New Lease on Life [Nesa]

[Jupiter Roy (DELETED 7122)]

--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--

<Jupiter> The nights were long. They had never really been long before. Jupiter had always had something to fill them with. If not sleep, then something social. A family gathering, maybe. Kicking back and enjoying her brother’s company for a while, or going out with friends. Sleep, mainly. But now she was forced to sleep through the day, and she was not allowed to see her friends or family - a fact that she had rebelled against, but which she had begrudgingly accepted. Micah and Velveteen were hell-bent on faking her death, and it wasn’t something Jupiter was going to bring up again any time soon. Hoping against all hope that they would forget about it, and that she would never have to put her family through that kind of grief.

With no friends, however, and no family to rely on, Jupiter had to make new friends. She had to accept this new group of people who she was told were now her family. It was hard to do that when the majority she only knew as names on a forum. There had been one gathering where she’d briefly met a few people - but there had been so many, and they had all been so loud and chatty that in the end, she was still at a loss as to which faces to put to which names.

It was time to get proactive; she couldn’t expect them all to come to her. If she wanted to get to know them, then she would have to go to them. After waking, showering, and dressing, Jupiter pulled out her phone and accessed the Andras family crow. Hadn’t she seen an address book there, somewhere? The one that she had put her own phone number on, but which no one had yet called. Jupiter was not the kind of girl to take that personally. It was just an address thread, after all. A point of reference.

She went to the very last post. Nesa. Jupiter was no longer the newest addition to the sprawling family - Nesa was. Which suited Jupiter just fine - she was the one Jupiter would contact. She was the one Jupiter knew she’d have at least one thing in common with. Both their worlds had just been turned inside out and upside down. It would be nice to talk to someone else who was in the same boat. So she typed the number into her phone, saved the contact, and then texted it:

Hey. This is Jupiter. From Andras. Wanna hang out?

[Wearing]

<Nesa> Buzz. Her phone was on the table, neglected and ignored. The scarred little blonde was sitting on the floor of one of the abandoned buildings she was exploring.

She was studying the floor of which she sat upon, her thin fingers tapping gently against the different sections of the floor. She was growing bored - she found herself hoping that something, anything, would show up.

Her phone gives another loud buzz and this time she gropes around for it. Thin fingers curl around the small handheld device, and she swipes across the screen. Silver-blue eyes flick across the screen as she reads the message.

It took her a moment to decide what to say. Did she want new friends? She supposed she did. Hi! Sure. Where are we going? And can I bring Uflu? Ah, Uflu. The darling bear that the fledgling had been given by Velveteen when it became clear that she was more keen on having company everywhere she went (she had followed Micah and Velveteen around as much as she could until receiving the bear). The girl never went anywhere without Uflu.

She would tap send, and shove her phone into her pocket, snagging the bear from the table. Off the badly scarred fledgling went, bear in hand. She would change direction whenever she was told where they were going to meet, but until then, she would continue to wander about.


<Jupiter> It took about five minutes for a response to come through, within which time Jupiter mucked around on her phone, checking all the different things on the internet. The Andras forum could only keep her entertained for so long. A few minutes, really, to catch up on the threads there. Of course she could read through all the old threads, but who had the enthusiasm for that? She didn’t want to know people from the past, or who they were in the past. She wanted to know people now, and who they were now.

When her phone buzzed again, she checked the message, and her brow furrowed in confusion. Uflu? Who the **** was Uflu? She shrugged her shoulders.

I’m at the hotel at the moment. I guess you got a tome? I don’t have any plans. I was waiting for your answer first. I guess you can bring Uflu?

The tome was one of the first things that Velveteen had given to Jupiter, upon being turned. That, along with some weapons of a great make and quality - better than any weapons that could be bought in the shops. The woman certainly had done what she could to make Jupiter feel settled, even if Jupiter felt that nothing could be done to make up for the loss of her family and friends. But she tried to push past it, pulling herself up to sit on the service bench. To wait and see whether Nesa would appear out of nowhere.



<Nesa> “But what if she doesn’t like me, Uflu?” Those were the words the blonde voiced as she stared at the most recent text message. “Or what if she doesn’t like you?” She fell quiet for a moment, before scrunching her nose and huffing.

