Path of the Vampire forum

September 2nd, 2012. Toronto, Canada.

The room was dark – the only source of light was the computer screen in front of her. She was in the biggest room of her small apartment, a room she’d set up to be her home office instead of the bedroom it was used to being. It had seemed like a waste of space to put so much into a bedroom when all it would be for was sleeping.

Most of her paperwork she kept at the office, only bringing her current case home with her. The open file sat to the right of her laptop, and the sight of it made her want to scream. She’d pinned the picture her client had given her to the inside front cover, and had gotten as much of a back history as she could. She’d made no progress at all in the last week since she’d accepted the assignment.

To the left of her laptop was an open pizza box. Supper had consisted of half of her pepperoni lover’s pizza – the other half would go in the fridge for breakfast/lunch tomorrow. She’d run out of groceries four days ago, and not wanting to take time away from trying to find this person she’d started ordering in for every meal. Pizza was easiest. When this was over with, she never wanted to see another pizza again.

Lifting her arms up over her head and leaning against the back of her computer chair she stretched out her back some, causing the sounds of her spine popping and her chair creaking to momentarily fill the silence. She’d let her eyes fall closed at the released tension, and now she opened them back up as she moved her hands back to her laptop keyboard, hoping for some inspiration on where to look that wouldn’t end up being just another dead end.

With a sound of disgust, her right hand moved to flip the file closed so she wouldn’t have to look at that face anymore. She didn’t want to have to confirm her client’s fears. She wanted a miracle – wanted to find at least one small thing to bring back, just the smallest thread of hope. Was that too much to ask for?

Moving her hand back to the keys, the annoying sound of her fingers clacking down on them began to fill the room once more as she tried every avenue she could think of to find information. With the more time that passed, the harder her fingers came down on the keys, and more of her frustrated sounds combined with the noise to surround her. She’d never been this frustrated before, but then again, she’d never spent this long on a case for nothing before, either. Train stations, plane tickets, hospitals, deaths, she’d looked through so many records she was surprised her eyes weren’t starting to cross.

She’d checked through Ontario, and had even started to delve into some of the surrounding provinces. Bringing her hands down hard against the keys – the force enough to send the file to the right of her flying to the floor, she curled her fingers around the laptop, fully intending to chuck the thing in her frustration. Before she could, something at the bottom of the screen caught her eye and had her releasing her grip so she could scroll down.

Her eyes blinked a few times to make sure she wasn’t imagining what she was seeing. The date wasn’t recent, but she thought, maybe, it was after the last time the client had heard from them. She jumped up from her chair, going down to her knees on the floor as she looked through the papers with nothing but the still dim lighting of her laptop screen. Finding the paper she was looking for, she sat up on her knees and knee walked to the desk, slapping the paper down to the right of her laptop where the file had been earlier. Her eyes moved down the paper, re-reading the highlighted date there, before scanning back over to the laptop screen.

A smile of triumph slid over her face. The date was, in fact, after the last contact. There wasn’t much information to be had, but it was a start. She was sure this was as far as she could go from her dark office – it was time to stretch her legs and get into the field. Light gray eyes flicked over to the location of the new information. Harper Rock, Ontario. She’d never even heard of the place. She’d heard of it now, and after a good night’s sleep she was going to get herself down there and see what she could find. With a new sense of hope, she saved the information to a secure drive on her laptop and shut it down.

Grabbing up the pizza box, Velia made her way out of the office to the kitchen. Wincing at the bright light from the fridge as she opened the door, she slid the box inside and shut the door. The tile beneath her feet was cold against her bare feet, so she made her way into the claustrophobic living room, that at least had a carpet. Her couch was still pulled out from the last time she’d grabbed some sleep – blankets and pillows strewn all around it as she hadn’t even taken the time to fold them up. She didn’t care right now, however, as she quickly slid under the blanket and set her cheek down on the pillow. She let all of the frustration and tension from the past few days lift as sleep quickly overcame her senses. September 9th, 2012 Harper Rock, Ontario

She’d decided not to bring the file with her to Harper Rock, or even bring her laptop. She’d occasionally take them if she knew the place she was going, and knew she could keep them secure. She’d taken a quick detour to the office before leaving Toronto – long enough to lock the file and her laptop both back up. She had the face memorized, as well as all the information she’d need to attempt to find them as well.

