After the new start for the Council of Neonates

[LittleBird]

Families...? no... No!?! No!!!
Kira reaches for her brothers hand, her moving mouth finally allows her shrinking voice to speak up, “Can I please, jus-" her trembling fingers and quivering breath only able to settle once entwined, “just clean this up?” she brushes her cheek against his hand, closing her eyes, her lashes heavy and coated with thick sanguine sorrow...her offer made in earnest, a offering, a sacrifice...she won’t savour their acts, she cannot enjoy the wrong doings, these ridiculously hypocritical lessons, this ill painted facade for their blood lust...but she will not abandon him either.

She clears her throat a little, “And we-we all make sure Mr.Grey here, can make it back in one piece, then can we return home? Please?”

[Eric Lunaris]

The quiet sactumn became filled with a deep rumbling as Dorian finished speaking. Part had hoped that the Doctor would be a voice of reason after the madness that just occured. The stark light of reality never came. Instead they all wallowed in the incorrect. The heart of Lunaris was crying out at the wrong in the world, in this room. Eric couldn't cry, not at something at greusome as this, so instead he laughed. It was pained, jarring against the unnatural calm in the room.

Lunaris sat, still staring at the ceiling, eventually questioning the room, "how the hell are ye all reactin' like this is feckin' normal?" He shook his head, "how can this be family? Growing pain? A lesson? They ain't true, they just reason away what this really is. Self in-fuckin-dulgence." Erics hand trembled, he good see moonlit hair stained with blood pooling around a chained, broken form.

[Dorian M. Black]

Kira touches him, and the wet weight of her lashes on his hand, the frightened sobs she's making are something that Dorian recognises - the knowledge of it splashes cold over him, almost breaking through the calm haze to his 'What the hell am I doing?' that was waiting on the other side.

Almost.

It only makes him pause in a brief, shocked moment to watch her blue eyes, her stark face, her glossy hair - so similar to his, but coarser, richer, thicker. Her mother's blood.

Before he snatches her chin with a gentle Shhh, smooths his thumb across the teartrack, smearing a line of blood back to her ear.

"Of course we will, Kira. Mr Grey here is a friend. But it would be rude of us to start cleaning when he's in pain. Mr Grey has been through quite the ordeal, and he needs rest. A pause to catch his breath. A time to sit and reflect, to be among his fellows."

"All is well, Scrap. Some things need fire to purge the old, and make better the new. Think of this as no more than a purging, a singular swift cleansing of a wound. The rot is clean, now, and it had to be done this way to be remembered."

If she permits it, Dorian drops his hand and instead draws her forward, across the blood.

Lower now, "I am no sorrier than now that I cannot give you this emotion. Would that I could, you would not be so burdened by your grief. But your heart here is misplaced; here is a changed man, one who once sinned - or was about to - but because of this event, now instead he is on a better path. A path conducive to his place here, with us. A friend, in truth. You should be happy. Christine is taking care of him, can you see? Look how happy he is."

Dorian's interrupted by the sharp snatch of laughter, its empty, hollow sound.

Ah. He'd forgotten about him.

Distracted, Dorian spikes the Scotsman a pointed look across Kira's hair, reaching out mentally.

"Normal?" Dorian drawls conversationally. "You just spent an hour helping to torture him. Don't play innocent, Lunaris, it doesn't suit you."

Those eyes glitter from the girl's shoulder. "Felt good, no?"

[Regulus Grey]

With agonising slowness, Regulus lets Christine help him up onto the chair he was leaning against. The blood is swiftly swallowed and a flush comes back to his skin, ever so slowly the horrific damage inflicted on his physical form starts to heal. Tentatively he raises his eye to Christine's, his voice is still rough as the cracked jawbone has not healed and it will take several nights to regrow his teeth.

"I..I wish to apologise...for any offence I may have caused. I...if you have need...or a warrior or a scholer...I will gladly answer your call..as recompense."

He breaths deeply, then one corner of his mouth twitches up. Although this only causes the dried blood around his throat to crack and start to flake.