“Fiiiine. But if I don’t like her, I’m not stayin’.” The girl’s gaze flickered to the raggedy stuffed toy as she shoved her phone into her pocket, searching out the tome. Her fingers brushed the top of her jacket and she huffed. Where had she put the stupid thing? It was bad enough she had forgotten her weapons once, had she forgotten the tome tonight?

A pout forms on her scarred face as she turns on her heel to start back to the abandoned building she had left, hands clasped behind her back, bear dangling from her fingers. She knew she had it -- but where had she left it?

She soon stands in the doorway, humming to herself. It was no use to her lost. It takes her a few minutes, but eventually she’s reclaimed the thing from the table -- she had grabbed her bear earlier, her cellphone, but not one of the more important things.

Grumbling under her breath, she glances at the tome -- the words were familiar enough to her by now that she could recite them, almost from memory. Once the last word has left her lips -- reading aloud is some sort of necessity with Nesa, no matter what she is reading -- she is gone from the abandoned building, the familiar surroundings of the hotel coming into view once she opens her eyes.


<Jupiter> It took longer than Jupiter expected. She was imagining herself in the other’s shoes. Imagining, of course, that the other was a reasonable person with their head screwed on; one who’d be waiting for a text, who would check it the second that they got it, and who would then immediately use their tome to get home again.

Except when that didn’t happen, Jupiter wondered whether she had interrupted Nesa. Or maybe the other woman had to get dressed. Yes, that was a good explanation. Maybe she was already in here somewhere, hastily pulling on pants and a bra or something. Jupiter slipped from her perch and began to walk around, idly, tossing her phone from one hand to the other while she waited.

Soon enough, a lone figure appeared where the tome usually dropped Jupiter.


<Nesa> Thin fingers tugged the sleeves of her jacket, and soon she has shoved the teddy bear onto a couch. She did not even think to look about -- she just started to the usual couch she plopped upon when coming home.

Honestly, she should have looked around -- she knew she was coming to meet someone. But that had slipped her mind, at least for the time being, she was too busy chattering to Uflu. “I’m tellin’ ya, there’s nothin’ wrong with being a ballerina.”

There is a pause and the blonde huffs, “You just don’t like Giselle! She’s so pretty, though. And she smells nice.” She scowls down at the raggedy toy, huffing. “I’m not tellin’ her about us, that’d be bad.” She knew that would be bad -- she did not know what would happen, but she knew not to do it.

She shoves the bear over to the other side of the couch, as it seems that he has voiced a very rude opinion of the human girl that Nesa had run into a night or so ago. “I’m not talkin’ to you, Uflu! You can go to bed by yourself!” She crossed her arms, nose in the air -- much like a young child who was upset with their best friend might act.

As she does this, her gaze wanders the room, and she tilts her head as aqua orbs fixate on another female. She must sound like a -- what was the word Giselle had used? -- mental patient, for sure.


<Jupiter> Jupiter had been too busy assessing the woman to get in a greeting; but even if she had, she doubted the woman would have heard. Maybe it wasn’t Nesa. Maybe it was someone else, given the fact that she didn’t acknowledge Jupiter at all. Or even seem to look for her. She didn’t look like someone who had an agenda, or a reason for coming home except to… talk to her bear?

It was only when the bear’s name was uttered, that Jupiter realised that it was Nesa. Not a woman, like she had previously assumed. At least, she may look like a woman but she acted like a girl. Jupiter glanced over her shoulder, wondering if there was some excuse she could make; something she had forgotten about. She had wanted to make friends with whom she could go out to clubs with. With whom she could share her woes, and laugh, and… all of the things that she’d wanted in new friends… it didn’t look like they would exist in this girl.

Maybe, Jupiter wondered, she had been lucky. That the turning hadn’t sent her insane. Unless Velveteen’s husband had a penchant for siring women who acted like little girls. Which made Jupiter shudder.

Regardless of what she had wanted, however, Jupiter pushed it aside. She had patience, and regardless of who she was when she was turned or whether the turning addled her brain, this girl was here and her life had been changed. It would be cruel to run away just because she didn’t meet expectations. Jupiter sighed, and wandered over, flopping down onto the couch next to Nesa.

“I assume you’re Nesa. I’m Jupiter,” she said with a smile and an offered hand.


<Nesa> There was a hand! No, wait! There an entire person on the couch next to her! She studied the other female for a mere second, before she states, “You’re really pretty.” Her voice clearly gave away the awe she felt as she gazed at the other.