The trip to Harper Rock had taken longer than she would have liked, as she’d been anxious to get started. It had only taken two days for her attention to shift from her assignment to the town itself. The first day, she’d slept at night and been out during the day, just looking around the town itself to see what she could see. The longer she walked the streets, and watched the people walking around, the more her instincts were screaming at her that all was not as it seemed to be.

As the sun set, the feeling of unease had grown even more, making her wish she had have wondered as to what this town may possess that would help someone almost completely fall off the grid. She hadn’t wondered, not until after her arrival – and being in the town had her unable to leave without finding out the secret. Finding out why she felt uneasy, even though a part of her felt as if everything was okay. The two beliefs inside of her were combating for a winner, leaving her curiosity winning the only possible outcome.

Now it was a Sunday night, as she sat outside and watched the sunset. It had been a week since she’d found the thread to lead her to Harper Rock, and she was still no closer to finding the answer than she had been before she’d heard of its existence. She hadn’t bothered bringing any wigs with her, and didn’t much care that her bright purplish-red dyed hair was sticking out. She’d seen way more unusual looking people in the few days she’d been here.

Her jeans tonight were a dark black in colour, the same dark black as the long trench coat she wore overtop, coming nearly to her knees in length. She wasn’t actively trying to conceal herself, but even without trying she subconsciously found herself sitting in dim lighting in a place that gave her an optimal view of her surroundings, while leaving her mostly concealed herself. Old habits die hard, or not at all, in some cases.

Movement caught her attention, causing her to lean forward and tilt her head instinctively towards what was going on. Her attention was so focused on the sight before her that she noticed nothing else around her – not the way she was now more vulnerable to being seen as she moved into slightly better lighting, nor the way the moonlight was now glinting off of the two piercings in her bottom lip. How could she focus on such things, while witnessing what she was seeing?

The woman, she was fairly sure it was a woman, had started to make her way over to another, whose features Velia couldn’t quite make out. The way the woman walked was almost predatory, which had her fearing she was about to witness a mugging or something of the like. Why else, of course, would a person walk in such a way towards another person?

The woman was about to hide herself further from view to keep the criminal from noticing her there when the moonlight shone on the woman’s face. As a P.I. she’d gotten used to noticing features, remembering features, having them nearly branded on her mind after just a second of seeing a person’s face or picture. Now? All she saw were the fangs. The fangs that were currently piercing into the other person’s neck.

A faint squeaking sound escaped her lips at the sight – the sound not loud enough to carry over to the fanged woman she was watching, but one that anyone closer to her would be able to hear. Up until now she’d seen so much in her line of work, humanity at it’s lowest sometimes, that she didn’t think she had it in her to be surprised anymore. Vampires, though? All the colour in her face drained as she realized just what she’d stumbled onto, as well as thoughts as to why this town was so unheard of, and reasons why the person she was sent to find may have dropped off the face of the earth.

A cold feeling of dread settled in the pit of her stomach as she jumped to the next logical train of thought. She was in this town, now – and with hours before day break, and a vampire still in front of her, she had no idea if she’d be able to get away safely. Her parents had worried constantly that her job would be the death of her – she could hear her mother’s high pitched voice now telling her: “One of these days, you’re going to stumble upon something, or see something, and some policeman is going to need to come knock on my door to give me the news.” She would always tear up then, knowing full well Velia had no intention of giving up her line of work.

Doing her best to stay as still and quiet as possible, she continued to watch the scene in front of her, still paying no attention to anything else. So focused on the monster in front of her, she had yet to contemplate that there may be others lurking about.

It had been a long few days due to the fact she had sired two new people, Aurora and Knyte, a week apart. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about either of them as she hadn’t really interacted with them much, but they were both out and about somewhere. Oria felt she had done all that she could with them, taught them the basic things they needed to get by and hopefully keep out of trouble. As long as nobody came knocking on her door or sent her a message telling her they had broken the masquerade, she was okay with them being their own people.

