---

The 10 gauge double barrel shotguns in question had been a hassle because Clara had refused to use anything other than Belgian models they'd had to ship from New York. It had been a lot of extra work for, maybe, not much more benefit, but she'd cut down the barrels herself, took two inches off the stocks, made it so they could be packed away without being super obvious. She had made them into violent art and boy did they pack a punch. In the end, it had almost kinda been worth it. She'd dumped hers afterwards, but she'd kept the Schofield and she'd used it ever since. It had been trapped in the cave with her and thus dragged out of the cave so it's with her to this day.

Real pain in the ass to restore after a hundred years of corrosion, of course, but the less said about that the better.

"Why, Miss Alice," she says, voice low and frank. "If I were to stab you, it'd be from the front while my eyes held yours. Respect you too dang much to dry gulch ya." She grins. Maybe that's just a line, maybe she doesn't even know what she'd do. Vampire sh*t. She follows Faith's introductions, giving a little nod to the others as they go. A few new faces. Sergine surely gets around, but she'll play her part for now and pretend they aren't acquainted. "By Jiminy, ain't that happifyin'! Are y'all havin' a house warming? I'll bring somethin' nice." Her attention wanders as her sharp ears pick up 'Ybor City' and she surreptitiously holds up one finger to signal for silence as she side-eyes Geoffrey and his rootin', tootin' rival.

---

Travis nodded once again to the follow Gangrel when he gets hand-waved. He was antsy to get into a good scrap, prove his mettle and have a little fun. He was a dirty fighter by habit, but he wasn't going to be the A-hole bringing a gun to a fistfight. "Tooth and Claw" He says with a grin hidden by his bandana. "I aint heeled 'cept for my ace in the hole" a little two shot revolver in his boot. It wouldn't do much as far as stopping power, but in a pinch he could shoot someone's eye out. "I got nothing but time Wodeward, go on with your discourse. I'll think on it" He didn't have a spot in mind, he was new in town and didn't quite have the lay of the land just yet. He just knew here was not the place.

He turns to Sergine and Abel, always up to have an audience. It raised the stakes a bit, and ole Black Cat liked to live dangerously. "Eww wheee we got us some spec-ta-tors. I have no doubts dear Geoffrey, and myself of course, would oblige your request to watch us fine gentlemen engage in fisticuffs. I do admit I am new in town and don't know the area terribly well." He does have a map though. "I would not at all be opposed to allowing a neutral party to choose the location if Geoffrey don't. We can iron out the wrinkles, but I'll let y'all get on back to your conversation. The night's still young." He says with a chuckle. - he was ready to scrap, but he was also just anxious to get outside.

Travis wasn't nearly as interested in Abel's backstory as he was the potent drink the Toreador had given him. He leans against a nearby column and pulls the bottle out of his hat, glancing from the bottle to Able and back to the bottle, shrugging his shoulders briefly before sliding his hat up under his arm and uncorking the bottle to take another swig. He nods to himself a few times and has to admit its unlike anything he's had before, and it tastes pretty good to boot. He was already getting tired of pulling his bandana up and down every time he wants a sip. He would stay for the other Gangrel to finish his conversation, out of respect. If he smoked he would have excused himself and went outside to smoke, but naw... he's just gonna stand around and wait.

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.

Rudolph Longstaff aka Abel Beaumarchais
those boon times went bust
my feet of clay, they dried to dust
the red isn't the red we painted
its just rust

Toreador Ancilla | Blush of Health | Enchanting Voice | Deceptive Aura

---

He watched something come over Geoffrey. Something about his story had piqued the Gangrel’s interest. What was it, though? Abel suddenly felt a compulsion to find out. Some secret, something juicy. He could feel it in his bones. He amplified his senses and his eyes took on a particular glint under the harsh museum lighting. They almost seemed iridescent; like cut emeralds. Nothing obviously supernatural; just shy of it. Just enough to make someone question.

your eyes go to where you find pleasure...

