Dances with Wolves (Azraeth)

[Prudence]

She moved from him when the books were handed to her and thought about his question. It wasn't a difficult question, but for some reason she didn't want him to know that she had taken some 'starter courses,' before being accepted into the program she was in. Instantly Prudence's fingers curled around the books tightly, as if trying to hide the titles of the text books from him. She hadn't ever been embarrassed by it before; Prudence had accepted it because she had been home schooled her entire life. That was sort of what happened when you did the carnival thing from spring to end of autumn. And try as her mom might, the woman just couldn't do the home school thing any justice. It was a miracle Prudence managed to get a diploma at the end of her high school years. But for some reason, him knowing how difficult school had been for her and still sometimes was, made Prudence feel uncomfortable. Guarded.

"Uhh, Forensics. Criminal Justice to be exact. I took last semester off. The whole dying thing made me kinda miss the deadline to register for fall. Then some **** kinda came up when I got back and now I'm just rethinking some stuff." It wasn't that Prudence wasn't doing okay in her studies, but with the saloon solely in her hands now, it didn't leave a lot of time for other stuff.

Favorite. Prudence thought about that with her lineage. She didn't have any favorites. In fact she barely connected to them on any sort of real level, which was another thing she was working on. Maybe if she had been a more attentive sire to CC, she wouldn't be the way she was now. And with Lori? Well, she needed all the help she could get. Probably for a long time too. She knew some better than others, but she supposed that was sort of what it was like for all sires.

Prudence slid the books into a shelf as she listened to the rest of what he had to say. Quiet wasn't all that bad. It kept people out of trouble at the very least. She wondered what life would be like if it were quiet. Her life was quieter than it ever had been before-but it seemed that Azraeth was a recluse at times. Or able to carry out his own agenda without having to worry about Kynan or Andrew. That wasn't the case for Prudence. Not with some of her lineage. Again, maybe partly to do with her.

These thoughts clouded her mind when she thought them, so much that Prudence didn't even hear Azraeth get up and start going through another box until his knife rested on a wooden flat surface not far from her. She turned to look at him, watching him from the side as he worked on her belongings. "Thank you." She said absentmindedly. "I always meant to do this. But-" She shrugged. Prudence didn't really have a good excuse for why she never got around to it. Not really.

Prudence looked down at the box then, trying to see what it was he had opened. "Do ya miss not being Bia anymore? And the things she did?" She asked as Prudence got a glance of what was in the next box when he happened to angle it just enough for her to see. Crap. Photo albums her mom made of Prudence when she was growing up, along with an album she started to make of the few pictures she got from people from random events she went to as a vampire. "I can take those. They go on the shelf too." Prudence moved over by Azraeth then, her hand extended outwards for them.

[Azraeth]

There was a moment in which Azraeth was utterly inscrutable after she admitted what she had been studying, and then he smiled – the expression entirely too large for his face, not one of those meek and meager things normally worn to appease the sensibilities of the more socially minded in Harper Rock. “Forensics like…with gathering information about a scene, and evidence and all that? That is so cool.” He was a nerd at heart, and much as he might have attempted to escape that particular appearance, he couldn’t get away from it. The idea of being able to track someone down based on some shred of tiny evidence just seemed so fascinating to him. The exact nature of DNA matching, and how it all seemed like some sort of great big puzzle that had to be put together to really be understood.

And then there was the fact that using those skills helped people. Not that he was as focused on that, but it was worth noting.

“I went to the local university too, is why I ask. I majored in anthropology, and focused on shamanic cultures, but I was into a lot of the fringe classes like occult studies and things of that nature. I developed a love for language as well, but that came after my turning.” He shrugged then, because his studies had never really done anything for him, never helped anyone. It wasn’t like he’d been training to become a doctor or something. Hadn’t that been Azariel’s plan? He considered that briefly. His own degree had been rather…selfish in its acquisition. Nothing about it benefited anyone other than Azraeth, and even that was nominal at best. He had gone after it because it was a subject that interested him. Magic was the same way. He rarely went into learning a new spell or ritual for altruistic reasons.

That generally came later.

“It’s no problem. It’s what you do when you care about someone.” He pointed out as he continued to rifle through her things. For the most part, a lot of the things seemed self-explanatory in where they were meant to go. Books came out first because Azraeth loved to see a full bookshelf; it said so much about someone. “I. Sort of?” He said as his hand descended into another box and he began to pull out a photo album. “I miss the people more than anything. Maybe I am just one of those people who needs to have other people in his life, I guess? I care more about that, than the things I did as Superbia. Though I suppose that’s somewhat the same thing.” Another shrug before he got a good look at what he was holding.

A black brow lifted as his gaze moved between the picture book and the woman’s hand. He nearly flipped the thing open but he was eternally wary of overstepping his bounds so he reluctantly handed the thing over.

[Prudence]

A small smile broke on her features when he said what she was studying was 'cool.' Prudence had always thought so, but was it worth chasing after a degree that was used the most during the day time hours? Sure, there were skeleton crews at night, but the redhead doubted there were tons of those opportunities floating around. Still, she liked going to the classes and absorbing what she could from them. “Yuh, exactly like that.” She gave a little chuckle before listening to what it was he had gone to school for. It was kind of too bad he was dead, mostly because she was sure he would be a very valuable asset to the local police department, or even some place like the F.B.I. With his knack for linguistics and the occult? They'd be calling him for a lot of different cases to help on.