Deciding to take the long way through the park instead of waiting for the train to get to a shop. She had to sell all the things she had collected from the shambling masses of undead in the mausoleum and catacombs beneath, as well as the files she had downloaded. Taking that first tentative step, as she was still new to the gift, she stepped out on the lake that was at the edge of the Thornside Park.

She was careful as she crossed the lake, keeping to the edge so that if a human were to walk past, she would easily be able to get back to the shore. Lucky for her, none did as she made her way to the shop in Gullsborough near the Dragonmir Temple, where she unloaded her bags worth of mooncalf bones on the shopkeep. When he’d processed that order she pulled the flash drive from her pocket and handed that to him. Hacking was where she made her real money, and she happily took the wad of cash from the man, walked down the block, and quickly deposited it into her bank account.

She began the lazy stroll back to the graveyard, through the park instead of over the lake toward the transit. It was unusual for her to detour this way, but something about this night begged her to take her time — it was a truly beautiful night after all, the nearly full moon shone brightly overhead. At first her attention wandered, replaying the previous two weeks through her head.

There were heals, as always, which was good for money, though she had copious amounts of that in the bank. She’d had Mischa’s childe’s boyfriend saved from the wilderness, the place where the Fae liked to spend their time. Which is what she attributed to why she hadn’t seen much of Aurora, that and due all the heals the man had needed, she’s accrued a decent bounty from the Crow. She got shot the following morning, damn hunters. Thankfully it wasn’t overly damaging and she was able to remove the rest of the money on her head by the end of the night.

There had been two conversations with a wraith, one she wasn’t overly fond of, as he thought it wonderful fun to... hit on her. Even her Randall didn’t do that... although she was nearly certain that’s exactly what he had set his mission out to be. Oria had definitely learned not to be vague in her requests. “Give me a wraith that can help me.” Yeah... he could help her alright. He was dead set on making her the sexual predator he had been all those years ago!

Late the night she conversed with the random wraith, she sired another, this one called himself Knyte. Oria did her best to get him on his feet straight away. Helping him with healing instead of keeping the need to feed in check by letting him loose him on helpless humans. He was similar to her in the fact that he was a necromancer so in the few days while he seemed out of it (she assumed acclimating to the new lifestyle) and sat outside the crypt, she walked past him each night and healed him. Then, one night, he was just... gone.

The next few days were quiet, nothing noteworthy happened, and here she was. Just as she snapped out of her riviere her eyes settled on a pool of moonlight. There a woman with bright hair sat on a bench, eyes fixated on the scene that was going on in front of her where a member of her ‘family’ (she only knew they were blood related because that familiar scent of Mirceas blood caught her attention) was biting into the neck of a human.

“Oh hell... “ she said quietly under her breath after she heard the squeak from the obviously enraptured onlooker. Oria stood only a few feet behind the bench but could clearly make out the stark white fangs of the vampire piercing the skin of the human she’d chose to feed on, but hadn’t been careful enough in the choice of location. She cleared her throat, knowing it would startle the voyeur but hoped it would be less shocking than if she’d just said something out of the blue.

“For some people, every day is Halloween, huh?” she asked in a bid to try and keep the secret. Much as Solace, the new religion she had found, wouldn’t permit it, but she would end this human if she had to. How things played out truely depended on how she responded. Oria was hopeful that she could be swayed away from thinking it was what it was, but she had no delusions that it would really happen. No, instead, she was fairly certain that this woman with the purple-red hair and the snake-bite piercings would soon be joining the creatures of the night, with Oria as the one who ‘murdered’ her, as Robert would put it.

Velia had been shocked into stillness as she watched the horror in front of her. The seconds ticked by to the point she swore time was standing still. Hours of trying to convince herself that she wasn’t seeing what she knew she was seeing passed, in what was really only seconds. She was trying to fight through the dissonance going on in her brain. One part was screaming that this just couldn’t be right – these things didn’t exist, and she was obviously mistaken. The other part of her brain, the more logical side, knew that this wasn’t something she’d fabricate, or a conclusion she’d jump to without a damn good reason.

