Ithiel [♂] .&&. Love [♂]
----
Have you ever wondered that, if lie can run across the globe before the truth even gets its boots on, where this leaves rumors?
“Hey, did ya'hear?”
The answer to that is quite simple. They're the first to arrive, spread twice as fast, and never entirely die; they're like dandelion seeds planted in the ears of the faceless, the strangers you just happen to overhear at the pub, on the street, in a shop. You can never find the flower they've come from, but they're there nonetheless, and they're taking over your garden one feathery seed at a time.
“Yeah, but, really? I mean, no way that could even...”
They're carried by the gossipers, the easily-forgettable. And then you've caught the seeds, too, and while they take root in your brain you're already spreading them to others. Gossip loves an audience.
“There are vampires in Ceno...”
This particular rumor, while of course unknown in origin, got its first gust of wind in Ceno City's expansive lower levels, in a bar, blown by a drunkard who'd caught it from some-guy-I-dun-know-who. He sat hunched over, brandy in hand, with a small crowd of other tipsy patrons at his disposal. He occasionally muttered about his wife, but the listeners kept him mainly focused on the vampires by buying him drinks. If you were not just as smashed as they were, or if you didn't speak fluent alcoholism, nothing he said would have made any sense.
To the crowd's perspective, it was like listening to Caesar. Only dumbed down quite a few blocks and slapped with a bottle of wine. This is a translated version of what he said:
“I don't know about you old chaps, but I have good reason to believe in this indisputable fact. Mainly by reason of it being an indisputable fact. I have full trust in that old man, who's name I cannot recall, that this city is teeming with vampire life, mark my words! It's not entirely improbable, after all; our great Ceno City has its fair share of interesting folk. Zombies, goblins, shapeshifting animals of various species, faeries and elves and, naturally, humans. It shouldn't be surprising any more. Besides, they look just like us... Or, most of us. They have secret covens and everything, I'm sure. And by the by, my wife has just recently kicked me out; did I mention that? Oh, I'm so lonely...”
And here is the untranslated text:
“I dun'now about yah bastr's, but I'mpossitive they're out ther'! Possi- poss... Sure as Hell sure 'bout it. Ol' whatever'd never lie ta' me, nope! Ther'there! Jus' like all the other... Stuff in this rat-city-hole Ceno whatev'verr. Goblins an' prissy faeries and... Stuff. An' people. Couldn'tve made it here without people! We'd be livvin' in trees! An' they look like us, ya' know, the vam'pre people... Like people, I means. They're underground an' stuff an' plottin' in their cov... Cave thin's. Oh, Charlotte, why'd ya' go, why'd ya' go...”
And just like that, the rumor seeds drifted into the city. And they thrived.
----
The rumor first reached the ears of those drinkers, and that of the waitress, who had simply laughed it off while hiding a strange black pendant underneith her clothes. And from them, it spread to their friends {if they had any, which was likely, because a man with beer can always find a friend} and families {which they were much less likely to have, or at least to have kept in contact with}.
It spread its way up and out of the undercity, into the light of the upper sanctums, where it was first ignored by all but a few. Though eventually it gained an article in the daily Questioner, and immedantly shot up into the limelight.
It reached the nobles, who made up almost the entirety of the Above sectors. Most of them thought it to be ridiculous, and a few wondered how they could make this into a marketing scheme. The less wealthy and more worldly looked upon it with curious eyes.
It reached the BioLight Apothecaries, where the scientists and students alike just stared blankly and said, yes, of course there are. But no one pays attention to the scientists.
It reached the furry, pointed ears of the Twin Fox Kings, and not very slowly, because you don't go around running a city like Ceno while only knowing things after they've already been put into print.
It reached the vampires.
A black, bat-shaped gavel banged loudly on the matching obsidian podium. Several vampires winced, including the holder of the gavel, but it was necessary these days. The younger fledglings had some... Unique ideas on what it means to be conspicuous, and apparently that meant listening to incredibly loud “metal” bands and punching holes into every free spot on their faces. They looked calmly up at their leader, who coughed politely.
“Yes, erm, hello family members! I'd like to foremost apologize for the sudden meeting- I do thank you all for coming, and hope that you weren't in the middle of anything... Important...”