"I do believe...it is not uncommon..for ladies to be accompanied by a wolfhound..for protection."

He coughs weakly, turning his head away from her just in time. When he raises his eye again, they skate over Lunaris and go to Dorian.

"Mr...Black. Since my...my arrival in this city. I had though there...there were none here who bore the...the qualities of an Alpha I was...was willing to follow. It seems...I was mistaken. If you will accept me...I would gladly serve whilst...whilst you continue to show...these qualities."

He closes his one remaining eye, breathing deeply for a moment. There is a faint rattle as air passes through one of the holes in his lungs. Slowly he blinks his eye open, it's amber and wide. The eye of a wolf.

[Christine Daye]

Christine's focus is on the battered Gangrel in front of her. A faint frown creases her brow as she hears Lunaris, Kira. She doesn't understand their worry, their complaint.

"...normal? ...what is normal...? Papa made me practice until my fingertips bled from the harp strings... made me sing with ribs cracked from his fist... I was six... when he first broke my fingers...."

Her tone is completely matter of fact, like she is discussing nothing more controversial than the weather.

"...suffering improves my art... I have to be perfect... he only wanted the best for me... for me to be the best... he loves me... pain... it's irrelevant... no lesson worth learning is easy... I was a dreamy child... so many tears... but now... now I sing with the voice of angels... and now... now Mr Grey is one of us... I will look after him... he is born again..."

It has never been more obvious that she is completely insane.

At Regulus' apology to her, she smiles, bright and clear and delighted.

"...oh... of course you are forgiven! ... I am very proud of you...you did so well! ...and I would be delighted to have you by my side... you can tell me about Siberia... and I always wanted a wolfhound! They are such magnificent creatures... and you are an excellent specimen... How wonderful! Thank you!!"

She continues to fuss over him, refilling his glass, and using her handkerchief to clean off some of the blood from his face. Gently, kindly. For all the world like he is a child, fallen over in the garden with a scraped knee.

[LittleBird]

Kira tilts herself fully into his touch, melting into it, always pliable to the violaists hands.
“Then shall...shall we all reflect? And clean? And he-heal together? As a group, my brother?” she asks hopefully, certainly refusing to call the rest of this circle a family-that must have been in jest surely?! Familia Supra Omnia
Even with what little volumes she has gather to know about her brother, she at least knows that much-and this aint no family of theirs!

She murmurs tenderly-yet it catches something in his words earns a rise from her-yet she closes her eyes with a quiver, a deep rumble of a swallow...we all said our desires...we all drank too and no doubt to people already taken. This wasn‘t what this was...she wants to ask more, yet all she does is breathe, silkly asking “In that case, shouldn’t the vast majority in this room also be made better? And new?” she raises her brow, her lips pout a little as if to caught in the need to question more, to disobey further...yet she does not, she slithers her hands along to his as they slide across her face.

Her eyes do not leave his. Tied together-no not tied, one is knotted over the other... She kneels up suddenly, rising to his hold, her hands that slipped from feathering his are now wrapping around him, clutching and caressing and clutching once more as he pulls her close in this embrace.

“My hurt is not misplaced...” this is....she doesn’t speak the last two words, she doesn’t need too. Burrying her face into the crook of his neck, breathing heavily, her finger tips leave one arm and trace to the slowly flaking blood on his chest, by his heart. “I-”

Lunaris’s laughter was little more than background noise, especially after the torure and the twisted cacophony of sounds that conjealed in this room. But his words-she clutches onto Dorian tighter, her head snaping to turn to just face the Scot.

“Tis a little late for a change of heart,” she breathes, a growl peppered in her tone, a warning...and her ringlets swaying, yet she doesn’t move, she stays gladly entrapped in her Night Lights embrace, “our little hypcocritical yes mans...best friend and enemy of my brothers...” her eyes close as if disgusted by the sight of the malk before her, “Ugh!” her fangs click out in frustration, chest rises with a overburdened inhale, before she twists further more into her brother, exhaling with a choking sob as they snap back in.