If she was the type to watch horror movies, or read books involving anything supernatural at all, she might be more inclined to believe her imagination was at work here. Of course she knew that books and movies and legends existed about this sort of thing, but it had never been anything she focused on. She preferred reality, and vampires weren’t reality. Yet there was one. Right in front of her. Feeding. On another human being.

So caught up in her inner mental fight, the sound of a throat clearing somehow didn’t even cause the smallest of jumps. It should have – should have made her jump all the way to the sky in her current predicament. Instead her head turned slowly, her instincts reluctant to let the monster ahead of her leave her sight for even a moment. So she was careful to keep the…thing... in her peripheral vision as she looked at the woman who’d broken her concentration.

There was no way the woman hadn’t noticed what was happening, though she didn’t seem to be having the same reaction to it that Velia was. She didn’t look as if she was trying to convince herself her eyes were lying to her, nor did she look ready to run for her life. Velia thought she could see something on the woman’s face, but that just made her seem even more suspect. For her to not be reacting like that, she had to know something more than what Velia knew… and that was worrisome.

The words she spoke fell flat to Velia’s ears – it was, again, all wrong. She’d wanted to find out what was so wrong with this town, and now, it seemed, she was going to. She’d passed the point of no return, and now it was time to face the consequences of her curiosity. She opened her mouth to say…something, but had no idea what that something was, so quickly shut it again.

Her attention shifted back to the vampire briefly, before turning back to the other stranger, who could be just as dangerous. At least she knew what the other was, even if it was an impossible thought. What was this stranger, though? Was she more or less dangerous? Did she have a chance in hell of getting out of here alive? She did, maybe, if she could play it cool. Play it like she believed the lies that the stranger was trying to pollute her brain with.

There was no way to go back and take away the brief hesitation, or even the uncertainty that had clearly flicked across her face as she’d studied the stranger. All she could do now was hope it was attributed to her initial shock as she faked a smile for the stranger, followed quickly by a roll of her eyes like she’d seen her mother do countless times as she thought on the shenanigans that “today’s youth” were up to. “Halloween, is it? Maybe they’re just er… Twilight fans?” She was grateful, in that moment, that she’d paid at least a little bit of attention to that ridiculousness; even if it wasn’t something she was every going to read or see herself.

Her voice sounded fake to her ears, but she hoped that this stranger wouldn’t detect that. Hoped she wouldn’t see how her fingers were still holding tight to her trench-coat, as her acting skills hadn’t been enough to force herself to release that grip. She couldn’t stop the hard swallow that came as she waited for the woman’s reaction: waited to see if she’d buy into her ploy, or if she’d be found in a ditch come morning.

Oria watched the woman slowly turn her head to the side, attention never wavering from the scene in front of her. She could almost hear the wheels turning in the others head. Almost see what Oria was trying to project. Nope, Oria could tell she wasn't buying it. 'And I thought it was such a good lie... If a month and a half early...'Her mouth opened and closed like a fish, unsure of what she was going to reply with, then her attention moved away from Oria then back from the feeding she'd caught. No, the half-assed attempt at a coverup wasn't going to work, she was sure of it. This seemingly innocent woman was now caught, forever, with the vision of a vampire biting into the neck of it's human meal.

The moment of hesitation had passed and now she was on to a look of clear disbelief and uncertainty as a fake smile slowly spread across her soft lips. If truth be told, Oria was quite good at reading people (even if she wasn't ever sure if they were real people of the spirits that haunted her in her youth), and this woman was quite guarded and yet open, which she attributed to the shock of seeing her first feeding. Oria scrunched her nose at her reply before chuckling, trying to play into the lie that the human was weaving herself. "Yeah, that's possible too. You know kids these days, always falling into their fads pretty hard."

O, in her jeans and t-shirt, had easily picked up on the not-so-subtle undertones of the woman's voice, and knew that she was fighting the idea in her mind. Paying little attention to the death-grip on her coat, Oria smirked and shook her head slowly. "You and I both know that's not what's happening, so we can probably drop the charade...”

Velia debated, momentarily, of continuing to keep up the façade that the woman had originally started. It was her ‘charade’, after all, and it was hardly her fault for simply playing along. Her eyes narrowed as she now began to wonder what exactly the woman’s reasoning behind giving her an out was, if she wasn’t allowed to use it. Did she enjoy playing with her food? Giving them false hope before laying chase? Velia couldn’t stop the snort that came out of her as she decided she wasn’t going to play into the woman’s desires.

