Doing the Accounts [Keara]

[Lancaster]

There was something about a crowded pub that Elliot loved. Even that single word, ‘loved’, seemed inadequate. There were people all around him. Individual people, all with unique lives and unique loves and unique emotions. They all lived in their own individual bubbles, though they’d come here, to his pub, to have their lone individual bubbles mingle and intertwine with those of others. And it wasn’t just pride, either, that they had come to his establishment—the one that he owned alongside Pi. No, he’d loved crowded pubs ever since he was a child. It had been almost a weekly thing, for a while, going to the local pub with his parents. That was, until they split. And then Elliot just kept going without them. That local pub was where he’d played his first gig.

No, there was something far more profound than simply enjoying the white noise offered up by all those intermingling individuals. More profound than the fact that he could lift his eyes to find a singular person, and imagine their life story, that, in turn, could inspire a song. It was something about being a part of that crowd, but at the same time being lost to it. The idea that he could be the one someone’s eyes settled on; that he could be the one inspiring someone else, without even knowing it. The idea that there were so many different possibilities, so many different meetings that might or might not happen. So many different interactions that could lead to different paths that could, in fact, become the brush of the butterfly’s wings – could change the future forever.

When sitting in the middle of a crowded pub, Elliot felt both at ease and on edge. He wasn’t on edge in a bad way; it was like just being there allowed him to recharge, like he was sitting in the middle of a hub of electricity and he was some wind-up gadget that could not survive without it. His heart was full and content; he was a man well-fed and content, a fat cat on a hearth rug.

Except for the fact that he was doing the accounts; the bills had stacked up because, as always, he’d chosen to ignore them until the very last minute. He had people to pay, too. And one of the toilets in the men’s bathroom was leaking—he needed to get that fixed. The eerie glow of the laptop screen played with the shadows of his features, his sharp nose appearing sharper in contrast to the dim lighting overhead. Dark hair had fallen over his brow, though he made no attempt to shift it. Not quite yet. Not until it really started to irritate him. Because it wasn’t irritating him, not quite as much as the accounts—which weren’t balancing.

And that’s why he chose to sit at that table, right in the middle of Lancaster’s, to do his accounts. Because the crowd around him comforted him where the accounts did not. He was trying to balance it out. Even so, as he sat and stared with narrow, sharp blue at the screen in front of him, his foot tapped against the ground, his fingers drumming a beat on the mahogany table-top. He knew exactly where he’d prefer to be – in the middle of the crowd, up on the stage, rather than in the middle of a crowd and doing the accounts.

[Attire]

[Keara Aithne]

Months had passed since Keara had last spent time in Lancaster's presence, if you discounted brief encounters in the catacombs that was, and having realised that so much time had lapsed, she decided to rectify the situation and track him down in the city. She was sure that if she dropped by his pub every once in a while that she might get lucky, if she were so inclined, she could even require as to his schedule, as it was likely he kept one.

Feeling decidedly lazy however, she sent Deanna to go and check for her while she took a shower. She'd spent several days in a raid in the city and so was in need of a fresh set of clothes anyway. The Asylum always seemed to be the place she came home too, rarely ever using her various other abodes that were scattered throughout the city. She was sitting at the computer in the hall, having showered and changed, when Deanna returned. The wraith explained that the pub had moved location and that it was no longer tied in with the club as it had been previously. While its location had changed, the newly furnished building had been done up in keeping with the old style oh The Necropolis Pub but had undergone a name change. The pub was now called Lancaster's.

It didn't take her long to reach the location, though instead of using the transits this time, she took her motorcycle. Finding a place to park in the district of Redwood, she made her way to the entrance of the building and paused as she looked through the window. The place was packed and she did so hate to be surrounded by so many people. She hesitated at the door for a moment or two and only entered when one of the exiting patrons decided to hold the door open for her, so that she might enter.

Her eyes scoured the crowd in the hopes of spotting Lancaster amongst the sea of unfamiliar faces. Having located him, she was once again put off from her task, seeing that he was smack bang in the middle of everything. Despite the fact that he was seated alone, he appeared to busy with something or other and Keara almost allowed that to be excuse enough for her to leave.

'Now Keara,' she told herself. 'What kind of person goes to all the trouble of tracking someone down, just to let the situation that surrounds them to scare them off? You are better this and you know it.'

Keara nodded to herself, and proceeded towards her "target."

"Many moons passed have since chance to speak we have had. Name Keara is, in case you forgotten have. Come I have to see if well you are. But if busy you are. Come back another day I can."