Kira listens to the fallen, trying to picture herself away from this room, yet stuck in this moment, barely able to entangle Dorians scent from that of the blood and mutilated flesh-yet she calms, enjoying somehow the attempt to do so.

She settles. Looking back up to her brother at Mr.Greys words, she unleashes a long relieved sigh. Nuzzling into him, her lips curl into a exhausted smile. This what this was all for? Not-just-for jealousy or indulgence? Yet also a hunt, to skin and earn a wolf as his trophy? As their trophy.

She murmurs a chuckle against his neck, her eyes brightening a little amongst the crimson smears.

Kira flinches a little at Christine words. Moving closer still as her spine rolls with a shiver. There’s a difference between lessons the student needs and lessons given only for the benefit of the teachers...

[Eric Lunaris]

This is what happens to a ship after a storm. Yes, it may ride the waves. Yes, it may thrill to crew to live through such an event. Yes, it may give tales to sing. Yet after the storm a lost ship drifts on quiet seas. Lunaris is there, drifting in unknown seas. He’d always been so sure of himself during any act of cruelty, until tonight. Tonight he leapt into the energy, into the tide, and threw away his cares. He sailed the storm in all its horror and came out the other side.

It felt cold being back in reality. Cold and painful. Empty. Until a star shone in his mind and he felt a calm orientation guide him. It did not overtake him like a storm, nor cradle him like a child. It offered Lunaris a path through what he felt. It stabilised him. Lunaris had stopped shuddering. The last pangs of stimulation letting him be alter again. Enough to notice their desire to not be alone in their emotions. The mentality of those with little care for past pains. How fractured the unity of insanity is. The pain of highlighting how inhumane the sights had been.

In the calm Lunaris noticed the looming dark inside him, stronger than it had ever been. It felt primed, ready to pounce. It was lucky that he had been calmed; reinstating his own chains would have been near impossible without it. He was calm, as calm as he could be. “I understand ye more now, Mr Black. How it feels… good,” which was an understatement. “No doubt we will talk ‘bout this in more detail another time.”

“Kira,” he could still feel her upset in the air. “There will be many times where we disagree with what we do. When we find fault, it is the duty of the enlightened to examine what’s dun n’ what we would change. There’s no shame in examinin’ if we were correct.”

There were no words needed for Christine. Her views were hers. There would other times where they could share their realities with each other. Now was not the time.

“Mr Grey,” this felt the most alien, but it seemed the right thing to do. To allow one so redeemed their wish to serve. It fit remarkably well, “well, it ain’t ma place ta say first.”

[Dorian M. Black]

An Alpha? Now I am a mutt, too?

"Charming," Dorian smiles, but concedes the Gangrel's logic. Was there some kind of wolf ritual he should be observing here?

To Kira he tuts fondly. Silly girl. "We are not sinners, Kira. Well... we are, obviously, but not for this act tonight. In his previous ignorance our wolf was going to make a terrible mistake, set himself up for a fall, and right after an already grievous social faux pass."

"Had he continued down his intended path the vultures would have struck the flesh from his bones. Emotion and pain are a cruel mistress, a crueller tutor, but she is remembered well. Now, with her teachings, Mr Grey has not committed the act which may have killed him. He's a survivor, and survivors recognise lessons in all its forms. The wildness and wild things of Siberia taught him, thickened his skin for harsh lessons, just as now when the glittering urban maw of Court opens up, ready to engulf him, this new place will teach him again, just as cruelly."

"As his company and Generational cohort, we are there every step of the way to show him, to remind him of his place, to support his gifts and flaws. We are there to help them. This was all done to help him."

Also, Dorian likes dogs.

"Perhaps I've not been clear? Is that it?" he cards his fingers through her hair, kneads a reassuring bloody circle into the back of her dress. "Had Lunaris made effort to fuck you or Christine, he would have met the same response. Is that clearer? Does my being crass help you understand?"