He trailed off, and hundreds of eyes followed his line of vision. In the center of the crowd, two of the younger fledglings were quite obliviously getting on with what they were doing prior to the rushed meeting, apparently finding it boring enough to continue their make-out session without missing anything terribly important. Then they tumbled to the floor, taking down another vampire who happened to be standing in their way, and were then lost in the sea of legs. Their leader shook his head as if to clear the images, and continued on with the formalities.
He was an odd looking man, which is to say that he looked the most human of them all. He had straight, prematurely silver hair that was naturally rather unruly, and very pale skin; but he wore frameless glasses, a deep green turtleneck, a tartan vest and simple tan pants. He looked like a librarian, only bleached beyond the point of pigmentation. His eyes were large, nervous and blue, and he was fairly short in stature. His name was Ithiel.
Having finished with the customary greetings and introductions of the smaller Clan Lords, as if they didn't know everyone personally, already, Ithiel coughed again and straightened the papers he had piled up on the podium.
He paused for a moment, looking down them, then turned his eyes to the crowd and decided to push the official doctorates aside. He gave them all a wan smile. “Why don't we all just cut to the chase? Who first heard the rumor?”
This was a dangerous question to ask- partly because everyone thinks they heard it first, but then again, were wondering whether or not it would be a good idea to be the first witness. There was some mumbled talk amongst the vampires, a few shuffling feet, and then a young lady in a barmaid's outfit stepped up to the front.
“I did, sir.” She said; and if she were wary of him, she hid it well. Then he took a closer look- she wasn't one of the vampires, not even a tagalong; she was a donor, a black swan, and had her pendant proudly on display for all to see. Behind her, somewhere amongst the bodies of anxious vampires, a shadow lurked. Of course she was at ease, she had a bodyguard. Vampires are protective by nature.
Ithiel nodded to her, and stepped to the side. He liked donors, they were always so honest; not skittish like the younglings or haughty like his fellow elders. {Which encompassed vampires from twenty and up, and should tell you something about the demographic of the community.}
She tapped the podium's microphone, curious, and then began to recount the events of last week's night at the bar. There were a few scoffs, a couple of groans, and at the end a flood of questions. It was like that at almost every meeting, and Ithiel tuned most of it out. He was feeling very tired.
“This is absurd! We shouldn't be forced to come out like this!” Ah, so the questioning was over, then. He supposed he ought to relieve the girl of her post.
“It's a time for change!” Said another voice, to which a chorus of ‘yes’es were heard. Ithiel raised his hand for silence. It did nothing.
“We should be correcting these misconceptions, not ignoring them!”
Ithiel massaged his temples, feeling a migraine emerging. “Everyone, if you'd please-” He stopped, because someone just punched someone in the back of the crowd, and he couldn't quite register what he'd just seen. A few of the other vampires were obviously feeling much the same way.
After a few seconds, the room erupted in a flurry of fists, because violent energy in a room full of vampires is like smashing a bottle of beer over the head of someone in a bar, only magnified by ten, and with added bloodlust hardwired into their genes.
Ithiel hesitated. The allure of fresh blood tugged at his most primal instincts, but the much more human part of his mind was screaming at him to get out of there before he did something quite stupid. He listened to it, and quickly darted out the nearest door, which led into a lavishly decorated hall. He collapsed on one of the red velvet sofas, breathing harshly, pressing his palms against his eyes.
It was taxing him too much, he knew. How long had it been, again...?
He groaned and, glad that no one else had the sense to escape yet, curled partway into a ball and pressed his face against the crevice between cushion and padded backing, breathing in the smell of dust and cobwebs. He clutched at the fabric with white knuckles. It was one thing to be Thirsty, to have that black festering hole in your stomach which drains you, pulls you down, makes you mindless. But it's quite another thing when combined with another kind of longing... One far less nutritionally based.
Two more days, he tried to reassure himself, just two more days. Then he'd be fed and reunited and everything would seem so much more manageable. And maybe the humans would've forgotten them by then. Just two more days...
