‘A bloodline thing’ she’d said. He knew of bloodlines, and was certain he’d heard of the name ‘Dragomir’ before (though in what context he didn’t remember). The sunglasses were a bit much, borderline unnecessary, but he didn’t comment as she slid them on.
Bjorn didn’t vocalise his disagreement. The masquerade might have fallen, but the coin was still spinning with no end in sight. Nothing particularly good had come from the exposure; many moons ago he’d learn a lesson or two about it himself. If his experience with breaching secrecy was not all that uncommon, then there was no doubt a large number of vampires who still clung to the ‘old code’. The cat couldn’t be put back into the bag, but acerbating the problem wouldn’t reassure their human audience. He’d offhandedly followed the whispers on the net, but his opinion remained his own, unpublished and unvoiced.
Whatever he might have said was swept under his tongue at the introduction.
“Bjørn,” he replied, leaving his hands in his pockets. One thing he’d yet to grow accustomed to was the touch of another vampire. He actively sought to avoid it when he could, manners be damned. (Not that he’d needed much manners what with being a social recluse all these months.)
“Never met a Dragomir. That I know of, anyway,” he added with a shrug. She’d mentioned contacts, and perhaps he’d unknowingly crossed paths with her kin. Did it matter? He thought not.
Bloodlines were not something he took particular interest in. Factions, bloodlines, families—loaded words he dared not play with. Bjorn harboured no attachment to ‘his’ bloodline. He had no interest in tracking them down, in learning why he’d been left to his own devices. He’d paid dearly for the ignorance born of his isolation. Now he had a guardian who’d opened up a home to him, offered guidance and redemption. Why would he go looking for a sire who was not looking for him?
“The sunglasses part of the welcome to the fam package?”
Last edited by Bjorn on 20 Sep 2016, 07:31, edited 2 times in total.
telepath |mortal aura | healthy complexion | gift of the spider| #D93F3F
Rowan stifled her surprised laughter at his quip about her glasses. Well, that was interesting. Most of the men she had met were rough and uncouth, coming with the territory of raising herself and paying for expenses by working odd jobs, mostly at pubs as a waitress. But that was all firmly lodged in the category of -Before- in her mind. Enzo had given her this new life, this family, and she was damned grateful.
"You could say that, I guess. The eyes definitely are," she replied, grinning. "I'm told that you get used to it, though I can't really see it myself."
She moved across, getting tired of just standing around and situated herself comfortably leaning on the wall. "I don't usually go around with my eyes uncovered, but I didn't think I'd actually be -talking- to anyone down here."
A tilt of her head as she considered him curiously. "Bjorn, huh? What sort of name is that? Sounds like a different language."
Bjorn shrugged at that. Her eyes were an odd sight, but everything he’d encountered in this existence was odd in one way or another. And it made sense not to bother with accessories when they were unnecessary. Her attempt at stealing from him verified her story too. (He couldn’t remember the last time he’d visited the catacombs, let alone attempted a conversation with a stranger in them.)
Still, he could imagine it’d be annoying to rely on accessories to pass as human. He was blessed with a healthy complexion and a barber who gave him an updated polaroid of himself each time he went for a cut, but he spent very little time considering his looks. It’d been months since he’d seen his reflection, and every collected polaroid jutting out of the mirror’s frame in his makeshift room looked exactly the same. Some vampires, he knew, would spend their lives making up for their perceived flaws he did not have. She might have had a point about the freedom presented to vampire kind what with the masquerade gone.
“Yeah,” he replied. Bjørn spared a thought to his family—real family—and clenched his jaw. It was still too soon to open that door. Widening his stance, defensive of his own thoughts, he added for the sake distraction: “It means ‘bear’ in Norwegian. Yours is some kind of tree, yeah?” He motioned with his pocketed hand towards her, body language loosening.
telepath |mortal aura | healthy complexion | gift of the spider| #D93F3F
"Mhmm, it's a tree. I saw a lot of them before. A bear? Really?" Rowan giggled this time, reacting to his loosening body language by unconsciously relaxing her own. Then again, she was often trying to look relaxed and approachable because of her job at the Black Fox, one of Enzo's many businesses.
"What a pair we make then, the bear and the tree! It sounds like a children's story," she continued, gesturing to the both of them with a motion she had often practiced in the mirror as a human child. She'd done that a lot... watching herself in mirrors and learning how certain expressions on her face felt so she knew which one had which reaction from the people around her. It had been survival, plain and simple. Surprised at the dark tone her thoughts had taken her, she shrugged them off mentally with a mighty heave. Taking things out of the -Before- box in her head wasn't something to be done in the catacombs of all places.
"I like your name, but I just might mangle it beyond all recognition so I apologise in advance."
Bjorn’s mouth quirked into an amused grin, a dark air about it just out of reach. The bear and the tree sounded innocent enough, but what kind of children’s story had room for those like them? Voracious predators who fed on humans, killed monsters, robbed strangers…
“By Tim Burton or Brothers Grimm, maybe.”
He considered her stance on his name, though shrugged disinterestedly. Imitating the one syllable of his name really wasn’t as difficult as people claimed it to be, or so he thought every time he was faced with this same excuse. Then again, he’d been raised bilingual with no concept of the natural shift of his own accent. As long as the high school nickname ‘BJ’ didn’t return, he didn’t care what people called him.