It's delicate, but there's a hard bite to the words, even as he tucks her hair behind an ear. "This reminder will be stronger than words. Words have a way of getting lost in emotion, swept aside when there's high blood, arousal and alcohol. Best to help him out in advance, no?" Smack the puppy on the nose.

"Christine will help him achieve a measure of peace in these next difficult moments. You see how more relaxed she is, now that everything is clear?" Now that she doesn't have to be on guard, hounded by an overly seasoned, aroused mutt. "She has a way with animals, it's her quiet nature, I think."

'Mr Grey,' he heard Lunaris say. 'Well, it ain’t ma place ta say first.'

Ahhh yes.

"We can't have you left here in Bath, all wolf and no gang. Welcome to your new pack, Mr Grey. Long may it serve you, as it serves us."

[Regulus Grey]

He quickly drains the next glass of blood that is passed to him, the hole in his lung seems to seal over at least to some degree and his jawbone realigns to some degree. He blinks slowly, the amber wolf eye returning to a regular human blue.

"From Ms Melody's laughter...I infer..that the city's history..has not been peaceful?"

Turning his head away again he coughs again, a fine spray of blood coating his hand. The infusion of fresh blood has allowed a very thin, almost translucent layer of scales to begin growing on his forearms.

"So as...to avoid unpleasantness...like this again. Is there...anything else...I should know...about the...relationships...in the city?"

He meets Dorian's eyes and bares his throat, the clicking of his vertebrae indicating some possible damage to his spinal column caused by his tail being ripped off.

[Dorian M. Black]

"Let's see..." Dorian humours, mentally ticking off the ones he knew. "Most of the non-Toreador Elders are geriatrically indisposed to carnal activity. Of those that are not, they are fairly loose and easy to please, such that you won't be stepping on toes by taking their leftovers. The Sheriff is a Malkavian Elder called Jackdaw, and he is married - yes, married, can you believe it? - to his Childe, a Neonate named Katherine Jackdaw. He's very protective of her. Were you to make moves on his wife, he will probably... actually he will probably shoot you, and you will kill him. And then get Blood Hunted and killed by someone else."

"Lunaris has a friend, but I'll let him tell you all about her."

"It's curious isn't it, but the more I think about it, the more I realise that while everyone is in bed with one another, there's only a few in the Court with possessive tendencies. Most of the non-sharers are Neonates. Perhaps by the time we're all old and gnarled - oh, wait! Valmont. A Toreador Ancilla. He has a new Childe that he will almost certainly not share, named Gabrielle Swift."

"Valentina Audley is soft on the eyes, but she's tied to people you don't want to upset, including a couple Princes and a Primogen. Also - will be rather busy in the next few months."

"There's a foreign Ventrue named... Annabelle Sinnet, who while not under immediate patronage is under the potential eye of another, much older Ventrue. Be cautious should you decide to woe her. If she doesn't kill you for sport, Matthias might."

"It's relatively rare to find an attractive catch - politically or physically - that is not spoken for. Intelligent Neonates find themselves a protector, or become so protective of themselves that bearing throat to another becomes a very real concern, and they'd rather avoid the bedroom scene entirely."

"The Malkavians keep to themselves romantically, and pushing one of them is like playing Dominos with fireworks. You don't quite know who will take offence. Best to avoid doing it in general."

"The Tremere have... actually, there's a few potential males there, and a female. Lady Mayweather might be your type, if you go for Warlocks. She will singe your tail if she doesn't like your opinions, however. If you intend to attempt to court her, play less on being a wolf and more on being a man."

"The Master Harpy is a Ventrue Ancilla, who doesn't seem to be taken by anyone. But it's never a good idea catching a Harpy's attention."

"If you want men, I don't know about their leanings but there is a Brujah Ancilla named Andross Blint who may or may not be a recent father, no one's too sure; a capable Ventrue Neonate named Jedediah Knox, who is unfortunately American, and a few others scattered around. Don't touch Anton," Dorian adds, a little too fast, "- but he's a Malkavian, and covered by the above sanity clause."

"In truth, you may just be better off keeping it in and... making connections that aren't sexual?"