Wait, this girl was not a stranger. This girl had a name! Jupiter! “Like the planet?” She inquired, reaching out to take the offered hand rather awkwardly in her own. She leaned forward to try and press a kiss to the back of the other female’s hand.

She would release Jupiter’s hand and scoot to reclaim Uflu from the side of the couch she had thrown him, sitting him on her lap. She needed to behave -- she wanted to make friends, right? She had to make sense of her thoughts and try to focus.

Which meant she had to stop herself from saying the first thing that came to mind -- or doing it, as the case was. She pursed her lips in thought and mumbled, “I like my jacket, Uflu. I don’t want to take it off.” The bear seems to have continued to insist she slip the jacket off, because the blonde does eventually slide her jacket down her arms and fold it up nice and neat beside of her.

“Why are you a planet? Are you special?”


<Jupiter> Jupiter decided that she’d have to treat this one like she would treat a child. In her line of work, Jupiter rarely had to deal with children. She had worked at a gun range, and children didn’t come in to shoot guns. Every now and again she’d be asked to watch a child as its mother or father went to go play with the guns, and sometimes that was okay with Jupiter. If the children were well behaved. Sometimes they had interesting insights into the world. Besides which, growing up with a brother like her own, she had to have patience.

Later, she would text Velveteen and ask what the deal was. But for now, she resigned herself to a night of questions. And hoped she wouldn’t be asked to join an imaginary tea party.

“The planets were named after the Gods. The Ancient Gods,” Jupiter said with a slight shrug. “I like to think that I was named after the Roman King of the Gods - God of thunder and of the sky,” she said with a broader smile. She had let the compliment slide. Not because she herself didn’t think that she was pretty, but because such materialistic things didn’t concern her. She didn’t dress to be pretty. She dressed to be herself.

“Just like my brother was named after the Roman ruler of the Underworld. Pluto,” she said. “I don’t think we’re special. I think our parents are just odd. But I like my name,” she said. “Where’d Nesa come from?”


<Nesa> “Gods?” She tilted her head. Religions were not something Nesa knew about -- perhaps at one point, before the turn, she had known about religions. But since then? She listens, however, she enjoyed stories.

She giggled brightly as she bobbed her head. “So you’re a king?” How could she be a king, when she was a lady? But nonetheless, the question had already left her mouth. She falls rather quiet when she is asked the origin of her name -- though she does not take it like that. She takes it as being asked where she hails from.

“I dunno. I just ‘member waking up here.” That was the gist of it. Her nose crinkles as she begins to wonder, where had she come from?


<Jupiter> Jupiter’s mouth fell open in a silent ‘aaah’. So that explained it, then. Complete amnesia upon turning. It was still something she wanted to text Velveteen about. How ******* violent did it have to be for the one being turned to forget everything that came before? Maybe it was a good thing. She had, of course, asked about the girl’s name, but that was an aside. It wasn’t important. Maybe Jupiter wasn’t even all that interested. It just seemed like the right question to ask.

“Yeah, sure. Why not? I guess my parents didn’t prescribe to the whole… gender division thing,” she said, but then wondered if the girl would even understand. So she clarified.

“Like… girls don’t have to wear pink and play with dolls and boys don’t have to wear blue and play with trucks. It’s stupid. If I want to act like a boy then I’ll damned well act like a boy,” she said. Although she had been fielding this question for the majority of her life, it was one she always answered the same way. She liked her name. She loved her name. She loved her parents for giving her such a strong name; a name that once belonged to a King.

“So you remember absolutely nothing, then? Nothing at all?” she asked. She wondered if, in time, the childish attitude would change. Whether it was there only because Nesa was starting fresh. Whether she would grow out of it. For her sake, Jupiter hoped it would be the latter.


<Nesa> “That’s stupid, girls havin’ to wear pink and play with dolls, and boys havin’ to play with trucks and wear blue. Can’t people just be who they wanna be?” She tilts her head to one side, peering through messy blonde locks.

At the question, she shook her head. “Nuhuh! But I like it this way. Do you ‘member being human?” She inquires, leaning forward to study the other female. What did it feel like to remember your old life?

She thought it would hurt -- and she voices this. “Uflu says he thinks it might be annoyin’ to ‘member your old life. ‘specially if you had people you care ‘bout who aren’t like us.” She offers the bear out. “He says it would make him sad if he had to ‘member all that and not be able to visit all his friends. He says ‘m lucky.”

