Geoffrey Wodeward


To all things housed in her silence

Nature offers a violence

---

"Not necessarily." He pointed out, thoughtfully. "Still a bit young. Not grown to your full strength."  he looked back; for a moment, he could have been talking to either of them. Yorick or the shadow that followed them.

He looked back, catching the shadow of a face he hadn't seen in centuries. He stared back, one hand leaving the reins like he could reach back for him.
"I tried. For a time." To watch over him, that younger brother it was clear he cared for, was protective of. "It's better to leave your life behind with the sun, though. For them. For you. These nights it's all but expected." He paused again, facing forward. "But he had a good life. A full one." Another pause; the question about descendants hanging like one he hadn't thought of too deeply before.

"I suppose it's possible, but I'm not sure how you'd find out. We weren't important people." They weren't kings or lords or anything so high, that was. Nothing a historian would be so interested to capture for posterity.

He left the horse at the edge of the burned out village, dismounting to amble through it on foot.

"I think I've found something." He sounded as surprised as anything by the coincidence, the luck. "In the basement of his burned out shop, he left a box of things. His botanica. Some letters. It wound up at auction in the 1920s, and by providence, one of my kind acquired it. Someone I know."

He stopped in front of the remnants of a burned out building that felt familiar to him and dropped to his knees in the snow. Head bowed a moment in contemplation.

"I'll get it. I'll go bargain with him for it."

Geoffrey Wodeward


To all things housed in her silence

Nature offers a violence

---

Geoffrey turned his head to watch the scene with a flinty look on his face. It wasn't quite anger or outrage, but something that stirred him anyways.

"In my warmer days, our lord was called to war and took his household with him." On the opposite side of the dark forest, the faint shadows of whatever conflict of the time. A castle under prolonged siege; an archer aiming an arrow through a narrow slat at an enemy beyond; getting him straight through the visor of his helmet and through the eye. Returning to a field camp with a few rabbits and other small game animals strung together. Picking up a sword off a corpse in a field of corpses and walking away with it slung over his shoulder. The scenes weren't as brilliant and charged; eroded around the edges from time, far more distant in memory.

"My younger brother, Henry, wanted very much to go with me, but he was too young. We left him behind with our father to watch the land." He turned his head to look. Half at Yorick, half over his shoulder.

"You seem to be about his age, there."

The shadow that followed them on the road didn't take full shape. A ghostly outline of a memory: a younger brother who'd idolized an elder one, who'd wanted to emulate him, follow in his footsteps. It followed at a pace for awhile, then stopped to watch them go ahead without him. Faded into the distance as they gort closer to the town until he finally disappeared.

"So did we." Another easy parallel; whatever his people were observed their own Masquerade, their own secrecy.  "Easiest to survive that way, not being known." Perhaps human wizards had learned the same bitter lessons as vampires had. Perhaps it was something else.

"You get used to it." He hunched forward on the horse, looking forward again. "You can get used to anything. Certainly, it's a curse, but it's not all misery. It doesn't have to be." He didn't elaborate, but the dreamscape took on the qualities of his thoughts to some degree. The stars shining just slightly brighter, the forest dark and terrifying, but full of adventure and potential to the daring.

"Tis. A month's travel over land once you get across the Channel by boat. Longer if you can't go by day." " He confirmed; the distance from his corner in the west of England where he'd lived and expected to die to the primeval forest on the opposite side of the continent. In a time when many people didn't go so far from their homes at all.

The gates opened for them. The scene in front of them flickered and warped, as if it couldn't decide which of two things it wanted to be. A bustling medieval castle town, mostly asleep by night save a few watchmen and the light from a tavern. Or a burned-out ruin of what was once a bustling medieval castle town. Ashes and cinders on the breeze, the smell of burned flesh and char and smoke in the air.

"Did you still think you might need something of his?" Geoffrey asked. Surveying the town a moment before urging the horse forward.

Geoffrey Wodeward


To all things housed in her silence

Nature offers a violence

---

Geoffrey took another drink from the bottle in his hand and found somewhere to lean. One shoulder to the corner of a nearby column in the room. There was a little too much comprehension in the glance that passed over Abel and Faith's conversation on his way to Dio. He did understand French.

He let Abel talk to her; he just looked at her a moment. The way he might study a bit of the ancient statuary. A note of appreciation for the craftsmanship. From a time and place he wasn't familiar with.

"I'm glad to hear it." He remarked with a beat of lag, like he was turning the words over in his head to make sure they were in the correct order.

"That was certainly a night." He remarked Travis' way with the slip of a grin when the other Gangrel picked up one of those things from his own travels. "Find me later, I'll tell you all about it."

Which was to say: find him somewhere outside Elysium and the audience and he'd be glad to put it to proof. That was one of the things that happened with the way he existed: always an opportunity to get into ****.

Like now, maybe. He hadn't missed the knot of tension that had wound up when Faith had come in. His gaze, ever watchful it seemed, passed between her and Travis once more. In case it was going to escalate.

Geoffrey Wodeward


To all things housed in her silence

Nature offers a violence

---

Satisfied with Yorick's answer, Geoffrey took the reins of the horse from Sebastian. He settled the crate he'd purloined behind him on the saddle so they could carry it back. For someone who exuded such obvious predatory energy in his dreams, the horse didn't seem too bothered by his presence.