Finally feeling relaxed enough to let go of her coat, which she’d only then realized she had a death grip on, Velia lounged back some – relaxing as if they were talking about the weather and not her imminent death. “This is hardly charades now, is it? I admit, it’s been awhile since I played – but I’m pretty sure you’re not allowed to talk in charades?”

One thin eyebrow lifted up at the question, as her now relaxed arms folded across her chest. She felt as if she was putting off the illusion of a disapproving parent who’d just caught their child coming in after curfew, and was waiting for an answer. It was a silly feeling, considering, in a way, she was the child who’d just done something naughty, and was waiting to face the consequences. The naughty child never gets away with it, though. Maybe that’s why she was deciding to play it off this way?

It didn’t matter, in the end. She was just going to play it however she felt best. The way her instincts told her she should play it. There was always a chance, and she wasn’t going to give up hope until this…whatever she was, took her life from her.

It hadn't been her intention to just blurt out like that, and yet she had, and now that the big pink elephant was out there, she couldn't take it back. It hadn't even really been until the woman said something about Twilight, a book series she'd actually been quite fond of, that she would have let her get away with it. Any other series, True Blood for example (which she hadn't read or watched, but didn't like in principle alone) and she probably would have let her use it. She watched the woman relax against the bench she was sitting on and carefully took a breath in through her nose and smelled that sweet sweet smell of fear. While it was what she was expecting to smell, she had almost hoped that she wouldn't have. Hoping instead that she would be calm about the situation. No, she smelled like prey. Prey should run. How does a hunter get the prey to run? Scare them more, usually.

Oria saw the woman move her lips and assumed words came out, but it was as if they didn't reach her ears. She'd fallen into a tunnel, and there was only one thing at the end of that tunnel. A pulse. 'NO!' she screamed at herself mentally, 'This is Dark. You cannot let the Darkness win!' These had to be the darkest thoughts Oria’d had in quite a long time and she was not keen on letting the darkness back into her life, not after having joined Solace and found the light in herself. No, it was not an option. She would snuff the darkness out with the brightest light she could manage.

“You’re too right, talking isn’t allowed in Charades. But that’s not the charade I was talking about, though I suppose pretence might be a better word for it.” Oria sighed and tried to recompose herself. She could feel the darkness trying to take hold again, trying to make her focus only on the smell of the blood running through the woman’s veins. She was hungry for some reason, even though she’d fed earlier that night. No, this seemed to be a false hunger, one brought on by the aroma her bench-mate gave off.

“Regardless, we both know what you’ve seen. Regretfully, since this is a breach of our secrecy, I have two options to give you.” There was technically a third, but this was an option that she was not comfortable giving yet, so didn’t even think to offer it. “You have seen something which is not supposed to be seen, and thus your options are limited. You can choose between death, which I’m sure you’re quite aware is a possibility. Or you can choose to join us. You can choose eternity. You can choose a new life.” Having done this too many times recently, she was far more keen on giving the woman a choice. None of the others had had a choice, but this time she would give the option. Life or Death.

She was stalling now, she knew it, the woman (or whatever she was) in front of her probably knew it as well. Maybe she was waiting for her to scream and run for her life? Velia wasn’t quite ready to do that yet. She had a feeling that was the quickest way to the end. So focused on her internal calculations of what move or plan of action had the best chance of success, she barely paid any attention at all to what the woman in front of her was saying. Not until the end – something about the words, or her tone, must have alerted her brain that it was time to pay attention.

Join or death was her choice? That sounded very gangsterish. Is that what she was; some local thug? No, no – that wouldn’t explain what she’d seen. It wouldn’t explain away the fanged woman. The choice felt like a trap, in the same way that the thought of screaming and making a run for it felt like a trap. It felt like she was being given some false sense of security, or an illusion of control. Lull the target into thinking she had a choice in her fate, that everything could be okay, and then snap her neck as soon as her guard was down.

