Beliefs Vs. Blood

[Adrian (DELETED 4904)]

--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--

Adrian: *Adrian texts Madison* Hey, want to get together for a bit?

Madison: She was sitting in the Depot, resting after a run through the most recently found raid when her phone vibrated in her pocket. Pulling it out, her thumb swiped across the screen and brought up a text message from Adrian. Madison typed out her response before hitting send, "Sure. Did you have some place in mind? I have more scripts for you."

Adrian: Adrian sat back, wondering. He was in the Metronome Club, just spending some time with some oblivious humans. He was sure he could manage to find a quiet spot in the Club for them to talk without being overheard. He had a few questions that he would like to have answered. He sends back, "How does the Metronome Club sound to you?"

Madison: Her nose scrunched and her upper lip twisted when she got the reply about the Metronome Club. She didn't understand why so many people liked the place, though it was mostly allurists that she saw that frequented it. Maybe she was just more sensitive to sound than others but the music bothered her. Madison would grin and bear it though for the sake of spending some time with her cousin and childe. "That's fine, I can be there in a few."

Adrian: Adrian grinned when he saw her reply. Standing up, he looked at the humans he was with. "Well, ladies and gentlemen," he said, with a smile. "It seems I have to leave you for a while. I am going to be meeting a relative of mine here shortly." In response to their complaints, he raised up his hands and said, "Alright. Alright. Tell you what, my relative and I are going to be sitting in that nice and quiet spot over there." He pointed over to the other side of the club where he knew it wouldn't be too loud, not to mention the fact that there was hardly anybody there. "After we meet, and spend some time together, I'll come back over and buy you all drinks, alright?" The humans nodded and grinned, and Adrian smiled in return. He didn't have to use any power at all on them. Waving at them as he walked away toward the empty tables, he said, "See you soon."

Madison: Since the lower level of Den was trapped to high heaven, Madison was forced to either take the long way to the Metronome Club or to teleport herself there. Not wanting to keep Adrian waiting, she decided on the latter option. Focusing her thoughts on the bit of alleyway behind the club, Madison willed herself there. The world around her skewed and changed as she teleported herself. She stood beside a dumpster, waiting for the world to right itself once more before shaking her blonde head to clear it and headed around the corner of the building to the front entrance. As she entered the club, Madison grimaced for a second as the loud music assaulted her ear drums. Her periwinkle eyes scanned the dance floor with its lit up floor design before moving on to the tables where she spotted Adrian by himself. Crossing the space between them, weaving her way through groups of people, the grimace on her face was gone when she approached him. Replaced with a small smile she greeted her childe, "Hey Adrian."

Adrian: Adrian smiled as he saw Madison make her way through the crowd. "Hey," he said, hugging her. "It's been a while. Let's go somewhere less loud. There's a smaller back room where we can sit comfortably without all this noise." He pointed in the direction of the room. "Would you like to come with?"

Madison: Wrapping her arms around Adrian she gave him a welcomed embrace. She nodded in agreement when he suggested moving to a back room that would be quieter. Madison knew there was a back room to the club but she hadn't spent a lot of time of time inside. Not knowing which back room he meant, she motioned for him to lead, "Lead the way."

Adrian: Adrian led Madison to the back room he had mentioned. It had a few tables in there, with a bar. It was probably his favorite room in the club. Here he could sit back and relax, letting the toned-down sounds of the rest of the club slowly wash over him. He went on to a corner table in the back of the room and gestured for Madison to sit down. "Thanks for taking the time to come and see me."

Madison: Following Adrian to one of the back room of the clubs, Madison visibly relaxed a bit when she realized that it was indeed much quieter in the room compared to the main section of the club. It was still louder than she liked to her ears but it was better than being directly near the dance floor. Taking the offered seat, she looked at Adrian with a smile, "I'll always make time for you if I can. How have you been?"

Adrian: Adrian sat down and smiled back. "I have been well. Really well, actually. It's been an interesting world you brought me into." Adrian spoke with complete honesty. He loved the second chance at life he was given. Granted, there were a few things that he didn't like, but that happens sometimes. Since he was given this chance, he didn't plan on wasting it. Looking at Madison, he said, "And you? How have you been?"

Madison: She chuckled at his comment about it being an interesting world. There was no denying it at all and when she had first became a blood thief, she had held an awe and appreciation for the world that vampires lived in. It was quickly tarnished though and ever since she had looked at the vampiric society with jaded eyes. Settling back into the chair, Madison shrugged, "I've been alright I guess. Staying on my toes so to speak."

