Of Returns and Leavings

[Caiaphas Redfern]

"I did. Now I'm far more interested in what the blazes happened to you these last few nights. You were perfectly personable at Elysium, yet now something clearly weighs on you...I'm perhaps not the most sensitive fellow, but some fear or grief or something, and it troubles me." He drummed pale fingers on the arm of his chair.

"We parted on fairly good terms, and now...well, what?"

[George Williamson]

Goerge shakes his head, "I believe ya caught me at a time when blood was high and empty. Puzzles to solve n' everythin' goin' on at once. Now my..." he looks down at his hands, "grief is somethin' I've been taught how to deal with."

It gets shaken off, "N' on somethin' completely different I wa reminded that us Nos ain't old wives tattling behind closed doors to anyone who could 'ear us. We are in good terms," a smile, a faint glimmer of something happy, "n' that's why I came t' ya. That's why I'm straight with ya. Matterin' in what kinda questions ya want to ask 'bout the girl, or 'bout anything, even me, will determine the cost." George shrugs, "Its the way the Elders work."

[Caiaphas Redfern]

A slow nod from the Ventrue as he took in the Nosferatu's change of demeanour.

"There is actually no advantage to me whatever in knowing what you know about this childe - I assumed that all it would do is allow me to help you, given my suspicion as to the culprit. Similarly, I gave you what knowledge I had on our mutual Hungarian friend gratis because I wanted you to succeed, and because our paths are aligned. Much the same, those who go to hunt the Sabbat these very nights together do not exchange prestation with each other for the joy of working towards a common goal. It's not what it's for. I might as well ask you to owe me a boon for the privilege of telling me something that would allow me to help you. Ridiculous."

An expansive wave. "Boons are a vital fundament of our society, Williamson. Vital, because they exist to make kindred aid each other where they would otherwise see no benefit to it. A simplistic view that all interactions must be mediated by them, however, is counterproductive at best, and a kind of suicide at worst."

A weary shrug. "But no matter - I am not your sire, as I've said before, and I should not lecture you. Force of habit." he added, and slowly stood.

"I have always brought you to this room," he added offhandedly, "because it is to me the most beautiful of places, and I struggle not to make it known to all. Each of these jewels comes from a different corner of the wide and beautiful world. So many of which places the Service allowed me tread in my living days and may never again see, eternally confined as I now am to Aquae Sulis. I wish I could have shared some glimmer of that glory with you, yet I suppose in the end we are all no more than ships that pass in the fog, as they say."

He gestured to the door. "Your time is precious. I shall not keep you from your business any longer, and will attend to what matters to me and not to you. Unless you have any business with me, may I bid you good night?"

[George Williamson]

Redfern was correct in his assumptions. If it was a simple matter of the two of them against an enemy George would be foolish to ask for a boon, "But this ain't just between us. N' ya didn't give me the information out of good will, t'was a trade anyway. Kira wasn't even my problem. I..." everything tugged on him inside. He was about to say he didn't care. It felt so alien to him. Dorian was right, he was not himself. "If this was just me n' you, ya'know I'd tell ya straight, but it's a clan matter now. Ya wouldn't just tell me where ya brothers 'n sisters do business. I can't just tell ya what my clanmates shared with me. Viktor would be furious with me."

Goerge shook the thought from his head, "Anyway, Miroslav is a ghost of Christmas past now to me. A faint ghost of a man who wouldn't dare wonder in our lives again. He is already disgraced, n' most likely found many new girls."

The conversation had George pushing himself down. All that emotional mess so frequently pointed out. So unfitting for a Kindred, for a Whip.

"I do enjoy ya talks. They say a preacher always stand on the alter. Maybe I'm rememberin' it wrong." He waives it off, "Thing's 'ave changed much over these last few months. The regular can be quite confortin' when death is only four days away." Since when was George this morbid? "There are so many things to see though. So many shores to visit. To see the same room every time when there are countless more to explore would 'urt the soul."

Maybe George didn't really want to go. "There must be more things ya wana know? More shores ya wana see away from your self-admitted eternal prison?"

[Caiaphas Redfern]

"Oh, I bring the world to this room. That is the very point: each carapace reflects in my sight a different land's light." Caiaphas answered without hesitation, but the once-peripatetic scholar still appeared puzzled by his guest's rather plastic demeanour, and remained stood up.

"To be sure...'Clan Business', that ancient and pernicious bromide. Still, if it's of interest to any individual among your brothers and sisters, it's reasonable you'd not betray a secret. And Miroslav is a historic matter as far as you are concerned? Very well...very well...Here's a little openness in trade:

"I have not left Aquae Sulis in nigh a century, Williamson. Not once. Couldn't impel myself to seek out my Red Lady in Taunton. Most recently couldn't even leave to save my life - It seemed somehow less grievous to make a last stand here if it came to that."

His musing eyes traveled down and up again the still-seated George, and he concluded himself still none the wiser as to the younger kindred's motives.

"Travel hardly seems to trouble you, does it now? Yet a certain tenderness for territory is not uncommon among both our kinds." he added in quieter voice. "Perhaps I may claim to love my domain in greater measure than you, with a commensurately greater attachment...