She sounds so very… serious, in that moment. Despite the fact she is speaking through the use of the bear -- it helps her sort her thoughts.


<Jupiter> The girl probably didn’t realise it, but she’d hit a chord. Jupiter’s features twisted, curled into anger and then regret. She wondered what it would be like to not remember. She wondered whether it would be better. She shook her head.

“Not being able to visit is a rule that Velveteen and Micah have set and I’m still not sure whether I want to follow that rule,” she said. She’d never been too good at keeping her mouth shut. Only after she’d uttered the words did she realise this wasn’t something she should be telling all and sundry. But she’d said them, and she sighed.

“I’m not only sad for me. Yeah, I miss the **** outta them, but what about all those people you knew? If you had parents or siblings and now you’ve just *poof!*, disappeared. How d’you think they feel? They’ve just lost someone they care about. They probably don’t even know whether you’re dead or not and are just living in a state of constant anxiety,” she said. It was a topic she was passionate about. Moreso than gender division.

“Like… imagine if you woke up one night and Uflu there was just gone. Without a word. without a trace. How would you feel?” she asked. If Jupiter were actually talking to a child she might not have been so harsh. But it was easy to forget.


<Nesa> Mad. She made Jupiter mad. She furrowed her brow as she listened, replying quietly, “But you should always listen to them, they keep us safe.” Though as the other female continues to talk, Nesa fiddles anxiously with Uflu.

“I think they might feel happy. I don’t think I was a very happy person.” She commented, furrowing her brow. She did not have anything to back up her thoughts of not being a happy person in her past, but she did just feel like that.

“Why don’t you write them a note and tell them you’re okay?” She inquired, furrowing her brow. Was that breaking the rules? Especially if the other female back-dated the note? Nesa scrunched her nose gently when the other starts talking about Uflu leaving her.

Thin, pale fingers tighten on Uflu, digging roughly into the ragged bear. Her face has fallen, rather quickly as she brings the bear to her chest, crossing her arms over top of him. By doing so, her fingers are able to trace the scars on her arms -- some of them, at least. She crinkled her nose and replied quietly, “I’d be real-real mad. An’ hurt whoever took him. ‘cause he’s mine, mine, mine.” She mumbled ‘mine’ anxiously.

[Nesa (DELETED 7222)]

--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--

<Jupiter> “That’s ********,” Jupiter said. She didn’t think any parent would be happy that their son or daughter disappeared, no matter how happy or sad that person was. She shook her head. “Though if they were happy that you were gone then I suppose you’re better off without them. But I doubt they’d be happy. I doubt that very much,” Jupiter said, adamant.

“I don’t have to write them a note. I talk to them on the phone all the time. They think I’m out of the city,” she said. Aside from her brother, of course, but that was a different matter entirely, and definitely not something that she was about to share. She had learned from her earlier slip-up.

“But, see. Exactly! You would be hurt and you would be mad. And I don’t want to hurt my family. I don’t. Ever,” she said. And that meant that she was going to fight against this idea that they were all going to fake her death. For as long as she possibly could.


<Nesa> “Dunno,” she murmured, scrunching her nose roughly. “But I have a big family now, an’ I don’t even ‘member the other one!” She did not like to dwell on things, her attention span was very… short.

“But isn’t that against the rules too? Talkin’ to ‘em?” She tilted her head. Did this other girl just have a passion for breaking rules? Nesa’s nose scrunches again. “But you can’t ‘stay out of the city’ forever. Maybe ‘til they die, ‘cause they will do that one day, but…”

She does not seem to be thinking her thoughts through -- not at all. “What if you hurt them more by talkin’ to them?” She inquires, picking anxiously at the bear’s stuffing once again.


<Jupiter> Jupiter flopped back into the couch, a heavy sigh falling past her lips. This was and wasn’t the kind of conversation she’d expected to have tonight. “Damned if you do and damned if you don’t,” she said with a shrug and another sigh, trying to let it go. Trying to push the problem into the future so she could deal with it then, rather than now. She shrugged.

“They are the rules and I respect Velveteen and I don’t hate her, though I should. But I never asked for this ****. I could be dead or I could be this but I may as well be dead for all the good it does,” she said. It seemed entirely unfair to Jupiter that she should be forced to follow rules that she had never asked for. It was not her choice to join this family, such as it was. And as much as she wanted to try to make it work, she was finding the transition hard.