Adrian: Adrian nodded. He was well aware of Madison's "staying on her toes." He had heard quite a bit from Lyana and around the Crownet. He doesn't exactly approve of it, but he doesn't condemn her for it either. He used to just blow it off, and not care. But it has seemed like matters have been escalating recently. Adrian had recently been feeling like he needed to involve himself. He smiled at Madison. "That's good." Deciding to move onto the matter at hand, he asked, "So I guess you are thinking that this isn't a simple family gathering, huh?"

Madison: Her left eyebrow raised in a skeptical look, unintentionally drawing attention to that section of her face where the scar hooked around the outside of her eye. "Actually I had no preconceived notions about what this was about," she stated plainly, now wondering exactly what Adrian was on about, "I don't know your habits well enough yet to preempt your intentions like I can with Lyana or Pierre. So if this isn't a simple family gathering as you called it, what is this?"

Adrian: Adrian inwardly cursed himself for assuming what she was thinking. He momentarily glanced at Madison's scar before looking at her eyes. He frowned for a second, then sighed. Becoming serious, he said, "I have a few questions for you, and I'd like you to answer them completely and truthfully. Can you do this for me?"

Madison: "I can promise to answer truthfully the questions I choose to answer but without knowing what this about or what it pertains to, I can't promise that I will answer every question," Madison responded. She watched his face carefully, fighting the urge to search his memories for something that would give her forewarning in regards to the subject matter he wanted to discuss. Madison didn't like being blind-sided and put into precarious positions, especially by those she was supposed to call family or did call family.

Adrian: Adrian nodded his thanks. He was pretty sure that Madison wouldn't like the topic, not like others he had talked to. He just hoped that she wouldn't walk away. He sighed, then said, "I want you to tell me about the Fifth Column." He looked her in the eyes, and silently begged her to talk to him about it. He had to know. He didn't want to put her in this position, but he had to to get what he wanted.

Madison: She hadn't expected him to broach the topic of Fifth Column. Madison had been thinking that he would ask her more about Tytonidae and why she was attacking them, though she had rather clearly spelled out why on the d'Artois family board. "That's not a question," she chided him, "It's a statement of request. What exactly do you want to know about them?"

Adrian: Adrian smiled. He could barely believe it. She was going to talk to him about it. "I have several questions," he said. His smile disappeared as he started talking again. "First off, how was it formed?"

Madison: "Off the top of my head, I couldn't tell you," she told him in reply. "I haven't been a member since its inception. I joined back in June but I'm not sure exactly how long the group has been around." She connected her mind to the internet then, now curious to the answer herself. Perusing as far back as she could go on the Fifth Column boards, she found old posts dated from well over a year prior. "After looking at the boards, I can only give you an approximation of when the group was formed. Sometime in early two-thousand and twelve. In April it looks like."

Adrian: Adrian frowned, and shook his head. This wasn't what he was looking for. "So why was it formed?" he asked, with the barest hint of impatience. He wasn't looking for when it was formed. He didn't want to know that sort of thing. He wanted to know other things. Things that would help him with his choice, his decision.

Madison: "My guess is to work against the masquerade. I honestly haven't read all the old posts. I didn't care what they did, I cared about what they were doing." She wasn't lying either that she hadn't read them. Madison only had an idea of what they were about but her memory was a bit fuzzy of the previous year when the city had found out about Fifth Column.

Adrian: Adrian's brow furrowed when Madison's words registered. 'Against the Masquerade?' he thought. 'That's what is allowing our species to survive so far.' Not letting his concern show, he leaned back and said, "Alright. I am going to go get a drink first, then we can continue this, alright?" He stands up and walks to the bar to quickly grab a drink.

Madison: Her brow quirked again when Adrian responded simply to what she had said. Though if she were able to drink, she'd probably be following his footsteps to the bar. Instead she let a small smile spread across her lips as she nodded her blonde head as he stood to go get himself a drink. Madison had long forgone ordering beverages and faking drinking them. It was a waste of her money. It was just as believable to tell people she was a recovering alcoholic and was there as a designated driver.

