Oughtn't Be so Arrogant [Jack]

Miss Molly
With the weather as mild as it was during the daytime, some of that warmth was bound to bleed over into the night as well-- provided you got yourself out into the air early enough to beat the frost that would settle in during the teensiest hours of the morning.

We'll consider this somewhere just prior to midnight-- after all, night fell early upon the city in the winter, especially when there were great mountains to your West to help hasten the setting of the sun.  No wonder Denver was such a hotspot for Vampires.

This Donut Shop in particular had been favored by this Nobody and Miss before they were as much.  Back when they were "Jacky and Molly, or Miss Toombs (depending on who you asked)".  Back when one of them still had a pulse and the other kept a particular mask in store for her because behind it was a Great Secret.

Well, that cat was out of the bag now.

Still, to the Donut Shop.  There was good company there to be checked in with every so often, after all.  Gregory had been hailed hastily, then Molly had shuffled herself into her favorite far corner where she could be ignored by the occasional warm body that roamed through the door.  She looked like a homeless person here for a mercy coffee, covered in draping (but clean) skirts and a very large hoodie with the hood drawn up to mask her face in shadows.  Sitting not slumped, but straight with her head bowed down to look at a coffee cup that she would barely pretend to drink at all.

This was "life" now.  It had been for some time, though.  Jack was talking with Gregory, some private business or another (and Molly respected privacy, having a strong need and respect for it herself now that she was the monster she was).  Molly was fine to wait.  Eternity and so on.

Nobody
[Which face have I got today?]

Dice: 8 d10 TN7 (3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Nobody
The Nobody Much of Jacks, the Jack of Nobodies, here he is, he is here, this 24-7 Donut Shop heart of an empire, tower and bastion against the onslaught of the bloody darkness; here is he, speaking to Gregory, Gregory, Gregory of the hot temper, who'd once quaffed blood laced with fury then went for a truer curse when that was snuffed out he doesn't want to wither away like a candle sped forward in a second like a curse like he's been released from fairyland made a mistake. That's one of the prices you pay: Molly has seen it. This is a face that Molly has seen before, nondescript ugly quash of a man with a crooked nose much-broke and a pair of twinkly blue eyes one of which is smaller than the other and musty orange cowlicky hair that doesn't know what it wants to be. Wiry body, wiry shoulders, all sinew and whip-crack bone-break slightness, this whippersnapper, might be in his mid-twenties might be older, it's so hard to tell with the: homeless. And he seems homeless in spite of his suit, or perhaps because of it: too nice too gentlemanly for the dusty ashness the rest of him is, worn down see. Worn down and tired creases, and that's just the Face. The Face he remembers, he stole, he took and taken kept and uses. Ugly face has a warm smile for Molly when the Jack of Nobodies in his finery leaves Gregory by the wayside and slides into the table opposite her, and if his eyes are sharp well Jacks have sharp eyes. Jacks are clever; it is a universal law.

"Good evening, Moll."

Miss Molly
Moll looked up when Jack sat down.  Under the hood, in case it ever fell away or somebody caught a glimpse beneath, she wore her face wrapped up with bandages.  Maybe she could play off as recovering from some kind of terrible domestic violence attack or something.  She had to keep her hands hidden often, though.  Even now, tucked away in her corner, she was sitting with them tucked away into the many folds of her violet skirt.

"Evening."  Though much changed about Molly, her voice hadn't altered a note.  It was as clear and cool and clever as the first time he'd heard it.  More tired, more Aware, but the same woman.  Recognizable, dangerously so, were the wrong ear to hear it.  Thankfully she hailed from the coast and didn't have many friends in life.

Through the bandages eyes that were as clear and blue as her voice looked out upon Jacky.  Her Sire.  The reason she sat hidden away tonight, wrapped and covered as she was.  Her heart lapped the honey of his voice, perhaps it would forever, and perhaps she would never ever know if it were for the blood alone or if it had ever been anything different.