She took a deep breath, then, and offered a bright smile. “But, here I am trying to move forward and getting to know the new family I’ve gained. Well enough to call them family, anyway. Though I have no idea what to talk to you about if you don’t remember anything. Like… do you even know what kind of music you like?” she asked, wondering if Nesa was new to absolutely everything.


<Nesa> Plucking at Uflu’s one remaining eye as she stared and listened. Music? Did she know what she liked? She slowly shook her head. “Uhm. I sorta like rock music, I think. Heard it the other day.”

“Dunno.” She murmured, she had never dwelled on the fact she did not have any life before this one -- though now that she was thinking about it actively, it was starting to bother her. What sort of topic-change could she pull out of thin air…? Hm.

“You know, Uflu says that on Jupiter it rains diamonds.” She’s staring down at the bear, tilting her head. She does not question the things that Uflu tells her, she does not question how she knows what the bear ‘tells her’, she just accepts it.


<Jupiter> Jupiter snorted, then shook her head. Regardless of what her parents may have called her, she’d never really taken an interest in the planets. The planets were an aside. The Gods were her interest. The Ancient Gods were far more fascinating than the modern ones. The modern one. They were more human. More fallible. The snort petered out into a laugh.

“I don’t reckon Uflu told you anything. I reckon that’s something that you know already,” Jupiter said, tapping idly at her temple. “And somehow your brain is projecting that knowledge onto the bear to protect itself,” she said. Maybe she was pushing at buttons she shouldn’t push at, but she’d never shy away from being blunt and saying exactly what was on her mind. As Velveteen well knew.

“That aside. I didn’t know that. It might look pretty from afar, but could you imagine being stuck in that storm? It would be worse than hail,” she said with a laugh. “Dangerous and beautiful. I like the sound of that, though.”


<Nesa> Uflu did not tell her? She did not believe that! Uflu was always talking. She, however, does not say anything on this topic. At least, not until the woman spoke of projecting knowledge onto the bear. Perhaps that was what was happening, but the blonde would not settle for that. Uflu talked. Uflu was her friend.

Hail? She stares quizzically at the other female, blue orbs flickering down to the bear and back up to Jupiter. “Hail is ice?” She inquired, shaking the bear thoughtfully. “What’s your favorite color?” She asked the question as she shook the bear, clearly displeased with the stuffed toy.

“Uflu says we like red.”


<Jupiter> “Hail is ice, yes,” she said, clearly pleased. The girl seemed to be catching on. There was no need to push. Jupiter shifted, so that her legs crossed underneath her, her hands folding into her lap. She cocked her head to the side, wondering if she should take this girl-woman to one of her favourite…

But then she realised she couldn’t take anyone to any of her favourite clubs, because that was where her friends hung out. And she was supposed to be out of town, laying low. Keeping out of sight and out of mind. She’d have to try to find new clubs. New places to go where there was less chance to run into people she could know.

“Blue. Like a dangerous ice blue. I think. Like my eyes,” she said, opening them wide as she leaned forward just a little, showing Nesa the brilliant blue of her eyes before leaning back again. “Have you met anyone else? Besides Micah and Velveteen?” Jupiter asked, curious.


<Nesa> She beamed. Praise, even though it was not direct praise, was still praise. And Nesa thrived off the feeling being praised gave her. She tilted her head to one side, “Blue! Blue is pretty.”

The blonde lifts a hand to touch beneath both of her own blue orbs, giggling brightly. “Blue eyes are pretty, aren’t they?” She tips her head back to stare at the ceiling for a moment, shaking her head slowly.

“I met a pretty lady, but nobody else!” She chirped, drawing her arms around herself as she shifted where she sat - sitting now so that her legs were folded beneath her and her back was against the arm of the chair.

“You?”


<Jupiter> Jupiter nodded. Despite her previous reservations, she was now in a better mood than before. The one thing that could be said about children was that they were super optimistic. And if there was a dose of something that Jupiter needed in her life, it was optimism.

She found it sad that this girl wouldn’t be able to see her own eyes in the mirror. But then, there was a certain kind of delight in having someone else describe one’s eyes, wasn’t there? Maybe the opportunity would arise, in future - to find someone else to be Jupiter’s mirror. For now, she enjoyed the company of this childish enthusiasm.

