Doing the Accounts [Keara]

[Pi dArtois]

Pi wondered again why the woman spoke like she did, as if English was something she couldn’t quite get her head around. In her time in the city Pi understood a select few of the older vampires had lived long before the current time, when social mores and customs differed so widely as to be near alien. But her speech was broken and difficult to understand, as if the woman channeled Yoda. A vision of the dreadlocked woman with green skin, pointy ears and moles with long hair amused her. The idea of it made Pi smile, a little meanly, her lips twisting as she did and not entirely pleasantly.

It felt impossibly uncharitable to think those things about the woman, when she was so obviously attempting to be nice. But Pi couldn’t help herself, not really. She had never been prone to irrational jealousy before Elliot and even now she wasn’t immune to the bite of it. It rose from nowhere, unbidden, unwarranted but stewing under the surface of her skin, pricking her pale skin with goose bumps. This woman with her jagged words and attempt to be .. social grated, sawing against Pi’s nerves.

She opened her mouth, then closed it again as Elliot’s hand reached for hers under the table, squeezing gently. Slowly she slid her gaze to the man and stopped the sharp words that bubbled from her brain and attempting to spew from her lips. It was uncharitable, the thoughts and the near words. They were and with his look and his overly forced cheer she tried to rein back the inclination. She nodded instead.

He was explaining to her, like a man who had something to hide, as if explaining the why he realised she needed … assurance. In a small part of her mind she felt a twinge of embarrassment at her thoughts and at the delay of her response to the woman. A delay that obviously forced Elliot to fill the space with words that drew her to the right conclusion before her jealousy landed on another.

Her smaller hand, fit comfortably in his. She squeezed in return.

“We have had problems with hackers and I’m… well, neither of us are very good at such things.” Turning to Elliot she asked quietly. “Is this something Madison could be.. taught?”

“English is also my second language.” She replied to the woman, trying to grab the conversational ball and string out what she hoped was the right tone. “I know how difficult it can be to… adjust.” She finished even as her mind finished meanly But obviously better at it than you are.

Biting her lip she glanced guiltily in Elliot’s direction as if he could read her mind and guess at the meanness of her internal commentary. That he knew her so intimately that he could pluck the silent barbs she threw in the other woman’s direction even as she spoke the right words, in the right way, because politeness required it of her.

[Keara Aithne]

She could easily ignore the vibes between the pair, unaware of any ill feeling towards herself as she had more than enough to worry about what with being in the crowded space. While she would usually have been on guard meeting new people, she'd not sensed any malice from Lancaster in their previous encounter and so trusted that he wouldn't put her in harm’s way. (She was getting far too complacent in this modern time, something that would likely need to be addressed sooner or later). Her concentration was also drawn by the blood she was supposed to be drinking and so she tentatively brought the glass to her lips, took the smallest of sips and placed it back down.

For a moment Elliot's words seemed almost off to her. He was explaining that he was only being kind because she deserved payment and yet he'd previously said that he didn't require anything to be her friend. Or at least he'd said something to that effect. A quizzical look played on her brow as he said this but it didn't linger long, as Pi began talking about hacking. She wasn't shocked by her assumption either, as it was quite plausible that English wasn't her first language, at least the way she spoke.

"English my first language is," she began to explain with no hint of shame. Her tone changed though when her words continued, hinting perhaps that this was a sore subject of sorts. "Just...broken I am." Her shoulders shrugged ever so slightly and her she looked from the pair down into her glass, her hands cupping it tightly. "Know I do not why my words so spoken are. My mind a clearer place is. Too long in realm perhaps. That only explanation is, that makes sense does."

It was a little odd having this kind of conversation with someone she'd literally just met but then she wasn't the type to hide who she was, she was quite open about who she was and her past, for the most part. Pi had one thing right though, adjusting was difficult. She was still learning new things daily and there was so much to learn that she was sure she could spend the next few decades playing catch up and still be in the dark about something incredibly important. Though, truth be told, she was kind of used to the fact that she had things to learn and had readily accepted the challenge, her computer skills being the most obvious example of that fact.

[Lancaster]

There was something overtly alarming in the empathic transference of emotion from Pi’s palm to Elliot’s. It was like an electric current, the way it travelled through skin. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe it was just his imagination, but he almost felt the thrum as if Pi were a live wire on one of his beloved electric guitars, and he was trying to determine her tune by touch and hearing alone. He narrowed bright eyes in her direction, even as she glanced guiltily up at him. Guilt, he could see it writ clear as day in her features. Guilt, coupled with an imperfect note of clear dislike and… was that jealousy?

Elliot had no reason to reassure Pi, as he had done nothing wrong. Of course he knew that she had no reason to be jealous. He admired Keara, was fascinated by her, and wanted to learn all that he could from her. She was a being who had lived far longer than either he or Pi had, combined. The simple fact that she deemed herself broken because of her time spent dead, of all places, was, in Elliot’s opinion, a determining clue as to her superior knowledge and experience.

Regardless, however, of what he assumed it was that Pi felt, he did not do anything aside from smile. He even laughed, under his breath, because he thought jealousy to be a ludicrous emotion, especially where he was concerned. It was only after the chuckle had spilled from his smile-curled lips that he realised neither Pi nor Keara were privy to his inner thoughts. Neither woman would know what it was he was laughing at. And so soon after Keara’s tense explanation of her English—Christ, how rude would he look?

The smile disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. He curled his fingers around the tumbler of whiskey and swallowed a large mouthful. The burn soothed him, reminded him of who he was. Socially awkward Elliot Lancaster, who could, most of the time, talk himself out of anything.

”I find most people have absolutely nothing interesting to say, and they don’t like to listen to what other people have to say. They like the sound of their own voices,” he said, a cover for his laughter. A likely story, but not a lie, either. He never was much of a liar. ”I’d say your broken language is a blessing, really. People are forced to focus. If they don’t, if they laugh,” and here he gave Pi’s hand another perceptible squeeze that Keara would not see, ”You know they’re not worth your time. If they do listen, they’ll discover that you are worth their time,” he said. A compliment, to make up for any severity that might have been obvious in Pi’s tone—and the near-dismissive remark about the work Keara had just done. Elliot was certain that Madison probably didn’t need to be taught. She probably already knew. But she wasn’t here. And Keara was – a spontaneous and unplanned set of events that he did not think it justified to explain to Pi, then and there.