She leant on the back of an empty chair at the table and waited to see if Lancaster would dismiss her or not.

((Garb))

[Lancaster]

Things weren’t balancing. It was a pain in the ***. If it weren’t for the vampiric constitution, Elliot might have given up by now. His eyes would be hurting from staring at the screen too long. He’d have got up to go eat. To go to the loo. To drink. To do anything but sit there and stare, and fiddle, and calculate, scrap it all and start all over again. But because he had no need to move, he didn’t. Having no need to eat or drink or relieve his bladder, he had less reasons to procrastinate.

The numbers started to swim in front of him. There was something, just one thing. There had to be just one thing wrong, and he wasn’t seeing it. One tiny discrepancy was throwing the whole thing off, and he couldn’t find it. He’d looked over every tiny little thing – he was shaking his head at the screen, mouth slightly ajar, completely zoned out. The bright light of the screen illuminated his blue eyes, which accommodated all the frustration that broiled within.

There were voices all around him. All blending. None directed his way. Until one particular voice—a familiar one—broke through his concentration. The way the uttered sentence was constructed, too, gave away the owner of the voice before Elliot even clapped eyes on her. The crease over his brow dispersed as he glanced away from the screen and up at Keara; she looked inquisitive, maybe even a little anxious, unless he was reading her wrong. For a second Elliot didn’t say anything, before he reached for the lid of the laptop and closed it with a resounding ‘click’.

”God, no, please. Please sit! Keara, of course I remember,” he said with a broad grin. ”Not busy at all. I’m fine! Excellent, really. How about you? Doin’ okay? Can I get you anything?” Elliot asked, questions firing from him in quick succession. Maybe he was a little over-enthusiastic, but he was just very glad to have a distraction. And he was genuinely glad to see Keara again – indeed, it had been a while.

[Keara Aithne]

The greeting she received was not quite what she expected, as while she wasn't expecting him to tell her to leave or anything, she hadn't considered that he might be so enthusiastic to speak with her. She sub-consciously realised that she was a distraction from whatever it was he'd been doing when she approached him and yet that information wasn't important enough to get relayed to her conscious mind. The quick succession of short sentences that implied he was happy to be distracted also showed that he was happy to speak with her and so she decided to take a seat at the table.

As she pulled out the chair, she cast her eyes about her, making sure to mimic the shadows upon her body in as natural a manner as possible. Thankfully when a place was more crowded, little discrepancies were easily missed or rather overlooked by those about her. She sat herself at the table and rested her hands in her lap, as she tried to resist the urge to grip the table. With her back against the chair it was more easily done, as she gained physical support from that and yet her posture was anything but natural.

"If memory serves, Bloody Mary, appropriate drink is for one like me. Perhaps more palatable it shall be this time around," she began by answering the most recent question first. "And fine I am. Advancing nicely and still learning. As is our way."

She was of course hinting at the fact that vampires who worked at improving themselves would continually find themselves improving in skills and abilities. She had herself recently acquired a few new powers, her favourite of which being the ability to see those pesky little wraiths that liked to lurk in the corners of buildings all over the city, spying for their masters and/or just being nosey.

[Lancaster]

As Keara talked, one of the hired waitresses flitted past on the way to the bar. To get her attention, Elliot lifted his fingers to his lips and whistled; a swooping sound, loud enough to draw a few pairs of eyes in their direction. Elliot paid no mind to anyone else, but waved over the waitress as she glanced curiously over her shoulder. He ordered a Bloody Mary and another glass of whiskey; the waitress took away Elliot’s old glass in order to replace it. He’d been drinking all night. Of course, there were no side-effects. He did it just for the taste.

After the waitress had walked away, Elliot returned his attention to Keara; she’d answered his question, but hadn’t echoed it like people usually do. But then, she had asked in the beginning, hadn’t she? In a round-a-bout way. Greetings are always a bit like conversations between parrots. But that was okay. Elliot never really had much to say about himself, anyway. He much preferred listening to what other people had to say about their lives; didn’t much like complaining about his own, or whittling it down to the bare bones to offer up his current state of mine in only a matter of words. Though that’s exactly what he’d done: fine, excellent. Two over-used words that didn’t quite capture how relieved he was that life was finally ‘fine’. That life could even go so far as to being ‘excellent’.