“I met a few pretty people. There was a gathering, before you existed,” she said with a smirk. “In this very hotel. I’m sure there’ll be others in future, where you’ll get to meet everyone else. There were a lot of people though, and I’m not sure I can remember who was who. Which is why I’m kind’a reaching out,” she said with a shrug. “Does your pretty lady have a name?”


<Nesa> “She’s called Giselle.” She chirped, beaming upward. “She’s a ballerina! She dances all pretty-prettily.” She is quite proud of her meeting with Giselle, though the dancer had found her quite odd.

“The hotel is so pretty, and big! Does everybody stay here?” She peered across at Jupiter, canting her head. “I don’t know if she’s been there, Uflu!” She huffed, staring at the bear for a moment.

After a few quiet moments of staring at the toy, she spoke hesitantly, “Have you ‘splored the wilderness? Everyone says it’s bad to go there. How come?” She’s rested her chin against her hands, which are steepled.

“Is it ‘cause the places are all…” she gestures with her arms, “...big and open?”


<Jupiter> Giselle. Jupiter hadn’t heard the name, or seen it on the forum. So Giselle must be a pretty lady outside of the family - unless she was a secret one that Jupiter hadn’t had a chance to run across just yet. The topic didn’t stick in Jupiter’s head, however. Any further questions about Giselle were eclipsed by the inquiries that Nesa made. She shrugged her shoulders.

“I don’t know if everyone stays here. I doubt it? I rarely see Velveteen around - I think she and Micah stay somewhere else,” she said, looking around. Even Jupiter herself didn’t stay here - just hung out, every now and again.

“I’ve explored the wilderness. As a human. My family and I used to go hunt, in the hunting season,” she said. Those were good times. How she itched to have that rifle in hand now, creeping through the undergrowth with her father nearby. “I haven’t recently, though. Though I’ve heard it’s not safe. Something to do with Fae?” she said. “Not as nice as the fairytales paint them to be, apparently…”


<Nesa> “Oh.” She furrowed her brow. As much as she disliked being surrounded by people, she liked being around her sire and his wife. They made her feel safe. She scrunched her nose as she tilted her head.

“Hunting? Like we do?” She tilted her head, eyeing Jupiter. How did humans hunt like them? She did not understand -- she was sure they were not able to drink blood. She huffed and tilted her head, “Oh. So Fae are bad-bad-bad.” She paused for a second.

“Fairytales?”


<Jupiter> Jupiter laughed. How deep did this girl’s ignorance go? Did she know nothing about how humans functioned at all? Maybe she was right. Maybe it would have been better to wake up to this life with no prior knowledge of how one’s life was before. It would be easier to swim into the deep end. Easier to accept. Easier to get by, without always looking back. Nostalgia could be a *****.

“Yeah. Humans gotta eat too, you know. And they like meat,” she said, gnashing her teeth playfully. “Of course they cook it first. We used to hunt and sold the venison to local butchers. Some of the animals in the wilderness are pests and… I s’pose hunting season helps to… cull,” he said. It was almost funny, trying now to think about humans now as she had thought about the animals in the woods. Did they need culling? Jupiter shuddered, and shook her head. The blood bags would do her just fine.

“Yeah. Fairytales. Like… kids stories. Like Peter Pan and his Tinkerbelle. The fairies in our forest are not tinkerbelles. Not by any stretch of the imagination.”


<Nesa> The stare that was on the fledgling’s face must have been quite amusing, because she probably looked terrified. She gnashed her teeth like Jupiter had, trying to grasp how humans worked.

She furrowed her brow thoughtfully. “Cull means… keep populations low? Is that what we do with humans?” Of course Nesa had never fed from a human -- her sire had quickly taught her about blood-bags, and she had no real reason to feed directly from a human, with blood being so readily available.

“Stories? Tell me a story, Jupi!” The fledgling does not even get past the first syllable of the other woman’s name before she’s bouncing up and down with excitement. Stories were fun!


<Jupiter> Jupiter blinked at the girl - because that was what she would always call her. A girl. Watched as she bounced, overly excited about stories. Jupiter snorted before she could help herself; she shook her head.

“No, s’far as I know, we don’t cull humans. Yes, culling means keeping the population low,” she said, answering the first question first. Only then did she focus, and shake her head again. This was not how she had planned to spend her night, sitting around inside telling bedtime stories to a woman who acted like a girl. She wondered idly whether it was some bad joke. She’d had to babysit, once - friends of the family had used her while she was finishing high school, and for a year or so afterwards. Until their kids were old enough to take care of themselves. Jupiter hadn’t ever really played with them. Instead, she’d dumped them in front of the television. It was easier.

