The Fifth Council of Neonates

[Eric Lunaris]

Seeing Violet focused on the task gave Eric some peace. He made the mental note that bribing Violet with knowledge seemed an effective means of management.

When Eric goes back across the divide the girl is already plugged in. Her jerking motion had been expected, without the Kiss such things would always be painful, but it still shook Eric. He stayed eerily quite, trying to ignore both his heart telling him of the wrongness of it all and the Beast far away laughing in glee. Four individual hairs had been plucked from separate parts of her head before the tapping made Eric flinch.

The continued tapping disallowed Eric to relax. The test tube gains a hairline fracture as Eric forgets for a moment where he is. A single, pitiful half-laugh is emitted before he speaks, "please Dorian, do no rush a soul to depart." He could see Dorian being inpatient, tapping away each second made them last a little longer, "later, I must speak to ye." The weight of the possible future weighed heavily upon him. How could Dorian not think to give respect to the sacrifices made?

Eric pushed it aside, resigning himself to morbid fate. The ball gag at least made it easier to run the stick on the underside of her lips. Soon enough he returned past the divide with Violet. Each tube from the both of them was out in its appropriate slot ready for the next few steps. Before he would continue though, Eric leaned onto the table and closed his eyes, breathing rhythmically.

[Dorian M. Black]

Dorian shoos the chemist away, giving him no time to collect the desired samples. Unspoken: Eponine's were granted to him. Not this girl's. In fact any plucking of hairs Dorian would have blocked physically with his own body, seemingly not to halt Lunaris and his onward progression; rather, Dorian is deeply focussed on his task. It's a shame his body is in the way.

"I am not rushing anything you simpleton. I am timing it. She is not some soul floating up to a great beyond; we are not dead. What interrupted congress you have with the matter is your own. Kindly take your religious nonsense and mate with it."

Dorian knocks the chemist's hand away as it reaches for the gag. He pulls a horrified face, and murmurs, "But were it true: Have a care, man. You offer respect for the dead."

He flicks a different switch.

It takes half a minute, and then: the girl begins convulsing wildly. Dorian continues his tapping, continues to look bored, his eyes on the watch but occasionally sliding up to glance at Eric.

[LittleBird]

Kira's hands grip to the bench, shoulders rise a little, a quirk turn of a shuffle that stops midway-as quick as the heart beat trapped at the young woman's twisting and turning body.

A few of her fingers are pointed forward in her direction, Kira locks her knees and bites her lip, lowering her head from the view, all the while fighting the urge to comfort and ease the ongoing process, as futile as it would be.

Eventually Kiras body eases, following the rhythm of Dorians tapping over the counter rhythm of the poor convulsing girl, she grants a gentle nod as if to reassure she will do as told and will not let her emotions, no matter how surprisingly overwhelming, alter the route.

[Dorian M. Black]

Finally, Dorian's eyes leave Lunaris and focus fully on the watch, the girl, and the machine.

Having no interruption to the contrary he reveals from his coat a similar set of props used on their Tremere friend: a leather blindfold - though this one sporting a more polite black fur lining that sits against the eyes - and a metal gag. He slips the straps across the girl's head and fixes the buckles in place with an efficiency that suggests he's done this during convulsions before.

Despite the stake and knife appearing in his hands the line of his coat doesn't change.

The blade he slices through the girl's blouse, a longitudinal tear of three inches directly above her heart. After which the knife returns to his coat and the stake - held on point above her breastbone; it paths to the right; then he checks the watch - punctures between intercostals and grazes the upper ribs before a wet popping squelch meets the silent organ. The stake's a short one, clearly built to require strength for leverage; even embedded it only extends an inch beyond the blouse.

She goes still.

"There you go," Dorian murmurs to Constance, unlatching the shackles, leather chest strap and forehead brace. The prongs and pipes come off, to be returned to the box's side. In similar fashion he lifts the stranger bridal style from the metal bed and lowers her into the coffin from which she came, closing the lid before gesturing to the nurse's necklace.

"I'll meet you later."

He vanishes around the divide, unlocks the door with that queer sound, and then returns to Eponine's bedside. The gurney is slid back into the panel behind the wall, machine included.