[Madison]

--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--

Adrian: As Adrian waited for the bartender to get him a drink, Courtney drifted by and whispered in his ear. 'She wants to undermine the species, my dear. She wants you all to die.' Adrian brushed her off and whispered, so low that nobody could hear, "Go away. I don't want you here. You are not helping. Now leave." Courtney simply arched an eyebrow, and faded away, laughing. As she left, Adrian was left with thoughts brewing around inside his head. 'So the Fifth Column used to work against the Masquerade,' he thought. 'So what is it they are working towards now, exactly?' Adrian had spoken with others about the Masquerade in the past, and firmly believes that the Masquerade is necessary for vampires to survive. If the word got out to the world about their existence... Adrian suppressed a shudder. If word got out, the vampires would not survive. Grabbing his drink, he walked back to Madison. Sitting down, he said, using his thoughts from earlier, "So they used to work against the Masquerade, you say. What is it they are working towards now?"

Madison: "I'm afraid the answer may disappoint you but I don't know what the hell they're working towards anymore. In fact I've been thinking about leaving because of it." Madison didn't like the way his questions were geared towards exactly what Fifth Column was working on. If they had been working on anything, she wouldn't have told him jack ****. Truth was, while she knew that certain individuals were working on their own projects, none of them were truly working together. There was no goal, no communication, nothing. Madison had long started to wonder after everyone had come back from the shadow realm why they even remained a group.

Adrian: Adrian was surprised. "Leaving them? Really?" If what Madison was saying was true, then he'd been asking about the Fifth Column for nothing. Adrian's mood fell a little. He had been wasting his time asking such questions, when instead he could've been out there, trying to make a difference. He took a sip from his drink. Running his fingers through his hair, he asked, "So what is it you fight for? What is it that you fight towards? Why do you fight?"

Madison: "I've never been a fan of the Crow. Some omniscient entity that puts bounties on people's heads? Why would anyone try to instigate violence amongst a race without some kind of ulterior motive? Maybe if I could see the Crow, talk to....him? Her? It...whatever. Then maybe I would have more faith in it but as it stands, I don't. But that doesn't mean that I'm wholly against the masquerade either." Madison paused for a moment. She knew she hadn't exactly answered his questions but she assumed that what she had said would prompt different questions that would eventually lead to the answers he had just been searching for.

Adrian: Adrian felt like this conversation was getting nowhere. She wasn't answering his questions. He asked questions, only to find that a different question was answered while his original question was ignored. He might have a chance of getting the answers he wanted, if he was willing to use some power with his words. However, Adrian refused to. Madison wasn't his enemy. She wasn't looking to harm him. "Yet," Courtney whispered in his ear. "She knows your thoughts. She can read them right now." Adrian ignored her, focusing on Madison. True, she could read minds, that much he knew, but surely she wouldn't use it on him yet, right? Even if she did decide to use her abilities, Adrian wouldn't thread any power into his voice. "Let me ask again," he said, voice weary and without a trace of power. "What is it you fight for? Why do you fight?"

Madison: "Currently? I fight to be free of the oppression and threat of imminent death for stepping a toe out of line without being asked what happened. Whether or not it was a mistake, if I'm doing anything to rectify it. For the freedom to be a dick on the internet if I choose to be without worrying that I might get shot or hacked to pieces because someone didn't like it. Our kind tends to think ourselves above the humans and yet act like animals." Madison stopped to take a breath, while she didn't need to breath to live, she did need to breathe to speak. "It is my choice, not anyone else's if I choose to tell someone what I am. Had I not told you, had I not offered you a second life, you would be dead. Lyana, Pierre, Elaina, all of you knew what I was before you were made. Granted yours was a special case in the fact that you were dying but still. But I don't know how many of my childer realize this, had any of them denied me. I would have killed them if I didn't feel I could trust them to keep my secret. I'll let you digest that before continuing."

Adrian: Adrian thought about her words for a moment. Choosing his words carefully, he said, "But you have talked to humans before about us, yes? Without turning them? I have heard about an attack where humans and vampires have worked together against other vampires. And as I recall, you featured heavily in that alongside a known enemy or two of our kind. What is to stop them from telling the world about us?" He asked this for the sake of a logical argument, and for the sake of knowledge. He wanted to know where she drew the line.

Madison: "I'm sure you're speaking of the paladins. Those are humans that are already well aware of our existence. What harm does it do to talk to someone who already knows what you are? And obviously they are not my enemy if I was able to work alongside them without coming to harm myself." Madison quieted as a group of girls passed by, watching them as they ogled her cousin and rolled her eyes, waiting for them to pass. "There is nothing to stop them from telling the world about us but answer this question for me. If they already knew, why haven't they already told the world about us? Why are we not already being hunted down for what we are? The paladins have been around for quite awhile now and they are just as secretive as we are. Do you think the average person would be kind to someone who could do what a paladin does? Why is it not in our interests to prove to paladins that not all of us are the monsters they think of us to be?"