”Oh yeah?” Elliot asked, curiosity piqued. The last time he’d met Keara, he’d discovered that she was one of the ‘elders’. Somewhere, deep down, the thought of her existence created a yawning crevice of fear. But curiosity always overwhelmed fear, and the fact that she was still learning – this gave hope.

”What are some things that you’ve learned, lately? If you don’t mind me asking…” he said. He leaned forward, his arms resting upon the roof of the closed laptop, the machine’s warmth hot against his cool skin.

[Keara Aithne]

She'd not considered the fact that he might actually ask her about what she'd learnt recently. Not that she wasn't somewhat of an open book when talking to people, as lies were something that weren't necessary when talking with friends and family. In fact she'd only ever really lied in order to protect her identity and do her duty and even then the best lies held a grain of truth within them. There were a few things she'd learnt recently, the most exciting being the advances in her powers and while that perhaps wasn't the normal definition of learning something new, it was the acquisition of new skills/talents.

"Ask indeed you may. For ever changing are those that work to advance themselves. Such a being I am. For sat idle I did too long in other realm," she answered before continuing in a slightly lower tone, so that those around them would not overhear what was said. "Found I have that wraiths no longer from me can hide." She learnt in a little closer, her elbows now resting on the table, her interlocked hands supporting her chin. "Admit I must that, that most pleasing development is. For sure I was in past that eyes upon me were and unable was I to see them. Of course that feeling still I have. From time to time. When kin hide about us," she sat back up for a moment and looked around her, as if she worried that someone might be lurking around them at that moment, but soon she settled back upon her hands. "Perhaps other skills learnt not advertised should be. But since do I nothing to harm our kind, sure I am that safe it is to tell you that able to hack increasingly harder systems I am. Quite skilled I am on internet, considering that turn one of those," she gestured to the laptop, "things on I could not just 2 years previous. Enjoy I do the language of code. Settles my mind."

It was true; she had advanced to the point that she could perhaps be considered and expert hacker. And while she hacked systems on an almost daily basis, she had not assigned herself a nickname or 'handle' by which she would best be known online. This was likely due to the fact that she left no signature or calling cards when entering a system. She simply got in, looked about, downloaded anything of interest and got out again. What was interesting to her though was how since having learnt to use a computer, she no longer actually needed to connect with a terminal to go online what with the fact that she could tap in to certain electronic signals with her mind.

[Lancaster]

There were plenty of questions Elliot wanted to ask, but wouldn’t. Not quite this soon in their friendship. He wandered about the things that Keara wore, and the way that she looked; to all those around them, she’d look like a hip, alternative woman, with her dreadlocks, her boots and her armbands and that dress that showed off her bare shoulders. He wondered how long it had taken her to get used to such attire; whether she’d embraced it with zest and excitement or whether she’d approached it with wary trepidation. And what now? Was it a disguise so people wouldn’t know how old she actually was? So that they wouldn’t guess at it? Was the roughness of it a kind of armour against a city of people who might not understand her?

He even wondered why he trusted her so easily; he hadn’t asked for any solid proof that she was who she said she was. But it was a feeling he got; and the way that she had looked, the way he couldn’t imagine that she might have felt when she’d been talking about the Shadow Realm? That was proof enough, he supposed.

Elliot perked a brow as Keara talked about wraiths; he, too, glanced around them just as Keara did, as if someone might be lurking, listening in on their conversation. He, too, leaned forward, as if the two of them were enthusiastic children involved in a whispered, secret conspiracy.

And he wondered how a woman, so confessedly old, might handle technology. He listened to this part with true and honest interest. He’d dabbled himself, in the past, in hacking. He, too, had the ability to hack into the internet with his head—to use technology with the pulsing gooey bits of his brain. He didn’t quite understand how it worked, nor did he think too much about it. Just tried to accept it for what it was. Elliot grunted, sitting up so that his fingers laid upon the top of the laptop.

”I had a go at it myself. I can do the basics, I suppose. But all this stuff about … scripts and codes and ****? I can only hack into the simple systems, but to actually plant things?” he shook his head.

”Maybe you could teach me,” he said with a sly smirk. ”It’s why I was so glad to have some company. I’m trying to do the accounts but something’s…it’s not working? I’m starting to think there’s something wrong, something that I’m not seeing,” he said, frowning a little.

[Keara Aithne]

He had mirrored her body language and the two fell easily into conversation, which was odd considering it had been some months since they last spoke but then when in good company Keara was able to communicate quite well. Being the sort that was relatively open about who she was helped too, as she had nothing to hide in this day and age.