So what were her options? No screaming and running away in hopes of escaping. No trusting this woman to not kill her. She couldn’t shoot her, because she’d stupidly not brought her gun with her when she’d left Toronto. Not that she was all that good with it, but she had enough basic knowledge for protection, and the permits required to carry it as well. She’d left Toronto so quickly to track down this lead though – hadn’t even let anyone know she was here. She was such an idiot, and as the minutes passed by without her replying to the woman’s comment she was sure it wasn’t going to be long before the decision was all together out of her hands. She had to stall longer.

“Join you?...What exactly do you mean by that?” That was a fair enough question, right? If she was just trying to lull her into a false sense of security then she’d want to reassure her. She wouldn’t think it was unusual that she was asking questions – especially a valid one. There were still the traces of fear, but she did her best to hide the calculation from her face, her expression looking more confused and curious than as if she was secretly plotting her way out of the situation. Which she was doing, and would continue to do until her last breath.

Oria was more than happy to wait for the woman to come up with an answer, content to sit there and smell that sweet perfume of fear rolling off of her. She knew it was darkness that made that fear smell so enticing, but no matter what she did it smelled good, smelled like food. That small part of her brain that the darkness would never let go of wanted this woman to run. She wanted to chase her, scare her more, get the blood pumping before she buried her fangs into the soft flesh in her neck and drain her life away. Another part of her brain wanted the woman to just accept it and do things the easy way.

She could hear the gears turning in her bench-mates mind, thinking of possibilities, potential ways she might be able to slip away. Little did she know, Oria was fast. Even wounded she could move fast enough to run on water (without the addition of the power she’d borrowed from the path of Shadows.) and could easily outrun the train that had a station just a few short blocks away. There were several possible options that the woman had, but the one with the best outcome was to handle things calmly and choose the direction she’d like to go in. Eternal life, or death. Oria hoped she chose life.

Lowering her voice down to that intimate yet eerie tone that was usually used for scolding someone you didn’t want to yell at but wanted to get your point across just the same, she responded to the question. “Join ‘us’, I guess I should say. The woman across the way over there?” her hand raised so she could gesture toward the vampire that was just now finishing her nightly meal. “She’s one of ‘us’. You could say we’re a special group of people that, some of the members were chosen, others were forced into it, and others still are just... well... extra special...” There had been a long pause while she’d attempted to form a coherent thought in her brain, assessing the best way to phrase it without sounding like a lunatic. She didn’t believe she had done a good job of that, as she replayed what she’d just said in her head.

She had done this before, though only once really stood out in her head, and the woman in question had been quite out of her gourd when the incident occurred. Despite this fact, Oria could not fathom how she could possible get this information out to the woman sitting next to her without causing a scene. Maybe that could work to her advantage? Doubtful, though highly possible. Now that she was stalling the small woman couldn’t think of a better way to progress further down the rabbit hole than to do one of the things she had hoped she could avoid. ”I guess instead of trying to explain how we’re special, I could just... show you.”

A devilish grin played across her face and the fangs that she usually kept hidden unless she needed to feed slowly extended from their hiding place, resting their razor sharp points at the edge of her lower lip. While she could leave it at that, simply allow that to settle in, she took things a step further. Reaching her hands out she silently called to the shadows that were in the area, beckoning them to do as she wanted, and they responded to her call without hesitation. The shadows cast by the light above them uncoiled themselves from the bench and extended outward, plunging them into a twilight-like darkness, dimming the illumination from the lamp and making it quite difficult to even see across the street.

Turning her attention back toward her prey - the minimal amount of light catching on her eyes and giving them a sinister glow - Oria let her fangs slowly slide back into their hiding place in her gums. She considered speaking, giving the woman another push in the right direction now that the cat was out of the bag and she should have a much better idea of what she was getting in to. Instead of speaking she tilted her head to the side similarly to that of an inquisitive canine and waited, giving the opportunity to either flee in terror - which would be her preferred choice - or ask any other questions that she may have.

