The Price of Blood [Pierra]

[Blaize]

Blaize was still too confused to smile. And even if he were not confused, even if he had the answers to his now drastically changed emotional wellbeing and condition, he still would not have smiled. The dancer had often been told to loosen up, that he was too uptight. He'd overheard conversations his students hadn't thought he could hear, but they knew that he was a vampire, and they should have known he'd hear them: Munroe has a stick up his ***. It was a sentiment often voiced as a form of comfort; he'd have recently offended one of them by insulting their performance.

He tried not to take it to heart, that she'd turned his request into a joke, and she'd not said yes. She'd not assured him that she wouldn't kill anyone.

Swansdale. The only place Blaize could think to take Pierra was back to the studio; there were mirrors there, and a locker room with showers. And while she was getting cleaned up he would call Aleksa. He would admit to what he had done and bear the brunt of whatever annoyance she might fling his way. He'd ask her if she could pretty please bring some spare clothes. And anyway, later, he'd want to tell her everything. Not just the surface of what had happened, but how it had affected him, too.

"You'll go to a place they call The Shadow Realm," Blaize answered. He'd never been there himself, nor was he curious to find out what it was like. "And as far as I know, you're stuck there for a while. A week or so. And then you can come back," he said with a shrug. As if it were so normal, telling someone they could come back from the dead.

"It's all got to do with a rift, see. You know the Quarantine Zone? Near here, even, it's where it's strongest. It's the only reason we can come back, here in this city. If you leave the city, there are no rifts, no doorways between this world and death. And you'll be dead dead. So if you ever want to travel, I suggest being careful," he said. "Have you lived here all your life...?" he asked, glancing sideways at Pierra.

[Pierra (DELETED 10327)]

Shadow Realm huh? Fancy name for it now isn't it? Nice, at least vampires are creative. Though considering what they...we are capable of. Is that really a surprise? She thought to herself cocking her head as he answered her question with a name before continuing. An interesting prospect, nope, no permanent death anymore. Though, perhaps getting stuck in this "shadow realm" wasn't supposed to be such a pleasant experience. So maybe it was best to avoid that unless necessary for some reason. Though, she didn't feel much inclination to lessen just how much fun she was going to have now that she was free from the bonds of mortality. After-all he didn't seem to put much emphasis on it.

She furrowed her brow in thought and biting her lip as he continued to explain. So then, she was limited to Harper rock if she wanted to actually stay immortal. Well that was a bit unfortunate. Though, that would explain why nowhere else really seemed to be having the same problems that they did. Then however another question was posed to her, if she'd been here her whole life. Pierra shrugged,

"Yeah I guess so, here and there. But it was pretty boring till now." She said groaning, "Nothing would ever happen, I mean, I heard stuff in the news and all. But like, I had to go out and fight zombies and that was about the end of the fun I got to have.

Pierra smiled again tossing her arms out, "Something happened now though eh?! Freaking vampire, ha! Cool right?! Ahhh well, maybe not everyone thinks so, but I do! Though I haven't really done much yet, wonder what I actually can do. Surely there's some cool tricks for me, can't say I know too much about vampire abilities since I just started huh. But hey, they wouldn't be so known if they were boring right."

[Blaize]

Blaize stared at Pierra, aghast – but then he had to laugh. Each to their own, he supposed. He’d never been wanting in his life. He’d found his passion early on and had thrown himself into it head first. It still consumed him – so much so that his body had changed and mutated to accommodate it. Life had not been boring for him; he’d had his challenged and his hurdles and he’d leapt over them, sometimes more gracefully than others. But he couldn’t possibly imagine what it would be like to want to go and confront the zombie because nothing ever happened.

Blaize had had an adjustment period, too. The turn was something he had asked for, a sacrifice he made for his career. The first time he’d killed someone had been an accident, and he’d been in shock for days before letting the guilt overwhelm him. He’d meant to knock the guy out but hadn’t realised his own strength.

But here was this girl and she’d been forced into this for Blaize’s own peace of mind, which he now had. And she was ecstatic. Why should he bring her down by pointing out all the negatives? So he just laughed.

”Yeah, okay. It has its perks,” he agreed, trying to shake the remnants of the nights events thus far from his tense limbs. ”You’ll have some tricks up your sleeve, yeah. They take time to develop. We…here, look,” he said. They’d rounded the corner and were passing in front of a closed shop, the lights off inside, and the glass illuminated by the street lamps. Though they were standing right in front of the glass, there was no reflection.

