects nothing. Anticipates everything but expects nothing.

---

"It seems cruel to them," Stuart says. His eyes are on hers, as well. They seem soulful and dark, as if he is soft. Perhaps he is soft, when it comes to his childe. Perhaps he is only very mad, and the madness runs very deep. Perhaps he is multifaceted. And his eyes are brown. [Quoted text hidden]

---

"When we made them, we accepted a burden of responsibility. They're young. They know no better. A vampire enthralled is dangerous. You know this." She steps away from the wall as if in preparation to let herself back into the public house. "I've said my piece, Stuart. Do with it what you will."

Stuart

"Oh, now bide with me a few minutes more, Eliza, while away the starry hours in my company, feed me desire for intelligent discourse, know that I am a starving man," Stuart says, all sleek and oh oh no don't go Eliza he will alertly block her. Wiry young man who isn't a young man at all, and he's all the way mad. "I think we should be fair to our young charges and allow them to make more time with one another, if that's what they want to do. If it forces them to be clever, then it is a good learning experience is it not? Cleverness! So often the," he whispers this, dramatically. Which is to say WHISPERS this, one hand around his  mouth, wide eyes, "VAMPIRE," sneakysneaky Stuart, "'s mind starts off at a clip but slows to a dull slog." 

Eliza

Though her eyes still flash fierce and she is still in the act of moving towards the alleyway door Eliza grants him a moment of reconsideration.

Hands back on her hips. She does not want to grant him her time and yet some part of her bids her do so. Let the lips flap.

"Will it force them? Stuart? Will it? How?"

Stuart

"Sneaking around always forces cleverness," Stuart says. He mirrors her posture, hands on his hips. It could be unconscious, but his bodily mimicry is too good.

"You know that. What keeps you from seeing it here?"

Eliza

Subconscious then: she crosses her arms over her insubstantial chest. Puffs it out a bit that Stuart may see it as the chest of a warrior and not a waif.

"Experience, Stuart. Insight. You cannot be so blind as to glimpse these two and think. Oh SURELY they can contain themselves, they being so young and so..." A staggering in her wit. She is not so witty as her childe. ... so... enamored with each other as they were less than a decade past."

Flat look. Come on Stuart. Really.

Stuart

"They can contain themselves if they are guarded against. It's not as if I allow Eleanor to starve, I know not what you do with your whelp;" and, suddenly, he croons, "are you jealous of their enamoured state, Eliza? Is that what this is?"

Eliza

"If they are guarded against."

Her voice. No one else's. This is what he proposes and this is what causes her talons to tighten on the bones of her hips.

"Never has Thomas returned home from the hunt hungry. Has Eliza taken so to it? Because: so much as I worry for Thomas's control in the face of, well--" Here she crosses her hands over her hips. "--obvious means of loss, what do you think would happen if she fed him one of her riddles and he met it, and he was well-fed and she was deprived? Have you thought of this?"

Stuart

[Stuart: Aura-reading, activation!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (3, 4, 4, 6, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Stuart

"Nooo," falsetto, with a waver: "You knowww Eleanor has not taken to it; I told you just this night that it was so. But it is also not a concern in this regard; whether she will or nay, I have taken steps to ensure that she keep herself fed. Why don't you trust me, Eliza? Truly it wounds me. Why don't you trust that I could talk some sense into your boy, keep him from touching what he should not. Should I demonstrate the veracity of my claims?" He has one hand over his unbeating heart, as if stricken to the core by the earnest desire to please. Except he looks like a jester, entertaining some invisible court.

Eliza

"Mayhaps it is that I don't trust your nymph, Stuart, hmm?"

She has not abandoned her stance for this. This whole time she has thought herself in the right and this moment has done nothing to sway her otherwise.

"Or mayhaps it is you don't trust the bond between the two is stronger than vitae." A beat. A cant of her head. "That they may speak to each other of--" A mocking tone here. "--'how we could be'"-- Dropping of the tone. "--and nothing you or I could say of their futures could overcome what they think it could be."

Stuart

"Oh do cease your silliness. Of course I think the bond between them is stronger than vitae, at least a taste of vitae, one singular taste; thus my point that it is needlessly cruel to separate them just because you believe after making an uninformed decision they will repeat the decision after they have been informed. Though I had no plans on teaching Eleanor about what Kindred vitae will do to one, so I hope your Tam hasn't already gone around giving her ideas. I have a very strict curriculum and if I have found he has meddled I will be quite wroth."

"You should trust me, Eliza. As long as they weren't fully bound, I could stop them in their tracks. I will demonstrate," a sullen, see, sullen thrust of a lower lip, "if I am forced to. I know what you wouldn't do." 

Eliza

"Stuart, my trust in you has nothing to do with my trust in our childer."

Is she wroth yet? She does not sound wroth yet. Annoyed sure but she is Brujah and if she is only annoyed then Stuart has minutes to go before she either vents her spleen or lets the pressure build to frenzy.

"What, then, if they meet a second time, and decide their love for each other is greater than all else, and everything else can fucking wait. What if they decide to drink from each other because..." A beat. She has to drink. Their mutual history serves well enough: "... well. What was her marriage? They defied that. She bored a son by him, did she not, Stuart?"

Stuart

"It's quite indelicate of you to speculate on the paternity of her sons," Stuart says, all evidence of humor sluicing away. "Their love is not greater than my grasp of the Discipline of Dominate, darling; this is what I am trying to point out to you, with the charm and subtlety of a two-penny villain in a three-penny play, but you are so worried. Is he your first childe?"

Eliza

"Of course not."

Her indignity as resonant as his in the face of her voicing the paternity of Eleanor's youngest childe. Not enough to change the timbre of her seriousness but enough to scrape away the crusted bits of jest.

"Oh, Stuart, if you are so assured of your station, let's. Let's let them meet again, wholly unsupervised. Let's give them two nights! Three! What is it, if they are educated?" Her tone has a sarcastic edge to it that is lost in this age. Lost to only the most learned of men who are aware of what is irony. She thinks Stuart intelligent. She also thinks him manic. Delusional. Beyond redemption. A fucking Lunatic. "Should we not afford them an entire turn of the moon together? Should we not expect after so long together they should emerge themselves, unbound, educated after their time together?"

Stuart

"Yes!" He sounds positively delighted. "I'm so glad you're coming around; perhaps not an entire turn of the moon, but a couple of nights. You and I can stroll behind, like proper chaperones. Haven't I told you how I often find myself a-yearn for such a glowering presence as yours considering the world and its foibles at my side?" He beams at her. "Childer are so full of foibles; they're fun!"

Eliza

Her Beast rattles against its chains. She has known Him for an entire century. His rattling does not even distract her. Her will is of iron. Same as the chains around Him.

"Darling boil-brained moldwarp," she says and she even beams false at him her teeth perfect her eyes feigning adoration though he can see in her posture and her irises that she does not mirror her tone, "let's. Let's allow them distance, and do naught to intervene until they have proven mine concerns sound." Beaming smile. She is a beautiful woman if one can look past the fury. "Shall I telegram you, or you me?"