“I don’t know the stories off by heart. Can you read? Maybe we should go to the library or somethin’, and you can read the stories yourself. Or download the movies for you to watch or somthin’. They make everything into movies these days…”


<Nesa> “Oh.” She frowned and peered at the older woman. “So how do we get our blood baggies?” When the woman states that she should go to the library and read the stories, as she did not know them by heart, Nesa claps her hands.

“I like readin’! ‘cept that one book -- uh, this one!” She slides her thin hands beneath the couch cushion she sits upon and holds out a copy of Twilight -- scrunching her nose. “She’sa liar, right? We don’ sparkle? Doesn’ the sun hurt us?”

Staring expectantly at Jupiter, Nesa plops the book down. “I found that one in the library, an’ I thought it’d be a good book but I was wrong. Really wrong.”


<Jupiter> Jupiter shrugged her shoulders.

“I assume the blood bags come from some black market production - people give blood all the time, yeah? We steal the blood they give,” she said. Though, she fell silent for a few seconds, jaw slack, as she tried to imagine some kind of farm, somewhere. Humans hung up like pigs, fed and kept healthy enough just to continually produce blood for the growing vampire population. It was kind of intriguing to imagine. Until she imagined her brother or her parents hanging up and being drained of blood, and she shuddered.

And then she had to laugh, as soon as Nesa dragged out the book that she had read. “Yeah, no. Okay. That one is no good. Though I’ve only seen the movies,” she said. She couldnt say that she had read any of the books. But there was one movie she loved, called Interview with the Vampire. And she knew that one was based on a book.

“C’mon. Let’s go. We’ll go find you some better vampires to read. But yeah - none of them are right, I don’t think. I don’t think anyone’s written any books about our particular brand of vampire. They just like to imagine and make **** up,” she said with a shrug, swiftly standing up to make her way over to the ring of portals, trying to remember which one would take them closest to a library.


<Nesa> Black Market. “Oh. So it’s illegal blood?” She’s furrowed her brow at this, biting her lip softly. “I don’t know if illegal blood is such a good idea. What if it’s bad blood?”

She grinned quietly when Jupiter started to laugh -- jumping up when she’s told there are better books to read than those. She thinks that’s true. “Hasn’t a vampire ever written a vampire book? I think they’d make so much money off it because it’d be true!” Though nobody but other vampires would know it would be true, right?
It was certainly an idea. One that intrigued the blonde. “I think vampires should write vampire books and humans should stick to human books.” She grumbled, eyeing the cover of Twilight distastefully.

After a moment, she inquires lightly, “Do some vampires feed right off the humans, instead of on stolen blood?” Her head tilted. “Are they bad vampires?” She never questioned her sire’s lesson about drinking from blood bags -- it never occurred to her to question him on anything… Then again, her sire was the one person she could trust -- and had to trust.


<Jupiter> Jupiter finally remembered which portal led to the station. They’d have to take a short trip to Honeymead, but that was okay. It’d be nice to be out and about, even if it is just to the library. Not exactly party central, but something was better than nothing.

“It all boils back down to secrecy, I’m gonna guess,” she said. It was what had been drilled into her from the very start; it was what was keeping her from her family and from her friends. There was no leeway, none whatsoever. She shifted and laid a hand Nesa’s back, shoving her through the portal and following directly on her heels. She released a singular gasp as they landed on the train platform, and then continued as if they were just walking from one room to another, though here out in the open, her voice was low and hushed.

“I don’t reckon any vampire wanting to publish a book that gives away all the truth of what we are is gonna go down well with our kin,” she said. “Same goes with the feedin’ from live people. Too much chance of being seen and discovered and whatever. Blood bags are just safer,” she said, guiding Nesa toward a chair where they could wait for the next train.


<Nesa> Nesa followed; she had very little choice in the matter. She scrunched her nose as she shrugged. “The humans wouldn't know it’s true, though. Just us.” She huffed. “Or an underground library-type thing, right?” She inquired with a tilt of her head.

She shrugged and went quiet, following Jupiter closely. Nesa had never explored out this far into the city -- so it was new to her; though it did not bother her to be here, she simply did most of her exploring alone.

She didn’t like having people to shove rules on her while she explored. She followed her sire’s rules very… affectionately, then again she worshipped the man.