Path of the Vampire forum

21/10/17
Lucile's
5:42 PM


"Back in the day when oral traditions were the way to pass on knowledge, people gathered around a roaring fire with the oldest and wisest of men sitting on a little stump, ready to tell a tale of enlightenment. They told the tale of a brilliant inventor from Athens by the name of Daedalus. He envied the birds for being able to fly so freely and spent a lot of time studying them before fashioning a pair of wings for himself out of wax and feathers. He was careful and astute and after many trials and errors, he managed to make a pair that worked. His son, Icarus, was eager to try them and Daedalus complied but warned the boy to not fly too close to the sun. Icarus took off with the wings and the higher he flew, the more powerful he felt. Foregoing his father's warnings, Icarus flew towards Apollo's chariot, determined to fly higher than the birds. But the heat from the sun cause the wax to melt and the wings fell apart, causing Icarus to fall from the sky--"

"It says scones but. There are no flavours."

"...what?"

"The scones. I don't want a blueberry scone. I heard if you have too many blueberries, the anti-oxidants pile up." A pause. "And give you cancer."

"That… that's definitely not true--are you even listening to me?"

"It can be. I'm no scientist."

"Clearly."

"Too much of anything is bad for you."

"Wren."

"Maybe I should ask them… would that be dumb?"

"Wren."

"Oh ****, if it's not blueberry, it'd be just butter, right? Butter scones. That sounds about right. That's the 'original' flavour, innit? **** me. Butter's worse than blueb--"

"Wren. This is important. Stop thinking about cancer scones."

"God, I hear you, Cas. Old men on stumps. Daddylus said no. Winged guy fell from the sky. I got it, I got it. What happened next?"

"That… that's it. That's the whole story. Icarus flew too close to the sun and the wax on his wings melted so he fell."

"Oh. Okay." A pause. "I don't get it."

"A kid that got too haughty, flew too high and quickly fell from the sky. That doesn't sound familiar to you?"

"Yeee… no." Another pause and then a laugh. "Oh ****, wait! That's--"

"Yeah."

"--like back in LA--"

"Yes."

"--with the--"

"M'hm.."

"Holy ****, man. Mind. Blown."

"Yeah."

"What? How did they know?"

"What? No, Wren. It's not about you. ****." A sigh. "This is a legend. It existed before you. Old men on stumps, remember? It's a lesson. It's supposed to help."

"Oh. Oh yeah." Another laugh. "Well, what happened to the kid?"

"He fell into the ocean and drowned."


Lucile's café was a quaint spot near the edge of Harper Rock. It wasn't really within the borders to be considered a part of the city but it wasn't close enough to any other place to be considered a part of that either. Lucile's sort of sat on the fringe, like a lonely little landmark tiptoeing the edge of reality and surreality. Like those sci-fi shows that showed the lonely little landmarks, usually a gas station, in the middle of the desert where something fantastic was likely to take place. Except Lucile's was nowhere near a desert and was likely not a hotspot for "activity". But hey, all their mail said "Harper Rock, Canada" so let's just say that was where it was. The owner Lucile (how predictable, right?) was an aging prostitute from Montreal who had travelled into Ontario in the 80s and basically did nothing with her life until she was in her 70s (in the 90s) and decided she wanted to open up some kind of a… place where people could gather and pay her money to just sit there and she'd no longer have to.. well, you know, do the thing. But real estate in the 90s was no joke. Forget Toronto, you probably couldn't even lease a place in swampy Pembroke without trading a kidney for it. So, she settled for a small warehouse "somewhere between Harper Rock and the sign that said 'You Are Now Entering The Algonquin Provincial Park'". The process had been cheap and easy. Just how she liked it.

Through the 90s and 00s, Lucile's didn't have much luck with business. It was an oddly decorated place that served as mostly the last stop for truckers and travellers before hitting the city. But with the surge of hipster culture on the rise in the 2010s (and when Lucile decided to offer free wi-fi), the tacky little joint saw a rise in viable customers. They even put up with the terrible twice-used coffee grounds and the underlying smell of old clothes and wet wood. Lucile's was more of a place to just get cheap coffee and hang around for a bit than a real café. It wasn't until Lucile's pigheaded business partner, Joel took it upon himself to renovate the entire building that it truly became a haven for stragglers. The walls were exposed brick but in a tasteful way (no longer because the paint was chipping), tables were dark marble and ash wood, with benches to match. There were even a few chandeliers that hung low and provided a warmth to the atmosphere. At the core of it, it was still a warehouse but it no longer carried a cold and musty air. Though Lucile kept reusing her coffee grounds; that would probably never change until the old lady croaked.