That was a fairy tale bittersweet for another time's consideration, though.  For now Molly practiced wearing masks by grinning-- little more than a movement under the bandages-- and speaking softly.

"I'm still amused by this face, Jacky.  Or more, that you own it.  You say you never planned to whisk me away to this--" a roll of her eyes about the donut shop to indicate her surroundings in lieu of the casual hand-wave that she may have made when they were less public.  "--but you sure did seek me out, didn't you?"

Nobody
He gives her a flick-quick flash of a wing, pale lashes brushing low, when she says she is still amused by this face. This Face, this Face is a winking face; this Face does it easily, and it seems natural: maybe this Face once picked apples, stole candy from corner stores, looked longingly at other girls until they looked back and then the wink. The goodnatured wink, I see you. But the Face and Jack himself settles into a more somber reflection:

"I did. I would seek you out again: Can you tell me a version of your life, you, Molly, Molly who has lost her last name, can you tell me a version of your life where you are not called to wonder at what there is in the shadows; is there a version of your life where you'd rather ignorance? I would have kept you in the Kingdoms of the Day and the Courts of the Sun, but I think at some point...."

"Ah." He sounds sad. H does. "You were always skimming down into the dark, you are clever and determined and you have a knack."

"Does it please you to know you're in on the secret?"

Watchful, Jack.

Miss Molly
Was there a version of her life where she would have rather not known?  Molly thought about that carefully.  It was a question that she'd asked herself and considered many times over, even before she had the life drained from her under the earth somewhere.  What would her life have been instead?  Perhaps she would have become a doctor and eventually settled a family and had a little red-haired child or two.

Perhaps.  But then she went and made promises to the Darkness and the closest thing she ever got to a child was better off having never known breath and sight at all.

His question was answered with a slow shake of her head.  "No, I don't suppose that there would have been one..."

He's told her before that he would have rather not turned her.  She knew that.  Jack wasn't cruel, he didn't wish his visage upon her.  But she was always skimming downward, downward.  It was bound to happen sometime, no doubt.

But...

"Of course it does," she said.  She didn't sound impatient or short with the answer, but it was an easy one to give.  "That's what got me into all of this.  I love secrets--or, more to the point, I love knowing them."  She unfolded her hands from her dress and looked down at them.  She had to knit her own gloves, so they were crude and had a couple of holes where pale skin peeked through, but they did the job and fit her abnormally long and spindly fingers well.  In particular, she inspected a hole at the tip of her index finger where pink peeked through instead.

"Hearing that out loud, I guess I was headed this way already."

She paused, then asked without looking up:

"Would you have always had me so bound to you?"

Nobody
[Manipulation + Subterfuge. + Specialty. -2 Diff because Fully Bloodbound.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN4 (2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 7 ) [Doubling Tens]

Miss Molly
[Perception 3 + Empathy 2: lololol]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Nobody
"No." He still sounds sad -- or rather, reflective; but definitive. A silver tongue, spoonfuls of honey for consumption; vampires drink only blood and live in the air but they feed on things besides somebody else's brush with death all the time. They feed on lies; on social jostling. They feed on it; it sustains them. And honey, a certain kind of honey.

"Not unless I was forced to, exhibit B what happened with You Know Who Miss Bluer-Blood-Than-Yours Nibs Herself. Or unless you asked me. There are certain protections being so closely tied will offer you; wards against the willful spells of warlocks, and aristocrats, and shadowmongers. Imperfect wards, but still: wards."

"We will part eventually, Molly. And when we do, perhaps we will be separate long enough that our bond dissolves like sugar in water. I will be here for you as long as I can, even after it does."

"Perhaps one night what's darkest in us will turn to light."

Miss Molly
"And you really believe that?"

He told her that he wouldn't have bound her so closely in his original plan, and that perhaps they would part one day and then the bond could be left to go away.  She believed him, because she always did even if he did keep his vampirism a secret from her until that secret was ripped from beneath his feet like a rug.  Or more, he was knocked off that secret by a screaming bus.