"Or it might equally be my excuse for another form of cowardice."

He fell silent, contemplating the mummified creature in the chair - or something beyond him.

((Happy Boxing Day!))

[George Williamson]

'I bring the world to this room', all the world? Maybe every language? It was time for George to test his skills; to find a point for a question.

A greater emotion came into play. That longing that pained through George whenver he left Aquae Sulis or even left that candlelit room. He was troubled. "It didn't trouble me at all. Leavin', comin' back, all whenever I liked. It's been a long time since I had a reason to stay. They keep on gettin' taken away too quickly." George's mind was on the topic. He hadn't noticed how much he says about it. Something in his mind just wanting to burst open.

"It ain't cowadice to not want to leave what ya love. Certainly not. Cowadice 'as to be lettin' the fear get 'old of ya instead of runnin' towards what's right. Havin' pride in what ya got is right. Wishin' good for ya," George couldn't find the word, "peers is right. Stayin' n' 'oldin' up ya mantle against whatever force was against ya ain't cowardly. It's mighty brave."

It hung there for a moment, "If ya don't mind me contradictin' ya in your domain, that is." Though this weren't public and he weren't an Elder, it felt right as it was his house.

Goerge looked around at all the displays. "So from all round the world, ya say. Got any from... gah what's the name of the place," how to fill in the blank George wondered, "Sumariana, Sumaria. Suma... I can't find the word I was lookin' for. How troublesome."

[Caiaphas Redfern]

Intrigued by George's unexpected philosophic outpouring, Caiaphas was nonetheless a little wrong-footed by the unexpected specificity of his last question.

"Oh, do you mean Sumerian? Or perhaps Samarian? Broadly speaking the same region, eh? The levantine, the rising sun..." he mused, and his eyes silently meandered about the room in pursuit of some invisible pattern in which he had ordered his specimens. Then he abruptly seemed to collect himself and said "No, I'm no antiquarian and I don't know what beetles may have had significance in ancient Sumer and whatnot. Still..." he trailed off again - evidently lost entirely to entomological enthusiasm - and wandered over to a wall-mounted case wherein were mounted some rather large and dramatic specimens.

After a moment's deliberation he beckoned his guest over and pointed out one insect in particular, black and robust with broad and saw-toothed front legs and an oddly shield-like, likewise serrated head. "This chap here, the sacred scarab. D'you see him? This stout little fellow was revered in ancient Egypt, possibly contemporaneously with the Sumerian civilisation. It's certainly possible that there was some cultural cross-fertilisation, though they perhaps didn't make such a hoo-ha of it."

He swiveled on his heels to face George fully. "Do you know why the Gippos set store by him? Because he eats shit, amusingly enough. They saw him rolling balls of camel dung and equated it with a god of theirs who rolled the sphere of the sun across the sky - what was his name? Keper? Something like that - and in course this made him a symbol of eternity, rebirth and eternal life."

The faintest twitch of his lips."Thus even in filth may divinity dwell, if in embodiment of duty." he concluded in a knowing tone, and then "But I don't suppose that's what you were looking for? Do tell. Do elaborate."

[George Williamson]

George was happy to listen intently; to save his questions, and his answers, for after Caiaphus had finished. Happy to examine the black beatle and listen to it's tale.

Unfortunately, it had come to that end.

Divinity in dung. That amused George greatly. "I weren't lookin' for much at all. Ya see I do like readin' stories so whenever I get the chance to read I do. Found myself in this great library, similar to this, n' in one of the books that was quite interestin' had a character which the book said spoke Sumarian, I think it was. Now, this book is interestin' 'cos it left so many questions. I just thought that if ya 'ad a beatle from there ya may know more about it, see? I didn't quite understand the book, but the more I learnt about the things that were in it, I'm sure I'd come to understand it. Wish I could 'ave brought it along. Would 'ave been much easier."

George looked back to the beatle, "So this came from Egypt, which is near the levantine? Whats the levantine? And ancient Sumer, so it's gone now? Well the book was quite old. Somethin' about a man travelling around places defeatin' great breasts n' challenges."

[Caiaphas Redfern]

((Away from the boards for four weeks and already a novel and half's worth of stuff to catch up on! What a literally fecund lot you are.))

"The levant...bon, it's the French for the 'Rising', that is to say where the sun rises. The East. The Middle East as we know it these nights, and what lies beyond. I could show you some specimens that hail from that land between the rivers where Sumer once gloried, but it would be bereft of meaning; no ethnographic link, d'you see?

An eyebrow quirked rapidly. "But the tale you refer to...I am no classicist by any means, so of course the only Sumerian story I've come across was that of Gilgamesh, and that does indeed feature a man embarking on all sorts of adventures, slaying beasts and the like. Did he have a best chum called Enkidu? Did he hunt a monster by the name of Humbaba? Did he finally learn wisdom from old Utnapishtim? If that's the one, I'd hazard that we have a copy bumbling about here somewhere." he said, gaze focused somewhere beyond one of the walls as if into another chamber.

His attention snapped back to the Nosferatu. "What questions occurred to you? Again, I only read it once some years ago and interpretation of mythology isn't a strength of mine, but you may as well ask."