Madness Breaketh the Chains.

[Lynnette (DELETED 9652)]

It was dark. I made my way downtown, breaking out of the asylum, I ran for hours, eyes over shoulders, and mind outstretched towards the friends I knew for a long time: The ghosts. I listened, listened to the voices no one else heard, and they told me where to hide, where to go. I mugged a woman that was in my path, about my size, and stole her clothes, dressing her in the asylum gown I'd been running in. The top was tight, green, and showed more of me than my mind would've liked, but the spirits told me I needed to find something to change into. So, these skin tight pants, and the goth boots that belonged to the woman, along with the shirt, had to do in that instant. Then I ducked down the way through an alleyway between two brick buildings, where a man in a loose dress shirt and jeans made a whistling noise, and called after me. I tried to ignore him as I ran underneath a yellow and black strip of paper, warning me against something I didn't pay attention to. I ran and ran until the voices led me to a room, almost the size of the lobby of the asylum, exempting the fact that it was leagues larger. I felt nothing for a moment, before feeling fear as I heard the lumbering footsteps of a drunkard come to a halt behind me.

<<Drunkard>> "You know, It's rude to ignore a compliment."

<<Lynnette>> "What? Who're you and what're yo-"

The sound of tearing rises into the air, and I felt cold air against my flesh, before feeling a strange heat rising from within me, and losing all track of time, before I came to, my face squished into the floor, and my body still radiating with a strange heat all over.

<<Drunkard>> "You stupid whore. I can't have you running to the police, so I guess there's one thing left to do."

With the resounding chick of metal on metal, like the guards at the asylum had with their batons, I felt a quick heat, and a sting, over and over, until I felt... cold. Utterly cold. I felt my body stop, and slow down. Some of my spirit friends rejoiced, as others despaired over the fate they just witnessed. For the feeling of what even my mind knew was the end of the road, I was strangely calm, but I knew, one day, after I faded away, I would come to find this man, who gave me the experience of death, and share with him my new-found wisdom, in the same way he showed me...

[Cordelia]

Another night, another delicious hunt. She was always hungry, this was true. But she could at least satiate the thirst momentarily with the hot, fresh blood of those who wandered the streets. Zombies were, in general, below her skill level, but sometimes she just liked to come by and do some target practice. It didn't matter to Cordelia that she wasn't dressed for it, as she crossed the river to the north of the quarantine in her high heeled platform boots, drawing her weapon from the familiar heart-shaped crossbody and checking that the thing was loaded as she made her way to the entrance of the multiplex. It wasn't the best hunting ground, but it would do for a start.

Of course, that all changed when she heard the drunken ********. With a sigh, Cordelia stepped into the building and flicked her left hand in his direction, spearing him in three places with shadow blades before putting a bullet through his brain with cold accuracy. "I hate when the hobos get into the quarantine," she murmured, moving to kneel at the side of the girl that had been so...so violently assaulted. Slowly, lifting the girl's hair, she checked at her throat for a pulse...and found one. "Thank ****," she sighed. But the girl before her was unconscious.

Well, so much for asking if this was okay. Without so much as another word, Cordelia lifted the girl's arm, sinking her fangs into her wrist and drinking what she could, before, drawing the ritual knife she carried with her from its sheath in her boot, slashing her own wrist and pressing the wound to the girl's mouth. "Please let this be the right choice," she said, soft and reverent, uncertain exactly who it was she spoke to, but she said it anyway. Hopefully, this poor girl wouldn't go berserk upon waking without a pulse.

[Lynnette (DELETED 9652)]

I heard very muted sounds, and I was lifted, or rather, my body was lifted up, and cold brushed against what was my neck, before leaving suddenly. I felt a quick heat, before what was left of my heat was pulled from my body. However, something warm and yet... wrong filled my mouth and poured down my throat, to which neither my body, nor I could react to. It started slowly, but my veins traveled this foreign substance throughout my veins, eventually reaching my heart, to which the ending result was the final beatings of my heart. Each beat thundered in my ears like gunshots, or rather like listening to drums when your ear is against the bass drum. It felt like forever before the final beating of my heart tolled throughout my body, to which I was ready to close my eyes, eternally. Instead, I felt control over my body return to me, and my senses sharpened, and returned to me. I pushed my body off of the ground slowly, arms hanging in front of my body, moving slowly, and sluggishly due to exhaustion. I slowly gained control over more and more of my body, until I stood normally, where I pushed my hair out of my face, to see the body of a man, in a loose shirt, and jeans. My vision narrowed, and I tore after the still carcass on the floor, and took my time ripping it to pieces. After the last piece of the body was eviscerated, my mind... cleared... Why was I doing this again? I pushed my body off of the bloody carcass, took a look around, and saw clothes on the ground. My clothes. I pulled them back on over myself, no matter how torn. I took a look at all I was wearing, and only minor tears in the shirt were visible. I shrugged and looked around again, and this time I saw a rather tall woman with brownish black hair, wearing a split-tone red and black dress. One of the first things I noticed was her golden eyes, and her pale skin. I turned to her and said simply:
<<Lynnette:>> "Pardon me, milady. I am known as Lynnette, and I am rather new to these lands. Could you perhaps lend me thine aid, if thy heart be willing?"