He went to lead the way through the forst back to what he assumed would be the village, and Yurik's haven. He didn't know anymore. The horse moved fowards as though it had no other destination, no path other than this one he'd already traveled .
He looked over his shoulder at Yorick's question, regarding the carnage they were leaving. The stone building on fire. That satisfaction on his face that warmed him as surely as the fire might.

"A chantry of Tremere. Are you familiar with them?" Why he'd would be seeing something from his own memories was beyond him otherwise. "They used to be sorcerers. Mortals who practiced magic. Then, they stole the Embrace and have been trying to claw their way into our courts." Whether or not that was entirely or just partially accurate didn't seem to concern him. A real kind of heat that turned to acid, to poison when Yorick asked about the stone creatures.

"The Gargoyles." He stared forward in stonelike silence. His hands gripping the reins more tightly. Whatever the answer was pissed him off before he could speak it.

"They're created from Cainites the Tremere didn't think anyone would miss."  He found his voice enough to half-growl out some kind of explanation.

Geoffrey Wodeward


To all things housed in her silence

Nature offers a violence

---

"Right? Out of all of Lodin's wretched childer." He could say it, now that Lodin was dead and Chicago was several hundred miles away. "let me know if you need special shipping." He'd be glad for the excuse to make it up there, even as he tried not to look too glad.

They'd attrached quite the crowd; largely newcomers to the domain to his understanding Interesting but not particular worrisome to his reckoning; he didn't often have reasons to be this far south, so every face was a new one to him, just about.

"I've my theories, but I don't want to presume." Meaning: he wasn't going to speculate in a place where the Prince and the Sheriff and God knew who else could be listening to and recording this conversation. "Come over to Tampa Heights sometime if you want." The invitation for Sergine came about as genially as Kindred got. They could share all vicious and paranoid thoughts about the Sabbat next door in a more private setting, if the Brujah felt up for visiting.

"Geoffrey." He introduced himself nonchalantly to the people he didn't walk in here knowing. Dio, Calloway. He took a step back when the other Gangrel came into the crowd, asif to open up the circle. Stepped a little bit into what the other Kindred's trajectory up had been.

Not boxing him in as much as encouraging him to stay a spell.

"Where are you from, Calloway." Not Florida, he didn't think, though he could be mistaken. And, because he was prompted by Abel earlier, he spoke up about the impromptu speakeasy the Toreador was running now, apparently.

"khemia." He used a word, quietly, then went on. "I think. He's been doing it as long as I've known him."

At Abel's question, he looked Dio's way as if similarly interested in her answer. He too, didn't seem particulary concerned about being too near the Baron. She'd come here, after all: she should expect a little interrogation.

Geoffrey Wodeward


To all things housed in her silence

Nature offers a violence

---

Geoffrey shook Abel's hand easily. Cordially. It had been some years since he'd seen the Toreador, but that was hardly a cause of comment. Sometimes it was months and years with the familiar face. Being on the move meant not being trapped in a city with the same Kindred all the time, but it also meant not being stable in a city with the same Kindred, all the time.

"It is good to see you." He followed the prompt, but sincerely.  "When you stopped calling, I was a little concerned they may had had gotten you." The Lupines, that was. He took a glance behind him as well as if similarly checking.

He even looked at the reflective surface of the nearest glass display case. It was there he caught the reflection of the man with his face half covered, carrying a hat under his arm. He watched him a moment with a pair of amber-colored eyes, wolflike. Following the movement rather than any particular detail

If he could get Travis' attention, he'd offer an invitation up with a silent inclination of his head.

He looked back just in time for Abel to open his coat. His expression perking up a touch as the sight of what he'd smuggled in. A sly touch of a smile turned up one corner of his mouth. He accepted the mini bottle deftly, hand not lifting too much, half-concealing it in his fingers.

"Ah, if there's one thing you can be depended on, it's to make a night more lively." before he could open it, his attention got diverted to the scarred figure approaching them. One he, too, recognized.

"Sergine." A hand got offered to the Brujah in kind. "Good to see you. Whose throat are we after tonight?"
Be 'we', of course, he just meant 'them' in the singular. Nobody, he assumed from their last conversation about reputations and the way they could bind you. Or maybe somebody, which could be just as exciting.

Either way, their parting had been amicable enough that he felt confident in ribbing them about it. Just a little.

Geoffrey Wodeward


To all things housed in her silence

Nature offers a violence

---

At the what now, a grin broke across the vampire's face. He took a moment to free a hand - slinging the strung bow over one shoulder, so he could reach out to clasp Yorick's shoulder fondly.

"Let's go back to your haven and look it over."He jostled the chest on his  own shoulder to indicate what he meant: whatever was inside it.  "I'll read it to you."

There was a note of pride in his tone at that last statement, and a note of something else. The context might filter easy enough: like the archery, Geoffrey could read because the man in the red cloak had patiently taught him. And perhaps a little bit of a joke as well: whatever was contained within might be beyond his education to understand or even pronounce.

He leaned in impulsivly to touch his cold lips to Yorick's temple. A tender and affectionate gesture that was almost out of place with the monster delivering it.

Then, he hesitated. Close enough that the other man could register the lack of breath on his cheek. He turned his face away quietly. Fingers on Yorick's shoulder curling with a touch of awkwardness before pulling away. He took a step back and turned towards Sebastian and the horses.

"Can you ride?" He asked a question a little out of place. Of course the man he'd been addressing a moment ago would have. That wasn't who has was asking.