“So, uh, you got plans now, or…”
Perhaps months of limited socialisation had taken their toll on his manners, but he saw no sensible continuation to this… Though there was always work to do at the hostel, he’d set tonight aside for some training. Training he wasn’t doing by standing here. “…you wanna go shoot some ****?”
Too easy it’d have been to say shoot the ****. It’d been months since he’d had a joint, let alone a hit of coke. Maybe it had been his dependence on drugs that had made socialising an easier affair back then, when he was human and well-adapted.
telepath |mortal aura | healthy complexion | gift of the spider| #D93F3F
A grin bloomed on Rowan's face at the mention of Tim Burton or the Grimm Brothers. She knew those names intimately. Studied the stories even.
"What, no Disney?" she joked, pushing off from the stone with her foot and bending to brush some dust off her pants. Rowan straightened and looked at him curiously as he issued the invitation, her head tilted to the side in a move many had commented looked like an expression found on a dog or big feline.
"I'd like that very much, Bjorn." She looked at her watch and wondered at the feeling it brought when she saw she was out of time. She had other appointments, had made other plans, and couldn't postpone it just because she had met a male who made her sincerly laugh and didn't grope her like the majority of men she had dealt with -Before-. Damnit, there she was again... dredging up the past. She sternly lectured herself to do the revisiting when she had her own time, when she didn't have to be elsewhere.
Rowan gave him a smile tinged with disappointment. "Sadly, I have a few appointments I can't miss today. Can I---Do you have a phone number? Or... maybe an email? If that's alright, I mean."
Last edited by Rowan on 20 Sep 2016, 16:15, edited 1 time in total.
As soon as Bjorn asked the question, he regretted it. Not because he didn’t care for her company or found her dull, but because training in the catacombs was, as he’d only now realised, a personal affair.
Weeks of hiding in the sewers had given him a soft spot for these dank, dusty halls. Anytime he had found himself with company however, it hadn’t bode well for him. The days of being hunted were seemingly over, but to hunt throughout the city’s underbelly allowed him to put the events behind him once and for all. He had conquered these parts. The catacombs were his playground, the sewers his therapy room, and he wished to be confronted with the demons he found in them on his own.
“I don’t actually,” he realised. Connecting to the internet with one’s brain as the modem complicated things. Perhaps he should stop ghosting the network and actually commit to an account, or something. “What’s your email? I’ll send you a message once I’ve set one up.”
telepath |mortal aura | healthy complexion | gift of the spider| #D93F3F
Rowan tried to keep her face from showing her disappointment when Bjorn mentioned that he didn't have a phone. Her emotions went through something she would consider akin to the spin cycle on the washing machine when he mentioned he would contact her. The worst part was that she had no idea what she was feeling, nothing specific. She was intrigued, curious, happy to have made a new aquaintance... but aside from that, and with all the things crowding in on her at the moment, she really didn't know. Maybe a talk with her Sire was in order once she had some time to herself. Enzo was very patient with her and she was so grateful he had taken her in.
"Oh, it's Rowan.Dragomir@dragonal.org. I have that linked to my phone so if you send me an email, I'll reply as soon as I can." She adjusted the strap of the bag that she carried the loot she had gathered for the night. "I'm sorry but I wasn't expecting to.. meet anyone new down here or anything. I mean, I've run into others before but... oh heck, sorry, I'm babbling," she said, laughing at herself.
“Rowan -dot- dragomir -at- dragonal...” he repeated back, more so for his benefit than hers. The ‘dot org’ trailed off distractedly from his tongue. He looked past her into the dimmed crypt. She was already moving onto the next subject, but he wasn’t following the meaning of her words.
The low hum which had caught his attention sounded once more.
“Yeah, I’ll get in touch,” he replied distractedly, slowly pulling his hands out of his pockets. Reaching for the gun holstered at his hip, he glanced back down at her with newfound focus, pupils dilated. Three was company.
“Once I’ve set up an account, yeah?”
telepath |mortal aura | healthy complexion | gift of the spider| #D93F3F
Rowan nodded to him when he told her he would see her around. Sucked that she would have to wait for him to be the one to contact her, but it wasn't like she could really do anything about the situation anyway. Hopefully he would become a friend.... she didn't have many of those.
The hair on the back of her neck rose and she turned her head to look in the direction she felt -something- from, a presence or a sense of something taking up a space, even a sound she couldn't accurately catalogue at the moment, but her instincts warned her about. She noticed Bjorn going for his gun and eyed it carefully before reaching into her pack and withdrawing a few clips of ammo. Holding them up, she gestured to his gun. "Need some? I mean... you said you were going to shoot **** and I just thought ---"
Rowan closed her eyes for a second and drew a breath she didn't really need but was more habit than anything. Opening her eyes and gazing steadily at Bjorn with her bright grey iris almost shining in the dim light, she spoke determinedly. "I have to leave, because I'm going to be late for a meeting. I know you're going to stay down here for now, and you tossed that empty magazine. I don't know if you have access to more ammunition easily or not, but you can take these if you want."