The last part she had trouble believing in concept, no matter how much he sounded convicted in it though.  She looked back up at him with her question, peering from the deep shadows of her hood.

"That we're going to turn back to light?  With what lives here?"

With this she raised a spidery finger and tapped it over her (still) ample bustline, to where her heart lay suspended and still.

Nobody
"Mm. I do believe it is possible. I must. I have seen humanity at its darkest; darker, even, than what lives here." He echoes her gesture; a hand over his heart. "I have seen our kindred, too, descendent rather than ascendent - terrible to bear witness to. But humanity strives; curses must be broken. I'm surprised the girl who went through the mirror questions what is possible. It won't be easy; it may not happen. But it can - call it Golconda, if you will, though I believe Golconda is only one face of a true transformation." He smiles, and This Face makes the smile rueful, crooked, lopsided. "Does it make sense that things can only get worse? Was the highest point of living the moment of birth?"

Miss Molly
Molly's eyes hopped elsewhere when he said it-- The Girl Who Went Through the Mirror.  She worried about this from time to time.  More specifically, she worried about how much she knew that Quincey Morris in particular was intrigued by this and called upon her for her particular talents and luck from time to time.  Whatever alliance they may have in place, however shakey and made of spit and glue it may be, she could only sit and spin herself nightmares over what others may try and send her back through the mirror to do.

"No," she disagreed with his rhetoricals about happiness and shook her head.  "Nobody knows the highest point of living until they're dead.  We're only halfway there, so we only know the highest point of the first chapter.  The Highest Point's an individual thing-- to some it's knowledge, to others it's ecstacy, to others still it's the biggest treasure trove to lay upon like a dragon."

Her hands had slipped back into her skirts again, and she considered the appearance of her modest paper coffee cup for a moment.

"Golconda...  We don't have to be demons, Jack, but that doesn't mean that we aren't them.  The verb and the noun.... You can change one, but..."  She twisted her mouth ruefully, thoughfully, hesitant to speak on the subject perhaps but only so much could be seen through the shadows and those dull white strips of bandage wrapped in layers over her face.

"I had to give so much just to bring an existing consciousness back to an existing body.  To completely change... to reanimate....  What could possibly be given for that?  Besides what you're striving to turn to light already?"

Nobody
"Questions like that, my dear, is why it is not easy."

He rests his elbows on the table, hands dangling downward.

Miss Molly
"Which is perhaps why we haven't heard of anybody who's done it."

She cut this back to him quickly, like a tennis match that she was feeling competitive in.  Her words were quiet but they were seldom soft.  Easy and patient, perhaps, but certainly not apologetic or gentle.

"Anybody who tries becomes Something that can't come back to tell us.  Which means if you ever find It?  There's no coming back."

The way she was looking at him was hard to see with the covers she kept upon her face, but he knew the weight in her gaze.  I can't come get you again.

Nobody
"Ah, clever Molly, that is faulty logic indeed. We haven't heard of anybody who's done it because it hasn't been done yet. There was a time before men set foot on the moon; do you doubt now they stood there?"



Miss Molly
Molly shook her head and sighed a little.

"We've existed for thousands upon thousands of years and you don't think that anybody else has tried to walk this path before?  You think upon all those who have tried, none at all have succeeded?  Where we will?"

She wanted to smirk to go along with the next statement, but it felt almost augural in her mouth so she didn't.

"We oughtn't be so arrogant, Jack."

Nobody
"Thousands upon thousands of years, and nobody walked on the Moon, Molly. Thousands upon thousands of years, and Rome wasn't even a twinkle in the eye of the woman who would one day be great great great grandmother of the first human being to look at the site Rome was built on. You must not let the weight of time depress your spirits or your goals."

This segues from (visionary [belief]) discussion of What Might Be to a much more pragmatic and sharp warning.

"Don't think yourself small, or ineffective."

Miss Molly
The fledgling vampire said nothing for a minute, but looked at Jack while he spoke until he cautioned her about her perception of self worth.  That was where her eyes hopped back down to the tabletop and she murmered:  "Easily said..."  But left it there.

