Congratu....Condolences? [Keara Aithne]

[Peter Parkman]

Peter followed Keara through to the lounge area. Keara perched on the coffee table, just like she had the last time. Over near the couch there was still a pile of books – no doubt ones that Peter himself had left there. He took up position in the same corner – the one that he normally took. It was the perfect spot, especially when the fire was going. Just enough warmth, not too much, and no drafts. His hand landed on top of the pile of books, as if he drew comfort from them. They were an anchoring point—there was no knowledge that could not be found in books, no matter what kind they were. And if he ever needed an escape, there was always one to be found between the dusty (or new) pages. Words were always, and would always be a comfort to him. A consoling blanket.

It was as soon as he was seated that Keara answered his questions. He nodded as she talked. He understood the majority, and mentally chewed over her words in silence, gaze drifting toward the fire. Gizmo had followed them into the room, and Peter soon felt a nudging at his feet; a slightly slobbery-wet fluffy duck. He glanced away from the fire and down to the little dog. Rather than take the toy and throw it for the creature, Peter instead stooped down to pick the dog up. He was light as a feather, and he seemed a bit wary, being lifted up by someone he didn’t know so well. But Peter soothed the dog, petted it, until it was comfortable enough to keep gnawing at the little toy while settled on Peter’s lap.

At the time, Peter had no other questions about Fadebeasts and their origins. He’d rather not think about their origins – it was still a scenario that gave him nightmares and had him flinching away from all Jersey’s advances.

And it was just as Peter was thinking about Jersey that Keara asked about her. Peter paused his absent-minded stroking of the dog’s fur to glance warily at Keara, but after a couple of seconds dismissed the idea that she could read his mind. Coincidence, is all. Had to have been coincidence. He continued to pet Gizmo as he cleared his throat.

”Jersey is good. She’s fine. She’s… yes, she’s fine,” Peter said.

He was of course surprised to find out that Jersey had been turned, and still wasn’t at all happy with the way that it had happened. He had yet to meet Kallista, and had to trust Jersey when she said she was a nice woman, and a good sire. Slowly, he was coming to terms with how it made things easier. Better. It was no good being in love with a human who aged. And who would keep aging, while Peter did not. And there was no point dwelling on the things that could have happened, and how it could have been worse. It wasn’t worse. It was all fine. And she was happy. And that was all that mattered. He canted his head to the side, shifting his eyes from the dog and up to Keara.

”Do you think Kallista is a good sire?” he asked. Keara had to have known the woman longer, right? So why not ask the question.

[Keara Aithne]

Keara couldn't help but smile at the sight of Gizmo settling down on Peter's lap. The poor little thing mainly got to play with her and Enver and the last few days he'd not had quite as much attention what with Keara healing and her now finally being able to go out in public again.

She nodded when he said that Jersey was fine. The word didn't mean exactly what it should have when it came from the lips of a woman but with men she tended to assume that fine was just that, fine. Meaning that she was well and everything was good. Though the way he said it showed he had hesitation. Knowing how he’d reacted to his own turning, Keara was quick to jump to the conclusion that he was perhaps mourning the life of the woman he knew. While to her the gifting of blood was the most precious act a vampire could bestow on another, she knew that not everyone shared this view and that Peter himself was likely still trying to figure out if that were true to him.

"Kallista? know her well I do not. Speak ill of her I cannot. Know I do that asked she did for tomes once and so likely walks she does the path of a ritualist. See her too I do in raids from time to time. Always with her sibling. Though less of him do I know. Believe I do that Jersey her first childe is. Known her to have another I have not. Though possible is that sired once she did only to lose them to that accursed realm. Sure I am that told you I have before that not all whom upon this path do walk, born of it are. Some flourish not and soon fade away." She was no longer smiling, her voice holding a hint of sadness in its tone. "Difficult it is to know when gift someone your blood you do, if take to their new path they shall. Try I do for my childer wisely to pick. And yet still... Lose them you can."

She'd lost many since she'd re-awoken and though she'd never really spoken to anyone of their losses (aside from to say that it was sad news), she had felt their losses deeply. Each childer that slipped into darkness took a piece of her with her, at least that was how it felt to her and it was only since having met Enver that she had been able to realise this. Keara didn't realise it but she was picking at her nails now, something she usually did when anxious or unsure of herself. She wished she had a better answer for Peter but the truth was, she wasn't overly involved in the lives of her family. She treated them as the adults they were and trusted that if they needed her, if they wanted her, that they would seek her out.