“So, you study people and stuff? Or their behaviors?” Prudence had to ask because she wasn't one hundred percent sure that's what it was, but she knew she had to take a gen ed class for something like that. And as soon as she asked that, the left hand of the redhead's went to her hair and played with a few strands of hair again. Was he studying her behavior? She never got that impression, but if that was what he was good at, it probably couldn't be helped. It was probably second nature, really.

At the admission of him caring about her, she looked away and stopped playing with her hair. He said they had been close and it appeared that he did care about her, but all those things were lost on her. Was it better this way? For the both of them? It seemed their story hadn't had a chance to get started; whatever that might be, for a few reasons. Cliff, death, maybe because of DoD. Prudence had always been a believer of, 'if someone wanted something bad enough, take it.' Or at least try and take it. Had she really wanted Bia in the way CC implied she had? Or was it fabricated to the billionth degree by her mini? It was possible. CC did seem to have a vivid and extreme imagination sometimes. Why hadn't she pursued things with Bia? Was it because of Cliff, or was there something more? Was that why she couldn't remember things with Bia?

There was really only one way to find out in her mind. She could listen to Azraeth tell her the things she should know and the things she did or didn't do with Bia while they worked together, but that wouldn't really help things. To her, that was like trying to tell someone how to solve a problem, without showing them, or walking them through it. You can't get from point A to D without doing B and C.

She collected the photo album in the extended hand, but didn't move away from Azraeth to place it on the shelf. She licked her lips as she stared down at the thing and then looked at him. “So, do ya maybe want to do something some time? Besides putting away my stuff?” Prudence moved away to put the album on the shelf then. “I mean, I know we already got plans to do that group thing, but I doubt we'll talk about everything tonight.” She moved to another box, ripped some tape off it and stared inside of the box. Inside was a cactus plant that she obviously forgot about. “Whoops.” Prudence said with another small laugh, before shoving the box aside to start a 'junk/throw-out' pile against the wall besides her. “If you ever have some free time that is. I bet you're pretty busy with the new ones ya sired.” She gave him an opportunity to have an 'out,' if he needed it with that statement before Prudence went to opening another box and pulling out some decorative pillows from a larger box that didn't really go with the newer furniture she had purchased while in the process of moving. But she liked them, so they didn't make it to the junk pile she started.

[Azraeth]

“Sort of. Not exactly. The study of behavior is more specific, and would probably fall into psychology. I study people in a more general sense, society and culture in the past and present. It’s a lot like mixing history, sociology, and some other things. “ Most people found anthropology boring as a subject, and the truth was that it was such a generalized degree that it could be applied in a myriad of fields without really being specifically helpful with any one. For example, someone with a degree could do well with a job in museum curation (something Az would have been fantastically well suited for), but there were any number of other certificates that would have done the same thing. Similarly, and somewhat on the same vein as their conversation had just taken, he could have gone into the field of psychology but not without further schooling.

Years after his graduation, he wasn’t quite so pleased with the choice.

That being said, it was common for Raeth to people watch, more so that he could better understand why it was they did certain things. He was a creature who understood the world from a logical point of view, and so he had difficulty at times sympathizing with people. He had to work at it, to get it right.

He smiled when he noticed her playing with her hair. It was an adorable habit. He also noted when she abruptly stopped. He found himself wondering why. Maybe it had been something he’d said. The subject of Cliff? Or maybe it had to do with Superbia and those memories that Prudence seemed unable to unlock. Maybe she’d just gotten bored of it.

“Yeah.” He said abruptly as he was pulled out of his thoughts when Prudence took the photo album away. He ended up taking a step back, and glanced down to his watch a moment later, the second arm ticking away on the face. “I would love to hang out sometime.” That was the commonly used colloquial phrase wasn’t it? Hang out. He shifted a little bit where he stood, tongue darting out over his lips when his mouth suddenly went a little bit dry at the thought of the two of them alone. Of course, they were for the moment, but meeting intentionally? Did that make it a date?

“Maybe we can set something up after the meeting with everyone? Just the two of us? We’ll see if we can avoid getting into trouble.” Because that seemed to be a common theme with the two of them. They spent more than ten minutes together, and something wanted to throw a wrench in the plan, whether it was fae or paladin or…any number of problems. The two of them seemed to be good at it though, working their way through adversity. In fact, they made for a really good team because they, for whatever reason, seemed to tackle things in tandem.

“I should actually be going. I hate to leave you when we just started this room, but you can expect me back here tomorrow night.” Not that, that really qualified as going out to do something. That would be the real test though wouldn’t it? Because what was true of both Prudence and Az was that they spent a lot of time, in one way or another, taking care of the people they loved. It was natural in a lot of ways that they ended up spending time surrounded by those people. But people created a lot of distractions, and there were certain things that really needed to be discussed at the right time.

There was just one problem. What…were they going to do? “We can talk more about it when the time approaches. I’ll be seeing you later though.” Maybe they could take a night class together or something. Cooking was a classic, but that seemed out of place for a pair of vampires. He’d have to look into the options.

And then, with a little wave, and a faint smile, he disappeared…completely forgetting his suit jacket and his ritual knife.

Oh well. He’d get them later.