Adrian: Adrian merely glanced at the passing group of girls with indifference. He didn't really care if they watched him. He was used to being watched by humans since he turned. Madison's words did make some sense, but there was still too much risk in letting them in too far. Adrian had a feeling that the paladins had an ulterior motive that ranked higher than letting the world know about vampires. "What makes you think they don't have an ulterior plan for us? Just because they haven't alerted the world yet doesn't mean that they are our best friends. And don't you say because you read their minds." Adrian said, controlling his emotions, his paranoia, his fear, "Just because you read a few of their minds doesn't mean that their organization as a whole doesn't have some sort of plan. It doesn't mean that they are all on the same page. Every interaction with them is just asking for them to take us on." Adrian took a breath, trying to calm down. Continuing on, he said, "Their goal is to kill us. To see us all dead. You worked with them against our own kind. Hasn't it occurred to you that doing so only weakens our kind? That when they decide to strike, we will have been too busy fighting ourselves to put up much of a fight?"

Madison: "Who said anything about them being our best friends or reading their minds?" Madison laughed at his assumptions. "And reading minds doesn't work like that. I can't know what you're thinking or what someone ate for dinner last night. I can only read things of major importance that have happened to a person or something that they've done. And have you talked to a paladin? Do you know that every single one of their goals is to kill us? Do you not think that there are vampires who aim to destroy our own kind? And why are we so afraid of death anyways when we don't die permanently? Yeah, the shadow realm sucks. Trust me, I've been there for longer than I cared to stay. If you haven't looked around, read deeper than what's just been happening lately on the CrowNet, our kind has been at constant war with each other practically from the moment the elders first stepped out of the realm. We weaken ourselves by not realizing the potential in finding a way to integrate ourselves positively with the human race, which we depend on to continue our species should anyone ever figure out a way to kill us permanently."

Adrian: As Madison continued to speak, Adrian could feel himself getting angrier and angrier. Didn't she see that she was risking too much? That she was going too fast on her way? How could she be so blind? All of a sudden, his watch started beeping. Looking at the time, he realized that there wasn't much time until sunrise. Turning back to Madison, he said, "We can continue this later. We don't have much time until sunrise."

Madison: She could sense the tension rising in her childe, it practically was rolling off of him in waves. Madison didn't know exactly what was frustrating Adrian and had she been able to read his exact thoughts she would have smacked him like a girl in hysterics for assuming so much on her part. He knew nothing of what she did or how she went about things. What she had been before she was turned. But she knew nothing of what he was thinking and she didn't care to speculate on what exactly it was. She trusted him to tell her if she'd upset him. While she may have been seemingly uninformative, she had been honest and open about what she believed and purposely stated things in questions to make him think. To see beyond that of whoever had been filling his head with the idea that the masquerade was the end all be all of being a vampire. When his watch beeped and he informed her of the impending sunrise, she nodded her understanding. She could feel it coming, feel the lethargy start to set into her being. Madison stood and paused, unsure if Adrian would want an embrace to say good bye.

Adrian: Adrian stood up. "I guess here we part ways for now." he said. Moving toward her, he hugs her. Whispering into her ear, he said, "Though we have our differences, we are still family, alright?"

Madison: As he moved towards her, Madison opened her arms to him and wrapped them around him. His head dipped to hers and he whispered in her ear. She frowned against his chest as she heard what he said but nodded nonetheless. It was disheartening to know that he was so firmly planted into an idea without even exploring the other options. What little did he know that he was forcing her to draw a line just as had been done with the d'Artois. If he or they ever betrayed her...Madison stopped thinking about 'ifs' and released her hold. "Til next time then I guess. I'm thinking that maybe we should spend more time together. You might find that our differences aren't so great but our experiences are."

Adrian: "Maybe," he said. "Maybe." He wasn't quite sure how it might turn out in the future, but he hoped that things would end for the best for their species. Releasing her, he said, "I gotta go. See you again." Waving goodbye, he walked out. As he walked out, he could almost feel the weight of an impending decision resting his shoulders.

Madison: Madison watched him walk away before turning and following the signs to the bathroom. Stepping into one of the stalls, she pulled out her homebound tome and opened up the book that was quickly becoming worn from use. Mumbling the words under her breath she didn't resist as the power of the ritual cast on the paper took affect and transported her from the bathroom stall to the entrance of the Den.