[Peter Parkman]

The expression that Peter levelled Keara with was something between incredulity and amusement, with a hint of sympathy. His sired seemed sad, but he couldn’t help his reaction to her words. That she tried to pick her childer wisely. It didn’t seem like she’d done so as far as he was concerned. It had been on a complete whim, as part of an argument. It wasn’t as if he’d been a part of a line-up, or questioned at length about his strengths and weaknesses; he wasn’t tested, to see if he would last.

It had never actually occurred to him that he, too, had the ability to change someone. To make them immortal, to bring them over into this life forever, without change or any hope of going back. It filled him with a kind of terror to think about it now. What circumstances would lead him to make such a decision for another person? How could it even come up? He supposed, sooner or later, it was a conversation he and Jersey might have had. When she started to age and he did not—he supposed, if they were at that point in their relationship – would it have been a viable option?

Didn’t matter. Someone had beat him to the punch, and now, he didn’t know any other human whom he was so attached to that he would offer them immortality. Choose wisely, indeed – how now wondered whether it was something he would ever do. Peter settled into the couch. Keara had answered his questions about Kallista and it seemed like a pointless conversation to continue—about her, anyway. Peter had to tell himself to stop worrying. Jersey was happy, and that was all that mattered, right? Instead, he saw that Keara was sad, somehow, and sought to reassure her.

”I might not have been one of those wise choices, Keara, but I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere anytime soon,” he said. He even smiled.

”I’ve thought about it a lot, you know. If you’d sat me down and told me all about it, and sort of… introduced this to me bit by bit, at the end, if you’d asked me whether I wanted to be turned or not, I’d have said yes,” he explains, the deep timbre of his voice radiant with sincerity. ”I am actually a closet nerd,” he said. ”I don’t know if you know of it, but there’s a comic series, about a superhero called Spiderman. He was bit by a spider that gave him powers. His name, in the series, is Peter Parker,” Peter explained, slowly. ”So you see, I think, deep down, I had these childish fantasies about becoming a superhero. With powers, and things,” he said. ”Just the way it happened was a bit of a shock. So I just thought you should…know. I don’t hate you for it, or anything,” he said. He wasn’t really sure how Keara might think he feels about the whole ordeal. But slowly, surely, he was starting to get the hang of it.

[Keara Aithne]

What she'd said hadn't registered in her own mind as any sort of insult, as she did usually try to pick her childer wisely. Most of these choices had not turned out as well as she had hoped however and the childer she currently had the most contact with were the ones she'd turned on a whim. Peter had been turned in a moment of jealousy and anger in order to keep her husband from having him. Charlotte she had murdered and then gifted with a new life when she realised that she'd hit the wrong target. Then there was Sara, Sara who she had rarely seen in the past few months and who once again she had turned having found her dying in the street.

A soft glow radiated inside of her as Peter began to explain how he might have actually chosen this path if he'd been given the choice. While it was a little late for him to truly debate the issue, it did help to ease the last pang of guilt Keara still felt for having been a part of his demise. She couldn't regret his re-birth, only the manner in which it had happened. Enver too it seemed had forgiven her, and in some ways it worked out for the best as Enver claimed Peter as his own regardless of the blood that flowed in his veins.

"Glad I am for this to hear," she stopped picking at her nails and reached out to take a hold of Peter's hand in a comforting manner. "Wise we were for you to choose. Enver and I. While considered we did not if this gift for you was, seems it does to me that our instincts better knew. Sure I am that not many that turned have been your story can repeat. Wanted you were not by one, but by two. A pawn in our game to start perhaps. But now, a pawn you are no longer. Care for you we do. Hurt me it would for to see you from this world to fade."

Keara pulled her hand back to herself and rest it once more in her lap. She was sure there were those that would use their turning as a tool to gain sympathy from their sire for life but Peter was far to rational to do such a petty thing as that. Peter was a good person as far as Keara could tell; kind, caring and thoughtful. She had to admit that given normal circumstances she might have chosen this life for him too.

"Are you well with your powers progressing?"

She hadn't made any mention of Spiderman, as she had no idea who that was. When it came to this sort of thing, Keara still had a lot of catching up to do. She'd started with the graphic novels Peter had left for her while she had been in hiding and did quite enjoy them since they were a perfect blend of narrative and art but had not come across the series he was speaking of. While she enjoyed that style of movie too, it wasn't one that she and Enver had gotten around to watching together yet.

[Peter Parkman]

Although Peter did not spend much time with Keara, the simple way she took his hand and squeezed it was enough to reassure him of the sincerity of her words. From what he knew of his sire, she wasn’t normally the touchy-feely type. She didn’t like to be touched—by anyone other than her husband, anyway. Or, anyway, that was the impression he got seeing as she rarely would instigate any kind of physical interaction.