[Cordelia]

The brunette breathed a sigh of relief when the girl awoke. Her first instinct was to move to rest a hand on her shoulder - but once she saw the body of the drunk ********, the poor girl was off like a bullet, ripping the corpse to pieces until there was nothing remotely recognizable left. Cordelia barely reacted, aside from raising her eyebrows in what could only be called mild shock. She hadn't exactly anticipated this new blood to be so...viscious. Cordelia didn't even fully care that she was being covered in gore. She'd be going to the Dragomir temple soon enough, anyhow.

Then, when she finally stopped, Cordelia breathed a sigh as the stranger looked her way. And then she spoke. And Cordelia's immediate thought was, ****. It took her a minute longer than was probably necessary to decipher her words, considering she'd never been one for classical literature and had slept through most of the Shakespeare portion of high school. Except when they showed the 90's Romeo and Juliet. Damn, Leo used to be cute. But, at least now she had a name to go off of.

"Lynnette? My name is Cordelia Dragomir, and I've technically helped you more than most people in this land ever would. I saved your life from that creep - didn't see the whole thing, but, uh...when I got here, you were dying. So, I did the only thing I really could and made you a vampire, since EMTs don't come into the quarantine. What were you doing here, anyway?" Cordelia doubted she'd really be able to identify what Lynnette said, but at least she could get the gist of it. Start somewhere. "Would you be willing to come with me? I can get you some clean clothes, show you the ropes. Unfortunately, you're not exactly like me...I mean, your skills will be entirely different than what I've got. If you were like me, you'd have started bleeding black from the wounds on your back."

Without a thought, Cordelia dropped the pretense shadows she'd trained herself to keep up day in and day out, taking on a bizarre, almost two-dimensional visage with the lack of obvious shading. "Shadows are...special, let's say. Not that the others aren't, of course, but we've got our own special brand of tricks."

[Lynnette (DELETED 9652)]

With a simple **** of my head I nodded towards this... rather forward woman, whose name they gave was Cordelia, a rather respectable name for one so common.
<< Lynnette:>> "Well, you have my thanks milady. As you've said many people are unlike you, and more tend toward the nefarious path through their common lives. Thy heart is pure for one so dark, and yet I can see no contradiction between the two statements. If what you say is likely far more truthful than this worm, I owe you my life. How may I repay you? Is there something I may do, to appease thee?"

At the later end of my statement, I curtsied toward Cordelia, my heart flowing with the gratitude deserving of one who took their time to help another. I found her morphing into a shadow far beyond amusing, I was simply abuzz with curiosity. I held my hand out towards where Cordelia's hair was, and felt the shadow that it hath become, and kept an eye of white spectres that surrounded me in the area, surrounding me and my compatriot, screaming and shouting to the uncaring void.

[Cordelia]

Appeasement? What the actual **** was this woman on? Cordelia could tell she was very quickly going to grow annoyed with this whole situation, so she did the one thing she knew she could do.

She texted her own sire.

"Pardon me a moment," she said, walking towards what had once-upon-a-time been the concessions stand, and drawing her phone from her purse. This was not good. She'd sired this woman, this Lynnette...and she was extremely weird. If Cordelia didn't know any better, she'd suspect her of being one of the ancients!

{T} Hey, Azraeth, can you come to the Deserted Multiplex ASAP? I've got a teeny bit of a situation I need some help with.

Now all she could do was hope Azraeth got the message, and quick. If he didn't...well, ****. This was going to be fun.

Not.

Play can continue until Azraeth's player is available to join in.