[CFlaubert]

Constance turns her gaze towards Lunaris and says "Mr Lunaris, if you would?" After Eric picks up one end of the coffin, they move swiftly towards the door by which the coffin originally entered. Stepping down into the cold night, she begins to open the waiting carriage door. The coffin is carefully replaced inside the carriage, and with a cursory nod to Lunaris Constance locks the doors securely, climbs up into the carriage seat, spends what seems like an eternity wrapping the same dark cloak back around her and then spurs the horse onward and out into the night.

[Dorian M. Black]

Dorian's Obfuscate shifts; no longer is he the tall aristocrat, instead the inventor becomes a redheaded Irishman with a less regal carriage, the dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose similar to those the girl possessed. Dark green eyes stare at their shackled guest.

"Everyone else - behind the divide, or leave the room. You especially, Kira."

[Samuel Taylor]

Taking Christine by the hand, he pulls her by the hand behind the screen. His head is close to her ear as he whispers

"Best veil ourselves as well Ms Daye. For the added precaution...."

He veils himself, standing close to her.

[LittleBird]

Kiras eyes linger on the doorway even after the girl is carried away in that little pine box. Her body almost leaning in that direction, wishing someone perhaps of a more comforting and stable presence will be there to ease her into their world when she comes too, yet then again practised and clinical hands are more reliable then a warm blanket to catch a fall.

She turns her head sharply as Dorian calls her out specifically. Her shoulders briefly tense, her nose wrinkles, her eyes furrow and one brow is raised, not appreciating being name dropped as if she were a day dreaming student, or an infantile imbecile. Of course, excluding the now departed-ha-newest edition, she is the youngest Kindred still in this room, still, she thinks, to follow simple instructions is not something out of my grasp!

The show of annoyance barely lasts a second, tis a flicker, and as quickly as it arrived she brushes it away. She rolls her shoulders back, a gentle murmur to prove she was standing at attention, and as she strides past him to leave, she flashes a-perhaps too charming-smile to his new shape, and to fellow council members, with a tilt of her head as she begins to leave the room.

Looking over her shoulder, with a shrug to see the good Doctor and Miss Daye retreat behind the screen, Kira continues out not waiting for anyone to follow.

[Christine Daye]

Christine goes with Taylor without protest, her singing still vocalised, but now so quiet it can barely be heard.

As she passes Dorian, she looks at him for a moment, her expression bleak.

"...please, Mr Black... you must do what you must.... but please... don't let the childe suffer..."

Behind the screen, she draws the veil of her Obfuscate around herself, her hand still in Taylor's.

[Dorian M. Black]

Dorian wonders, as Christine passes, if she's expecting an answer. It seems like beating an already dead horse to point out the obvious. She knew what he did with these girls, right?

He doesn't know why he does it, but after a moment: "...She'll not suffer."
It's soft, spoken only as the songstress turns to leave. "Unlike the others, she chose this."

He supposes it isn't the right time or mood to point out that in agreeing to this they've all become accessories themselves, regardless of their moral high ground (which seems ambiguous to Dorian at best). Had they been labouring under any real issue with the matter, then they would have protested by now. Dorian swallows back his annoyance. This felt all too much like the grieving widow by the grave, shedding a single tear and dropping the white lily, even as she goes to sign off the husband's prematurely-parted fortune. He didn't understand them.

So why he felt that foreboding awareness knocking along his spine he had no clue. Unwanted, an image of the girl as she was lowered into the coffin - the first time - detonated: there was, he knew, very little time; heat pounded out of her; her tiny armpits were drenched. The small, frenetic reality of her made him feel oddly tender in those long seconds, before the intuition that she was just as much a monster as they swiped the thought clear.

Kira he casts a detached look to, the residue of his own Beast's annoyance surrounding him like a subsonic hum. He doesn't respond to her false smile, remaining affronted she'd even try it. Tiredness had given Dorian a flicker to his peripheral vision. Now that it was done, now that it was over, the weight of the last task made the bones in his body feel heavy. It seemed a lot of effort, to do this, now that the excited thrill of the first was over.

But... the show must go on. And they had a Tremere to wipe.