Peter’s green eyes were wide, and his head canted to the side—sometimes he probably did look a bit too much like his dogs, given the amount of time he spent with them—as he listened to Keara, as his brain automatically shuffled her words into the right order. He blinked. It was a strange way of putting it, really. He wouldn’t have thought that either of them wanted him. Not him, anyway. Not as a person, but as a pawn. Of course, he could see it would be an amusing story to tell, in the future, if anyone should ask. And of course he could put that spin on it – that he himself was so damned great that he was wanted by them both. In actuality, however, at the time, neither Keara nor Enver could possibly have been thinking about his personality or his stature. They weren’t fighting over him, or for him. They were fighting over and for each other.

That didn’t matter now, though, and it didn’t bear thinking about. Peter was a reasonable man and able to let go of a grudge if he didn’t think it was important. The topic was easily set aside, anyway, as Keara asked how his powers were progressing. He looked king of sheepish as he gave a short shrug.

”I don’t really go out much,” he said. Truth. He had mostly reverted to his introvert, hermit ways.

”I suppose I… well I can’t say they’re progressing unwell. I just don’t think I’ve gotten into any kind of situation where… well, I don’t really know whether I have any. Just yet. I mean, I haven’t tested them,” he said. He licked his lips – they felt dry. The one thing he did use was that ability to hide. To pull the shadows in such a way so that, if ever he found himself outside and in desperate need to feed, he wouldn’t ever be seen. But he didn’t like feeding from the source. He felt ashamed of it, somehow. So that particular ability he failed to mention.

[Keara Aithne]

Shadow powers were somewhat tricky when it came to testing them or even knowing that they were there, something she realised the first time she'd tried to tutor someone in them, so it didn't surprise her that he was perhaps a little apprehensive about claiming any. There were of course a few she could test in him, such as the power to walk upon water or enter a home uninvited. Of course there were no hard and fast rules that said he had to develop these particular abilities, they were just ones that could be easily tested.

"Then test some we shall," she smiled at him, her lips together.

Keara rarely smiled and showed her fangs and when she did, Enver was usually somewhere in the vicinity. It wasn't that it was his smile per se, it was just that she was rarely happy enough or comfortable enough around others to smile that way. Her interactions with her husband were second nature to her now but it still took a little conscious effort on her part to transfer such skills over in the presence of others; something she was only even attempting around those that she loved and trusted which generally meant they were linked to her in some way.

“Some tested cannot be. Not by another. Only know you do that ability exists in you does. Appraise you now I could for to see what you capable of are. But try I do not for that to do often. Check I do on family though through this manner. From time to time. Though then looking I am more to see who feeding is not. Talents secondary are to that concern. But testing far more fun is.”

She stood up from the table, as if expecting Peter to be equally as thrilled with the idea as she was. Keara quite clearly wanted to do this immediately, there was to be no delay now that she had set her heart on it and she had just the place to start.

“Try we shall for to see if you our cell can enter.”

‘Our’ meaning hers and Enver’s of course, but she didn’t think that needed explaining, as she and Peter did not share a cell, not that she would have had any issue sharing a place with her childe. She had a place her childer had access to in the city, which reminded her…she should tell Peter this and make sure he could enter there too.

[Peter Parkman]

Peter blinked up at Keara as she stood; he was still trying to wrap his head around the idea that she could check to see if he was feeding to completely comprehend that she was suggesting that they go test his powers. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the idea that anyone could just prod around inside of his head, or his body, or whatever it was to see what he had been doing or what he was capable of. That whole idea of having a bubble, an invisible thing inside which no one could get to him – the whole notion was blown out the window. Inadvertently, with just those few words, Keara had rocked the very foundation beneath Peter’s feet.

Peter was an entirely private person. He kept to himself, more often than not – even Jersey didn’t know his entire story, and Keara and Enver only knew bits and pieces. In the solitude that he had gathered around himself in those first six months in Harper Rock had changed him completely. He built walls up around himself, and only allowed a random, very small number to see through the cracks. He never let them inside completely.

It threw him for a loop to think that people could now speak directly into his head. Could share memories with him. Could look inside and look at his own memories; could tear him from his comfort zone and summon him somewhere different, bodily, without asking. Could see whether he had been feeding. And what abilities he had unlocked, before even he himself had any idea.

It had him nearly shivering with discomfort as he sat there on the corner of the couch; his fingers curled over the top of the pile of books, while his other hand rested upon the back of Gizmo, as if the tiny animal could bring him the comfort of reality, of a world that he was accustomed to. He had to suck it up and move on; he’d just told Keara that he didn’t regret what she’d made him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still thrown off course every now and again. There were some things he would dislike, and that he would continue to dislike.