[Azraeth]

W E A R I N G

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Azraeth was humming the intro to En Vogue’s Don’t Let Go under his breath, and was in the process of singing bits and pieces of it (he knew all of the words, but he wasn’t really ‘singing’ for anyone other than himself), as he poured over the pile of papers in front of him. He was seated at a desk in a cramped office in one of Harper Rock’s illustrious places of learning. Only an hour before, he had been in the middle of a lecture given to an auditorium of students. Since vampires had ‘come out’ to the human populace, there had been some pretty nifty, if odd changes. One of those new developments was late night classes offered by some of the schools, who saw a new market for squeezing tuition out of the dead. Why. With some people being up all night, it only made sense to hire some new staff and really squeeze the proverbial stone of its blood. All possible puns intended.

Few people knew this of him, but Az had an advanced degree in Anthropology, which really hadn’t served him all that well. His experience with a variety of cultures, religions, languages, and artifacts was beneficial in his personal life, but professionally, it had never really benefitted him much. Or at least, it had never benefitted him in a way that wouldn’t have been covered by his own personal studies. When he’d seen the advertisements for night instructors, he had more than jumped at it. The program was ultimately in its testing phase, so the Mystic’s contract was temporary. He wasn’t getting paid a lot, but that wasn’t really the point.

Tap. Tap. Tap

He finally glanced up, to see a student (one of a trio) poking the corner of his desk with a sharp nail. She was talking, but he couldn’t hear her, so he pulled the earbuds from his head, and lifted both of his bushy dark brows as if to ask ‘what?’.

“Mr. Carpenter!” She began. She had on this vibrant red lipstick, and hair that was straight and glossy. Dark brown. Her eyes were the same color, and her nose was this slender, slightly upturned thing, which made it so that Azraeth could very nearly see into her nostrils.

“Ms. Porter?” he asked as he carefully wound his earbud wires, glancing up to her companions, who he frankly didn’t recognize. Amelia Porter was in his class, and she always sat in the front row.

“I just wanted to show them your eyes.”

Az blinked a couple of times and then rolled his seat back so that he could stand, and lean over his desk. One hand rested on the flat surface and the other moved so he could use his fore finger and thumb to pull at his eyelids, revealing more of his strange serpentine orb.

There was a chorus of murmurs between the three girls. Ms. Porter giggled in a way that said she was younger than he’d initially thought. He could hear one of her friends ask if she thought ‘he was one of them’. It was true that the late night classes (or early morning depending on one’s point of view), had been set up for the undead. Usually the roster was filled with night owls who were hoping to get a look at someone with fangs. However Az never had a chance to address their concerns. Instead, he got a text, his phone buzzing against his hip. He lifted a hand, and a finger as if to ask for silence before checking it.

Oh boy. Something was going on at the deserted multiplex. That surely wasn’t a bad sign at all. His lips pursed and he glanced up once more. “Sorry, ladies, I would love to entertain you all with a story about how I got these peepers, but I have to take this.” And with that, he was shuffling them out through the office door. They continued their murmuring into the hallway, almost as if he wasn’t even there, which didn’t really surprise him. He shut the door behind them, and gave a tug at his tie with a middle finger, ring and index digits braced to either side of the knot.

Then he just wasn’t there. As if he’d blinked out of reality. He appeared in front of the Deserted Multiplex and let himself inside as he tugged his tie off, rolled it up, and pocketed it. “Cordelia?!” He called out into the relative darkness.

Surprise! Thanks for the heads up via PM, Cordie-player. <3

[Cordelia]

Relief was not a strong enough word to describe Cordelia's emotions as she heard Azraeth calling out. "Oh, thank ****," she blurted, taking quick steps towards the voice. She instantly felt as if everything was going to be fine. Perfect, even. Being around her sire did that to the shadow. It was what Cordelia should have felt around her mother growing up, but never had.

She didn't go far from Lynnette, but moved to speak quietly to the man. "I kind of stumbled onto a situation, she was being attacked and I didn't have any other choice. Emergency responders don't come out here and you know I can't teleport, I still sometimes have issues with my own ****," she rambled. "But the problem is that she's talking like she's older than old and I don't know what the **** to do, does that make sense? I was kind of hoping you could help me get her the **** out of here and into some clothes that aren't covered in her own blood and maybe help translate some of the stuff she says."

Yep, Cordelia was rambling, and talking very quickly and quietly. She just really hoped Lynnette didn't get upset that she was talking to someone else when she'd spoken to her not too long ago. This was going to be a mess, but all Cordelia could do right now was look at her own sire with pleading eyes.