Wren's eyes widened and he finally tore his gaze away from the scones in the display case. Cas should have known better, really. Now was not the time to talk sense to Wren. Wren with his red-rimmed eyes, pupils blown enough to fully eclipse the pale grey of his irises. Wren with his lilting sway, like music sashayed through his veins and his giddy little laugh. His real, uninhibited laugh, the one that sounded a lot like hiccups as opposed to the deeper, "sexier" one he had constructed for the public. The one that made him sound like he was holding something back. The one that made Cas want to punch him in the mouth. (If only he could.) But if nothing else, it was amusing to watch the young man grow paranoid. Served him right for not listening.

Just seconds ago, to anyone within sight and earshot, there had been a young man, five and a half feet tall with dark curly hair tucked away under a baseball cap, the rim of it shadowing his faded eyes, who had been mumbling away to himself like he was having a debate about what to pick from the menu. There was a hint of a smile on his face and a slight sway to his stance like there was some sort of a breeze that no one else was feeling within the warm confinements of the café. But as it were, Wren was now less limber. His posture was tense and his hands were balled up inside the muff of his pullover, pushing down until there was a visible distortion there, knuckles stretching out the fabric. He was rocking back and forth on the heels of his feet, his chipper expression now terse and pinched as he stared up at the menu written in chalk across the board behind the barista at the cash register. It was a stark difference in demeanour that made the onlookers who had actually seen the change uneasy. A couple that was sitting at the table closest to Wren, gathered their croissants and soy lattes and moved to the other side of the venue.

Wren peered over his shoulder when he noticed the movement and his expression soured further.

"****." he looked ahead once more, letting his gaze pan carefully across Cas and then back at the menu. "You made me do it again." he muttered, barely audible now and with an undeniable scowl on his face. He stepped forward when it was his turn to order. "I'll have a double chocolate white hot chocolate with extra whipped cream and a shot of vanilla. The real stuff, not the essence. And..." he stopped and looked over at the display, "And a scone… even if it's blueberry." he mumbled the last bit under his breath.

They were opposites, both out of place in their own way. The taller of the pair had the sort of displaced charm of a collegiate athlete who'd reached the peak of his career his sophomore year; a rising star that burned the cage of fingers, the fist that tried to close around it, more at home these days on the front cover of a magazine, selling designer jeans alongside the dissolving marriages of aging celebrities. Samael, by contrast, was slight where Michael was tall. He wore a faded denim jacket, the fabric worn at the elbows to such an extreme it almost appeared acid washed. It nearly swallowed him, obscuring him just enough that the only immediately visible features were the upward sweep of his hair, the color of corn tassel, arranged in a messy not-quite pompadour that did nothing to soften his features, and the vaguely pained expression that crossed his features as Michael spoke.

"Holding up the line, frosted nips." It was only a slight exaggeration in that the queue - modest before - had trickled into an anemic handful. There was couple ahead of them; elderly and, it seemed, endlessly baffled by the chalk menu announcing house specials and the same meager twelve items it had offered for breakfast nearly two years. Sam was under no delusion; it'd be at least another five minutes before they'd shuffle to the side, demurring graciously and making apologetic overtures while leveling him with a look that secretly judged society's youth for being so impatient. Sam stepped forward a heartbeat later. His order was simple; dark roast, light on the cream, and a breakfast muffelta. "A name for your order?" The question was vaguely impatient; the bored look the front clerk gave him punctuated with the muted snap of her gum.

"Samael," he replied, quietly. He'd thought of just using 'Sam.' The problem with that, in his experience, is that places like Lucile's were lousy with hipsters sporting the name 'Sam' or 'Matthew' or 'Richard.' Hell would freeze over before he aligned himself with their number. "Edgy." "Save your breath for choir practice," he muttered, absently collecting the change the woman held out to him, flashing a smile as her eyes narrowed. Her head tipped for a moment, her lips thinning before giving a mild twitch, as if she couldn't decide whether to smile or snarl. "Someone's a ray of sunshine this morning," Michael replied, as the pair wove towards an open table towards the back. "Excuse us," Samael murmured, hardly taking note of the curious looks the muttered apology drew. He reached his seat a moment later, settling into it with a low, grateful sigh, before listlessly reaching for his jacket pocket to retrieve his phone.

His name was called some minutes later. Or a rough approximation. He rose, weaving through the maze of crowded tables and chairs leaned too far backwards as he made his way to the bar. A paper cup of coffee and a sandwich on a chipped plate waited. He reached for the cup first, rotating it out of habit. 'Samuel,' the cup said, the name written in thick black sharpie. He sighed lowly. "Gold star for trying. Sort of," he sighed.