He cleared his throat and moved the dog from his lap. He stood. His mouth had gone dry; all he could do was nod as he followed Keara. At least, if they were to discover a few more things that he could do, maybe he would again be comforted; maybe he could discover the good things to help him forget about the bad – and about how vulnerable he felt, how seemingly naked, even as he stood there fully clothed.

[Keara Aithne]

She didn't notice his internal struggle as Peter was a quiet soul at the best of times, so everything seemed normal to her. Gizmo grumbled to be set aside but soon noticed that Keara was on her feet and so ran to investigate her boots. He stretched and pawed at the boots excitedly, seeming to ask where they were going as he jumped and moved around her.

"Yes. Moving I am. Come you may," she directed her comments to the excitable ball of fur at her feet as she carefully stepped over and around him.

It didn't take long to get to the door of their cell, just a short trip in the elevator. As they rode the elevator up Keara explained once more how vampires could not enter the home of another unless invited, that was unless they had a specific vampiric power that would allow them to cross the threshold uninvited. This was the power she was going to test with him. As she pushed the cell door open, Gizmo ran in and began investigating, obviously checking to see if Enver was home.

"Try you should for the threshold to cross while uninvited you are. Think not on desire for in to go. Think not. If possible that is. Want I do for you the difference to see, if able afterwards to enter you are. Know you should first the feeling when unable to cross the threshold you are. The try we can for you through the barrier to pass."

Keara stepped to one side and waited to see how Peter would handle the challenge. It was possible that he didn't have the ability to enter uninvited, but then that was the point of the challenge, to see if he possessed the power or not.

[Peter Parkman]

Peter listened as Keara again explained the power to him; he wondered whether it would be at all useful to him. If he were a man of questionable morals, if he decided that he wanted to turn to a life of crime, then perhaps this specific ability might be exciting for him. But, given that he is instead a man prone to good manners and honourable deeds, he doubted that he’d ever want to enter someone’s home uninvited. If he wasn’t invited, then he wasn’t welcome, and he wouldn’t do anything to test what would already, he assumed, be a tenebrous relationship.

This life was different, however, and he would agree that it was best if he knew everything that he was capable of so that, should any scenario arise where his help was required, he would know exactly what he could do. Perhaps someone he cared for got into some kind of trouble; perhaps they were being kept somewhere, where he was not welcome, simply because for some reason or other, his loved one had got themselves an enemy, and he was unwelcome due to association. Then, he supposed, this ability might come in handy. He hoped that no such scenario would ever arise; he doubted his ability to handle it, regardless. None of this did he voice to Keara; he kept his thoughts and his musings to himself, as he doubted they’d have much of an impact on what he was about to learn.

They reached the doorway to the cell which he did not have access to. He’d never had a reason to visit Keara and Enver here, so there was no reason why he should have been invited, or be welcome. It was their private quarters, and he could understand their wanting to keep it private. He tried to push his way through the door, but could not. It wasn’t as if there was something solid barring his way, but it was something ethereal. A nauseous effect, even; something that prevented him physically from entering, and emotionally he just felt like he wasn’t welcome. He glanced sideways at Keara before contemplating the open door again, this time focusing a little more.

”So what do I do? Just… tell it to let me in? Pretend like I am welcome? Try to trick it…?” he asks, a little self-conscious, being watched, unsure whether he’ll succeed.

[Keara Aithne]

Keara watched hoping that he didn't experience too much discomfort while trying to enter their cell. He didn't appear to be in pain from what she could see but she was ready and willing to invite him in if it looked like he was pushing himself too hard. It was at this point she began to think that perhaps it might have been wiser to appraise him and get a sense of his gifts before the testing had begun.

"Powers for some differently do work. Intent I find usually good motivator is for initiating gifts such as these. When cross I do a threshold, think I do upon my intent to enter. For welcome there to be. Stay you cannot unless welcome you are. So...that perhaps good idea is upon which to focus. Once within the dwelling you are, think on that no more you must. If any of that sense does make."

She had no idea that Peter was considering when he might use such a power, she herself rarely used it these days. In the beginning she'd used it a lot but more so when she was curious about a dwelling, as opposed to the person that lived there. The last time she herself had used the power was to enter Enver's theatre apartment. He'd told her she was most welcome in his abode and then had forgotten to allow her the freedom of coming and going as she pleased. If pressed she'd of had to say that she would use the power to reach her family, as entering a home uninvited wasn't something she wished to do, there were certainly situations that she could fathom in which doing so might be advantageous; like when Peter had hurt himself. Had he not been able to summon him to her, she would have had to enter his home to treat him. None of these thoughts however surfaced in her mind, as she was too busy watching Peter to see if this was in fact a power he possessed and if he would need to make more than one attempt to try and break through the barrier that would try to block him.