"Alter things I can but prefer not to. Viruses dirty tricks are and mostly unnecessary, unless wish to annoy someone you do. Least that my understanding of them is. Prefer I do to look around for information of use. Make copies, delete evidence of our kind. This sort of thing.

Sure I am that teach you some I could. If able to follow me you are. But think that. hat no problem is, as follow my speech you do quite well. I believe. No need have I had of mathematics in past. Mostly left that to sire of mine I did. Though recently acquired a business I did, so learning that too I am. Numbers for the most part straight forward are. Have you error with information or error with the system?"

She wasn't an expert in balance sheets yet but she dabbled. She'd been advised to hire an accountant and while she didn't mind handing the reins over to another, she did still tend to watch over the woman's shoulder so that she might better understand what the task required.

As they had just spoke of implanting things and viruses, it occurred to her that perhaps his system had been hacked and something implanted to throw his accounts off. That or perhaps someone had simply tampered with the accounts in an effort to cover up an error on their part. Whether it was a true mistake or perhaps an employee pilfering from the business coffers, she had no idea. Anything was possible, which was another reason she watched the accountant herself when the book were done and discrepancies always needed investigating.

Her posture barely changed as they spoke, the only time she actually moved was when she begun to speak of her business and then she swayed form side to side as she tucked her skirt under her thighs. Shed then smoothed out the top layers before assuming her previous position and resting he head on her hands once more.

[Lancaster]

Elliot couldn’t sit still. He never really can sit still, even when it might look like he is. There was always a jiggling leg or a tapping finger, and it was no different this time. He smirked as Keara told him she could teach him—admitted that she believed he’d be able to keep up, due to the fact that he could follow her speech. It took a lot of concentration, sure. But Elliot always really listened to those he was speaking to. Whenever he was in company, he gave the other person his full attention. None of this meandering thoughts business. Though, that only really applied to the people he respected.

”System, I think. I’ve checked the information I don’t know how many bloody times,” he said. He sat up and turned the laptop in Keara’s direction, opening up the lid. Because it had only been sleeping, the power came on immediately. The keyboard lit up, and Keara was shown the very last screen Elliot had been fiddling with. He shifted his chair around the table so that they could both look at the screen.

”Have at it,” he said, ready to watch as Keara worked. He chewed on the inside of his lip momentarily, considering. He was far too curious for his own good, and Keara herself had mentioned it. He tried to forget that little tid-bit about her sire—that her sire, whoever it was, was better with numbers.

Although he meant to tell Keara that should she ever need any help running a business, that he was her man—call it a favour, if he did indeed have a virus that was ruining his efforts at accounts and that she managed to get rid of it. Hell, he’d probably help her regardless. Instead of offering his help, however, he asked a question—a question that tripped over the tip of his tongue unbidden.

”Who was your sire?” he asked.

[Keara Aithne]

Pulling the laptop towards her, she gave the screen displayed no more than a cursory glance before she minimised the window and began looking through the control panel. Of course she wasn't an expert in all viruses, but she had a good idea how they worked and checking out the programs the computer ran seemed like a good place to start.

"My sire?" she asked looking up at Lancaster for a moment. "Suppose I just a man could say. As true enough that was. Though much more he was to me. Knew him as Ven I did. His human persona knew I not. A great man he was. Kind, dedicated and loyal. Miss him I do."

There was a twinge of sadness to her tone that was echoed in her eyes. When she recalled memories of the past, there was always the chance that she would lose herself in the sad emotion that accompanied them as they were bitter sweet to remember. Lately she'd spoken more of her past and so was more prepared to deal with the strong emotions that accompanied such conversation. She'd also come to realise that if she concentrated more on the positive feelings that person inspired in her as she talked, the less chance there was that her grief would consume her.

"Most enamoured I was with Ven. And the feeling reciprocated was. Search I do not for one to replace him. As believe I do that our bond unique was. Never has another stirred the emotions in me as he did." She looked back down at the screen and began scrolling through the list of program files and then said in a softer tone. "Unforgettable and irreplaceable is what he was. Who he was to me I cannot truly define."

It was obvious from everything she had said that she had loved her sire deeply and yet she couldn't explain how their relationship had come to be, as the feelings she had for him came with time and by the time she acknowledged them for what they were they were so strong as to be undeniable. While the memory of Ven always left her saddened, there was a part of her that refused to mourn him, as she counted herself lucky to have experienced such emotions once in her long life and had pretty much resigned herself to the fact that she would never feel them again.