Watching the woman grow fangs would have possibly had a larger impact on Velia if she hadn’t just watched another woman feeding just shortly before that. It was tempting, so very tempting, to point this out to the woman. The words even played out in Velia’s mind. “Don’t you have any of your own tricks? Creature number one has already gotten fangy.” It made her glad that she wasn’t the type to talk first and then think, as she doubted that was something that would play to her favour. Antagonizing the bad guys may work in movies, making them lose their cool and make stupid mistakes, but she doubted it did much for the monsters in the real world.

The next trick had all of her thoughts coming to a stop in her head. She hated to admit it. Really hated to admit it, but that was neat. Outwardly she barely reacted to the display even as inwardly she was thinking about all the ways she could utilize this in her line of work; how much easier it would be to trail her targets if she could do that. “What the hell are you thinking?” That thought oddly didn’t run through her mind in her own voice, but the voice of one of her few high school friends. She was sure every group had one like her – the one who was always first to tell them they were crazy for wanting to do something.

She didn’t want to actually take the monster up on her offer. Did she? Of course not! That was absolutely insane. She was allowed to appreciate an aspect of something without wanting to turn her life upside down to get it. Mind you, if the woman in front of her got her way it was either give in to what she was or die, and as cliché as it was, the thought “I’m too young to die” flashed through her mind.

“So, what? I sign my soul over to you for all eternity for my right to live? Lay down and let you slaughter me for the promise of eternity?” Velia shook her head, her eyes narrowing as she leaned forward slightly. “Those are my only options? Die or let you infect me or whatever it is you do? You don’t have any cool brainwash powers? Can’t just convince me that what I’m seeing isn’t real?”

With that she leaned back into the more laid back position, though her eyes remained far from relaxed as they stayed locked on the woman. “There’s still a chance. There’s always hope. Don’t give up.” The litany didn’t stop as she waited, not allowing herself to dwell any longer on the fact that this could very well be her last night among the living.

Poised and unmoving she waited for a reaction of any sort and got next to nothing, not so much as her eyes dilating to a state of fear, though her heart rate picked up a tiny bit which she decided was more akin to excitement than fear. Oria would have been more disappointed in that fact had she done something more outwardly aggressive -- due to the fact that she had taken one of the least menacing methods possible, she couldn’t really be mad. Instead, she stayed where she was perched on the edge of her seat and listened to the wheels turning in the woman’s head.

When the woman finally said something, it all came out in a torrent of more than slightly displeased questions. All of the inquiries Oria herself had begun to ponder the answers to just as soon as they were asked, most of which she knew had the same answer - No. There was that third and final option, the one where she let the woman live, the option she wasn’t too fond of herself. She would then have to teach her of the vampires that lived within the city and hoped she neither went to the authorities, nor did something that would have her end up in the mental ward - a place she personally was all too familiar with and wouldn’t wish upon anyone - and it was that reason alone she was not inclined to do so.

“No, I’m sorry, I do not have the power to jedi-brainwash you and have you believe “These are not vampires you see”. There is a part of me that wishes I did possess that gift. I cannot, however, blame you even in the slightest for the hesitation on a making a decision. It is rather,” there was a pause long enough to clear her throat, “Life changing.” She turned then to get more comfortable as well as face the woman - draping one arm over the back of the bench, the other resting in her lap while pulling one leg up under herself, the other dangling off the side. “Plus, I don’t believe you want that done, anyway. Your lack of reaction leads me to believe this might be a gift you subconsciously had your eyes on.”

Despite the fact that she wanted this to turn into a chance scene, or maybe in because of it, her scholarly tone was in full swing. Overthinking things was something that she did typically and almost always regretted at a later date, this time she didn’t believe that she would regret it though. This woman seemed particularly interested in the ability to darken the shadows, and probably a plethora of other gifts that she had picked up from her neighboring Path. No, this woman wanted what was being offered, else she would have already fled. They both knew it.

“If it makes you feel any better, you’re not truly signing your soul over to me. You will retain your ability to do what you want, when you want, as long as it’s within our laws.” There was another pause as she considered where to lead the conversation. She could explain what those laws were, give other such details on what would change when she made the decision (as she was sure she would), or she could just leave it at that. Her mouth opened, a thought of which piece of information to share next, but she closed it, letting the other decide how things would proceed. Either way, the Asian-American could almost see the ghost of a clock above her head, counting down to the death that was shortly to follow.