He suddenly heard a male voice in the background, brief and unfamiliar...it wasn’t one he recognized; wasn’t one of the chit-chatting vampires surrounding the exhibit. Still, Geoffrey held his attention. The Gangrel seemed excited. Agitated or maybe embarrassed. No, he was distressed.

Very curious. Very. “You might be surprised at what I’m capable of digging up,” he said with a sly smile. “I’ve had enough adventures for several lifetimes. But in this case...”

He heard voices again. Like the background noise of a cafe. Or a tavern. Or maybe just a rustic room. Distorted. The smell of rosepetals and lavender. The hairs on his arms pricked up as if drawn against fresh linens. A soft pillow to rest the weary head upon. A fire, close enough to warm, but safely contained, crackling. The two voices became a little clearer, but spoke in Greek. He couldn’t understand the words, but he could spot the sentiment a mile away.

The phantasmal stimuli lasted literally only a second, and he smoothly picked up where he’d left off. “In this case, the adventure took me to London. 1922. An auction from Sotheby, Wilkinson, and Hodge. They’d no idea what they had, and I thought I’d scoop it up in a steal. But there was another buyer. A mysterious proxy. Had to teach them a lesson. In a bidding war, of course. Sent them scurrying off,” he said with a small bit of pride, chuckling again.   

Then he looked back to Sergine. It might have seemed like he hadn’t been paying attention to them, but he’d heard every word they’d said in the cross-chatter and showed he was taking their questions seriously. “It’s digestible because of the blood, yes. Think of the blood like an antihistamine. It keeps the Kindred body from having an allergic reaction and allows our systems to absorb the alcohol and enjoy the experience. It’s really quite harmless. Just for fun. If you drank gallons of it, you might gain enough blood to squelch the Beast’s hunger, but you’d also be passed out drunk.”

Abel grinned. “Well, maybe not you. You’re made of pretty stern stuff, I imagine. I’m sure you could drink me under the table if you put your heart to it. Or just your pinky.”

He also shared Sergine’s interest in whatever these Gangrel were going to do. Bite each other and roll around in the grass like junkyard dogs, or something. Whatever it was, it would be entertaining. "I was just thinking the same thing. If you're not averse to an audience, of course."

As he prepared to leave and watch the spectacle, he left a ghost of a touch on Faith’s elbow. “Je pensais que tu pouvais être seul. On dirait que tu as plus d'amis ici que moi!”

---

Clara's befuddlement is obvious as she looks down at the bottle. She looks back up at Alice and scans her face for any sign that she's changed in the hundred thirty, hundred forty years since they'd last seen each other. They'd been Embraced around the same time, struggling through a rapidly-changing world that even seasoned Kindred weren't able to cope with. It had been scary and it had been fun and it had all been so new. It strikes her that the Brujah probably wasn't missing the full century she was; she must be one tough customer indeed.

"Oh, these are Balmains..." French. Back in the day, that alone would've marked her as impossibly duded up. A village in upstate New York would've sent out search parties to rescue their missing idiot. The stitching under her breast pocket reads 'VERSACE' so that might preempt further inquiries as to her wardrobe, which on the aggregate costs about as much as a reasonably late-model used car, even if from a distance she wouldn't stand out from a crowd of farm-workers. "Goose, I ain't thought about that in decades. They sure din't expect the 'sister-wives from Alberta' to have Schofields and street howitzers in their steamer trunk, did they?"

It's surreal, but she might even remember it more clearly than Faith. She's only got a good forty or so years of memory as a Kindred, with a big black pit cut into the middle of it that hurts her emotionally and mentally to try and peer into. Nothing good happened to her then, not even in the prison of her torporous mind.

The Toreador flicks a wary glance toward the two Gangrel, then her big green eyes are fixed back onto her old... what, friend? Were they? They coulda been, but it's hard to say now. "Do we... should we hug?" The same thought worming through her mind. Can't underestimate another predator, even one you sorta know from back in the day. Or one like Sergine, a valuable colleague who's saved her sorry unlife multiple times by this point. "Are you just passin' through, or fit to stick around a while?"