”There are what we call ‘paths’. Each one is capable of different things, and there are signs. There are six of them, and I can immediately rule out two of them. Allurists have reflections. You don’t have one, so you’re not one of them. And… you look alive. You don’t look like an animated corpse, so you’re not a Necromancer. Necromancers look like they’ve just crawled out of the ground and are in dire need of a blood transfusion,” he said, and then started to walk again.

”There are telepaths – creepy people who can talk directly to your mind,” he said, tapping his finger to his head. ”There are killers. Who… lack emotional empathy, I guess, and… well, the name says it,” he said, frowning sideways. Pierra hadn’t been too concerned about killing that soldier; had stopped only because Blaize had asked her to. Could she be…? It was too soon to tell.

”Then there are Mystics. I’m one of those. I can ah… cause earthquakes and uhm…” he held out his hand, snapped his fingers, and a glowing white orb appeared in his hand. It was almost as bright as sunlight, but didn’t harm them. It wasn’t ultraviolet. Useless, really. To be fair, now that he was thinking about it, Blaize didn’t use many of his abilities.

”And shadows. You can rule that out too, if you want – just need to prick your thumb. If you bleed black, you’re a shadow. If not…well, you’re one of the other three,” he said, dropping his hand, the orb disappearing.

[Pierra (DELETED 10327)]

Pierra cocked her head as she listened in thought smiling slightly still as he explained some of it to her. So there were these "paths" and Allurists and necromancers at first were out of the picture for her, interesting. Not just that there were these paths but that they each had individual traits common to them enough to identify them. Telepaths, Killers, he frowned at that one, she however found it rather interesting of a concept. Then mystics, she smiled with interest as he brought the orb to life in front of her, it sounded to her like they could do rather random things these mystics. Next shadows, hm, they bleed black? Now that'd be fun to see. She was tempted to test it out on someone else if she turned out to not be one. She looked at her hand,

"Hmm, alright." She said pulling out a pocket knife with her right hand and lightly pressed the blade against her thumb causing it to bleed, she frowned curiously as it bled normally, "Not a shadow I suppose, makes me either a Telepath, Killer, or Mystic then right".

She was really looking forwards to finding out which one she was. Though, she couldn't hear his thoughts, so she guessed unless that was something she could only develop later, she was not a telepath. Killer seemed interesting, but she wondered if lacking emotional empathy was the right word for how she felt. Even if it was though it didn't mean for certain that's what she was,
"Well how do we check the others then?" She asked.

[Blaize]

"Right," Blaize said. He'd been watching, curiously, as she removed the knife from her bag and punctured her own skin. Not a Shadow. For a good twenty seconds Blaize considered her question, only to eventually shake his head.

"Time will tell," he said. "It comes with time. You won't have to wait long, I don't think," he said with a slight frown. He couldn't remember what he'd experienced first, what helped him to figure out what Path he himself had found himself walking. Perhaps the quake, when he'd found himself in a rage. "The thing is, your senses will be heightened. When you're under pressure, when something happens to... I guess, get your heart pumping, metaphorically, it'll happen. Out of nowhere. So just... be aware," he said.

That was the best way he could explain it, the only thing she could hope for. Abilities didn't seem to come immediately unless they were the unfortunate traits passed through the blood -- neither of which Pierra seemed to have inherited. Thus far, it seemed to be going well.

"For now we'll get cleaned up. I have a studio at the University. I'll call my girlfriend, and she can bring some spare clothes," he said, absently.

[Pierra (DELETED 10327)]

Pierra nodded cocking her head at her bloodied hand before shaking it and folding it with the other behind her as he explained on when and how she'd get her powers. "Heh, cool! Shame I have to wait, but still, guess I couldn't get everything at once huh." she said shrugging.

"For now we'll get cleaned up. I have a studio at the University. I'll call my girlfriend, and she can bring some spare clothes," he said, absently.

She nodded again smiling and slapping a foot on the ground to signify her ready to go, "Great! Where do we go?" she said her mind ever so slightly slowed down from all the excitement but no less ready to jump at every new thing that was bound to come her way, and still bouncing around in her head, and eyes, even if it wasn't as much as before.

Pierra cocked her head again, "Does she know you're a vampire? Surely she's got to right? Or even cooler, is she a vampire too?!" she asked curiously.

[Blaize]

Blaize never understood impatience, having curated such a strange sense of patience from a young age. Pierra’s impatience was, in some ways, endearing. Her enthusiasm was a far cry better than hatred, and he had to remind himself of that again.