During the time that she was quiet she fiddled her fingertips together.  Poked at the small holes here and there and hunted for threads she would be able to tug and arrange to mend them.

At last, she spoke with a change of subject, her tone sounding something like a report:

"There are two men I've met recently.  One wants me to teach him about the Church.  He doesn't seem to know much about the world around him.  In exchange, there are books within his turf that I get access to.  Perhaps they'll contain something useful that I can use....

"The second man, he may come seeking me."  She frowned a little.  "He might have the wrong impression about my alliance with Church, I'm afraid.  He's... a brutal one."

Nobody
"You have reason to believe they are not men?" Jack asks. He is a Cautious Jack, a Jack of Stories, a Listening Jack. He is always a listener, no matter what the Face, or what the story he is (selling, sweet Con Man) telling.

"Please tell me about them both."

Miss Molly
Did she have reason to believe they were not men?  She nodded her head.  Affirmative.

When bade to tell him about them, Molly did as much.  She was not the most eloquent woman, could not weave the tales that Jack of Stories was able to.  However, she was dutiful and attentive, and so details and observations were provided bluntly instead of prettily.

"The first is named Gray.  He's patroling turf along Colfax.  He thought I was a shovelhead, and then pressed me for information about them in exchange for.. ah... not knocking my head off with a baseball bat.  I think he's young, perhaps not much older than me, but I get the sense that he's on his own and not getting direction from anyone.  He might be lost in figuring out his place on this side of unlife.

"The second goes by 'Thomas', and introduced himself to me as a Brujah.  I met him by chance while out hunting, and he told me of this book shop he owns.  I went to visit, and that night a couple of shovelheads came in-- sincerely, they showed up maybe two minutes after I got through the door.  Thomas must be quite.... he's something.  He tore them to shreds and had not a scratch on him.  I slipped away, the way he was burning through himself I was afraid he might..."  A shake of her head.  "He told me to leave, probably had the same thought in mind.  Said that he'd come find me."

She concluded with a rolling shrug of her shoulders from under the baggy black material of her sweater.  "He's up for quite a task, though, trying to."

Nobody
"Hmm." To the word about Gray. "What neighborhood has he staked out as his own? I think I may remember seeing him at Elysium once."

He props his bristle-y chin on his fist as she talks about Thomas the Brujah. "You're young enough he might just be able to find you," Jack says. There's a reflective quality to his voice here. "Do you believe he's going to try and tear you apart? If not, you should go back to the bookshop before he starts looking. If he doesn't need to look, he'll not find anything you don't want him to. Unless, of course, you want the practice being difficult to trace."

Miss Molly
For Gray, she nodded and listed the address of the particular book shop she was speaking of.  It was smack in the middle of the uncomfortably gritty stretch of street that East Colfax was.

"I don't know how much of the surrounding area he's claiming, but that's where I was when he came down upon me.  From the rooftop, like he thinks this is a movie or something..."

She shook her head, then continued on.  "I don't know about this Thomas.  Perhaps I want to see if he can find me?  I don't think he will tear me apart-- he wouldn't have held the door open for me to leave in the first place if that was his intention."  A moment, a sigh.  "Perhaps I should go to him instead..."

The coffee had gone cold by now, and though Molly didn't need to hunt Jack had his own business to attend to no doubt, and Molly was growing rather accustomed to her own silence for company.  Perhaps not now, but soon enough they would stir from that booth.  Maybe they would go together, maybe they would separate.  One direction or the other, the night would consume them both though.

Nobody
Jack: does glance around. There's no one else here but Gregor, a lull between moments, between business, between: well, many cops frequent this shop, and street people, and perhaps some shady deals go down. It's one of those places.

When his eyes return to Molly, he says, "We are Nosferatu. We do not encourage people to find us, unless we are dangling ourselves before them, and allowing them to."

Sober. "There is too much at stake for our people. You should find him. Practice watching the place. If he's Brujah he shouldn't be able to see through what invisibility you are able to dredge up."