But why?

[Storyteller]

Jesse Fforde
The nights all blended one into the other. The contentment of habit was spiked with random issues and excitement but otherwise the world went on as it always did. It was never much like the movies or the TV shows when impending destruction became a cataclysmic event that took up everyone's time and attention. Things happened, but Jesse still had businesses to attend to and clients to ink. He still had childer who wanted to know things, who he stopped to teach. Tonight was a rare night off -- one which he intended to spend indoors. He wore no shoes, a pair of grey track pants and a plain black tank; his hair spiked at odd angles, as he failed to bother to brush it. He found himself in the small kitchenette with the fridge door open, contemplating the stores of blood packs. He didn't feel like bagged blood. But nor did he particularly feel like going out...

Aine
Some nights, Aine found herself wondering the strangest things. Tonight, her mind found itself wandering to vampire biology. Nothing to do with fadebeasts, though. No, she was thinking more about what happened to the blood they drank. Every night, she woke up hungry and bought a blood bag to slake that thirst. But why? Why did they need it? Was it fuel, like cheesecake? Or was it some mystical life-giving element? 'Cause if it was that, maybe bagged blood wasn't enough. "Why do we even need blood?" she drawled randomly.

Jesse Fforde
The voice seemed to come to Jesse, disembodied, across the space. Irish accent. Irish, not Scottish. Irish -- Aine. Jesse turned to look over his shoulder, gaze swinging across the space until they settled upon the blonde. "Because if we don't drink the blood, we'll become rabid and vicious and lose all our wits to the bloodlust..." he said. Who was he kidding? He did that sometimes even without needing the blood.

Aine
A quiet laugh escaped the blonde as she sat up, ruffling her hair. She looked...adorably disheveled, as she would put it. A knit, light blue sweater, black leggings, and mismatched socks from a variety pack - black with neon toes. Her left foot sported neon green, while her right glowed orange. "I know that," she said, folding her legs cross-wise and leaning forward. "But why? What purpose does it serve in the body?" Her right hand raised, fingers drumming momentarily on her breastbone.

Jesse Fforde
The question was a bit too much. It wasn't something Jesse had thought about. It wasn't something he'd asked. It was just something he had accepted, and pondering the answer had him closing the fridge without grabbing anything -- vaguely, in the back of his mind, he'd decided he'd go out later for 'food'. "Because we're demons cursed to survive off the lifeblood of the living? I'm not sure anyone'd have the answer to that question..." he said, grabbing at a beanbag and nudging it closer to Aine before falling down into it.

Aine
Huffing a sigh, the blonde slouched. "Just as well," she said. "A couple nights ago I caught my reflection - my eyes were gone. So I thought to myself, why do I have a corpse in the mirror? Why me?" She laughed, one hand picking at a loose bit of yarn in her sweater. "I don't know. I think some weird things at off hours."

Jesse Fforde
Jesse contemplated Aine in silence for a few long seconds. There was no need, for him, that such silences be filled with idle chit-chat. Silence was a blessing -- a reprieve to gather one's thoughts. He and Aine hadn't had too many heart to hearts, and this looked like it could turn into one. "I suppose Allurists are Allurists for a reason, and that reflection is to bring them back down to earth," he said with a small shrug, indicating he didn't know the real answer nor fully agree with the answer he had given. Despite the bad rap Allurists got, he'd not met many he hated due to their path. "Are you having doubts about your existence?" he asked.

Aine
"Nah," she said offhandedly, giving a slight scoff. "This is better than the urchin I was; steady roof, people I can trust, and now I don't have to worry about finding someone to sell things I find to get something to eat." Not to mention her bank account wasn't doing terribly. Gods, she loved the looseness of the shops around town. "Nah, it's more that I want to know more about my existence. Why are we? Where did we come from? You know - things we might never know. ****, I never imagined myself being philosophical!"

Jesse Fforde
Jesse laughed. The question had been asked without inflection. The Necromancer had grown over the years; where once he might have taken immediate offense and assumed that Aine hated what he had given her -- even if she hadn't asked and he'd been a bit of a dick the way he'd gone about it. Now, he would accept that many of his childer would be human again given the chance, and he was happy to hear them out (even if he didn't agree). Aine's response wasn't what he expected, but he nodded. He knew where she was coming from. "I've been doing the research, but have been hitting brick walls and dead ends. I mostly want to know about the rift, but I think that ties in to questions about our existence, and how we started," he said. "The information is out there. We just have to find it."

Aine
Aine didn't really think he'd been cruel about the way he turned her. It was like the perfect punchline to the best joke she had. A blood thief stalking a sewer meets a powerful vampire. He lets her bite him; she lets him bite her. The next night, she comes to his door sick as a dog, and he tells her his biting her is going to make her a vampire - after a week of throwing up. Okay, so it's not really that funny, but she thinks it's hilarious. "Has anyone tried asking any of the elders?" she asked. "Are any of them even around anymore?"

Jesse Fforde
Again, Jesse shrugged. He turned his attention to the ceiling as he thought about it and shook his head. "I don't think they know, either. I'm not sure why they'd keep the information to themselves," he said. "Clover's met Habren. The blood that runs through my veins, through yours, through my sire's... it goes all the way back to Habren. She wanted me to meet her, I haven't got around to it, and Clover hasn't mentioned her in a while. I'm sure she's around somewhere..."

Aine
"Someone's gotta know," she said quietly, fingers toying idly with loose yarn once again. "I don't suppose it'd be possible to summon up someone even older than Habren?" That was Aine's solution to that; if the living didn't know, the dead would. After all, vampires didn't just happen a few years ago. The legends were ancient, and everywhere, mentioned in some context in practically every culture throughout the world. There had to be something. "Besides. Humans have been debating their own origins since they had enough imagination to do so."

Jesse Fforde
"Oh, I imagine I'm not the only one who's been looking, and I think the elders we do have aren't... I mean none of them are over a certain age. Which I find kind of curious," Jesse said, pondering things out loud. "I mean as far as I know, the ones I DO know about. And the information I have could be wrong..." he added. People could be cagey about their ages and he wasn't even sure he knew who all the elders were. "And I tried summoning and ... all that jazz. I got Arauchia out of it," he said, laughing. Arauchia wasn't an elder, by any means. But he didn't regret how it had come about.




------------------------------
This thread was submitted via a live roleplay chat in the Limbo area. Participants and rewards were: Jesse Fforde earned 1195 RPP. Aine earned 806 RPP.