”The University…” he started, as if to repeat himself. But then he had to remind himself that Pierra might not know where that was, might never have been there. He nodded, as they rounded a corner. ”It’s just down this road, a few blocks. Around the corner, and … it’ll take like ten minutes to walk there. Maybe fifteen,” he said. Plenty of time to get to know each other, he supposed. And for him to figure out how to tell Aleksandra about all this.

Aleksandra, who was now the topic of conversation.

”You seem to think so many things are ‘cool’,” Blaize said with a snort. ”Yes, she knows. Yes, she is one. She was one before we got together,” he said. He wouldn’t tell Aleksandra’s story. That was her tale to tell. As he thought about her, Blaize’s features opened up, brightened. The last vestige of tension slipped from his limbs. It didn’t matter if she was upset with this newest venture of his; he would be honest with her, he would explain it to her. And she would understand. They would get through this, like they got through everything else.

”You’ll meet her. And there’s Breno and Darcy, too,” he said. ”Vampires in this city—there are a few—they like to refer to their ‘bloodlines’ as families,” he said, lifting his hands to put metaphorical inverted commas around that one word. ”Ours is small by comparison. But you’ll meet plenty of others, I guess…” he said. Vampires did seem, somehow, to attract other vampires.

[Pierra (DELETED 10327)]

She paused for a moment as he answered with The University, well that didn't tell her-oh, he did explain it then. There we go. Impatience, that was a word for it. Hyper worked somewhat as well. She clapped her hands together, "Alrighty then." she said simply so they could get walking.

Pierra shrugged smiling as his next statement about her thinking many things were cool,"Cause it's true!" she said happy as he went to answering his girlfriend being a vampire before she was with him and knowing about it. Pierra had heard vampires could tell each other as being vampires, so she wondered if it'd make sense for them to be a complete community of their own in secret. Almost like an entire culture of it's own walking around hidden from view of the humans.

She was really more slowly skipping then she was walking, or perhaps it was more of a hopping gait, either way, the enthusiasm of her situation was rather evident even as she listened to him mention her meeting others, Darcy and Breno, she'd make sure to remember those names. Bloodlines, families, interesting, cute little cultures indeed, to her anyway. Terms for things that just might not make sense out of context. This should all be some interesting things to come across, she couldn't help but wonder what their position on humans were. But she wasn't sure she wanted to push the question about that just yet.

"Are the Lionelli some kind of huge bloodline or something? I mean I would normally avoid them, way beyond what I could do, but you know they're all vampires and some kind of gang or something? So...?"

[Blaize]

Blaize was glad that Pierra didn’t follow that line of conversation. Families. She’d heard enough, and he’d given enough. One day he’d tell her that he (and she by default) were once connected to a larger bloodline, and that larger bloodline connected to a larger one still. Neither of which Blaize had anything to do with. He’d paid good money for a disenthrall so that he could stand on his own two feet. Why trust anyone else to do for you what you can do on your own? Blaize had always been an independent sort, and vampirism hadn’t changed that.

”…how do you know about the Lionelli?” he asked. They were a prominent force within Harper Rock, he mused, but was it so obvious that they were a gang of vampires? Blaize shrugged and shook his head. ”I don’t know much about the Lionelli. If they all turned each other then yeah, they’re a bloodline. Whether they recruit from outside though, I don’t know. I’ve never had much to do with them,” Blaize said. He understood that they inhabited one of the castles up North but they were a force to be reckoned with, and what reason did Blaize have for putting himself in danger when there was no reason for it? More to the point, what reason did he have for harbouring ill-will toward other vampires who’d never done anything to deserve it?

”What did you do with your days? I mean, do you have a job…?” Blaize asked. She knew about the Lionelli and was super excited to have had something interesting happen. Did she go out looking for trouble? Was that part of her job? What, exactly, had Blaize got himself into…?

[Pierra (DELETED 10327)]

Pierra smiled bowing dramatically, "I might have snuck in to look around at one point. It's kind of obvious if you look at them good though, and know how powerful they are. I had to guess either that or like some other powerful thing, like a blood thief or paladin gang or some nonsense. But if you ask on why I'd know anything about social tendencies of vampires, blood thieves, and paladins I should smack you because anybody who's hung around long enough looking for fun has run into blood thieves and paladins at some point."

She leaned her head back, along with most of her back, looking up at the sky in thought on his next question, did she have a job? No, not really, she'd had jobs. But didn't really want to keep them. Especially when zombie ears became so profitable and easy."I mean, not really, I kind of just kill zombies in the quarantine zone a lot and sell the ears. Gets boring but it's more entertaining then something that pays less and is less enjoyable huh."