...It would have been a perfect time for Love- that bastard- to burst in dramatically, feed him, and then take him home. But he didn't. So Ithiel sighed, took a few more deep breaths, and reentered the madness that was the Meeting Chambers. Maybe his head would stop spinning by the time it was over.
----
The humans had not left them alone. If anything, it seemed to escalate, even to the point of a few kids being captured on the premises of “looking like a couple of blood-suckers”.
The Coven was, naturally, very concerned. And once again, Ithiel found himself back in the Coven halls, this time with a much smaller audience.
He sat in the dining room, discussing matters of press with the figureheads of famous and infamous Clans, over dinner. It was blood pudding. He was trying not to lick the plate out of sheer desperation.
“So, you all...” He was momentarily distracted by a bit of the meat, which was cooked perfectly, {by vampire standards, which is slightly underdone and much less congealed} but still wasn't satisfying enough, thank you. He swallowed and coughed, and tried again. “You're all quite concerned with the... Outsiders, aren't you?”
“Naturally,” was the unison reply. Ithiel sighed and sipped his wine. It still wasn't blood, no matter how hard he wished. His other stomach, the one that housed the Thirst and didn't actually exist in a biological sense, growled at him.
He grabbed one of the chocolates that were sitting out in a glass bowel, and popped it into his mouth to shut it up. “I understand your concern,” he said, while reaching for another candy, “but I'm honestly at a loss on how to fix this while keeping everyone happy and, well, not in a war. Like last time.” The chocolate wasn't helping; he waved their serving girl over and asked for strong dark coffee. She gave him a sympathetic look and scurried off. Finally, someone who understands.
The Lords exchanged glances, and shrugged. It wasn't their problem nor their place. “May I suggest,” queried Lord Magricom, head of the Psyonic Wards in the east sanctum, who helped herself to some of Ithiel's chocolate just because she could. “That we simply split the groups? One side for those who're happy to stay in obscurity, one for-”
“No.” Said Lord Ridducl, of the Hybrid organization in the south quarter. “Because that would just end up like the Psy-Sang wars, and no one wants to go through that again.”
Lord Feledom, who was probably not a vampire at all but liked to be included in such things, followed Magricom's example and stole a chocolate piece. “Yeah. And besides, it's nice to have somewhere we can all meet.”
The fourth Lord at the table- Ithiel excluded, on account of being their overarching leader- daintily laid down his silverware, which caught everyone's attention. He was Lord Valum, who oversaw the Sanguine Hospital in Ceno's most dangerous undercity tunnels. If Ithiel were honest with himself, and had been given the opportunity at the time, he would have given this man authority over all vampire Clans instead. He was regal, he was elegant, and he rarely ever talked. You couldn't make a fool of yourself that way.
“I think,” said Lord Valum, evenly, “that this shouldn't be a snap decision. We need time to think this over. The fruit is ripe and ready to be plucked if we so choose, but there may be hidden worms in our apple. Think wisely about this, Ithiel.” He stared straight into Ithiel's eyes, and it was terrifying. “Many people will hate you no matter what your ruling. Think not for them as individuals, but for the good of the community as a whole. You can either choose to lead us into the light, into the whirlwind of ignorance and hard-fought battles for real medical prescriptions, legal backing for our donors, a battle which we may loose terribly.
“Or, we can stay in the dark. In your comforting coffins, raising yourselves and your apprentices to be resourceful, fearful, and secretive. Stay a family, or fight for your family, possibly pitting them against one another in the process.” Lord Valum leaned back while his salad was taken, {Lord Valum did not eat meat, and everyone thought this to be rather silly until you met him, upon which you suddenly got the idea that if he did, he wouldn't stop at animals} and the serving girl replaced it with a large mocha coffee of his own. He sipped it thoughtfully. “You can't have both. Though, you should know, I shall be on your side no matter what the outcome.”
Hush blanketed the dining table. This is the usual response after one of Lord Valum's speeches, often followed by a quick change of topic. It was practically tradition at this point.
Lord Feledom wrung his napkin nervously.
“So... Anyone for poker, then?”
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...How am I doing so far? ^^; This is, I think, my first time writing vampires actually being... Erm, vampiric. It's also taken from bits of personal experience, making it so much more fun/easy to write. :D
The next part will be up as soon as I know what to do with it~