[Lynnette (DELETED 9652)]

The feeling of unrest settled over my person as I watched, and listened to hushed tones discuss things I could not hear. Something within me, however, felt something off in the air, a rather paranoid tension filled the air, and I intrinsically started moving into the darkness of the abandoned multiplex. The two seemed rather absorbed in their little conversation, so I decided not to bother them too much, so I tried my best to walk to the door, except I found myself lost miserably. So, rather than avoid the issue, I pressed upon it, and walked up to the both of them and spoke, hopefully what I said was eloquent.

<<Lynnette>> "Apologies milady, I could stand for this suspicious action no more, for some reason my body tensed up at something quite unknown. Aghast! I forgot my manners. Apologies Milord, M'name is Lynnette, one justifiably indebted unto milady Cordelia. I know not your name, but if ye'd be willing to part with thine name, as propriety demands, even though I am naught one who is but small in the eyes of one such as Milord. If need be, I may prostrate myself before thee, if that soothes thy heart.

I curtsied in front of the stranger, before making slight eye contact with my savior, Milady Cordelia. I then awaited response from the unknown ser.

[Azraeth]

There had been any number of situations Azraeth had found himself called into, or that he’d gotten into himself either alone or with a group of people. He had this running joke that any time vampires got together, bad **** was bound to happen. Random murders. Celestial events. The raising of the dead. Attacks from fae, from hunters, from hitmen. Freakish storms and earthquakes, and other ‘natural’ phenomena. It was, in a way, as if the entire world conspired against their kind, as if they had been cursed. As such, the vampire had learned, with time, to be prepared for anything. He had a cache of ritual ingredients sewn into most of his jackets - not much, but enough to get done what needed done in a pinch. While he didn’t cart around enormous weapons under an armor trench coat (he knew a guy that did), he always had a handgun or two tucked away, and a curved ritual dagger sheathed against the small of his back. In essence, he was prepared for **** to hit the fan.

After speaking, he was immediately replied to, which caused the faintest lifting of his brows. There had been this spool of tension growing tighter between his shoulder blades, and it spun free like a top at hearing his childe’s voice. The gun he had drawn as he stepped through the door was holstered once more, and he soon had Cordelia there in front of him. His arm wound around her middle so he could give her a tight side hug - which was in one part affection, and also so he could get closer and inspect to make sure there was nothing wrong with her. Though she soon began to give him the details, and it wasn’t hard to put the timeline together. The words might as well have been an echo of an earlier Azraeth. How many people had he tried to save by turning them? She didn’t even have to say it. He just knew instinctively that’s what she meant. And so his attention swung to the newly turned Dragomir.

His gaze narrowed, even as his pupils - those dagger-like slits, seemed to widen in the absence of light. A hand pressed against Cordelia’s mid-back and slid towards her ribs, so he could give a soothing squeeze. “We’ll get this figured out.” He said, and then his lips tugged into a smile, which was as dorky and over-sized as ever. Already he could feel the bond between himself and Cordelia’s new progeny. The way he felt a bond between himself and anyone who shared blood with him. All Worthington, and Grigori, and really every vampire had the innate ability to instinctively know when another of their kind was ‘related’ to them. He was clearly assessing, trying to figure out what manner of person she was, as that was ever Azraeth’s way. He was a creature of both thought and action. Observe. Observe until one knew what they needed to know - and then move like an unstoppable force.

“Congrats, by the way.” He said to Cordelia. “You must be terribly nervous. Try not to get too bogged down in that feeling, because being a sire won’t give you much time to worry, but it will give you a hell of a lot to worry about.”

And then the new childer was speaking.

The words were not unfamiliar to him. Azraeth had a gift for language. He’d grown up speaking English, French, and Russian (the lattermost courtesy of his best friend), and when he’d become a vampire, his thirst for knowledge had opened those doors further. But even before his turning, when he’d been nothing more than a young man, dressed up as an elf, he had certainly known those words. “She’s speaking what is commonly referred to as Shakespearean English.” However a scholar might have called it Early Modern English. “It was prominent from around the Tudor era all of the way through the 18th century, so give or take three or four hundred years. But hasn’t been used commonly for more than three hundred years. You mostly find it in literature such as the King James version of the Bible, and at places like Ren Faires.” He explained. Which could mean one of any number of things. Perhaps she was confused. Or maybe she was crazy.

“No need to do that. I don’t like looking down at someone unless they’re in my bed - otherwise it’s just plain awkward. I am called Azraeth, though most just call me Az.” He said, opting to use a modern equivalent. He then stuck his hand out to see if she would shake it. “Besides. While I appreciate the boost in rank, if I’m nobility, then you are too, and it would hardly be proper for a lady to sprawl out on the ground.”